My journey to Sweden went as planned. Luckily no snags hold ups or mistakes as planned. I peacefully arrived in Stockholm Thursday night where Andreas’s friend, Marcus, greeted me. He was astutely dressed 24-year-old Stockholm businessman who politely gave me a quick tour of Stockholm and taught me some things about Sweden over a beer. What I later learned from him was he had only known Andreas for a short period of time. Practically they only shared friends. This astounded me. Consider that you have a friend coming in from another country and is landing in Charlotte (or any given city in the US) for a night. Who would you call to pick them up and give them a place to stay? More importantly would you call someone? This is was an apparent difference between their outgoing friendly culture and many Americans. However it is true that people in their 20’s are more open to having a visitor, especially one on a budget. But this act of kindness from Marcus has gone a long way with me.
Fortunately Marcus had a flight at the same time as me and we awoke on Friday night and continued my journey to Peite, Andreas home town. Everything went as planned and at 11am Friday morning I met my old friend Andreas at the end of the escalator. The best part of this trip is from that moment it felt like only a few weeks had past since we last saw each other. Overall we were the same people and the same friends as we were 5 years ago in High School.
We left the airport and proceeded to the ski slopes. I was able to suck in close to two hours of Swedish countryside. It is a vast open country. Lined heavily with perfectly straight pines and large planes. I can imagine the two months of summer are incredible and that seemed to be the theme. Everything was “better in the summer.” The Swedish really know how to enjoy the summer and they sure do deserve it after a long dark winter. We arrived at the slopes and I decided to board. It was a quaint mountain with great open views and we had a great half-day of boarding. Luckily for me I picked a great weekend to meet Andreas. It was his friend’s birthday and several of them had taken Friday ski and rented a new mountain house at the base. This was a fantastic plan to me. It felt like exactly what my friends and me do in the US and this simple night was the most at home I had felt in a while. After a beer everyone was fearless of their English and we had a great time watching the sunset, experiencing some foreign lagers and the sauna.
The next morning the sauna + beers had left his very dehydrated; as we guzzled some waters we loaded up and headed to the snow mobile races. The races were as I expected. It is very similar to motocross with plenty of action and jumps. I later got to ride a race sled and was worn out in about 5 minutes from the heavy steering and leaning required to maneuver the sled that gave me tremendous respect for the drivers. In the end Andreas friend won the pro class race with a good lead. We enjoyed phenomenal dinner with Andrea’s parents. They were pleasant and warm hosts. We finished off the day by going to the local club. The great part was Andreas has a great apartment right in the center of the town. So after a pre-party we crossed the street to the club. Enjoyably the clubs close at 3am like the US so partying starts and ends earlier unlike Barcelona where clubs don’t even open till 2am!
We attempted to snowmobile on Sunday but within 5 miles the engine locked up and diminished our plans. So we met some friends and relaxed.
Andreas dropped me off at the airport mid day Monday. We said our good byes knowing it could be a long time until we see each other again but it certainly wasn’t the last goodbye. Again Andreas’s great friends shocked me again. His friend Oscar, who once visited me in the US, was waiting to surprise me at the end of the train station. I had no idea that he was going to be there but he had gotten word of when I was going to arrive and decided to show me around. We ate some food checked into my hostel and went to a near by bar which appeared to be the only one open in the area. This was actually one of my most favorite nights. All the Swedish bars I saw had large couch and seating areas. We made ourselves comfortable next to a large group of Swedish girls and within 5 minutes were sucked into conversation with them. I spoke with a girl that had lived all over the world from UK to Australia. She was very interesting and entertained me with her views of the world while I defended that not all of the US and Americans are like the O.C and Newport Beach. Europe is grossly exposed to American media and music that defines their stereotypes on us. So its been a blast trying to explain we aren’t all the same. Oscar left the bar early and I retreated to my hostel late.
I awoke in the morning showered and enjoyed my breakfast in the hostel café served by a cute blonde with a British accent and headed out into the city. Stockholm is broken up into large islands and I aimed to touch almost all of them. I went through the old district and swooped around making a large circle admiring the fun classical and colorful architecture. It’s a great city, easy to maneuver and enjoy. The day spontaneously switched between rays of sun and dip n’ dots like snow. It was cold but with new gloves and a hoody I was well prepared. Took several hundred pictures, met Oscar again for lunch and headed to the airport, for my long journey home.
