Sunny Summery Scandinavia

After spending so many hours in the air over the first half of our trip, we were dying to crack open our Eurail pass... however to get to Norway we had to catch one last flight. We decided to forego the usual arrive-two-hours-before-and-rush-to-boarding-gate routine, in favour of getting there an hour before boarding, taking our sweet time wandering around the airport, and waiting until most of the flight had boarded before we stood up to join the boarding queue. I tell you what, it makes the biggest difference to just take your time- it's not like the flight's going anywhere without you once you're checked in, and no one's going to steal your seat. I sat there watching all the suckers lining up before the boarding gate was even open, like they were going to get extra gold stars if they were lining up to get into the classroom before the teacher arrived! Now, if only something could be done about getting OUT of the plane without queueing...

We arrived in Oslo and met our hosts at the train station: ex-Perthian Shannon, her Norweigan boyfriend Eystein and our good friend from home Ciara had just spent a week holidaying in Croatia, and they were just getting back into town themselves. We spent a couple of days just relaxing, catching up on Perth gossip and exploring Oslo. I can't stress just how relaxing it was to lounge around a nice spacious apartment, drink bucketloads of tea, cook up a storm and compare travel photos and stories with such great company

After a drama-filled morning concerning a flat car battery, we then headed up to Eys' family cabin at a lake in the mountains. Many families in Norway have both a winter cabin and a summer cabin- we went to the winter cabin in the summer, which was a first for Eys. It was quite funny to see him spinning out over the luscious green foliage on the trip up, since he's only ever done the trip when the landscape is covered in snow! We spent another couple of days lounging around, eating, drinking, breakdancing (just Shann and Ciara!), reading and rowing on the beautiful lake at our doorstep. I baked a batch of the classic O'Brien "World Famous Texas Brownies" which were devoured by the end of the day, and had a go at this great Norweigan activity called Slakkline- like tightrope walking for fun!

We then spent another day on the road, with Eys pulling off a marathon driving session of 6 or 7 hours to get us down to the south coast. A friend of theirs was having a party at their summer cabin, which just happened to be on a small private island off the coast! A short boat-ride away was a cosy little hideaway complete with 3 cabins, private jetty, miniature beach and badminton court. There was also no running water or electricity, although a generator kept the fridge cold and the music cranking all night. We met heaps of new folk, and sat by the fire drinking until the sun came up. The next morning a couple of brave/crazy people even went swimming in the freezing water

We then dropped Ciara off at the airport and had one last night in Oslo before farewelling our dear Norweigan friends and jumping on a train heading North. We did the famous Oslo-Bergen rail trip- supposedly one of the most picturesque train rides in Europe. We spent one night in Bergen, then took a daytrip through the fjords, consisting of a magnificent winding railway through the mountains, a ferry trip along the fjord, and then a winding busride through some more mountains.

We had booked tickets on the midnight train- our first sleeper cab experience- so we had about 7 hours to kill in a tiny
town. After spending a couple of hours browsing the local library (sonia looking at a book on the history of hair-do's), another hour eating dinner and wandering the streets, we settled in at the train station for the final leg. I managed to devour a short novel before the train arrived, despite a family with screeching kids running around the small waiting area. The sleeper cab was great fun, but we only managed about 5 hours sleep before the train arrived at our destination. We grabbed a train station breakfast, using up the last of our Norweigan Kroner, and then jumped onto another train headed to Stockholm.

We were unsure of what the city would be like, since we haven't actually come across many people who have spent time there to offer us advice, but it turned out to be such a great week. I guess we lucked out with the weather- it was all sunny skies and t-shirt weather for the first couple of days. Stockholm is beautiful. Pretty leafy streets, really awesome train station wall mosaics (check the photos... some of them were way crazee!), just lots of art and culture everywhere, and pretty lookin' to boot.

We spent a lot of time roaming the different areas, including a cool shopping and nightlife area called Sodermalm- checking out awesome stores and spending way too much money on clothes for a traveller's budget :P (check the store Weekdays, Cheap monday jeans etc).
We also randomly ended up drinking with Australian singer/songwriter Darren Hanlon after spotting his name on a gig-guide, and got to meet some great Swedish friends of his who gave us lots of tips on where to go and what to see for the rest of our time there.
The rest of the week's weather turned patchy and overcast, but we still roamed around looking at museums, galleries, shops and bars. We caught the Gay Pride Parade, which was huge and fun.
Our hostel was actually a school, which was turned into a hostel during the summer months. This meant that we were in bunks in a classroom, complete with locked cupboards, class photos, lockers in the hall, and showers in the gym! We saw so many people come and go during our week there, including obnoxious french drunken teenage boys and a gaggle of moody emo drunken teenage lesbians. Fun times!

On our final day there the sun came out, so we finally got to do what we had been dying to do all week- wear shorts and ride bicycles! Another interesting thing about Stockholm is that the city is spread out over a bunch of different islands: you have Gamla-stan the old-town touristy island, Skeppsholmen the museum island, Sodermalm the trendy downtown shopping and nightlife island, and the best of all; Djurgarden the park island. It's sort of like a flat King's Park- really close to the city centre, but mainly automobile-free and with great cycle paths. There are beaches, ponds, meadows, open fields, museums, canals, an amusement park, and the closest thing to paradise that we've seen- Rosendahl's garden cafe.

This place was stunning on such a nice summer's day- they create salads, cakes and pastries using mainly ingredients grown onsite in the organic gardens and greenhouses. It's quite something to wander the flower gardens and rows of vegetables knowing that the meal you're about to eat was in the ground only days before. The best part was the atmosphere- after picking a selection of things to eat and drink you could wander down through the outdoor terraced area to an apple orchard- where families and picnickers were sprawled amongt the shady trees. It was like an image of heaven....sunny, grassy, apple trees, beautiful Swede families everywhere. Of course the food was amazing, but it was just the way that everything came together- the food, setting and atmosphere- to form such an unforgettable experience.

It was also so much fun to get back on bicycles- after seeing how well integrated cycling is in so many European cities, we are well and truly bitten by the cycle bug, especially the retro-stylings and classic designs of the bikes available in Scandinavia. We were still finding our latent bike riding skills, seeing that Sonn took a tumble after getting a bit adventurous going down hill on a gravel path - ouchy! Not to let a graze spoil our fun, we rode around all afternoon (at some points Sonn just did winding bog laps up and down the path - she felt like a happy little kid again, scrapes and all!!) until we had to drop the bikes back at sunset and get ready for the next day's train journey to Denmark.

-Liam and Sonia