Picasso's Last Words/Crazy Train

Scandinavia.....awesome. Let's start with today and work backwards. Today I'm in Gothenburg and I'm going to be heading to Stockholm pretty soon. I'm having lunch at an Irish Pub (The Auld Dubliner) after just seeing some ORIGINAL PICASSO's at the museum here. The weather hasn't been entirely cooperating, but I've managed to get in a couple runs out of the rain. Running has really been the best way to see the cities and understand the geography a bit. It's also been helping plan my days. My back pack has been a bit of a pain (maybe it's not sitting right or maybe I'm just a wimp) so I store it where I can or do things that don't involve a lot of walking. But all in all, it's been fine.

Let's back up now to Copenhagen. What a great city. I arrived at the airport, which is outside the city center and I took the train downtown. The hostel was pretty nice with about six beds/bunks and a bathroom. When I arrived, there were two people in the room. Travis and Mia....from Vancouver! I don't know if they plan these things or what; it would definitely be strange if they didn't. Anyways, Travis and Mia live like blocks away from me back home and they were really nice. To start, I went for a run around Copenhagen to get a "feel" for it and figure out where everything is. Hang on, food's here; I'm gonna eat.

Sorry...I'm back and now on a train to Stockholm. This train has wireless internet and instead of looking out the window at the beautiful countryside, I'm geeking out on my laptop. I don't really understand how this Scanrail thing works yet. The travel agent, Georgia, basically told me to just get on the trains and so far, that hasn't been a problem but, this train has assigned seating. I asked one of the workers on board what I should do and she kindly found a seat that wasn't booked, although since she found this seat we picked up some more passengers and the woman now sitting beside I think is pissed off because I think I'm actually in HER seat. It's obvious that I don't speak any Swedish and I don't think she wants to approach the subject in English, so I'm just staying put.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Copenhagen.

I ran around Copenhagen and checked out where I should go later. My Lonely Planet book and a Lee Aaron fan from Sweden, Johan (who got in touch with me through my website as I guess Lee has a link to mine), suggested the Copenhagen Jazz House. I had hung out and had some dinner (meatballs, red cabbage, and potatoes....I thought I'd be authentic) on a patio in the city square before heading to the jazz bar. Everywhere in Europe has a patio, in fact, I took a picture of a 7-11 today that had a patio! Anyways, the jazz club was really awesome. Two levels: a bar upstairs and then a cabaret downstairs where they held the concerts. The concert was....OK. Nothing earth shattering. Not actually a lot of improvising. But whatever. The interesting thing was that A) the joint was packed! B) Beautiful Danish girls dig jazz! and C) They cleared the stage away and the place became a great night club after the show where I hung out until the very wee hours .

I arrived back at the hostel in the wee hours, managed to get a few hours asleep and was promptly awoken from my slumber by an angry hostel manager who informed me that I was way past check out time. After giving me a little hostel-ity, he didn't charge me an extra day, but saw that I was returning to the same hostel on the 30th and that I should be a little more aware. Fair enough.

So I left Copenhagen and took a train to Helsingor (not to be confused with Helsingborg which is my next stop) to check out the famed Elsinore castle, where Shakespeare's Hamlet takes place. This was my first castle experience and it was pretty sweet. Although, inside was kinda strange cause it was basically a Danish maritime museum. I thought it would be a little more....kingly? or even Shakespearey....but whateva. Maybe I expected people to be avenging their father everywhere. It was still pretty cool.

I then took a ferry from Helsingor to Helsingborg, Sweden. They're right across from each other and I'm not sure why the names are so similar. You would think it might make things confusing, "Hey where you going?" "Helsing..r..." "Wha?" "Helsing..r..." "Wha?"

From Helsingborg I caught the train to Gothenburg. This was the only stay at a hotel. I really didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be really nice. The Hotel Opera and was really close to the train station so I didn't have to lug the backpack too far.

My impressions so far of Scandinavia? Pretty cool. The fact that most people speak English has been a bonus, but I've been trying to learn a little of the languages. People kind of know somehow that I'm english speaking before I say a word though. Perhaps it's the dark hair or something. Maybe I'm unescapably Canadian.

Being on my own has been fun too. I guess the only drag is that I won't be in any of my pics.

More to come....