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Sunday, March 04, 2001

Stockholm - Sweden

A trip to sweden was fairly easy - well it was so close to Oslo. The most memorable trip was the one via train, you could pull down bed and have a kip. Strange people who would avoid eye contact at all time.
Stockholm itself was much more cosmopolitan than Oslo(Norway) and indeed Goteburg(sweden), however it is a nice city - I did the tourist thing visited the Palace and its extensive buildings, visited Gammel Stan(Old town) which was quite nice. Again as with every nordic place i Visited the t-bann was very impressive in its punctuality and efficency.

My first trip to Stockholm was to meet up with Doug (he had headed their earlier) I was on this oldish train with compartments with 2 seats parallel and you could pull down "shelves" for beds so there would be 3 beds either side. It was like a train during the 2nd world war and I was expecting some soldier to knock on the door and demand to see my papers!
What amazed me was the fact that I shared this compartment with a few swedes and they would refuse to make eye contact with you... in case they would be forced to speak to you, so I was stubborn and wasnt gonna start! so we had this wierd silence - thankfully they got off early and I was able to hop up and have a snooze!

One trip to from Oslo to Stockholm I got a modern train with airconditioning and comfy seats, I got pestered by a car mad guy who wanted to practice his english talkin to me but since i was just hoppin on the train after work I wanted to sleep - i felt jez I am not turnin into one of these insular nordics, so I reengaged the Irish part of my brain and chatted aways to him.
I also thought it weird to have a metal detector on entering a Nightclub -