Jason's Trip Around The World, and now life in Singapore - Sweden

Rainy Stockholm

jason@willock.org (Jason Willock) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:10:09 -0400

Well it has been a few days since I have done an update, so I thought I would just do a short little blurb.

It was so nice here in Stockholm on Thursday when I arrived, that I even got a little sunburnt when I was sitting outside near the water. That soon changed as it has been cloudy and quite cool Friday and Saturday. Which is kind of a drag, but talking to fellow travelers here, it seems I have been lucky with the weather, these two guys have been traveling for 6 weeks, and have only had a handfull of rain free days.. So hopefully the good weather follows me, as I have only had a handfull of rainy days in my 3 months.

Friday I picked up my dead laptop, and the guy working on it, said that the hard drive is some weird ultra small drive with a weird connection on it, so I might not be able to get my data from when when I get a new laptop. Not really a big deal there wasn't much on there I can't download again, it is good that I am able to upload my photos to a ftp server. (Thanks to OnyxLight)

Went to a night club on Friday night, it had been a while since I had been out to an actual night club, rather than just pubs and small bars. It was a pretty cool place, Golden Hits was the name, 4 floors with various music, the popular rooms were the 80's music room, and the Kareoke rooms. I had fun, the swedish people are quite friendly, and they mostly all speak great english. Interesting thing about clubs here, they all have black jack tables in them, even the smaller pubs, I played a little bit, didn't fair so well, but only lost like $30 so nothing to major. Another good thing is they have water coolers around the bar, so you don't have to stand in line to get a glass of water at the bar, it's a good idea, as the best way to prevent hang overs is drink water! Ordering drinks at the bar is a rather slow process though, it's because no one seems to pay with cash, everyone uses credit cards, which really slows down the process, paying for one beer with a credit card, but that is the way it is everywhere here in Scandanavia.

Today I just took the metro to various stops I had never been to, and checked out new parts of the city, it was rather wet so I didn't walk to far from the stations, but everywhere I went was so clean, this has to be one of the cleanest cities around. The metro stations are like little art galleries in them selves, quite a step up from the typical smelly concrete undergrounds.

Monday I will get to see the king of all undergrounds, in London. I am rather quite excited for London, not sure why exactly, but hopefully it lives up to my expectations what ever those may be.

Sun In Sweden.

jason@willock.org (Jason Willock) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 11:06:26 -0400

Well after a pretty dreary, wet and cold last couple of days, today is a very beautiful sunny day, it's quite lovely. Everyone is out at the many parks around the city enjoying the sun. And recovering from the mid summer parties.

Most locals left the city, so it was pretty quiet here, mostly tourists, and a few Swedes who couldn't make it out of the city.. I still had a fair amount of fun with people from the hostel, so it wasn't a complete loss. Drinks are pretty expensive at pubs and clubs anyways so I wouldn't want to get too crazy. $6 for so for a half a pint, and near $15 for a highball. So pretty outrageous.. Prices in the liquor stores are about the same as back home, but they are government run, and not open all that often, much like the old ALCB days back home.

I am taking a train to Oslo tomorrow morning, nearly 7 hours or so, but it should be pretty nice scenary I am hoping. That city is apparently even more expensive than here, I can see why so many Swedes, and Norweigans travel!

I'll have to come back to Stockholm to pick up my laptop, so hopefully it can get repaired, if not I will have to look at getting a new one, with an english keyboard, it's painful typing on these weird euro keyboards! But I am in no big rush to get my hands on one, so maybe I will wait till I am in the U.K. As I am thinking of going to Norway, back to Sweden, then to Finland, and then perhaps to Iceland, I will have to see how expensive flights are to get there, but it seems like such a beautiful country and I am so close.

MidSummer

jason@willock.org (Jason Willock) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:05:53 -0400

Well today is the Midsummer holiday here in Sweden, it is a national holiday, and most things are closed, and the majority of the population leaves the city to go to various little islands for big parties. I did not plan for that very well. Oh well there are still some celebrations going on here in the city, so I am sure I will still have fun.

I just got back from an afternoon celebration in a big park in the city called Skansen, quite a nice park, very large, with lots to see. I was able to watch the rising of the Maypole, and danced around the pole, some very crazy dances about frogs, elephants and pigs. The locals were quite into it. I caught a few videos which I will attempt to upload to youtube, not sure if I can do that with my ipaq, but i'll try.

Other than that I have just been enjoying the city of Stockholm, everyone is so friendly and eager to help. It's so clean and well organized. It's been one of my favorite European cities.

News on my laptop, the motherboard is fried, I checked with HP parts and the motherboard is $1700cdn, (I paid $1900 for the laptop), so that seems pretty expensive. The place I took it to are going to try to source the transistor that burnt out, and repair it that way, so hopefully they can do that. I am going to leave my laptop here while I go to Norway, so I hope they can fix it, as I don't really want to purchase another laptop. Actually not having one hasn't been to bad, I can survive with my ipaq and internet cafes. So I will have to see.

Well I am going to rest for a couple hours before hitting the town, as I am sure it will be a long night, considering it never really gets dark here.

Stockholm

jason@willock.org (Jason Willock) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:35:40 -0400

Just a quick update from Stockholm. It is a pretty nice city, I had no idea it was a city made up of little islands surrounded by water, and connected by bridges, it makes for a very beautiful city. I spent a good portion of the day trying to find a place to get my laptop repaired. There was a Computer City, with the same logo as the Canadian company, but they wouldn´t help me, but refered me to a place in a subway station, ran by a couple asian guys, who will take a look at it. It could be more expensive than I thought, but we will have to see..

Sweden is a pretty expensive place, they have a 25% tax on most things, so our 6% GST seems pretty minor, but I guess that is the price to pay to live a country where they really look after you from cradle to grave.

The hostel I am staying in has only been open for a few days, so everything is new and clean, it´s great, and seems like a good place to meet people, so I think I will stay here for a while, and get a good feel for the city. I kind of fit in here, with my Swedish background, there are quite a few people here that have blonde eyebrows, and blonde arm hairs like me. Most people assume I am swedish I think.. The girls are not all blonde haired and blue eyed, a good portion are, but there are lots that are darked haired, and darker skin, which is a nice mix.

Stockholm is covered with 7-11´s, there everywhere, in fact I am typing this in a 7-11 internet cafe. A funny thing happened when I was walking around town today, I recieved a coupon for 15kr off a Coke and a Calzone at a 7-11, so it was getting close to lunch time, and figured why not try one out, as 7-11 food is actually pretty good, so I walked in and they were filming a commercial, and when I went in and ordered what they were making a commercial for, a lady got excited, and asked if I would mind walking in and ordering it again so they could get it on camera, so I obliged, as there were lots of cute swedish girls around, so after getting me on film, and talking with them for a while, I got to enjoy my Calzone for free, I´m a cheap actor I guess.. Who knows maybe I will become a hit in Sweden..

Swedes on a whole speak very good english, which is nice, I find it kind of amusing that there greating instead of saying hello, is´hey´ like hey hows it going. The sun rises at 3:30, and sets around 10:30 so pretty long days, I am looking forward to going farther north to the 24hour daylight.

Stockholm

jason@willock.org (Jason Willock) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:35:40 -0400