19 November - Stockholm and return from the frozen north(ish)

*Blog by Anto*

After two days of a new bed Astrid had pretty much gotten her sleeping back to normal - just in time to wake her up early and head back home.. Breakfast was a traditional Swedish cornflakes and tea - with a small amount of flatbread thrown in for authenticity. With breakfast out of the way our bags packed all that was left was to say goodbye to the ever happy dog, Dumle and run out to the car for the next (slightly frozen) leg of the journey.

Bjorn had helpfully warmed up the car so aside from the quick run from the house we avoided having to expose our self to the slightly frigid climate. We proceeded to drive south down to Karlstad - about 30-40 minutes or so. During the drive the temperature varied between about -1 and -4. Unlike at home, with similar temperatures, not only was there a fairly decent frost but there was actual ice on the road. Having never had the joy of such driving conditions I was fairly glad that Bjorn was behind the wheel. Before we knew it we were at the train station and saying our (temporary, Bjorn will be visiting us in about 5 weeks) good-byes. All was well with the world until Astrid realised the 'Bjorn man' was leaving and not coming back - not even 9am and we had already broken her heart for the day.

The train to Stockholm was the express service this time,and provided an amazing differentiation from the Friday night affair - the cabin was spacious, comfortable and modern. As a bonus the train was not only at the station early, it also left and arrived on time. This was our first tilt train and the journey was in daylight (well Swedish, half daylight) and we could see the train tilting towards the huge lakes that virtually came up to the side of the railway lines, which was rather cool. Astrid spent a small amount of time watching her favourite TV show some time walking around and leading her parents (up the wall) by the hand and finally holding a talk (and possibly dance) off with a local baby who was also on the way to Stockholm. It would appear that baby banter translates much more easily than the more adult languages. A quick trip to the storage lockers at the train station (rather modern credit card operated devices) and we were off into the crispy Stockholm morning.

We snowsuited up Astrid, as the temperature was forecast for a maximum of 2 degrees. We aren't sure what the temperature was all day, but it was icy cold and probably around zero. The plan for the day was to start with a viewing of the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace, which takes points for mostly looking like a dull government building from the outside, but apparently when it was built it was he talk of the European Royalty set. The royal guards looked pretty impressive and were more so for standing out in what was rapidly becoming a pretty frigid day. The changing of the guards seemed like any other Royal Guard changing, with scary shouting and marching around with swords and cannon, however it was fairly evident that most of the guards were fairly well armed with their (albeit shiny) bayonets fixed and ready to use. Once the guards had finished their marching and shouting routine, which included marching really quite close to the crowd of on-lookers - a distinct change from the British version where crowds are kept nice and safely away, we wandered into the 'old town' which aside from being quite touristy was pretty and quaint.


Astrid had fallen asleep in the ergo within seconds of leaving the train station so we wandered around the old-town allowing her to have some rest. The old town was indeed very pretty and some shopping was done before a nice lunch in a bar tucked into the side of a building.


Astrid enjoyed sitting up high and sharing her parents burgers, although she seemed to be suffering slightly in the cold. While her parents had nicely tucked her up in warm clothes her refusal to keep her lovely warm mittens on meant her tiny little hands were suffering - made only worse by her need to wave and flap them around. With the hand situation fairly rapidly deteriorating we wandered in the direction of Stockholm's only tram, which helpfully both took us to the Vasa museum, provided much needed warmth as well as a quick tour of (a small amount of) Stockholm. It was just after 3pm and the sun was about to set so we rode around on the tram getting great views of the sunset.



The Vasa museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of the Vasa, a 16th century battle ship that sank 1500m meters after it's maiden launch in 1628, somewhat embarrassing for what was meant to be the latest and greatest in war-ships. The list of reasons for it's sinking could be used for almost any failed project in the last 400 odd years, but at at bottom line the ship pushed the technological boundaries of the day with pretty much everyone involved failing to recognise the fact that they were doing so. Apparently the ship failed a basic stability test before being ordered to head out to sea anyway. What was amazing is the level of preservation, apparently the salinity combined with the environmental conditions and the construction materials left the vessel amazingly intact - in fact when it was discovered they managed to seal the gunports, pump out the water and re-float it almost 400 years later - impressive in hindsight... The best bit of the museum was seeing the impressive size of an intact 17th century ship, very large and foreboding in real life.

The Nordiska museum, which is next to the Vasa museum and an impressive building (we didn't get time to go inside:

The Vasa museum from the outside:


The Vasa...... and Astrid:

The model of the Vasa and it's sinking:


The intricate carvings on the Vasa that were preserved even after 330 years at the bottom of the ocean:


Post Vasa museum we caught the tram back to central (or as close as we could get..) picked up our bags and wandered through the nicely connected buildings to the central bus station for our transfer out to the airport, which was accomplished with remarkable ease.  Astrid again fell asleep in the ergo on the walk to the bus station and slept through the entire 35 minute bus transfer to Arlanda airport. The check-in process at the airport was just as quick and painless, leaving us plenty of time to consume a horribly overpriced dinner and a quick shop to use up our last Swedish currency before boarding the flight back to Paris.

One of our last looks at Stockholm city, with all the Christmas lights on display:


The 7.30pm flight was fairly un-eventual, with the exception of Astrid refusing to go to sleep for the first hour and a half, despite being obviously exhausted. She screamed hysterically and carried on alike a pork chop throwing our dinners all over the plane.  It wasn't helped by the squishy seats and packed plane (at the front, where we were, plenty of seats at the back and they didn't reseat us) so no room to spread out. The woman in front of us put her seat back and with Astrid on our laps we couldn't eve put our tray table down, so rather uncomfortable. Luckily Astrid fell asleep for the last hour of the flight.

Once back at Charles de Gaulle we picked up our bag and were greeted with the delightful message that 'all trains on the RER have been suspended' - given the RER is quick, easy and cheap the other options were not all that attractive, and at this point it was after 10pm. By the time we wandered around working out what to do we thought we would see if the service would resume and wandered down to the station - as we got in sight there was a train waiting at the platform complete with a scheduled departure time. A few minutes before we were due to leave the monitors all started flashing up with a very welcoming green screen basically stating 'everything is OK now' - the level of relief on the train was obvious. After that it was a quick (and becoming a standard) trip back to our 'local' metro station - actually our second choice - it's a 500m walk back to the apartment but saves an additional  transfer. A rapid wander past all the late night vendors (including the crape place we both agreed we should visit after walking past so many late nights) had us back in our apartment safe and sound - with everyone looking forward to a good nights sleep. It was unfortunately after midnight when we got in and we were all very tired but relieved to be back.

16 November - meeting the Bjorn man

We had a 6.15am alarm rudely awaken us so we could make our flight to Sweden on time. We have been a bit spoilt with all the train trips, and our ability to get to the station 10 minutes before our train leaves. Back to flying meant having to be at the airport 90 minutes prior to the flight. Charles De Gaulle airport is a 40 minute metro from Gare du Nord, which is a 6 minute metro (and 10 minute walk) from our apartment. Sadly, a 9.35am flight meant leaving the apartment at 7am.

We had a very efficient metro run through to Gare Du Nord, and quickly found our RER through to CDG airport. Towards the end of the metro ride Astrid decided she was getting a bit grumpy as she hadn't had breaky, but nothing a bikkie wouldn't fix. We assumed we had made the airport with stack of time. However, by the time we found our terminal and gate it had wasted a lot of time. We then had issues getting checked in and we eventually managed it automatically, fearing that if someone had to look at our passports we wouldn't be getting on our flight. Luckily the quick glance at our passports didn't hinder us (even though the photos on them are so damaged they no longer look like us) and we made it to security with a fair bit of time. Having a baby with us again got us waved through security quickly, until we had to take all our coats, hats, shoes and everything else off to be scanned. Rather inconvenient, and a little bizarre given they didn't check liquids or anything else, but wouldn't let us wear our shoes!

 Finally, after a couple of hours of promising Astrid breakfast, we sat down to some airport coffees and pastries. Despite being 'from the airport' they were still delicious and 2 coffees and 3 pastries were only 11 Euro. Sydney airport and it's $6 inedible muffins have a lot to answer for. We boarded our flight on time and we were right down the back. The plane didn't look packed and we were hoping with a 2.5 hour flight to have a spare seat near us to spread out. With all the travel we have been doing it didn't seem like *too* long of a flight but it's still long enough! Sadly, there was another gentleman in our row but the Air France hostesses quickly shuffled people around and found us a whole row to ourselves. Great service there!

The flight was fairly uneventful. It was very foggy when we left Paris but once above the cloud line we actually saw sun, which was a pleasant change from grey Europe. We were served some very acceptable sandwiches, which Astrid managed to demolish, despite having just had breakfast. She entertained herself with more episodes of playschool and the flight went by quick enough. We landed in Stockholm at 12.15pm and it was about 8 degrees and partly sunny. Very different from the 2 degrees and foggy in Paris. Not the weather we had been expecting in Sweden.

Arlanda airport in Stockholm is a fair hike from the city and the train to central is very expensive but the bus was more reasonably priced, so the bus it was. We didn't have to wait long and we boarded our nice and very well heated coach. Astrid was getting a bit feral but after only a couple of minutes of whinging she managed to fall asleep on my lap. It was only half an hour into Stockholm central and we didn't really want to wake her and we somehow managed to get her into the ergo still asleep (although minus her coat, which was less ideal). She slept through us obtaining the local currency (you would really think all these European countries would happily move to the delightfully stable Euro, but apparently not) and finding a baggage locker for our bag. Stockholm central could do with more baggage lockers as we had to 'locker stalk' to get one.


We set off for a wander to get some lunch before our train later that afternoon. We only managed a short walk through the shopping area near the train station but we have more time in Stockholm on Monday for greater exploring. Our barely passable German and dodgy French is nothing on our total inability to comprehend Swedish. This made lunch menu reading difficult but we eventually found a cafe that looked quite acceptable and were excited to find they had some English on their menus, once inside. Even with the currency conversion, Sweden seems relatively expensive for food. Probably not as bad as Switzerland though!

We had some lovely toasted sandwiches (chicken for Anto/Astrid and goats cheese for Nic) and finished off with some warm spiced apple cake and cream. Astrid was particularly impressed with the cake and wanted 'more, more, more'. When we told her it was gone, she pointed at the cakes in the display and showed us there was in fact 'more' available. Too clever, that one!


We had a short wander back to the train station, noting that there was an abundance of stone lions everywhere, apparently they line the 'Queens street' with lion's being the symbol of Swedish royalty (since the 15th century or so - apparently a lion was considered a pretty good symbol even if no-one in Sweden had much idea what they actually looked like.




It was already sarting to head towards dusk, at 3pm. It did make for nice light, but was a little disconcerting. We found the train station and our baggage without drama and probably located the most expensive toilet on our travels yet, at 10Kr. Lucky it had a good baby change or I wouldn't have been happy. For whatever reason I had thought our train to Karlstad that afternoon was about an hour. I was then informed by Anto it was actually 3 hours...... not what I wanted to hear. Once we got to the platform the train arrived on time and there were people everywhere. We didn't have reserved seats and weren't sure what carriage to try. We were helpfully informed by one of the train staff that we just had to wait and see if seats were available. I decided 3 hours of standing with a baby was not a good option so we plonked ourselves in some seats and hoped not to get kicked out. Luckily this worked at least for the first leg of the trip, and despite the train being packed no one turfed us out.

Now the reason we decided to go to Sweden, and this particular area of Sweden at that, was to visit Anto's friend Bjorn. Sadly, getting to Bjorn's house involved some less than ideal train travel. The Swedish trains don't seem quite as fast and efficient as many of the other trains we have been on in our European travels. We settled Astrid into the long train trip with some more playschool and a drink and we soon discovered that Bjorn was actually on our train as he had gotten an early mark from his work in Stockholm, and was heading back with us. It made the very long train trip more fun having someone to talk to.  The lack of seats did mean that there was a lot of standing in the aisles for either Bjorn and/or Anto and we got moved a couple of times but at least Anto and Bjorn could catch up as we headed to Karlstad.

We noticed as we boarded the train at 3.30pm the sun was setting. We got to see a lovely sunset as we headed out of Stockholm and it was dark by 4pm. It was extremely off-putting and made it seem much later than it really was. A tired Astrid was also a bit confused by it all but was being generally well-behaved for at least the first 2 hours of the trip. She decied she LOVES Bjorn and refers to him as 'man' and wanted to be cuddled by him for most of the trip. She was quite pleased to be told she was going to 'Bjorn man's house'. The last hour of the trip Astrid got rather tired but was not going to have a sleep on me not matter what. Luckily the train was crowded and noisy and there were other noisy kids around so she didn't cause too many dramas.

At 6.30pm we reached Karlstad and quickly located Bjorn's car, equipped with baby seat, that his kids have grown out of. In Sweden the seats are much better than Australia and Astrid still easily fits into rear-facing so she was travelling in style. She had a little sleep on the half hour drive to Edane, where we had dinner in the Pizzeria which was built in an old train station. Here we met Bjorn's family; Linnea and his kids Sebastian and Nelly for dinner. Astrid was not impressed with being woken upon our arrival and screamed incessantly. We had finally after 6 weeks reached the limit of Astrid. The last few long days have just been too much and she was not a happy camper. Some panadol and some milk didn't even help and she fell asleep sobbing in our laps and didn't participate in the pizza, and Swedish meaty dinner.


The trip back to Bjorn's place involved more Astrid unhappiness but she perked up when she met their Finnish dog Dumle, who is huge, fluffy and very cute.  She was unsure whether to be excited by him or scared and alternated between both.  The new place was exciting but it was late so we decided she had to go to bed.  All good in theory but she was sleeping in with us and found the glow in the dark stars on the bed which were a source of constant amusement.  Luckily she finally fell asleep at about 10pm, but it had been a long, long day!