The Ice is Nice: Come on In - Part I
Posted By Steve Millard on 20 June 2005
The airport was so small that the queue from our plane meant we had to wait outside and it was then that I noticed the cold and started to think ahead a bit, wondering what it would be like changing into our wetsuits outside in this weather …Brrrrr. I zipped my coat up and walked into the terminal. Enough negative thoughts already, think warm, think warm, it can’t be that much colder than the UK, surely?!? A short scenic coach journey past frozen lakes, beautiful snow covered fields and a bit more sleep saw us in Stockholm by dinnertime.
We got off the coach in beautiful picturesque Stockholm. The city is made up of old buildings, quaint streets all founded on an impressive stretch of waterways. It was a magnificent archipelago filled with wonderful people and unpronounceable street names with far too many letters in them.
We were soon lost but our crumpled map, excessive baggage and confused looks soon got the attention of a random Swede who realised that we didn’t have a clue where we were and kindly offered his assistance,leading us to our hotel. After reaching our hotel we had a quick clean up and decided to go for a wander.
Stockholm is not too dissimilar to other cosmopolitan cities. Whilst walking around you got the feeling sometimes you had been there before, but looking in shop windows ,seeing the foreign words and listening to the passing conversation in a language very strange to the ears reminded you where you were.
We did the tourist thing and visited the National Museum and over to a few of the little islands and to an old boat yard. Whilst walking we noticed one puzzling thing. There were dozens of pushbikes, none of which were locked up, nearly all with punctures and they were just lying around. Our theory (without looking too much further into it) was that the locals must carry around bicycle pumps and just pick up any bike they choose and then leave it and then take another one next time. We did not, however, see any one pumping up a tyre to ask them so if you visit don’t just nick a bike just in case we are wrong.
After walking for a few hours just taking in the scenery we had built up an appetite so we went to the Hard Rock Café (traditional Swede-ish cuisine). The food was lovely, so was the beer but at a cost over £5 a pint I knew we wouldn’t be getting a hangover on this trip -that was for sure. We retired for a deserved good night’s sleep.
In the morning we left the hotel a little late, really, for our train so it wasn’t so much of a leisurely walk as a quick march to the station, because we suspected that as we were in foreign lands the train would leave on time and we were right. A bit more sleep on the train journey saw us in Örebro (a small town to the West of Stockholm) where we met Sverker and his freediving pals from Örebro apnea. I had no idea what our Swedish hosts would be like; they turned out to be very friendly and hospitable. After short introductions we set off for our diving destination. We piled all of our stuff into Sverker’s Volvo and off we went.
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