Hur mår du? Hehehe... That's how are you in Swedish. I went to Sweden on the 23rd Feb till 27th Feb 07. This would be my fourth country I visited. Hehehe... Six of us went there to have a hell of good time. Me, FC, ET, TW, LNA, and AL. We started our journey to Sweden on Thursday night. We set off from our home about 2030. We headed to London Stansted Airport where we took our flight to Stockholm Skavsta. Our flight was only at 0605 in the morning. Huhuhu... Yup, we spent night in the airport. We reached the airport at about 12midnight. There were a lot of people waiting for morning flight I guess. We walked around the airport, looking for a spot to sit and spend the night. We found a place, put our baggage there. After that, I opened my sleeping bag and sleep. Hahaha... Some of us were planning on where to go in Stockholm. I didn't really know the details of that. I was sleeping really well, considering sleeping on the floor. Hahaha... ET said I even snored. Ups... Sorry guys!!! =P I woke up in the morning about 0330. We went to the Ryanair counter. Checked in. No problem!!
Our bags and reaching Stockholm Skavsta Airport
When we reached Skavsta, no problem with immigration. Stockholm Skavsta is not in the center of Stockholm. It's one of those budget airports for budget airlines. To go to the Stockholm, we need to take a bus. The bus ride cost us 199 SEK return. It took us 1hr 20mins. Kinda far ya. But that's a budget airline and airport for us. =D When we reached Stockholm that day, it was snowing. In fact, it was snowing the whole day we spent there. =D The snow if very nice. I can even see the snow flake shapes. =D We reached the bus station and put our bags in the lockers. There were different sizes of lockers. It ranges from 30, 40, 60 and 80 SEK for 24 hours. After 24 hours, you will need to put more money in order to get your bags back. We put all our luggage in the 60SEK locker. Ya I meant ALL. That is 2x60L bags, 4x45L backpacks and few plastic bags (Look at the pics =P). I didn't know how it can go in there. But it did. Thanks to the effort of ET, TW, FC and LNA. Hehehe... From there, we sets off to the tourist information center. There, we asked the girl what's around in Stockholm, where to find Swedish meatballs, supermarket. Hahaha... We set off to the old town in the end. It's a part of Stockholm. I like this place. I don't know. It's just the feeling of the city. I just love it. And you know what? All around us is white!!! Everything is covered in snow. Super nice. There were people skating in outdoor. Don't have that in Singapore or Indonesia for sure. =P
We had our lunch in this nice restaurant in old town called Glenfiddich Warehouse no 68. We ordered Game Meatball and Elk Burger. Two of us shared these two dishes. I like the mash potatoes that came with Game Meatball. Two dishes were nice. I preferred the meatball though. =D
Our food in Stockholm, Game Meatballs and Elk Burger
From there, we set off to supermarket because we need to catch our train at 1700 to Abisko Ostra. The train station (Stockholm C) is just beside the bus station (City Terminal) where we stopped. We went to buy our food for dinner, supper and snacks for our train journey. The train journey will last us 17 hours. Hahaha.. Yup, no kidding. It's 17hrs. Why do we do that? Because the flight from Stockholm to Kiruna is somehow expensive although the other way around is not and no airport in Abisko. Confusing hor. We parted on the way back to the train station bcos I needed to print out the train tickets from Abisko Ostra to Kiruna. When I got to the train station, I found this very long queue to print the tickets. The problem was that I can't print it in Abisko Ostra and when I reach the station it was 1615. I have 45mins to print the tickets, get our bags from the lockers and catch our train. I finished print our tickets at about 1640. I ran to lockers and found nobody there. I waited and thought we gonna miss our train. About 1650, ET came alone. Where is the rest? She said they were in the supermarket buying stuff and the queue was long. Damn... Me and ET opened our locker, brought all our bags (you know how many bags we had). Ran to the train station and hoped to meet them on the way to the station. And we did!!! They were running to the locker. We hurried to where our train is. We managed to get our butt in the train just before it closed its door. Phew... What a relived, just hoped that we didn't leave anything behind. Huhuhu...
Train Station, Stockholm C
We looked for our seats. We found one compartment just for ourselves. There were six seats in the compartment where we can turn into 6 beds. Cool!!! I like this compartment. So lucky that we have this. Hahaha... We happily put our luggage in and rested after all those running around. =P There are restaurant and even shower on the train. Hahaha... The conductor then came to check our tickets just to find that we were in the wrong compartment. We needed to move to the next coach.
Our compartment with 6 beds After finish, we just sit there, chit chat all night, we had a long journey anyway. Hahaha... Then, about 2100, we were about to do some calculation on what we spent and needed to pay. ET found her bag was missing. It's the important bag with all her money, passport, wallet and all important stuff. We looked everywhere, turned the place up side down without sighting of her bags. It's time to check outside our compartment. We went to the previous compartment just to find another people there. ET and AL asked them whether they saw any bags. They said they didn't. We then asked the conductor to check around. No luck. I, FC and LNA were still looking around our compartment to see. We all were desperate to find it. This could be the end of our trip. Money lost can be borrowed from us, but passport lost. That's really a big problem! When ET came back with no luck, we were about to let it go. Suddenly the conductor came with ET's bag, just after ET went in the door to our compartment. It was such a relive. We all could ease our mind. There were a good Samaritans on the train who return ET's bag! Thank you whoever you are! Everything was in tact, nothing lost! Phew...
Changing Train
We had no mood to do anything, we just chit chat and postponed our accounting session. =P What an adrenaline rush. We slept at about 2230. I slept well on that train and woke up about 0500. We need to change train at 0641. Our second train was not as good as the first one. There was a mistake on the tickets, we were separated seats. When we got on the train, there was a lady in the compartment with her dog. Hehehe... The dog was really friendly. It greeted me. Huhuhu... It then slept under my leg. Such a cute dog!!! =D We reached Abisko Ostra one hour late than expected. =( Next post will be in Abisko Ostra and Abisko Turistation! =D
