Swingin Sweden

Trip Start Apr 04, 2007
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51
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Trip End Oct 22, 2007


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Saturday, June 9, 2007

We slept in later than we planned, but we physically couldn't haul ourselves out of bed any sooner than a little after 8 am. After a beautiful breakfast of the remaining food we had, stored our bags, and did some city exploring. We had read about a free zoo nearby so we headed for that. It was in a very large and beautifully green park, filled with mothers and children and many many playgrounds. It must have been school holidays with the number of kids out and the hordes at the kids petting zoo. We found the cages and signs of the free Nordic Zoo, but no animals save for a few ducks and the smell of horse. So we moved on and headed for the old town area. On the way we noticed a hairdresser, and due to low morale, caved and got haircuts. The only hairdresser in the posh looking shop was a bald guy who spoke slightly broken, but still very good, English. Despite being bald he was very good at what he did, and he taught us some Swedish and we taught him a few English words for Hairdressing and he told us about his life as a Palestinian, moving to Syria, then to Jordan, then to Iraq, getting married to a woman from there, then back to Jordan, then to Sweden where he has been for the last 8 years and loves it. He served us coffee and little candy bars and told us that when we came back through Gothenberg that we could stop by his place for some more coffee and a chat.

Morale in Sweden was definitely on the up, and we headed on for the old town. We stumbled upon some party of some kind with, what looked like, a bunch of high school students dressed up in suits or dresses and sailor hats standing on risers, and a crowd filling the area, many of whom carried signs with baby pictures on them. Our fist thought was that it was a protest against high school students oppressing babies, but it turned out it was a graduation. Later we saw flat bed trucks rimmed with garland and flowers, carrying screaming crowds of students through the streets. Moving on, we wandered the quiet streets of the old town and enjoyed the picturesque buildings, stopping at a book store and grabbing a cheap lunch with some coupons a street promoter girl had given us earlier. Street Promoters - a backpackers best friend. We checked out a beautiful church and sat inside its empty hall, enjoying the serenity, and went up to an old fort tower that used to protect the area. We wandered inside and up the tower, only to find that the top floor was a bar but the cannons still pointed out the windows. Very cool. Unfortunately our last camera batteries died as we hit the tower.

Oh, as a side note - For all of our male cousins, brothers, friends, or other single guys of any description - We've got One word for you... Swedish Girls

We headed back to the hostel, got our bags, attacked the train station, managing to hop on a train to Malmo just in time, hoping that there will be accommodation when we arrive. Then we had an idea....

Guess where we are!
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