Marie has headed off to the north of Sweden for the weekend, leaving me to explore Stockholm on my own. Stockholm is hosting a tall ships race over the next week or so. As far as I can tell, a tall ship is a sailing ship with very large masts, with about 30 crew each. I had great plans for yesterday, which included heading down to the Quay to watch the 'tall ships' come in for the race starting on Tuesday. Unfortunately, a big storm also came in yesterday, so I decided to stay at home and enjoy watching the rain from Marie's balcony - a pity I wasn't sitting in Australia watching the rain.
The weather has cleared up today, so I again plan to go and see the tall ships. I think there is an Australian competitor; I was watching the Swedish news last night, and I think the news reader said Australia and I'm pretty sure I saw our flag - however, since the news was in Swedish I only have a vague idea as to what the newsreader said.
I haven't heard from Jim yet, which was worrying me slightly, until I remembered to check to see if he had used his credit card. Last night he was at a rest stop in Choranche, which is about 230km from Geneva. I assume that he has therefore gotten a bike and is on his way to Nice.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Arrival
Just a quick note to let everybody know that we made it to Europe. The flight from Singapore was wonderful, we had a spare seat next to us, and Sudafed made Jïm's cold quite bareable. Unfortuately, the flight to Frankfurt was less enjoyable, but it finally ended and we arrived in Europe.
I hadn't checked my bag all the way to Sweden, so we had to navigate the turmoil of the Frankfurt airport to go and collect it. What should have been a five minute task turned into an hour and a half journey, since we had to go through customs to get the bag. While the line up was quite small, an error of judgement was made on my part by lining up behind a group of people who had something wrong with their passports, so it took me an hour to get through the line, with my total time talking to the immigration person only being 30 seconds. We also discovered that it is still legal to smoke in restuarants in Germany - this is not a nice thing to discover whist eating breakfast after 15 odd hours on a plane.
Jim and I said our goodbyes in Frankfurt and I headed to Sweden. Thankfully, Marie gave me excellent directions, and we met up without incident. We were both unsure if we would recognise each other after nearly 10 years, but apparently neither of us have changed and it was a happy reunion. We have spent the past two days exploring Stockholm by foot. I am not sure how I have managed to walk the distances I have in the last couple of days, but it feels like my legs are going to fall off. On Monday I had my first taste of Nordic animals - I never realised how big, and how ugly Bison are! This evening we went to an outdoor theatre - in Swedish. I understood about 3 words but it was still very funny because the actors were very good with their body language. I have tried to pick up a little Swedish, but everytime I use it, the other person answers me in English - I think my accent is not quite up to standard.
The incredible thing here is the sun. While Stockholm is too far south for the midnight sun, I haven't seen it become dark here yet. Apparently the sun goes down about 11, but it doesn't get properly dark, more a twilight kind of dark. The sun rises again at around 5:30 and comes up very quickly. I am writing this at 9:30 at night, and the sun is in the position you would expect at around 4 in the afternoon in Summer in Adelaide. Of course, it is the opposite in winter. Marie tells me that during the winter week she often won't see the sun at all since it rises at around 10:30 and sets at around 4 - and all that time she is in her office with no windows. I'm not sure I could handle such an extreme change for very long - day and night should be clearly seperated.
I have yet to hear if Jim has a bike, I will let you all know when I find out!
I hadn't checked my bag all the way to Sweden, so we had to navigate the turmoil of the Frankfurt airport to go and collect it. What should have been a five minute task turned into an hour and a half journey, since we had to go through customs to get the bag. While the line up was quite small, an error of judgement was made on my part by lining up behind a group of people who had something wrong with their passports, so it took me an hour to get through the line, with my total time talking to the immigration person only being 30 seconds. We also discovered that it is still legal to smoke in restuarants in Germany - this is not a nice thing to discover whist eating breakfast after 15 odd hours on a plane.
Jim and I said our goodbyes in Frankfurt and I headed to Sweden. Thankfully, Marie gave me excellent directions, and we met up without incident. We were both unsure if we would recognise each other after nearly 10 years, but apparently neither of us have changed and it was a happy reunion. We have spent the past two days exploring Stockholm by foot. I am not sure how I have managed to walk the distances I have in the last couple of days, but it feels like my legs are going to fall off. On Monday I had my first taste of Nordic animals - I never realised how big, and how ugly Bison are! This evening we went to an outdoor theatre - in Swedish. I understood about 3 words but it was still very funny because the actors were very good with their body language. I have tried to pick up a little Swedish, but everytime I use it, the other person answers me in English - I think my accent is not quite up to standard.
The incredible thing here is the sun. While Stockholm is too far south for the midnight sun, I haven't seen it become dark here yet. Apparently the sun goes down about 11, but it doesn't get properly dark, more a twilight kind of dark. The sun rises again at around 5:30 and comes up very quickly. I am writing this at 9:30 at night, and the sun is in the position you would expect at around 4 in the afternoon in Summer in Adelaide. Of course, it is the opposite in winter. Marie tells me that during the winter week she often won't see the sun at all since it rises at around 10:30 and sets at around 4 - and all that time she is in her office with no windows. I'm not sure I could handle such an extreme change for very long - day and night should be clearly seperated.
I have yet to hear if Jim has a bike, I will let you all know when I find out!
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