2005-06-17

International Trollop (continued)

Day Three

The next morning I woke up bright and early, did the obligatory �Where the fuck am I� bleary squint round the room, and vaguely remembered the previous evening�s offer of accommodation. Without waking my host, I used the shower (indeed much nicer than the hostel�s facilities, having a door and everything) and left. I emerged into daylight somewhere in the depths of suburban Stockholm, well out of range of the maps in my TimeOut guide. �Aha!� thought I, �A challenge!� (Actually it was more like, �Uhhhhnnngggh! Fuck.�) I shambled aimlessly until I hit a main road, then tracked my way back to Gamla Stan using major street signs and maps in bus shelters. I felt like a modern-day, female, unwilling, scruffy, hung over Magellan.

I foreswore drinking for the day and soaked up some culture instead. At the modern art museum, the security guards, apparently taking inspiration from the Surrealist movement, informed me that I was permitted take my backpack into the galleries so long as it was not on my back. (What? Why ever not? I think they were just bored and playing a game of �Dance, Stupid Foreigner, Dance!�) I eschewed the more cheeky and creative forms of backpack conveyance (carrying it on my head and so forth) and just trucked the damn thing along in my hand, which made my arm ache after an hour and caused me to care even less for video installations than I do ordinarily. So that was a bit of a bust.

In the shopping district on Norrmalm, I ran into my hostel buddies Celine and Izam. Celine had tried to get back to Copenhagen that afternoon (where she�s studying), but the train was full. Furthermore, when she rang up the hostel�s unreceptive reception, they told her that the hostel was entirely booked for the night.

Back in the dormitory, discussing the situation, we remarked upon several things: first, the hostel was manifestly not booked. It was early evening at this point, on a Sunday, and the dorm was half empty. Second, none of us had ever seen any staff in the building after two o�clock in the afternoon. Third, there was no key or swipecard to be turned in, nor any other way for the staff to verify whether guests had checked out or not. Ergo, mutiny! Celine said �Fuck that jazz,� except charmingly and in French, unpacked her gear and stayed an extra night for free. So, word to the cost-conscious traveller: Abbes Hostel in central Stockholm is genuinely crappy, but once you�re in you can stay there indefinitely (much like Hell!).

Day Four

Uppsala! Viking burial mounds, ancient cathedrals, runestones and so on. Lots of photos. When I boarded the bus back to Stockholm, the driver looked at my ticket and protested that I�d been charged 5 Krona too much (word: that�s like 50p). He seemed very upset by this. It took a few worrying minutes of banter to ascertain that while the ticket was overpriced, it would still get me on the bus, and I was graciously permitted to take a seat.

Back in Stockholm, I perused my TimeOut guide, selected a watering hole that sounded like my kind of place (the words �dive�, �tattoos� and �barflies� featured in the description), and bent my steps accordingly towards Kungsholmen. The bar did not disappoint: within minutes I�d met my second Swedish ad hoc boyfriend; together we got very drunk until the bar kicked us out, and then there was nothing to do but [CENSORED].

Day Five

Getting back from the suburbs was much easier this time. I made it to a subway station, where I found the ticket office locked with a sign in the window reading (mysteriously), �Office temporarily closed � if approached by a member of staff please note the time you passed�. I duly noted the time, but made it back to the central station unapproached; in other words, for free. (It would appear that the Swedish are very trusting and laissez-faire.)

My flight wasn�t until nine PM, and since I knew I wouldn�t be hounded to check out of the hostel, I figured I�d just hole myself away and sleep off my hangover. I did manage to close my eyes for about twenty minutes when a conversation erupted and I realised that the new guy in the dormitory was Canadian. More importantly, when I opened my eyes, I realised he was cute. We got in a long, involved discussion about Canadian politics, Tom Waits, James Joyce and the debatable merits of pornography; and when we found ourselves alone in the dorm we got in a long involved [CENSORED] which was very nearly interrupted by the cleaning lady. Oo la la! What can I say? I feel like I�m leading a double life: by day I�m a mild-mannered (ha) office worker, but by night, I am SUPERSLUT! Snogging evildoers around the world! I need to procure some sort of lurid spandex getup with a cape and tights (with belt and garters).

I got back into London too late to catch the last train out of Waterloo, and spent a harrowing night wandering hither and yon, exhausted, hung over, carrying all my luggage, trying to keep myself awake long enough to catch the six AM train to Portsmouth. I felt like I was being scourged of my sins. But Parliament sure does look pretty reflected on the Thames at the break of dawn.