Week One

All the king's horses, and all the king's men couldn't get me out of Scotland on time, so I spent Monday the 17th sitting around being depressed (despite the good weather).

Spent all of this day sitting around moping about how I was still in Scotland.

Back to work on the house and the packing, with a new deadline in mind - Thursday 20th with easyJet again, despite the warnings.

I slept overnight in Scotland - if all goes to plan, then that should be the last time for a long while. Of course, there's a distinct possibility that the whole thing is going to go horribly wrong and, after being assaulted by the Dutch police for illegally importing malaria prophylactics, I'll be shipped straight back home again. After checking my rucksack one last time for Chinese immigrant workers, or at least air-holes, I say farewell to my house and cat, and cadge a lift from my father to Edinburgh airport. I still think of it as Turnhouse, but hey - I still talk about of "Maybury Roundabout", and that hasn't been a roundabout for at least a decade.

Up just after nine, and a chance to sort through what to leave at Marleen's. I have been travelling with 27kg and I need to reduce that to something I can carry - ie. as near 1kg as possible. I end up sorting out 8kg which I can leave - I'll be back this way later. After the repacking, I borrow Marleen's PC and check my email - as of yesterday, Sara and Scott now have a third child, which was born (or whatever) while I was in Edinburgh airport. Unfortunately, tiscali (whom I use to host this site) were having problems with their online web editing tools, so I couldn't get my first update done.
Marleen (who took the morning off) drops me at Breda station. The train into s'Hertogenbosch, like all the double-deckers, sings at me in a quiet monotone as it trundles along. Or perhaps I just think they're singing to me - it's all getting a bit Douglas Adams. Also on the subject of trains, it's amusing that the stations broadcast an apology if a train is running 5 minutes late - in the UK they don't even notice if it's only 5 minutes late!

Into s'Hertogenbosch, or Den Bosch (thankfully), for the afternoon. Pretty little place, much like Maastricht - only one important building that I could see, and that was the church of Sint-Jan. It has a huge organ (fnarr, fnarr) covering one end and is Roman Catholic (they got it back a couple of hundred years ago). Seems to have been built about 800 years ago, and is very like a lot of the ones we have in Scotland except it still has a roof and isn't ruined. Much like the Abbey at Arbroath. Generally, though, den Bosch is a good place to potter around for a bit.
Traveller's tip: the response to Dank U seems to be Alstublieft (ie. as "you're welcome").

And eventually into Koln, where everything went swimmingly: there was one place left on the train to Kobnhavn - a couchette, so I took it. And the Dom was just outside the door, right where I left it last time - still took me by surprise, though. And there was an Internet Cafe just over the road from the station as well. Brill.
After spending the remaining DMs (after the reservation) on updating the website, I drifted into the bookshop to see if they had the new Neil Gaiman, but ended up buying The Truth (Pratchett) instead ('cos they didn't). Sadly Pratchett's books have reached the level of occasionally wry now instead of hilarious, as several of the first six were (to me - mind you, I was drunk for most of the time back when they came out).
A final surprise - everyone in Koln now speaks English, which they didn't 15 years ago: the people in the internet cafe, the girl in the bookshop, the people at the reservation office. Mind you, I suppose those are exactly the kind of people you would expect to speak foreign languages anyway.

My couchette compartment, which I shall share with 5 strangers (unless Lady Luck is seriously tripping this evening), arrives about five minutes before it's due to leave. There are three of us - myself, James from England and an Italian with whom we share no language (he has Italian and Arabic and I haven't reached those chapters in my phrasebook yet). He's been in Germany for medical treatement and is taking 10 days out to visit a friend. James is also visiting a friend, for a couple of weeks on holiday.
A couple of stops on, we pick up two American girls who are doing Europe by eurrail (much like me, I suppose - the latter bit of the clause, that is). Unfortunately, one of them has lost her eurrail pass and is having to buy all the individual legs (ouch - this one alone was 221DM = ¤70). Our final passenger joins without a word - a short Egyptian-looking guy, if you know what I mean.

Woke up at about 6.15 and dozed intermittently - the train didn't get into Kobenhavn until 10.00 which was fortunate, because that was the time the downpouring rain started to ease off. The only point of interest between 6.15 and 10.00 (except for the washing "facilities" in the couchette car) was when we passed through a town called Middelfart (which amused me and James). Hopefully this town lies halfway along some route - either that, or they have severe local dietary problems.
Finally into Kobenhavn at 10.00 and then a quick currency change and dumping of the rucksack in a locker, after packing a wet-weather daybag. Yes, it's raining in Kobenhavn when I arrive - that almost immediately stops, and the rest of the morning is fine. So out into Denmark - or "Country # 3" as I like to think of it.

Kobenhavn is quite modern - little of the Old Town seems older than (say) 1300: the streets (for an Old Town) are wide and spacious. Around the Old Town is a more modern ring (1700-1800?) of wide boulevards, imposing public buildings and parks. Much of it is in the "Nordic Imperial" style I remember from Stockholm: a sort of three-way cross between Parisian, Habsburgian and weatherproof.
The station lies just south of the Tivoli gardens (which were still closed when I arrived) and they, in turn, lie on the opposite side of the Radhus from the old town - so it's fairly convenient, without actually being central.

The only two definites on my Kobenhavn list are the little mermaid and the Tivoli, which will hopefully open later. I head through the Old Town, checking out the shops and the street performers (Andean Condor-pipe groups: same as Edinburgh and s'Hertogenbosch - possibly they're following me?. After a couple of missable statues and churches I pass the Round Tower, attached to the Trinity Church, which is well worth seeing - big, solid, round thing. It completes Denmark's set of Watchtowers from Age of Kings: the graphic designers obviously spent time on holiday here. Then into the King's Gardens en route to the Rosenborg Castle (Slot), where they keep the Crown Jewels. One of these high-walled palaces with a moat, which would be useful for keeping out rioting townsfolk, but not much cope against an invading army (unless they were an invading army of very small, un-armed weak people). The Crown Jewels don't deserve a mention (I know that's their second): they were less impressive than the really laid-back but curiously dangerous-looking guards.

Talking of armaments, there are a lot of gun shops in Kobenhavn: almost a district. In fact, there are quite a lot of everything shops - much of the Old Town is pedestrianised, and most of it is shops. I was here on Saturday, so it was mobbed, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing: many of the Danish women fall into that blonde/anorexic/buck-teethed/snub-nosed/high-foreheaded look which I occasionally fall into. Mind you, a huge percentage of the adults I saw were accompanied by children - not child, but children. To the extent that most of the prams were double-baby models and many of the bicycles were really reverse-tricycles, with wide baby-carrying compartments at the front. It seems, in Denmark, that Girls Just Wanna Have . . . Babies.
Another oddity of Kobenhavn (possibly all of Denmark) is that they're really hung-up about names - who owns what, or did what, or whatever. By way of example, in the UK most shops try to sound as if they're part of an international chain - they have big, neutral-sounding names. In Kobenhavn, the shopkeepers really want you to know who they are, A shop might have a sign outside "Guns 4 Men", but just underneath that sign will be another (equally pronounced) with the name of the owner in two initials and a surname: A.F. Peterson, or P.A. Frederiksen, or F.P. Anderson, or whatever. On the plus side, they're building a metro, which should be opening in the next couple of years (which won't be much use to me and my poor legs).
The place is full of canals and docks and tourist boat-buses and boat tours: much like Amsterdam, but with wider streets and less bikes (everywhere has less bikes than Hamsterjam). Oh, and a lot of the people here have orange skin: dunno why - diet, cosmetics, reaction to UV, national allergy? I suspect it’s some kind of tanning or “bronzing” method, though I have no idea why anyone would choose a skin product which makes them look like an extra from Doctor Who.

I walked back south along some of the docks (real, working docks with real, big ships and hundreds of tiny boats and vessels arriving and departing every few minutes), stopping off to see the Amalienborg Palace (another modern barracks, but with nice gardens towards the shore) and the bizarre Frederikskirken (it's round), and then pottered around the Nyhavn ("new harbour", you have to think) drinking coffee and eating Danish hotdogs (they do them really well, for 15-20kr).

Detouring via the rest of the Old Town - some really dull churches, but some excellent spires, I paid my 50kr and checked out the Tivoli. Don't know quite what I was expecting (I have no idea why I've heard of it), but it turned out to be a strange mix of gardens, concert hall, infinite restaurants, an amusement park, and a sailing ship. There is an overall theme, which seems to be Hans Christian Anderesen (sorry - that's H.C. Andersen), but some of the links were pretty tenuous. Also, there's an adjacent Tussaud's - Louis Tussaud's: dunno which came first.
Overall I liked Kobenhavn (which surprised me: I was expecting something like Bremen, but it was actually more like Stockholm) - very metropolitan, a lot going on, nice feel. Gets 6/10 on the Moray scale, which I guess means I wouldn't mind living there for a while.

Finally back to the station to catch a quick train to Malmö in Sweden - the overnight train to Stockholm leaves from there. The train is modern and comfortable - every carriage has an LED screen to let you know where and when the train's going to stop next. And then there's the recently completed bridge to/from Sweden: kinda wierd, because the first bit's actually a tunnel, so you emerge in the middle of the water and then climb up to the bridge section. It must look excellent, but I don't know where you'd take pictures from. The cumulative effect of all this modernness is that you're very disappointed when you alight at Malmö.
There was still some daylight left when I arrived (I am going east, which is compensating for going north as far as sunset's concerned - for a more detailed explanation, see Six Canoe To France), so I headed into the centre to look around and then checked out the docks. Finally back to the station for a three hour wait. I'm resisting the temptation to simply sit and drink because in Sweden that could bankrupt me (ie. much quicker than I'm already doing to myself). Burgers, however, turned out to be almost exactly the same price as in the UK, so I passed some time at Burger King.
Frankly Malmö suffered from coming straight after Kobenhavn: very similar places, styles and feels but there's a lot more in Kobenhavn and it's more of a whole. I could be wrong, of course, since I didn't spend much time in Malmö, but that's not going to stop me giving it 3/10.

Finally onto the overnight train (which is entirely non-smoking: pretty inconsiderate of the Swedes) and into my compartment - initially it looks as if I'll have it to myself, but that's only because I boarded so early. In time I am joined by a polyglottal family - the mother is Eastern European (Czech?), the father possibly Turkish, and the conversation shifts rapidly and frequently from one to the other: I have no hope of following it and go for a wander through the train (trying to find a surreptitious window I can open). By the time I retire, they've stretched out, switched off the lights and drawn the curtains, so I have few options but to go to sleep.

I woke up intermittently through the journey, until we pulled into Stockholm at some unearthly hour - ie. six-something. This at least gave me time to use the station's shower facilities before taking a wander along the shore (Stockholm is all islands, so it's pretty much all shore) and managed to locate the youth hostel from my memory of the map in the central station. Fairly bizarrely for a youth hostel, it turns out to be a 3-masted schooner (that's a guess: either way, it's a fucking boat). Well, that's gonna be pretty cool, I decide and then dump my rucksack and head back into town. Unfortunately it is Sunday, and nothing is happening (or open), and it is also misty and threatening rain so I decide to postpone Stockholm until tomorrow and instead head north towards Uppsala - largely on the basis that we'd mentioned it in Geography at school, so it must be geographically significant for some reason. Incidentally, I have no idea how to pronounce it - UPsala, OOPsala, uppSALa (like ayREEka).

Into Uppsala town centre and across the river to the University (which includes one building with painted-on windows: times must have been hard when they built that one). Then past the Domkyrkan (cathedral-thing), where Mass is taking place (is Sweden catholic?) and then up to the castle (Slottet, I think). Again, big windows, so good against mobs and small warbands of stone age cavemen: more bastions, though, so they were at least partially serious. Don't know who they would be defending against in this area (my knowledge of Swedish history being a contradiction in terms). There's also a bell there, which is apparently rung every day to remind the good citizens of Uppsala to be careful with matches. Uppsala was apparently burnt down by accident in 1702. Then, via the ornate botanical gardens, down to walk along the riverbank through the city gardens (Stadsträgården) which have the biggest lily pond I've ever seen: it has an island in the middle, which is where I'm writing the shorthand version of this.
Possibly the geographical feature of note is that Uppsala is the furthest point that the river (whatever river it is - see above, but substitute "geography" for "history") is navigable: on account of some clown building a weir (spelling?) across it just by the old pumping station.

Back to the Domkyrkan, where mass is finished now (questioning reveals that Swedish Lutheranism was a very superficial reformation: a less strenuous protest than other protestants). The brick exterior (with patterns) reminds me of Stoke: actually, the exterior has changed its design a number of times (remember the fire?) - in 1900 it was apparently totally over-the-top Victorian Gothic (like Köln, except brick). Like many of the buildings in the Netherlands, it suffered from my assumption that brick buildings must be recent (that assumption works in Scotland) - apparently it was originally finished in 12-something. The inside is all finished stonework and, bizarrely, most of the walls are painted (ie. with paintings, rather than just emulsion).

Then out, through the graveyard (why not?) and back to the station where I'd just missed my train to Norrkoping - I'd been planning to do a big semi-circle around Stockholm. Oh well.
Overall, Uppsala was an excellent daytrip out of Stockholm - very civilised, and full of multi-coloured pastel buildings. Definitely a University/Church town, now that it isn't as politically important as it once was. In fact, the place it reminds me of most, right down to the way the buildings are spaced, is Austin. A lot of Sweden is strangely reminiscent of the US: the layout of the towns, roads, countryside and so on (though the natural landscape is greener, more like Scotland). Possibly something to to with there being plenty space. On average, by the way and despite the reputation, I don't think Swedish women are up to their Danish counterparts (though they also have orange skin) - obviously the Swedes just did a better job of marketing their pornography. A lot of the Swedish blokoes are better-looking, mind, and a high percentage of them are going bald as rapidly as I am (which reassures me).
As I munch on a banana in the station, it occurs to me that pretty much everything I've costed in Denmark and Sweden is equivalent to the UK. Traditionally these countries have been more expensive than us. Hopefully this is just down to the weakness of the euro (in which case we'll have caught up with Austria as well). If it's nothing to do with the euro, then our cost of living is now higher than everywhere except Norway, Switzerland, Japan and some of the silly little places. That's a little worrying, but at least it means it's a good time for a Brit to travel the world.

Since I can't get to the only other nearby place I've heard of (ie. Norrkoping), I pick a place at random from the departure board at the station - Eskilstuna is where I choose (don't ask), and off I go. There were a couple of Americans on the train out who'd just come down from the north - they reckoned now is the best time to head up, because it's doing the coloured dead-leaf autumn-thing. That was qualified by a warning that most of the trees up there are conifers.
As it happens, that piece of information was about the best thing to come out of my trip to Eskilstuna. Pocket summary - coupl'a churches and a handicrafts centre. Even for a Sunday, there didn't seem to be a lot happening: nothing actually. In its favour, it had a nice stretch of water, where it was very windy: so actually that became something of a negative. Also Eskilstuna was small and (frankly) a bit of a dump: it gets 1/10, which is one point lower than Schiphol Airport. Uppsala, on the other hand, gets 5/10 - play for two or three months, but then I'd have to leave from boredom.

Back to Stockholm, and back to the boat, where I discover some downsides:
1.) Portholes are really small and let in almost no light.
2.) Traditionally, many of the doors are really low.
3.) The floor moves.

I wash my hair and use the hostel laundry - I had intended booking a berth on tomorrow night's sailing to Tallinn, Turku or Helsinki (whichever was cheaper), but the various shipping offices are all closed today. One of the first things on my list for tomorrow, then.
One of the other occupants of the cabin (eight to a cabin) was Irish, who informed me of an apparently comfortable Scots win at the rugby. So to bed on a high.