I'm talking about Stockholm, which I didn't write about in the last blog entry, because my time was up. However, since the internet is free over here in Finland, I don't mind :)
Arriving in Stockholm, I went to my host pretty much straight away, except for trying to find out whether my phone stopped working or the two weeks old charger. It turned out to be phone, so at first I was really bummed, but then I was really looking forward to the last week of travel without a phone, because you can manage easily. It's just that you think that you're reliant on it and being without it actually relieves you after a while. Sadly, my host gave me one of his old ones, he didn't use anymore, after my dad pressed me to get a temporary one :)
The next day I walked to the old town of Stockholm and just strolled through the narrow streets. I think I only need one word to describe it: magnificent.
Some pictures would be great here but I keep forgetting the cable for my camera.
Back in the suburb where my host lives, I walked through a nature reserve to a lake because my host was still in the centre. There's nothing much to say here, to be honest, except that it was beautiful. I know I am repeating myself.
That day three Italians, who stayed at the same host, arrived and they prepared some lovely pasta for dinner. The three and I walked to a nature reserve in central STockholm next day and had picnic in the park there. Apart from the most beautiful German embassy I've seen so far, which is situated pretty much in that park, there was nothing special there. Although it's not the greatest German embassy I've seen so far. The greatest one is in Ankara, covers a couple of square kilometres and includes a race track for horses. Not bad, ey?
From there I went to the Central Station and took the night train to Boden to go on to Rovaniemi, Finland. On the night train I had a seat and next to me was sitting a guy from Bangkok who didn't speak a word of English or any other European language. His friends asked me to drag him out of the train at Boden, since he wanted to go there, too. Although that was a nice experience I would have rather had someone to talk to.
Friday 31 July 2009
Thursday 30 July 2009
Two of the most beautiful cities in the world
I am talking about Coppenhagen and Stockholm there, but I'll get to that in a minute.
After I took the night train from Oslo to Malmoe I firstly had a look around in the very early morning. The streets were still abandoned with only the odd workaholics swooping by with their take away coffees in their hand and the odd alcoholic sleeping on a bench with their take away beer cans on the floor. I'd recommend anybody who ever visits Coppenhagen to pop over to Malmoe for a bit. They have a weird skyscraper there, which twists as it's reaching for the sky.
Somehow, it felt very humid and even though it was 7 in the morning and the sun had just reached a position, where it was fully visible, I was sweating. i felt kinda relieved to board the train, even though I had to switch trains once more due to technical problems. Reliability and punctuality do not seem to be part of the Swedish and Norwegian culture. I can only imagine what fuss this would cause in Germany.
Arriving in Coppenhagen I used the internet cafe since it was raining. However, for the duration of my walk through the city centre it was sunny and beautiful. I had a look at the National Museum not because I originally wanted to, but because of the call of nature. The guard there - thinking I came to visit - locked away my backpack because it was very large. So I went for a walk in the museum. I then had a look around the city centre and sat on a wall overlooking a canal and a row of cafes and having my lunch. My lunch by the way is usually very basic. I carry a pot of honey or nutella around with me and then just buy a loaf of bread or a baguette. Very simple but very cheap.
I then went on to meet my host after strolling around in a park.
If you're wondering I usually don't mention the people I meet; that's what my small book is for :) But if you want to have a sample, take a look at www.teufelskerle.dk !
Next day I went on to Stockholm...
After I took the night train from Oslo to Malmoe I firstly had a look around in the very early morning. The streets were still abandoned with only the odd workaholics swooping by with their take away coffees in their hand and the odd alcoholic sleeping on a bench with their take away beer cans on the floor. I'd recommend anybody who ever visits Coppenhagen to pop over to Malmoe for a bit. They have a weird skyscraper there, which twists as it's reaching for the sky.
Somehow, it felt very humid and even though it was 7 in the morning and the sun had just reached a position, where it was fully visible, I was sweating. i felt kinda relieved to board the train, even though I had to switch trains once more due to technical problems. Reliability and punctuality do not seem to be part of the Swedish and Norwegian culture. I can only imagine what fuss this would cause in Germany.
Arriving in Coppenhagen I used the internet cafe since it was raining. However, for the duration of my walk through the city centre it was sunny and beautiful. I had a look at the National Museum not because I originally wanted to, but because of the call of nature. The guard there - thinking I came to visit - locked away my backpack because it was very large. So I went for a walk in the museum. I then had a look around the city centre and sat on a wall overlooking a canal and a row of cafes and having my lunch. My lunch by the way is usually very basic. I carry a pot of honey or nutella around with me and then just buy a loaf of bread or a baguette. Very simple but very cheap.
I then went on to meet my host after strolling around in a park.
If you're wondering I usually don't mention the people I meet; that's what my small book is for :) But if you want to have a sample, take a look at www.teufelskerle.dk !
Next day I went on to Stockholm...
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Country of Fjords
Still in Oslo, but I'll be taking the night train to Copenhagen in a few hours. I could wander a bit more around in Oslo, but the lack of sunshine keeps me inside. Generally the weather has been poor during my city visits, which includes Glasgow, Bergen and Oslo. However, luckily my nature walks in Turnberry at the Open and up the hill in Bergen have been fairly well.
Arriving in Oslo on Friday, I strolled around a bit, meeting some people and waiting for the night train to Bergen to leave - nothing special, except Norway's bloody expensive.
Meeting new people is coming along great. I'm nearly half way through my small book, where I let all the people I meet write in, and I just started properly travelling one week ago. The first six pages or so are from people I met in London, but now I'm travelling on my own I think I've met roughly 30 people in only seven days. And there are about 7 languages being used and some drawings. Not bad, ey?
Coming back to my travels, Bergen was beautiful and I enjoyed it even though the Norwegian I met in Ghana ditched me, but then again I wouldn't have made the great and also weird experiences that I have made. I stayed in a dorm in a hostel, with bunk neighbours from Hongkong, California, French-Canada and Austria. There were also two Italians, but I didn't talk to them. I had some amazing views over the Fjord from the hill the second day, although once I got back down in the early afternoon I was bummed out for the rest of the day. I could've taken the Floyenbahn, but by strolling up the hill I could enjoy nature much more and had some great views, as mentioned before. And of course it was cheaper.
I could have taken the Flambahn, but i would have had to get up at 7:30, which would have been too hard for me. After the train back to Oslo broke down and we had to change trains and then get onto busses because the last part before Oslo had maintenance work going on I arrived 1 3/4 hours late at 00:15 in the morning. My host was already asleep because of work and the train company wouldn't pay for a hotel, so I decided to set out for the bars and if nothing comes up, I would sleep in the centralstation. After being in a bar til 2:00 I left and headed for the station, which was closed. Luckily there were some drunk Norwegians I started talking to and they invited me to join them in the next pub and sleep at their place afterwards. They were three friends and a stranger who celebrated receiving twins that day. After the pub and a couple of rounds of Buzz and Tiger Woods PGA tour 08 I went to sleep at 6:00 and woke up at 13:00. The guy at who's flat I was staying was really great.
From their place I went to my couchsurfing host and slept there for another night.
I've just had a walk around in oslo and saw some sights, like the King's palace, the park with all the naked statues and the Opera house, which cost about 3 billion NOK, 3000 just for each door handle. That's crazy...
Pictures will follow hopefully soon
Arriving in Oslo on Friday, I strolled around a bit, meeting some people and waiting for the night train to Bergen to leave - nothing special, except Norway's bloody expensive.
Meeting new people is coming along great. I'm nearly half way through my small book, where I let all the people I meet write in, and I just started properly travelling one week ago. The first six pages or so are from people I met in London, but now I'm travelling on my own I think I've met roughly 30 people in only seven days. And there are about 7 languages being used and some drawings. Not bad, ey?
Coming back to my travels, Bergen was beautiful and I enjoyed it even though the Norwegian I met in Ghana ditched me, but then again I wouldn't have made the great and also weird experiences that I have made. I stayed in a dorm in a hostel, with bunk neighbours from Hongkong, California, French-Canada and Austria. There were also two Italians, but I didn't talk to them. I had some amazing views over the Fjord from the hill the second day, although once I got back down in the early afternoon I was bummed out for the rest of the day. I could've taken the Floyenbahn, but by strolling up the hill I could enjoy nature much more and had some great views, as mentioned before. And of course it was cheaper.
I could have taken the Flambahn, but i would have had to get up at 7:30, which would have been too hard for me. After the train back to Oslo broke down and we had to change trains and then get onto busses because the last part before Oslo had maintenance work going on I arrived 1 3/4 hours late at 00:15 in the morning. My host was already asleep because of work and the train company wouldn't pay for a hotel, so I decided to set out for the bars and if nothing comes up, I would sleep in the centralstation. After being in a bar til 2:00 I left and headed for the station, which was closed. Luckily there were some drunk Norwegians I started talking to and they invited me to join them in the next pub and sleep at their place afterwards. They were three friends and a stranger who celebrated receiving twins that day. After the pub and a couple of rounds of Buzz and Tiger Woods PGA tour 08 I went to sleep at 6:00 and woke up at 13:00. The guy at who's flat I was staying was really great.
From their place I went to my couchsurfing host and slept there for another night.
I've just had a walk around in oslo and saw some sights, like the King's palace, the park with all the naked statues and the Opera house, which cost about 3 billion NOK, 3000 just for each door handle. That's crazy...
Pictures will follow hopefully soon
Tuesday 21 July 2009
The Open
I'm still in Norway, but since I'm staying with my host and i can use his internet while he's in the gym I don't have to worry about the price for this internet session. As mentioned before, Norway's bloody expensive :)
Arriving in Glasgow on Wednesday after a long trip on the train ... it rained, what else. But luckily I had an umbrella with me and mainly stuck to the shops. There's not much else to do there anyway.
The only reason I actually went out of Glasgow station was to buy a kilt. Just across the street there was a newly opened kilt shop, which had a half price sale - lucky me - so I got the kilt without spending much of my food money. It's a modern Douglas tartan with a leather Sporran.
I then went on to go to my hosts in Prestwick, just 5 minutes away from the Ryanair airport, although I never heard a plane from the flat. My host a Polish guy with three female flatmates, one of whom had a small boy and one who's sister was there to visit.
They were all very lovely and hospitable and I even had an intense conversation about religion with one of the girls the second night. That evening we all went for a stroll along the sea front, which was extremely refreshing and weird because some dogs seemed to like to drink salt water.
The next day I watched the opening day of The Open at Turnberry ... in my kilt. Funnily enough I seemed to be the only one wearing a kilt, and i'm not even Scottish. However, later on I talked to a Marshall, who not only is called Douglas and thus has got a modern Douglas kilt at home, but also told me that there was another Marshall wearing a kilt. I still wonder whether I was caught on camera. Surely it must have been so, since I know the coverage of the tournament to sometimes look at boats along the coast and the commentators saying, what a nice wheater to go sailing it is. I hope that they caught me on camera from behind, because otherwise they would have noticed the missing Sporran. If anybody watched it and saw me, please tell me :)
At first i had a look at all the holes after which I followed Lee Westwood, Ryo Ishikawa and another guy also called something with wood. And I'm not talking about the really good one, which ended up in tied third place, Chris Wood, but the other one that didn't even make the cut.
I know, I don't like Tiger that much, I think he's won enough.
Then I made my way to the first hole, where Martin Kaymer was just about to tee off together with Ernie Els and Lucas Glover. I think Kaymer was tired from winning the last two tournaments on the European tour just before the Open, because he performed not that great. To be fair he ended up in tied 34th place. So after a while I waited for this and another flight to pass by to follow Monty, who was accompanied by Zach Johnson and K J Choi.
Once I've got the money I'll go and watch the whole week of the Open possibly including practice days.
The next day I took the plane to Oslo. Funnily one of the flight attendance was my Polish host.
(Cameras and Mobile phones were prohibited at the Open, so no pictures of that)
Arriving in Glasgow on Wednesday after a long trip on the train ... it rained, what else. But luckily I had an umbrella with me and mainly stuck to the shops. There's not much else to do there anyway.
The only reason I actually went out of Glasgow station was to buy a kilt. Just across the street there was a newly opened kilt shop, which had a half price sale - lucky me - so I got the kilt without spending much of my food money. It's a modern Douglas tartan with a leather Sporran.
I then went on to go to my hosts in Prestwick, just 5 minutes away from the Ryanair airport, although I never heard a plane from the flat. My host a Polish guy with three female flatmates, one of whom had a small boy and one who's sister was there to visit.
They were all very lovely and hospitable and I even had an intense conversation about religion with one of the girls the second night. That evening we all went for a stroll along the sea front, which was extremely refreshing and weird because some dogs seemed to like to drink salt water.
The next day I watched the opening day of The Open at Turnberry ... in my kilt. Funnily enough I seemed to be the only one wearing a kilt, and i'm not even Scottish. However, later on I talked to a Marshall, who not only is called Douglas and thus has got a modern Douglas kilt at home, but also told me that there was another Marshall wearing a kilt. I still wonder whether I was caught on camera. Surely it must have been so, since I know the coverage of the tournament to sometimes look at boats along the coast and the commentators saying, what a nice wheater to go sailing it is. I hope that they caught me on camera from behind, because otherwise they would have noticed the missing Sporran. If anybody watched it and saw me, please tell me :)
At first i had a look at all the holes after which I followed Lee Westwood, Ryo Ishikawa and another guy also called something with wood. And I'm not talking about the really good one, which ended up in tied third place, Chris Wood, but the other one that didn't even make the cut.
I know, I don't like Tiger that much, I think he's won enough.
Then I made my way to the first hole, where Martin Kaymer was just about to tee off together with Ernie Els and Lucas Glover. I think Kaymer was tired from winning the last two tournaments on the European tour just before the Open, because he performed not that great. To be fair he ended up in tied 34th place. So after a while I waited for this and another flight to pass by to follow Monty, who was accompanied by Zach Johnson and K J Choi.
Once I've got the money I'll go and watch the whole week of the Open possibly including practice days.
The next day I took the plane to Oslo. Funnily one of the flight attendance was my Polish host.
(Cameras and Mobile phones were prohibited at the Open, so no pictures of that)
Friday 17 July 2009
Kingston
Just forgot to mention, that on Monday i was in the Fighting Cocks Pub watching stand up comedy with two friends of mine.
Two of the 5 comedians are well known comedians from TV shows such as Mock the Week and have I got news For you. One's Reginald D Hunter, who's show at Edinburgh will be called " The only Apple in the Garden of Eden and Niggers" (That kinda sums up his type of jokes)
The other one's Andy Parson, who did a Scenes we'd like to see with the resident host. Both did their Edinburgh festival preview, which were hilarious.
I'll be writing about Scotland some other time, because Norway's bloody expensive, even the internet cafes.
Two of the 5 comedians are well known comedians from TV shows such as Mock the Week and have I got news For you. One's Reginald D Hunter, who's show at Edinburgh will be called " The only Apple in the Garden of Eden and Niggers" (That kinda sums up his type of jokes)
The other one's Andy Parson, who did a Scenes we'd like to see with the resident host. Both did their Edinburgh festival preview, which were hilarious.
I'll be writing about Scotland some other time, because Norway's bloody expensive, even the internet cafes.
Tuesday 14 July 2009
London - getting nostalgic
So far I've stayed in London for one and a half weeks and I'm leaving again tomorrow.
I wanted to see some old friends and colleagues, which worked out quite good, and to see a bit of London I haven't seen so far, which didn't work out that much, due to a cold i picked up back in Germany and my general laziness.
On Saturday (the 3rd) I was at the summer festival of the German School London, where I met up with former classmates and teachers. Ame old, same old: talking about what's been happening in the last year and so on, except I did have an intense conversation about Ghanaian politics with my former class and history teacher, Mr Stuewe. To be fair, I did more of the talking and he did more of the listening, which seemed to annoy the others, who wanted to talk to him as well...
On Wednesday Sandy (my friend and host) went to see Little Venice and Trafalgar square. He wasn't very pleased by little Venice, because he expected it to be more like Venice in some sort of way, which it isn't really. However, it's still beautiful. Judge for yourself!
After that we went to see the public plinth at Trafalgar square. This time it was me, who had too high expectations. I was thinking more on the line of Monty Python's the life of Brian with satanist ranting about decay of human kind. Instead it was a guy in a red suit jumping around and clapping his hand. While Sandy, being a bloody Christian, went into the next church, I scribbled a bit on the floor in front of the National Gallery. No, I wasn't vandalizing. Two guys distributed chalk to write whatever comes to mind. Most people including myself weren't very inventive, so I'm not going to post the picture of it :)We then met up with Paul, who stayed for two nights also at Sandy's. On Thursday Paul and I went to the DSL Mr Stuewe asked us to talk to his class abut our experiences abroad: Paul about Shanghai and I about Ghana. I think Stuewe enjoyed it more than his class.
Friday night was pub night in Uxbridge, meeting my old colleagues from Testronics, which was really nice.
On Sunday I unexpectedly received a call from my former neighbour asking me whether Sandy and I wanted to go the Oasis concert at Wembley, because he had spare tickets. With out a lot of thinking I agreed and so we went there together with my neighbour and his son. We missed the first band Reverend and The Makers and only caught the last two songs of The Enemy, which wasn't too bad because frontman is an ugly twat :)
Nevertheless, after that Kasabien was on, which was great. Last but not least, Oasis came on and after a slow start they rocked the stage. My companions weren't as impressed, but they only knew two songs by Oasis: Wonderwall and Don't look back in anger.
Apart from that Sandy and I mainly watched movies, played Fifa 09 and chilled out.
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