After a 4am wake up ready for the transfer to Keflavic airport, i sadly packed my bags and prepared to leave. when I arrived there was hardly a soul at the airport, but this morning the queue for Icelandair was snaking around the airport, so having only 1.5 hours before my flight out, I started to stress as the queue inched closer to check in. I was starving as it was too early for brekky at the hotel and no food is served on this airline, unless you buy from their overpriced menu, the flight to Stockholm was 3 hours or so. On arrival in sunny Stockholm, I purchased a very expensive return express train into town, nearly $80, so skybus is cheap as! From the Central station, i had to get a local metro 2 stops to my hotel, and it certainly was a good choice as have been all my accommodations, i recommend bookings.com which i have used for all my trips and not had a bad hotel yet! the hotel was fairly old and in a groovy street with cool cafes and shops and I discovered it was walking distance from the lovely old town, the city centre and other museums, the ferries, etc. I walked a lot even though I purchased a 3day travelcard for trains, ferries and trams! Yes they have trams! I saw some great architecture, photography museum with a Robert Mapelthorp exhibition, old and new postal advertising at the Postal museum, a massive medieval ship The Vasa, recovered intact which sank on its maiden voyage and they built a museum around it, and enjoyed exploring the old cobblestoned town. But, it was not as clean as Iceland, and i saw a few homeless men scavenging thru garbage bins.
the food, like Iceland is expensive, so I avoided restaurants and ate kebabs, empanadas and shopped at the supermarket.
I was sightseeing and walking hours on end and was so tired every night, it stayed light til nearly midnight but there was some darkness unlike in Iceland. Everyone speaks English like in Iceland so it is very easy to get by. I nearly went to Ikea as there is a free bus from the city, but decided against it as there was no room in my bag for a Sven sofa or even an Erik mixing bowl! It was 27 degrees C, and very warm with icecream sales booming! people stripped off to their underwear in the parks on the grass and anywhere there was a bench to sunbathe!
then back to the airport on the very expensive shuttle train and fed every few hours by Qatar air. the only incident worth mentioning is I nearly got quite burnt as the attendant passed over a cup of tea while the man in front dipped his seat back, and dropped it on my lap! I shot up and danced around the aisle, soaked with hot tea and the attendant was in shock. Lucky it was not boiling water, but my hand was hurting and i was not impressed being wet down my t shirt and jeans, lucky i had a shirt packed in hand luggage!
So arriving in Melbourne, our good old met let me down as i raced from skybus to spencer st station, i got the 11.30pm train and when we got to Flinders St, it just sat there for half an hour, no announcement, and when I checked the board it was departing as the next train, so i got home after midnight and dragged my weary body and luggage home!
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