Saturday November 29th
I had been in Canterbury at my daughter’s graduation ceremony and now I was on my way to Stansted airport to catch the midday flight to Stockholm Skavsta airport. Although the online check-in facility had been used a few days before, I arrived at Stansted still with 2 hours to go. I can recommend the online check-in if you are travelling light, it does save a lot of hassle.
On going through the security screening a seat was found to spend the next hour or so. Looking at the screens it could be seen that there were delays in departure for the early flights, probably due to the fog that was still lingering in the area, but as the morning progressed flights were gradually leaving on time. One of my favourite shops at airports is the whisky one; you can’t beat a good malt whisky! Hence the picture of me in front of the shop.
Of course the purpose of the trip was to visit my old school friend, “A” who now lives in Eskilstuna, a town about 40 miles west of Stockholm. He has been asking me to visit for a number of years, ever since moving into his new flat. I had seen the blocks of flats being built on my last visit to Eskilstuna, 4 blocks of flats each at a corner of the football ground – I was looking forward to seeing how much of the pitch he could see from his windows.
The screens announced that the Skavsta flight would depart from gate 44, so after a gentle stroll along various corridors the gate was reached, but no plane there yet. It eventually arrived just before 11.30am so I was expecting some delay, but to my surprise we began boarding just after 11.45am. Despite the “credit crunch” and economic gloom, the plane was still full of passengers. I got sat next to a couple of young Swedish girls who were busily chatting away in Swedish. Although I do know some of the language, I was only able to pick out a few words, still much for me to learn!
The flight itself was quite uneventful, the purchase of red wine and salted peanuts helping to relieve the boredom. At 3.10pm Swedish time, the plane landed at Skavsta airport. With travelling light, there was no baggage to collect, so once through passport control it was straight out into the car park. The speed of getting through the airport caught my friend by surprise, so it was a few minutes later that he came to say hello. By this time it was beginning to get dark, and the sky looked grey and heavy. Despite the outbreaks of rain hitting the windscreen, I was still able to see local Swedish wildlife in the decreasing light as we headed for Eskilstuna. A couple of deer were car spotting by the roadside at one point, and further on a stag crossed the road in front of us.
Arriving in Eskilstuna it was not long before we were parking the car and heading in the lift to A’s flat. It was a spacious 2 bedroomed flat with lovely views across the town, and of course the football pitch. It was too dark to take pictures today, I will take those tomorrow, but I was most impressed. The Swedes know how to make the most of space. As pre-arranged, as A was dealing with transport and accommodation, I would treat us to meals out each evening. As it was Saturday, he knew of a sports bar in town where we could have a few beers and a meal while watching football on the tv. So it wasn’t long before we were walking in the drizzle to the town centre. To be fair it had been some time since A had visited this bar. In the intervening time, the sports bar had been transformed into a high class restaurant which had only just opened. Undeterred we still ventured in, although I could feel my credit card wincing at the thought of a big bill at the end of the meal. As one would expect from any Swedish restaurant, the food and service was excellent, the young waiter seemed to enjoy practising his English with us. The meal finished it was time to ask for the bill which duly arrived. I handed over my credit card and off went the waiter. A few moments later he returned, most apologetically, to say that his machine would not accept my card. I had arranged with my bank to accept all transactions I would make in Sweden on the card, so as you can imagine, I was very frustrated. Undaunted I gave him my debit card, but again his machine would not accept it. Fortunately we managed to gather together enough cash to pay the bill, but it was very tight.
On our way to a local bar we stopped at a bank and I was able to draw some cash using my credit card, so we knew then the fault had been with the restaurants machinery, not my cards. The bar we went to was called the Bishop’s Arms, a Swedish bar made to look and feel like an English pub. There was a good choice of local beers as well as some English ones; needless to say quite a few were sampled during the night. Unfortunately, there was an English guy in the bar, the sort you are embarrassed to meet when travelling abroad – had too much to drink and was very loud. You can imagine our surprise when during the course of the night it became apparent that this guy was the bar manager, such a bad advertisement for the English.
So it was that after a few good beers, we made our way back to the flat for a final cup of tea before bed.
|  | 
|
