It all started when Min had to see a naked guy in the corridor of the youth hostel we stayed in Göteborg. You know how they say, what you see in the early morning when you wake up, determines how the rest of your day gonna be.. Alas, this superstition turned out to be true, in our case. Weird things happened to us along our journey, the whole day! There were these two country men, one man with crooked front teeth and his companion, a short man carrying a lantern in one hand and charcoal in the other. They were actually really nice country folks who tried to help two poor young girls who got lost.. But the funny thing was, how we communicated with each other, they didn’t know a single word in English, and we, with zero knowledge of Danish. Oh, and the guys with white jumpsuits (is it how you call the full-body suits, similar to what the fire fighters wear?).. Since we got off the train in Copenhagen, we saw so many young guys in white n white.. Something was going on, we didn’t know what, but it was indeed a funny sight! Also, there was this guy at the station who confused us and asked us to get on the wrong train, and then suddenly ran away. Thank goodness, we didn’t listen to him, we rechecked with another man and finally got into the right train. It was rather a wicked day, Min and I celebrated Halloween in a strange way that no one would’ve ever imagined. Well, not that we expected it either
Okej, maybe I should start from the beginning. Min (an exchange student from Seoul University, Korea) and I planned to travel to two of the southern cities in Sweden, Göteborg and Malmö, and along the way, decided to cross the Öresund Bridge that connects Southern Sweden and Denmark, and to spend a day or two in Copenhagen as well. It’s not the first time we backpack together. We’ve been to central, or more precisely, north central region of Sweden the previous week. The region Dalarna, and the towns (or rather village) we visited, Mora and Nusnäs were famous for the handcrafted wooden horses that are referred to as the ‘symbol of Sweden’. Nothing adventurous happened on that journey except that one time when we missed the last bus from Nusnäs to Mora and had to hitchhike to get to the nearest town.
But this time, it was different. I should say I was never scared this much in my whole life.. So, let me start from the beginning.. On last Friday, 28th of October, Min and I started our 3-day backpacking tour passing through 3 main cities in Southern Sweden and Denmark. Well, also this coastal town in the northern-most point of Denmark, but I’ll come to that a little later. We took an early morning train from Uppsala to Stockholm central station and transferred to another train that goes to Göteborg. The whole journey took around 4 to 5 hours. Göteborg is indeed a beautiful city. It lies in the western coast of Sweden, and also has a popular port. We visited some museums in the city. The best one was the Maritiman – some docked warships turned into a museum, where we were allowed to get into a submarine that is still floating in the water! We also walked along the main streets, had fika (that is, a coffee break) at a small café in the seventeenth century town called ‘Haga’, and climbed on a hill to see the night view from a medieval tower/fortress called ‘Skansen Kronan’.We are two poor backpackers, so we brought our own food (bread, cheese, butter, nutella, apples and bananas) and stayed in very cheap youth hostels, sharing bunk beds. I was glad that Min preferred to sleep on the upper part of the bunk bed, since I am terrified about sleeping so high above the ground. During the whole tour that lasted for more than 3 whole days, we ate bread with cheese/nutella for all 3 meals, except for that one lunch we had at a restaurant in Nyhavn, Copenhagen.
Everything was perfectly fine the first day in Göteborg. Though we were heck tired walking in and around, back and forth through the whole city, carrying heavy backpacks, we were still so happy and proud that we got to see many places in a single day. The youth hostel we stayed in was warm and cozy. We had our own private room, even though we had to share washrooms and showers with all the other guests. The next morning, on Saturday, we had to take an early train from Göteborg to Malmö, so we set up our alarms and decided to wake up around 5.30 in the morning. Well, I have to stress that I sacrifice my sleep, and wake up early in the morning, only for the sake of travelling, and NOT for anything else.
That morning, as always, I was too lazy to get up from the warm, cozy bed. Though awake, I was still lying in the bed and watching Min take her things and go to the bathroom. She took a step out of the door, and rushed back in with a gasp, “Oh, my god!” I was alarmed, and asked her what’s wrong.. “There’s a naked man in the corridor” – Gosh, I didn’t know how to response, to be surprised or to laugh.. Well, the only thing I know was that it’s gonna be a weird day.. I suppose, he was a guest staying in a room next to the showers and washroom, and I’m sure he didn’t expect anyone to see him that early in the morning. But anyways, our day started off like this.. And it was an early sign of what was awaiting for us the rest of the day! Well now, it doesn’t mean that we continued to see naked people along the way, it’s just the weird and unexpected things happened to us the whole day.
The weather was quite bad on Saturday. Yeah, let’s blame it on the weather. It was so misty that the train we took from Göteborg to Malmö had to stop because of poor visibility. The train stopped in a town somewhere in between Göteborg and Malmö, and we had to catch a bus from there to get to Malmö. The thing about travelling in Sweden is, all the announcements in the trains, all the signs, and names, and everything else will always be in Swedish. The only sentence they will announce in English in any intercity train is, even in any utter serious circumstance, “if you need information in English please contact our staff”. And that’s it. It’s how we missed our connecting train and had to take a bus when we were travelling in the central Sweden a week ago. But this time we were alert and asked a Swedish couple to explain what’s going on. The girl was very nice. She was translating every announcement, and helped us get into the right bus that goes directly to Malmö. The whole journey took more time than we had expected, and we were starting to worry since we had a pre-booked train that departs from Copenhagen to Stæremosen at 4.30pm (where our other youth hostel is). In order to catch that train, we should leave from Malmö to Copenhagen on time. It was rather a hectic schedule.
Though we didn’t get to spend much time in Malmö, we went to the Malmöhuset – the castle and the museum inside, and walked along the streets. I think Min liked Malmö better than Göteborg, since it was smaller than the other, and the architecture was quite old and nice. The great thing about travelling with Min is, we both share the same interests (we are after all anthropology students!!) and we always want to go to the same place. So far, the journey was wonderful and the people we met were usually very nice. Many of them offered to help us even before we asked, especially with the directions, and sometimes with buying bus tickets. Bus tickets are always complicated, the rules differ greatly from city to city: some buses don’t accept cash, some only accepts coins, and others will require you to buy tickets at some machine or a convenience store. Anyways, there are definitely some advantages for girls travelling alone. People take pity on you, and always want to help you. Min and I really enjoyed passing as poor helpless young backpackers. It usually works quite well.. We can easily get rides back to the town, we can be sure that people will definitely help us with the directions. But then there are times when being a girl on the road is not so advantageous. It was when our ‘happy journey’ turned into a ‘scary journey’.
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