A bad start to my Christmas

**Continued from the beginning of December 18th.**

I left the house and hauled my suitcase running all the way to the bus stop to catch the bus. The bus was going pretty slowly, so I was worried I might not make it to the train station on time. Once I got to town, I went as fast as I could all the way from the bus stop to the train station. I got there a few minutes before the train was supposed to leave, but the train was running late because of bad weather (it had been snowing the night before, so I had some time to wait. The train took a lot longer than normal. Then I had to get off in Manchester and switch trains to get one that would take me to the airport. It was running really late too, so I had to wait around again.

I finally got to the airport terminal and had to spend some time figuring out how to get to my hotel. I could see it, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there without just making a mad dash across the middle of the street while dragging my suitcase behind me, so that’s what I did.

There was a bug line to check in at the hotel, but I checked in and went to relax in my room. I was looking forward to a nice, long sleep in a big comfy bed. 

A nice big bed!

I decided to use the Internet to check the status of my flight to London for the next morning and I found out that it had been cancelled! All the flights going to London had been cancelled!

I freaked out a bit and phoned my parents, trying to figure out what to do. I tried seeing if I could find someone to ask, but by that time the lobby was filled with people looking for rooms, and the only person I could get a hold of on the phone was only able to tell me that my flight definitely cancelled. Eventually I decided that I should catch a train to London and try to make my flight for the next morning.

I went and bought a train ticket, then packed up my stuff, and lugged it all the way back to the station. I was about 10 minutes early, and trying to figure out which platform I was supposed to be on, when a conductor who was hopping to go yelled at me that I should hurry up and get on the train because it was leaving, so I did. I was a bit worried that I was on the wrong train, but then I realized that it didn’t matter since they would all go to Manchester Piccadilly anyway.

I got off at Manchester Piccadilly to find out that the train to London Euston had been cancelled. I got in a line hoping I could get a refund or something, but got distracted by hunger, and went to find food. While I was eating I saw a couple guys get into a bit of a fight, so that was my classy dinner entertainment.

At that point, I wanted to just take the train back to my hotel, sleep for the night and deal with everything later, but then I heard them say that there would be a train leaving for Euston at 8:30, so I decided to catch it. I waited on the platform, and it was a long and cold wait. Then they said that the train would be 20 minutes delayed. A train finally came to the platform, but then they said that we couldn’t get on it. 10 minutes later, they relented and let us on.

After sitting in the train for a bit, they came on with an announcement saying that it would be at least another 45 minutes before they could leave. At that point I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I basically just passed out.

The train finally started moving at about 10:10, and I spent the ride trying to sleep, and partially listening to the conversations going on around me. Of course we ended up arriving in London incredibly late (around 12:30), so the tube had already stopped running, and of course there was no one around to help everyone figure out how they were actually supposed to get to wherever they were going with their train tickets.

Arriving at London Euston.

I decided that I needed to try and find a way to get to the airport, so I tried to figure out the bus schedule, and then I went looking for the bus stop so I could catch a bus. I caught a bus and headed off to Paddington Station.

Once I found my way in, I just sat down on a bench and started crying. I was exhausted, upset, cold, trying to find my way around a huge city I had never been to in the middle of the night, and alone. I was sure that my Christmas was about to go horribly because it was off to such a bad start. I needed to find a way to pass some time, so I started writing in my journal, and I wrote until my fingers were cold, then put on my gloves and wrote some more.

Cold, dark Paddington Station.

There were some workers there, but not many other people.

Eventually I had to get up and start walking because I was far too cold. By that time, it was a little past 2 in the morning. I got to the other side of the station, and an elderly man came up to me asking if I was on my way to Heathrow. When I told him yes, he asked if I’d like to share a cab with a nearby couple. It definitely seemed a little sketchy, but I was too cold and tired to care anymore. I just wanted to be somewhere warm, so I said I’d share the cab to Heathrow with them.

He took us out to his car, and I was surprised to see that it was just a regular car with a “cab” sticker in the window. It seemed sketchy, but I figured that I would probably be safe with the random couple. It turned out that they were from Romania and had been visiting Cardiff. It turned out the driver had moved to London from Morocco 40 years ago, so he spoke French.

We got to Heathrow Terminal 1 safe and sound, and as soon as we walked in, all you could see everywhere were people lying on the floor with tin foil blankets. So many flights from the day before had been cancelled due to snow that the airport was filled with people sleeping on their luggage. Someone had even set up a tent. I made my way to terminal 3 to find the Air Canada counter.

Tent in the middle of the airport.

Water bottles and tin foil blankets were about all the help anyone got.

I found the Air Canada counter, and a space on the floor nearby so I could sit down and write in my journal. By that time it was about 3 in the morning (on Sunday), and I had only slept about 6 hours total since Friday night.  I wrote for a while, but I was sitting rather close to a door, and rather quickly, it became too cold for me to stand.

I headed back towards the Air Canada desk and ticket counter, and that was when I found the People’s Republic of Canuckistan. The people in front of the ticket counter had draped their tin foil blankets over the queue posts, making a fort, and had erected a sign that said “The People’s Republic of Canuckistan” on a piece of newspaper. It made me proud to be Canadian.

The fort in all its glory.

Close-up of the sign.

Next - The adventure continues at Heathrow.

Into Week 7 and a day in Manchester

**Apologies for the length and the outdatedness. I'm trying to catch up!**

On Friday (November 19), my only class had been cancelled, so I got to have a relaxed morning. I got up and went to the bank to sort out my bank card and put some money into my account. When I came home, there was a crowd of people outside the back of my house for a big protest about rising tuition fees, and cuts to spending. I sat for quite a while in the lounge just chatting with whoever was there, and watched a couple episodes of Peep Show with some housemates around dinner time. I also got an email form my lecturer saying that I would be able to write the exam early so that I could go to Dublin!

That night 4 of us decided to have a bit of a flat night out (with only 1/3 of the house, it wasn’t the most successful). Claudia, Ash, Stef and I wanted to do a bit of a bar crawl just because Stef and I hadn’t really been to many places in town. We started out by going to the Friary, which is a big old friary building that has been turned into a pub. It was quite a nice building. We played a game of pool (me and Ash versus Claudia and Stef), and it turned out that none of us were very good at all (the consumption of alcohol probably didn’t help the three of them). Ash lost us the game when he sunk the 8 ball. Andy and Jonny met us there, but we left them to head to Cuba, a club we hadn’t been to before. It was pretty fun, there was a fair number of people there, and the music was decent to start with although it seemed to progressively get worse as the night went on.

My Crew ('cause that's how I roll).

We stopped for food on the way home and then all decided that none of us wanted to buy anything, so we just went back to the house. I was pretty tired, so I headed to bed fairly shortly after. It was just as I was trying to go to sleep that I realized how much work I needed to get done in the next week, so I started freaking out a bit and had a hard time going to sleep. Then I had a bad sleep because I had a dream about my dead dog dying all over again.

I woke up in a terrible mood on Saturday. Bad dreams, stress, a bit of a stomach ache, and a lack of sleep made me feel like crap. I chatted with some people in the kitchen before I headed off to the library to try and be productive. I read a fair bit of my Marketing text book before I packed everything up and went home because I was so tired.

I napped for a couple hours and then got up and had some dinner while watching another couple episodes of Peep Show. I was so not hungry that day that I didn’t even finish the food I made for myself (that’s rare).

That night I decided to forgo going out in order to get some more work done, and I got a bit of my French composition written before I went to bed.

On Sunday, I got up because Alex had promised to make pancakes for breakfast. I went to Central (the little grocery store by our house), and picked up some CANADIAN maple syrup, and some chocolate chips to go with the meal. We had 6 people from our house (me, Claudia, Alex, Mitch, Duc and Kevin), plus Alex’s friend and Mitch’s girlfriend. It was really tasty, I enjoyed my maple syrup.

After the meal, Claudia, Kevin and I decided to stay in the kitchen and clean EVERYTHING. We washed all the dirty dishes, cleaned the counters and the floor, and Kevin vacuumed the stairs and corridors. The place looked beautiful once we were finished. The rest of the day I spent reading and washing anyone’s dirty dishes that I found left around our kitchen.

On Monday, I spent most of the day reading again, but I went to the PhotoSoc meeting in the evening. We watched a documentary called Shooting Robert King about a war time photographer. It was quite interesting although it had some rather gruesome parts. It followed him throughout 15 years of his life starting at the age of 24, so you really got to see how his career flourished as the years went on. The rest of my evening was spent trying to get more work done.

On Tuesday, I went to my normal class, and then had a massive nap before my afternoon class. I spent the rest of the evening trying to get work done, and prepare myself for my trip to Manchester, but I managed to squeeze in a Skype call to my friend back home, just so that I could see the moustache he had been growing for Movember. And it was just as creepy as my friends had warned me that it would be.

Lolz on Skype.

On Wednesday morning (November 24), I went to my seminar, and then the lecture that I had before immediately rushing to catch a bus into town. I went straight from the bus station to the train station in order to catch my train to Manchester, but I ended up with more time to wait than expected, so I had lots of time to buy myself a snack while I was waiting.

Lancaster train station.

Once I got to Manchester (after sleeping for most of the train ride), I just started wandering, looking for some food for lunch. I ended up getting a falafel sandwich, and kept wandering.

I ended up at the Town Council, where there was a big Christmas Market, so I walked around there for quite a while looking at all the things and smelling the food. I ended up buying myself some mini Dutch pancakes coated with icing sugar that were piping hot and delicious. Then I went into the City Hall (/Town Council or whatever), and looked at the jewelry show they had set up inside. There was some very nice and very expensive jewelry there.

City Hall.

Random, creepy robotic moose head on one of the market stalls (some kind of German restaurant or something).

I came out of the building, and went walking around the back, towards the direction I had come, when all of a sudden, I saw a huge group of people heading towards the back door of the building. Then a flood of police officers ran in front of them to block the door. It turned out that it was another big protest about rising tuition fees, so I stayed there for a few minutes to take some photos of the crowd of people with their signs, and all the police officers trying to keep the peace.

The first few people to get to the City Hall.

The crowd grew very quickly.

Swarms more people up and down the street.

Then I went to the Art Gallery. It was pretty nice, there were quite a few paintings that I enjoyed, even though probably the most interesting part about it was being on the upper floor and looking out the window towards the City Hall. The crowd of protesters had gotten even bigger since I had left, and there were more police officers as well. It looked pretty exciting.

My view from inside the Art Gallery.

By the time I came out of the Art Gallery, the crowd had dissipated, and it was starting to get a little dark, so I bought myself a sausage roll from the market and decided to head back towards the train station and theatre. It let me get a few last photos of Manchester before dark and meant that I would be back closer to the theatre for the ballet.

I ended up going into a coffee shop buying a Pumpkin Spice latte (which was entirely too much coffee for me, I still can’t persuade myself to like coffee), and just sat there reading my Marketing text until I decided it was time for some dinner.

I ended up going to a little Italian restaurant for dinner, and had some pizza before heading back to the theatre.

I got to the theatre just as they were opening the doors to let people in, and I found myself a chair and read more as I waited to get to my seat. There was a little TV showing the stage, and I watched it for a bit because you could see some of the dancers practicing. I was SOOO excited that I was about to see The Nutcracker for my first live ballet!! It was like my childhood dream come true!

When I finally got into the theatre, I really liked my seat because I ended up sitting behind a woman who was quite short so I had an easy view over her head. The theatre itself was beautiful, and I took a couple photos of it before the ballet started (I wasn’t allowed to take any photos of the performance itself).

Outside the theatre.

The stage.

Part of the theatre.

The performance was great! I enjoyed it so much! From the beautiful costumes, to the live music (the music that I have always loved!), it was the perfect way to kick me into the holiday spirit! It was great timing that that morning had also happened to be the first morning I had seen frost on the ground! It was finally starting to feel like Christmas!

After the ballet, I headed to the train station (which was literally across the street) to wait for my train and read more as I was waiting. I finished my readings while I was on the train and then I chatted with Stef for a while after I got back before I went to bed.

Heading back to Oslo

**2nd half is heavy on the writing, sorry I have no photos for it.**


I got on my 8:30 train, and got a seat no problem. The train took us to Karlstad, where we had to get off and switch to buses due to construction of some sort.

I got on the bus that was headed to Charlottenberg, and it took about another hour to get there. When I got there, I walked around a bit, down what I think was the main street, and over by the library. I found an absolutely MASSIVE candy store on the main street. Half of the store was essentially bulk bins with candy, while the other half was mostly pop, but a bunch more candy as well. It made my teeth hurt just being there.

Massive candy store.

Random statue.

I was really tired, and carrying around my big backpack was hard, so I decided that I had explored as much as I wanted to (it was a small place, and the only reason I wanted to go there was because it had my name), so I just headed back to the train station. There was a pancake house right beside the station, so I went in there and had a "banana surprise" pancake which was essentially a crepe filled with whipped cream, some chunks of banana, and chocolate sprinkles(!), and drizzled with chocolate syrup.

I stayed in the restaurant for quite a while, relaxing and looking at the couple big (and a little outdated) maps they had on the wall. Then I basically just waited in and around the train station until the train came.

I got back to Oslo, and back to the apartment without any problems, and had a relaxing evening, mostly just surfing the web. When L got back home, I told her about what my plans were for the next day, and we worked out that it would be best if she drove me to the train station and I could take the express train to the airport from there. I stayed up late just for the sake of it, and made sure everything was ready to travel.

I got up early the next morning with everything packed and ready to go and had my last breakfast with L. She was kind enough to cook me some eggs and a sausage, and it was delicious! We headed out a few minutes later than planned, but I got my ticket and hopped on the train without any troubles.

I got to the airport, and headed into line to get my boarding pass. I got all the way through the long line and then the woman at the ticket counter looked at my paper and said, "You're at the wrong airport. That one is about 2 hours away from here." Since there was less than 1.5 hours until my flight left, I knew I couldn't do it, so I headed over to the ticket line to buy a ticket to Manchester.

The next available option they had was a business class ticket and I would have gotten into Manchester at 10 pm which was long after the shuttle to the university stopped running, and since it was so expensive, it wasn't really an option. I got a ticket that would leave at 11 am the next day, and the only good part was that it was a direct flight (my original one transferred in Copenhagen). I phoned L to let her know what happened, and she said she could pick me up at the train station, so I got another ticket for the express train and hopped on.

Because of some kind of construction that was happening, the train was about 15 minutes late getting to the station. L found me, and we decided to leave my bags there in a luggage locker overnight because I was probably going to have to get myself to the train station the next day.

We hurried back to her car because she didn't have much time left, and when we got there, there was a man who was writing her a ticket, even though she was only about a minute late. He had only started writing it, but he said that he couldn't undo it, and she got a huge fine even though she was standing right there! It was equivalent to about $120 CAD, and I felt really bad that it had happened because of me, so I told her that I would pay for it.

We got home, and I sent some emails to let my university know that I would be coming late, and then I went and had a four hour nap because I had gotten so little sleep the night before. After I woke up, L came home and helped me with some food for dinner, and then went out again.

I wanted to find some way to get the money to pay her fine, but there were no bank machines nearby, so I started freaking out a bit and decided I needed to phone home. Unfortunately I didn't have a phone, so I just went on Facebook and waited until I could get a hold of one of Keith's friends to text him to go on Skype. Then I decided that texting probably wasn't fast enough, so I made the guy phone my house and tell my parents to go on Skype. Haha, I owe him. I think he took pity on me when I said "I'm accidentally in Norway." Lucky thing my brother has nice friends.

After a fairly long chat with my family (the first time I had talked to them!), I went almost straight to bed, so I could get up really early the next morning.

Next - leaving Oslo.

Farewell Denmark, Hello Sweden!

I managed to wake myself up at about 6:30 am Sunday, and got myself up by about 6:50. I checked out, and was hoping to take the bus to the train station rather than make the 30 minute walk with my big bag, but it turned out I had just missed the 7:30 bus, so it would be at least as fast if I just walked.

I hopped on the train that was headed to Malmo, and I got there at about 9. I headed out almost straight away to find the Turning Torso (Scandinavia's tallest building). I walked and walked, and I could see the building in the distance, but it felt like a mirage that was never getting any closer! Finally I turned a corner, and I could see the whole thing, and I eventually made it all the way there. It was a really cool building. After that, I headed back to the train station to grab some food and reserve a ticket for the night train to Stockholm.

Turning Torso.

I explored the area around the train station a little, and then I called Kaycie to warn her that I was going to be on a train heading to Ystad very shortly. Kaycie is 4 years younger than me, but I know her from high school, and she's on an exchange in a little town called Ystad, so I decided it would be neat to go visit her and see the town! Before I left Malmo, I bought myself a sandwich that I'm pretty sure was made with the liver spread stuff that's popular in this part of the world.

I got to Ystad and had a lovely little visit with Kaycie as she gave me a tour around the town. It was nice to have a tour guide, and the town was adorable! She's a lucky girl to get to be there! We saw the old churches, the theatre, the park, the harbour, the school, and lots of adorable little houses. She introduced me to Swedish candy (there were a couple stores there with a FANTASTIC selection of candy), and we had fika (a fika? Kaycie says it best translates to coffee date, but can have a wide variety of meanings) at a little coffee shop.

Inside one of the churches.

Kaycie's school.

Train and bus station.

View from the dock.

When she had to go home for dinner, I explored a little more and grabbed a Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream bar as I was waiting for the train. We had been talking about peanut butter and ice cream, so it sounded especially good right about then. I was really glad I stopped for that little visit! Ystad was such a cute little town, and I would never have seen it if I didn't know someone who was there!

In Ystad.

Random, cute house.

I headed back to Malmo, and started looking for a restaurant. Kaycie had said that Max had good food (especially fries), so when I saw one, I decided to go in. I got a falafel burger with fries and it was delicious! Then I found out that they have free wireless internet here, so I stuck around to take advantage of it. All of this so far has been written at the Max.

After I left the Max, I just went to the train station and got my backpack out of a locker then hung around until my train was ready to leave.

I was in a sleeper cabin because that's apparently all that the train had. It was a 6 bed room with a bunch of strangers, but I slept better than I would have in a chair. We got into Stockholm at 6 am, and I'll continue the story next post.

Google Translate says that this sign says that you ARE allowed to flush the toilet while the train is standing in the station. But it still makes me think of that song.

Århus

So I managed to wake myself up at pretty much exactly 7 am (cause I'm magic like that), and I got ready and out the door quite quickly.

Side note "About this hostel": Kinda cute, kinda sketchy. It's toeing a fine line. The common area is pretty nice, but the bedrooms are a little sketchy. I wasn't feeling like much of a backpacker when I had a sleeper coach on the train and my own shower on the ferry, but now I feel like a backpacker. I am on a 3-person bunk, and there are 2 toilets and 4 showers in the bathroom that serves approximately 80 beds (a couple more if every one is full). This means that you have to get up really early to beat the rush. There is a Muslim girl in my room (who is from Malaysia and is studying in England), who gets out her prayer mat usually before anyone else is awake.

I got to the train station, and it took me a little while to figure out what was going on with my Eurail pass (even though I had used it to get discounts in Norway, no one had ever really looked at it or stamped it, so it only got activated now). The ticket counter man told me that I didn't need to have a seat reservation in Denmark, but in Sweden I probably would.

So the reason to get a seat reservation in Denmark is so that you don't have to stand. Because they really don't care how many people get on the train. The cool thing about Denmark is that every seat has a little lit tag above it saying where that seat is reserved from and to. I got lucky and managed to get a seat for about the first half of the trip before I had to go stand.

I got to Århus about noon, and got a little distracted by the mall that was attached to the train station, but then I started exploring a little. I walked up and down a couple streets and then ended up back where I started to get some information from the tourist office. I picked up a little city guide with a map and then I decided that I would try to find the Art Gallery since it looked close by.

Barfing pig fountain. I thought it was funny.

I loved the Art Gallery! It was too bad, because a couple of their exhibits were closed, but their special exhibit was absolutely wonderful!! It was an artist named Julie Nord, and her stuff was all very detailed and cute but usually had a touch of evil to it. There was also a video explaining a bit of her thought process while she was working on one of the pieces. It even had the perfect music to compliment the art. I thought it was all great!

View from inside the Art Gallery.

One of Julie Nord's works that was on display.

They had some good classic paintings from Danish artists throughout the years, and some contemporary art that was arranged in a really neat way, but like all modern art, kind of hit and miss. They also had this giant fibreglass sculpture of a boy that was pretty creepy. In the very basement, there was this really creepy "light display". There were all these dark hallways, and a few really dark rooms that had some sort of videos playing. And the scariest thing was this little bridge in a room that was all mirrors, so it looked like everything went on infinitely!

Creepy giant fibreglass boy.

The mirror room that was so scary I couldn't even look. This is the floor.

The darkest room. It was so scary. Even my camera flash could hardly light it up.

I bought myself a copy of the book of Julie Nord's exhibit, and a couple postcards and grabbed lunch at the cafe in the gallery before going off to explore more.

I found a little museum that was almost all local history. It didn't have much that was in English, but there was almost no one in the museum (I saw about 3 other people total), and the lady at the front reception was super nice. She explained what all the exhibits were about and warned me that there was only English in one of them, and even gave me the student discount just because I said I was a student (I was ready to dig through my bag to find my ID card).

Model of the city that was at the museum.

After the museum, I decided I was pretty tired, so I would just hop on the next train back to Copenhagen. The train was super crowded, and I didn't get a seat. It was super hot too, I was sweating buckets with just my tank top and everyone else was all bundled up. There was a girl who tried to ask me something in Danish and when I told her "I don't speak Danish," she said "But English?" and I said "Yes," and she said "....why..." and I don't think she spoke English well enough to figure out how to ask me what she wanted to ask me, so she just trailed off and left it at that.

When I got back to Copenhagen, I pretty much went straight back to my hostel and worked on getting things onto my blog before I headed to bed.