Stockholm and something beginning with 'S'...

Sometimes in life I realise I'm an idiot. I turned up at the hostel after a 7 hour journey across countries from Oslo only to find I had booked for that night and the night before as opposed to the night of my arrival and the following one. I had lost my booking and now they were fully booked. The opportunity to sleep on the train station floor looked mine. But as I'd eaten nothing aside from the remnants of last night's pasta at breakfast and it was past midnight, I was going to take advantage of the hostel's late-night menu from its kitch attached cafe before I left for a waiting room bench. I ordered. I sat down exhausted. And then I realised the lone girl serving me was as exhausted as I was.


'What's up?' I asked.
'I work 3 jobs' she replied. And so began a beautiful conversation in an empty cafe, with jazz playing gently in the background and dimmed lights to keep us company. The scene describes Stockholm; so incredibly, casually cool. It was a moment when life imitates film, and totally plutonic. Sarah, a make-up artist among many other vocations, shared a similar music taste to I and 2 hours later, a couple of cups of black tea and a real good heart to heart she'd found me a spare bed for the night, and I'd introduced her to Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill via Spotify. A fair return. Heading into the heart of this amazing hostel, which looks like an aircraft-hangar-sized Ikea apartment, complete with sauna, it was clear that there was still life to be found. Within ten minutes of settling in I'd made two new friends; Sarah and Lizzie from good old Blighty. Conversation flowed, and continued to with the addition of three other characters to the play; James, Jonny (who insisted on being called Legend, and yes, was just as annoying as any individual who insists on creating and enforcing his own over-sized nickname) and the good natured vegan Mark. By 3am when we finally went to bed we'd agreed to meet the following day to explore as a troupe.

Fellow readers heed my advice: even when making friends as a solo traveller, always be brave enough to stick to your own plans. My new found friends were late risers and I found myself frustrated in waiting until well past midday for them only for their plans not to materialise as they were ill-thought out. For a man only here for 24 hours time was pressing so I settled for meeting up with them later that night and did my own thing. I was only here for the day, they were here for the week.

So what do you do in Stockholm in 6 hours? I phoned a man from a payphone, turned around and walked 45 minutes out of the centre to a large corrugated shed. Then I borrowed bright, buoyant waterproofs, headed to the edge of a jetty, and lifted one leg, then the other off the platform and into a sea-kayak.

I've never been sea kayaking before. I turned up so ill-prepared it wasn't funny. I had no waterproofs, I had never held let alone used a paddle, and I couldn't tell you what the fin thing that goes in the water at the front of the boat was called and still can't. Eric, the man renting me the equipment, was concerned. The water was freezing, with ice on the canals down to the harbour. He refused to rent to me first of all, thinking it was too dangerous if I capsized, being unused to the water. I countered with I couldn't leave Stockholm without doing this, I had a need to film it, and this was one of my dream-activities of our tour. I was too enthusiastic for him to say no.

Eric eventually loaded me up with equipment and helped me into the water. He's a funny personable man not much older than I with a beard (always trust an 'extreme sporter' with facial hair) who laughed at everything. He told me he'd give me odds of about 1000-1 against me managing the trip without capsizing, doing so with a broad grin. Once he finished filling a very wide kayak with sandbags I looked more like the navigator of a tank than a boat.

My first 40 minutes of kayaking was comical. Combine zero technique with my insistence on filming it and you get the idea of how imbalanced I was. I navigated my way around a wide, wide turn straight into a tree almost killing an unaware swan in the process. Then I spent the next 30 minutes going down the waterways dangerously zigzagging from one side to the next, managing to change direction only centimetres from hitting the bank of the canal each time. In the blazing sunshine, looking more autistic than artistic on the water, I was exhausted quickly.

Eventually I got the hang of straight line paddling and found myself working VERY hard to go at a leisurely pace down towards the main harbour. The scenery for the most part of the journey is not stunning, but best described as pleasant. Pedestrians walk the grass paths either side of the canals down towards the harbour and the odd cafe crops up with people sat on decking overlooking the waterfront. By the time I'd managed the 3km down the canals I felt confident enough for a challenge and headed into the main harbour complete with massive boats and shipping lanes. Instantly the water changed, becoming choppy, and very deep. I felt very insignificant and rather too fragile passing pleasure boats and water taxis into the main harbour, seeing the beautiful parliament building in the process. I bee-lined it for the massive bridge between two of Stockholm's 14 islands before turning back and heading 'home' to the rental site. I realised I had over done it. At the very least the next 60 minutes was an arduous slog against the clock to return the kayak before 6pm when they shut and would fine me for late return...

At 5.59pm (no exaggeration) I stumbled onto the jetty, happy, tired, and most importantly bone dry. A smiling Eric was so impressed he chattered away with me for ages and then gave me the rental at half price (equivalent to 15 Euro only)



I returned to the hostel to Swedish-meatballs 'hostel style'; pasta, sauce, and no meatballs (as they'd run out) and got chatting to Lizzie etc. We soon headed out in search of some bars after the receptionist recommended a couple and I navigated. We never found the bars, despite being where they were pinpointed on the map. I felt like an idiot, leading people I barely knew who had trusted me, to the middle of nowhere. On my exasperated return the receptionist apologised admitting that the bar we were trying to find is 'disguised' as a house to keep tourists away and drink prices cheap...a very helpful omission.

Plan B materilalised. A bottle of Southern Comfort (bought for nearly 40 Euro, but happily not by me) found its way onto the table next to a deck of cards. And then a free-for-all of drinking games followed that saw me hitting the hay at 4.30 in the morning to get up again at 6.30am for my trip to the airport. Let's just say when I finally got onto my 2nd RyanAir plane of the tour, I closed my eyes and woke up 2 hours later in Poland having no idea we'd even taken off...