By Many Means

I’m now speeding away from Stockholm. I’ve had a weird couple of days, with my “away from home” pit of the stomach illness taking until Tuesday afternoon to hit at which point it hit hard. At that point I couldn’t see the days ahead being anything other than a disaster. They haven’t been, though I did have to take a personal day of just sitting and sorting photographs. It’s at least better than my record, which was a full fortnight of the ill feeling before I simply gave up.

Dresden surprised me. I wasn’t expecting much, and the weather was not in its favour, but I liked it. I liked the suburbs, which I often don’t. I didn’t dislike the Soviet-era architecture, which is never pretty, let’s be honest. Brutalism didn’t do the UK any favours either. The old town is one of the gems of my trip so far, even if I never want to see any more porcelain in my life. Even the occasional undertone of “this is like this because it was obliterated by the British unnecessarily” was somewhat poignant, having grown up with the British stories of the Blitz.

Berlin did not live up to the hype train. Maybe I was not in the correct mood for it. Likely, it would be much better with a companion, and maybe not in the high tourist season. A pro-tip for the uninitiated is that many museums are closed on Mondays. The city redeemed itself with having easy access to the water, a calming influence which staved off emotional disaster for a full 24 hours.

Snälltåget’s Berlin Night Express is highly recommended, if only for a railway experience which is sadly dying out. I had some lovely travelling companions who understood the lonely experience of travelling solo, and had so much time for my nervous conversation. If you wish to do that train, you have the option of booking out a compartment privately. Go in a group of four people, and pay the extra. I only wish I’d had time to go up on deck on the ferry, but by 11pm I was exhausted, and my companions had turned in.

The Øresund bridge which I squeezed in between my inbound train to Malmö and leaving for Stockholm, is unexciting in itself from the train, given that it’s the only place along either coast you can’t actually see it. The view of Sweden on one side and Denmark on the other, however, is wonderful.

I didn’t see enough of Stockholm. It’s a very contrasted city, and the thing it doesn’t seem to do well is transport. It’s very expensive, which I expected. I could see liking to live there, but as a flying visit alone, there was something missing. The layout is odd, the T-Bana is just awkward enough to use that it’s not worth the bother, and the local transport association seem allergic to explanation. The city is again redeemed by its lakes, and its issues are likely a result of those lakes. The rest of Sweden is just lovely, and is a country to definitely see from the ground, by train. I’ll have to come back.

My journey continues from Norrköping to Oslo today.

That was the stop on my grand tour which was the most likely to have gone wrong, with some not-insignificant amount of internal turmoil involved in visiting a friend who for reasons quite numerous I grew apart from. It went well. Much better than I could’ve hoped for. In many ways, that leg was the reason this trip ended up happening — born out of the need to establish how much we have changed since we met in 2014. I now understand much better the reasoning that led to us falling out of touch.

Forgiveness is important, both towards others and towards ourselves.
Nothing is gained through hatred and anger.
By whatever means, finding a way back to those you care about is beneficial to both involved.
I’ve taken this to quite a literal conclusion, and it ended well.