"Fletcher – get the fuck up!"

I’m currently on the SJx2100 train from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Waking up at 7:45am and making an 8:21am train with ten minutes to spare is an art form, but the events leading up to this should be explained first.

Sunday was tame. Sunday night was not. The Swedish nightlife leaves quite a bit to be desired – state controlled liquor laws make the States look like complete anarchy. We saw one liquor store in all of Stockholm and we never saw it open. The beer sold in the supermarket was 3.5% and wasn’t cheap. All outside bars closed at midnight per state regulations, which blows my mind since you can only be outside at night for about six weeks in Sweden.

In any event, when the bar closed, Fletcher winds up meeting this group of Swedes who can’t be explained as anything other than characters. They end up leading us to this dive bar that had karaoke ironically called the Anchor Pub (anybody that’s ever been to Buffalo, NY knows the home of the buffalo wing is the Anchor Bar). Apparently Fletcher got absolutely wrecked (and racked up a 1000+ SEK bar bill) because the next afternoon when I tried to wake him up at 1:30pm for the bike tour he was completely unable to respond. Rob was nowhere to be found, so I did the bike tour on my own, what the hell. Now, Sweden for all it’s beauty, nature, and splendor has a history that’s almost completely irrelevant. Augustus Adolphus this, warrior king that, blah blah blah. They haven’t had a war in 200 years (which is great, but it makes for a pretty boring history). Berlin’s bike tour in ’07, by contrast, was full of relevant, recent political strife and war and was absolutely fascinating. But once you get past the history, biking Stockholm is something else entirely. It’s comprised of 14 islands so there’s water everywhere – some of it salt water from the Baltic Sea, some of it fresh water. People come out in droves when the weather is nice and the people of Stockholm, on average, are not unattractive people. It’s such an experience, the next day the three of us rented bikes ourselves and biked all around the city. It doesn’t hurt that Stockholm is the most bike-friendly city I’ve ever seen with dedicated bike lanes everywhere (edit: we just got to Copenhagen and it blows Stockholm out of the water re: city biking. More on this later.).

Monday night we met up with our new Aussie friend, Heath Ledger (that’s his real name. no, not really), and went to Södermalm (I believe literally means “the southern island,” but don’t quote me on that). Of course the outside bars closed at midnight so we had to cram into some bar/club combo…when it’s 75°F outside. Cali Rob got to meet the sketchiest guy ever (yes Beth, even sketchier than Dead Weight) before we went to what the Aussie’s call “Mackers” to have a pickle race. Not my idea, but watching Heath Ledger throw a pickle across McDonald’s and hitting the golden ‘M’ on the window might have been one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I guess you had to be there. Don’t blame me for not – you were all invited!

The next night we brought this pair of Dutch girls from our hostel out for karaoke. They were traveling with a group of six from Holland and four had split off and they looked a little lost, so we figured 'what the hell.' They thought it would be a good idea to teach me Dutch as we walked – why does everyone think I’m proficient enough at languages to pick them up on the spot? I can barely get through my own language half the time. We signed up for karaoke again, they didn’t get to us again, and again Fletcher got wrecked and ran up a huge bar bill. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That brings us to this morning. We all set our alarms for 6:30-7:00am. At 7:45am I shot up and realized no one was awake and yelled “Fletcher, get the fuck up!” We hadn’t packed and we had an 8:21 train for Copenhagen about a mile away. In what had to have been some sort of record we were out hailing a cab ten minutes later, and only by the grace of God we were at the train station by 8:11. Once the adrenaline wore off, the hangover set in. I’m sure the elderly woman sitting next to me for the majority of the ride enjoyed smelly, un-showered, booze-ridden Theodore sleeping next to her all morning. Life has it’s little bonuses, I suppose.

Now, for the scorecard, Stockholm (drum-roll please):

Nightlife: C. State liquor laws are just too much, and although this might have been a product of being there the wrong part of the week, the Swedes we met seemed to suggest otherwise.

Women: A. They look like the Children of the Corn sometimes, but they are beautiful people. Hell, if I was gay – which I’m not, thanks - I’d go after a dude from around here. Tough to compete with scantily-clad Mediterranean 20-somethings, but all the stereotypes about Swedes are true; they are beautiful.

Public transportation: A. We only took the Tunnelbana once because it was so expensive and too nice to go underground, but it was solid that one time. The train we’re on right now is quite comfortable, clean, and not prohibitively expensive (unlike the RailEurope, which is a fortune.) The public bikes, not unlike France’s “velib”, are an excellent way to bum around the city, and not surprisingly there is a ton of bike traffic everywhere. I definitely saw a woman get very close to being run over in a bike lane. Quality.

Food: B. God I miss American food. I ordered a sausage for dinner one night because it was “local fare,” and I think I got an oversized Slim Jim with chocolate sauce on it. Rob ordered a hot dog that tasted like plastic, and I got a hot dog wrap filled with mashed potatoes that made me feel like the guy in the opening scene of ‘Seven.’ The seafood that we had (fish and chips, mussels, crayfish) tasted very fresh.

Beaches: F. I think the only beach in Stockholm was this 10’x20’ “beach” on Långholmen (quite literally “Long Island”). Jones Beach it was not.

Parks: A. Greenest city I’ve ever seen. For all the hustle and bustle (yeah, you heard me) surrounding downtown Stockholm they’ve managed to keep a ton of the city green, and people take full advantage of it.

Overall: B+. The nightlife was too weak to get it into the ‘A’ range, but it was legitimately the cleanest, most beautiful city I’ve ever seen in my life. Didn’t seem like a singles hotspot to me (unlike Paralia Katerini) but perhaps more of a couples vacation spot. Nothing wrong with that, just that neither Fletcher nor Rob are really my type.

Copenhagen next. Then Belgrade for Beerfest. Then cutting it back and probably making stops in some of the big cities (Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Amsterdam?) before hopping the pond and making my way back (maybe a layover in Reykjavik?). But plans have a way of changing…