Winter in Scandinavia

Tucksfors, Sweden

27th December 2002

On boxing day morning around 3:30am I woke up, had a showed, got my bags which I had pre-packed and got picked up by my boss and his wife to drive to Sweden. We went as a 2 vehicle and 1 trailer convoy. We headed from Northern Germany through Jutland in Denmark all the way too Fredrikshavn. On the way to Fredrikshavn we stopped at a gas station near Viborg. I went inside to get some breakfast, they didn't seem to have much so I got a hotdog with loads of ingredients that I'd never seen before nor didn't ask for. The clerk at the station was really good looking though. Eventually we came to board the ferry in Fredrikshavn, about 2 minutes before we were asked for our tickets for the ferry ride my boss realized his passport had expired. Didn't matter though since we weren't checked at all during our journey.The boat ride across to Gothenburg, Sweden was really nice except for the service at the restaurant on the boat. The cashier looked as though she was doing something but she looked at me like she was expecting me to say something. So I said "Can I have a large coke" and she said something back to me in Swedish, so I said "L-A-R-G-E... C-O-K-E-C-O-L-A..." and she again repeated something back to me in Swedish, so I said "Kann Ich bitte eine Gruss Cola haben" and she said to me "Wait a minute! I'm Busy!!".As I walked around the boat I noticed there were loads of kids as young as 7 playing on the slot machines. I thought to myself that this can't be legal until I realized that we were in international waters and there weren't any rules that applied to us. After the 2 hour ferry ride we arrived in Gothenburg and began driving up to Tucksfors where we had 2 cabins on the outskirts. Tucksfors has the E18 highway go right through it, the highway that connects Oslo and Stockholm. There were a lot of frozen waterfalls along the side of the highway.At around 6:30pm, 15 hours after I first awoke, we arrived at our cabin here in Sweden. I'm sharing the cabin with my boss, his wife and Anja. The cabin is nice and cozy with all the amenities of home. The TV has about 40 channels, being English, French, Swedish and German. My room is about 2 x 3 Meters and has a bunk bed, which means my room is smaller than some bathrooms. The kitchen has everything we need and the air outside is the freshest I've ever breathed. Were really in the middle of no where with very few people around.After we got settled, Rainer and I went over to the other cabin to get some food. It was pitch black even though it was only 7:30pm. Along the way I tripped into a snow bank but I wasn't hurt. When we were leaving the second cabin Rainer slipped on the ice on the steps, landing face first in the snow bank and in his words "Owa Scheisse meine bender!!!". His foot was really swollen but it started to go back to normal by the end of the night. Around 8:30pm we had dinner, it was of the Danish variety so you know right away most of it was disgusting and inedible buy anyone whom isn't Scandinavian or North German. They seem to like to put Leberpastete on bread which looks more like wet cat food than anything else.I spent the remainder of the evening drinking with my flat mates, playing on the PC and talking with my family back home. I'm made plans to return to Calgary sometime in mid-January.This morning I woke up at around 9am. Rainer and I headed walked for 2 hours along the motorway into Tucksfors to exchange cash and find a bakery. After about 40 minutes of searching for a bakery we walking into a sweets shop and Rainer said to the cashier "We search a baker". (Insert moment of silence and empty looks here). The woman replied "No baker, that there small bread, yes?". She pointed at a small grocery shop across the way. Rainer then said "There is no baker here?!?", at that point we exhausted this woman's English skills so we headed over and got some Bread from the small shop. I would write a comment here about being in a western country and having to walk 3 KM and search through a small village to find bread but we choose to walk for the exercise and Rainer wanted Bread from a Baker like the kind we have in Germany.In the afternoon I went with Anja and her family to (one minute while I open charmap; Start Menu -> Ausfuehren -> Ssffnen -> Zeichentabelle -> OK) Ssrjäng. There we walked down a street and got some food for dinner. On the way back they got some price quotes from a crap ski hill near by. Hopefully we go to Valjället instead. After word, I came back to my cabin and watched a bit of Skynews and CNN, it's always nice to enjoy my own TV instead of the crap I put up with in Germany.