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travel log 06/06/08 - 06/22/08
Jun 23, 2008
Hello!

So here i start again, but this time is another european journey. The goal is sweden, but it is only a first goal, for europe is pretty big & there are so many places to discover.
i'm traveling with christophe. So we left on friday the 6th. He had found a carpool, a guy, cedric who travels to köln every week end to see his girfriend. We left paris at 4.45pm & arrived at the railway station of köln around 10pm. The guy looked interested in couchsurfing, so i told him a bit about my experiences with it. There was another guy traveling with us, who was also going to köln to see his gf.
They talked about eachothers life & i will spare you with the details for it was far from thrilling. We also got their music which was not much of our taste. But well...
Anyway, when we got to köln, we ate, then got our "week end ticket", which is 35 euros to travel as much as you want, but only using local trains. We got our first train at 00.51am. The destination was rostock. We arrived there around 1.00pm. That was a long journey in the train. i slep a little bi in the train, but was exhausted once in rostock. christophe didn't sleep at all.
Before the last train from hamburg, there were those guys who seemed completely drunk, which they actually were, they were talking so loud, drinking beer & playing cards. They were so excited, for whatever reason, but they really bothered everyone. Anyhow, we were very happy to get out of the train!
All through the way we were really amazed by the consumption of beer german people make. Any where you go you'll see them with a bottle, & in the last train we used to rostock, they were even carring boxes of beer lol!
When we got there, we used a tram to reach deniz's place. He lives in a big apartment with 3 roommates. He was hosting us on the night of saturday. A very cool guy. When we reached his place, he welcomed us in such a friendly way. We left to go to a park to take a nap. We slept about 2 hours, & it felt really good. Then, we walked a bit through the city & found many interesting tags & stickers for me to picture. i was thrilled We ended up in the harbourg of the city. We sat at some point & enjoyed the smell of the sea. We then got back to deniz's place & had dinner. In th evening christophe & deniz went to a store & they met a group of punks that came here for a rally against the NATO. We hadn't heard of this rally before & were quite pissed we missed it. We then had a shower, & got out in a pub with him & a friend of him, christian. We had interesting conversations about environment with him. He works in the protection of it. New & interesting perspectives. i really love couchsurfing for it makes you meet people you'd never have met otherwise. On sunday, we woke up late, then went to the beach. It was really overcrowded. People were all lying in the sand, but i was pretty cold. i had like 2 pullovers lol! Crhistophe found the courage to get into the water, but was freezing to death when he got out. We then walked a bit to some woods at the end of the shore. We were still tired of our sleepless night in the train. We got back then had to get ready to take the ferry: the departure was 10.45pm, but it seemed wise to leave earlier. We first figured out 8pm, but eventually left around 7.30pm, which was definitely a good idea for we had to take a tram, then a train, then a bus & the last bus was at 8.10pm, & if we had left at 8 we would never had it! So we ended up waiting for a long time at the ferry place. It was a soccer night, germany vs poland, so all the german people were watching it. Even in the bar at the ferry, they were all overexcited! The bus driver (taking us from the ticket place to the ferries) came out late of the bar. Anyhow, it was just to take us some 300 meters further!
In the ferry we settled in some lounge & i slept a bit, christophe could not. The sun rises quite early in sweden (around 4am), & we went on the deck to watch it, it was orange, almost read! How gorgeous. i made some pix of it, it was a delight! 2 guys had actually settled on the deck to sleep, i was thinking they must have froze to death! The trip took some 7 hours & led us to telleborg where we arrived at 7 am. There, we walked to the bus station, to check the buses going to malmö, & on our way, we were welcomed by 2 peacocks We were really exhausted & it took us a little while to figure out what to do. We decided to not go to malmö on that day, but wait until tuesday, & we wanted to find a beach to settle for the night. We asked a bus driver which beach was the best & he gave us the direction of a village called Skåne. We went there & discovered a wonderful little village, with an empty beach. We first settled the hammock, then slept in it for a while, then went back in the sun & fell deeply asleep for a few hours. When i woke up, i realized how gorgeous the place was & pictured the beach. When christophe woke up, we decided to go back to telleborg to get some food. There were no buses coming, so we hitchhicked. One wonderful & friendly guy took us after 15mn. He drove us to the foodstore, explaining us how to reach the bus station & all to go to malmö, he was very nice & positive! We got the food, then took a bus back to the beach, it was pretty busy until late at night, but we had dinner, & made a fire. We then settled the tent & went to sleep. We had to wake up early to catch a bus to take us to the one bus going to malmö. Everything went ok. Once in malmö we found the bus stop to go to kristinnehamn & after 5 hours in the bus, we went to a foodstore to get things to eat, then decided to go directly to karlskoga. We were thinking we might find some woods on the way to sleep, but the bus we took, used the highway & we ended up in the city, which actually is big! So after a long time searching for a map, we found one, & figured out a place where we could camp, but there were no more buses at this time, we decided to walk, & after a few kilometers, we found some woods in the middle of a residential area, pretty quiet, & we decided to settle there for the night. Many crows welcomed us.
When we woke up on wednesday morning -we had actually planned to leave early so no one would notice we slept there- it was raining, so we decided to stay until it stops. We left after noon & decided to walk back to the city. On our way to find the bus taking us to the lake we were looking for the previous day, we were saying that we would ask the first hippie looking guy we'd meet about disarm08. About 30 seconds later, we met a young hippie looking guy & asked him if he knew anything about the camp. He did, he actually joined last year. We talked a bit & he even invited us to sleep at his place if we needed to. He gave us the directions to some spot he thought would be the place, near a lake. So we thought it'd be good to find a place to sleep. He left us his phone number & insisted that if we needed a place to stay, his apartment was ours. We then looked for tourist office & found it closed. Since it was next to the library, i went inside to check the internet & get the phone number to contact the people of disarm08.
As we were watching the map of the city, we decided to settle by a lake more south, called angslöjen. So we first went to get some food, then to the bus station to check out the time table. Then there, we saw this girl who looked like going to the camp. We asked her & she is part of the organization. She was waiting for others to pick her up. We talked a bit & she was telling us to come over even if it had not begun yet. But we were decided to go to the lake angsjölen, so we took the bus to there. The driver didn't speak english & he misunderstood what i said in my poor swedish, he actually misunderstood my finger on the map & stopped us before the path to the lake, but we found a friendly driver who showed us the way. We walked about 2 kilometers to arrive at the lake. The sky was so pretty, the whole spot was gorgeous! We decided to stay here at least a couple of days. We made a fire to warm us up, had dinner, then stayed out for some time & settled the tent in the woods. The rain suddenly came, but since the sun was still shining, a rainbow, then 2 appeared in the sky! It was less windy there then by the water. But a group of tiny mosquitoes (locally called "knot") attacked us. They were bitting like crazy, & the only escape was to stay in the smoke of the fire. We then went to sleep, feeling safer in the tent. i woke up very early in the morning & went for a hike in the woods, a bit further from where we were staying. i saw so many amazing birds, some modeled for me, others were running away! When i got back to the tent, christophe was awake. We made fire again for the sun was not particularly bright, hidden by some dark clouds. Since we were already running out of the water (we first thought we would drink the water from the lake, but it didn't look too good) we went to a store not that far from the place. We brought some more food also, to stay longer.
On saturday, we decided to go to the disarm rally, we left the lake to get the 8 am bus & got to karlskoga before 9. We waited a bit, then went in a park. We got to the meeting spot around noon to learn they had been here since 10 am & were about to leave. So we joined them & got to the campground in linnebäck. We settled the tent behind the disarm camp actually, in some sunny spot by the woods. In the evening we were once again attacked by the "knot" & even the local people have nothing to deal with them. Anyway, we talked to many people in the camp, gathering info about other things happening during the summer. But nothing quite interesting. Anyway, one anarchist camp happening in the beginning of july, during one week, on an island in the south east of sweden. If the cold & the mosquitoes don't kill us before, we might go there.
People here are very friendly, the 2 people we met at the bus station hugged us when they saw us, & all the new faces were so very friendly. We even met girls we met in brussels for the NATO: game over. Saturday afternoon was very sunny & warm for a change. That was a delight to warm up in the sun. In the evening we watched some movies about peace actions in the us.
On sunday morning i went for another hike in the woods. i met many mosquitoes, but other interesting insects to photograph.
We took part to some discussions but everything was in swedish. Fortunately some people were able to translate for us.
We talked with some swedish animal rights activists, with finish activists too. The attacks from the "knot" were crazy. The nights were incredibly cold. We decided on sunday night to leave. The first bus leaving from the campground was at 5.17 am. We woke up on monday morning & took all our things. As we were getting out of the place we put the tent, we saw a police car that was counting the number of tents in the camp. We waited for them to leave, then walked to the bus stop. As we were waiting, another police car came, that was a lady. She stopped her car & came talking to us. She introduced herself, then asked many questions about us & what we were doing here. The bus eventually arrived & took us to karlskoga. There, we wanted to find a warm place to sit, so we walked downtown, but nothing was open. We noticed the cope had followed the bus & was now following us! As we reached the center of the city, another police car came out & followed us aswell! So we decided we could not stay there, not even one night. Our plans being to camp in a park downtown. So we walked back to the bus station, thinking about either going to slottsbron, where my mother grew up or go to skove, where a girl i know lives. As we got into the bus, we decided to go to karlstadt (final destination of the bus) then slottsbron. i called my mother once there & asked her about a nice spot to camp. She mentionned a beach on an island, about 2 km from the village. So we got some food then took a bus to slottsbron. (mum, only watch those pix if you feel ready for so much has changed since you las went there!) Once there, i could hardly recognize anything, so many new buildings, & my grandparents' house was now hidding behind a huge brown fence, built by the new owners. i was pretty exhausted, we walked to the beach, & once there, what a delight! The sun was warm, we fell asleep on some rocks, then explored an old abandoned house, then talked. Most of you guys know how much i enjoy picturing abandoned buildings. It was really awesome! One odd thing is that sweden has so many nazi tags & this place was no exception christophe tagged the tags, which was great! The water was very cold, yet the air was warm & the sun shining bright!
We found a nice place on the rocks to settle the tent. The night wasn't too cold & not mosquitoes or "knot" to bother us.
When i woke up in the morning it was pretty cold though. The lake was covered by a huge & very white cold fog. i decided to go for a walk in the village. i couldn't recognize much. Too much had changed. So many things had been transformed or even destroyed. i pictured many houses, familiar places, then got back to the beach. We spent the day resting by the water. Early afternoon, an old woman with 2 dogs came to us & asked us how long we were planning to stay, reminding us it is only allowed to camp at a place for 24 hours. We replyed nicely, & decided we would then stay another night. So on wednesday morning we packed to go to säffle, where my uncle lives. But it was time to leave since the bad & cold weather was back!
Once in säffle, it was easy for me to find the way since nothing had changed from my childhood. We first went to a bar to get some warm drink, then i called my uncle who was at work. We decided to meet at 4 in the center of the town. He had changed a bit from what i could remember. The last time i saw him was in 2001 when my grandmother died. He invited us to his place, & in the evening, his son eric came & took us to his mother's house. It was so great to see them again! We ate strawberries together
Bawk to owe's apartment, we talked some more then went to bed. He was working the next morning, but left us the keys. We got the chance to do some laundry! i went for a walk in the city while christophe was sleeping, then we went to get our train tickets to malmö ffor the next day. In the evening, my cousin was playing soccers so we went to the match. There, we met my cousin sofia. She got back home with us & we talked a bit. That was awesome! Some more talk with my uncle the next morning, then we took the train at 1.18pm. That was the beginning of a non stop trip back to paris. We took the ferry in trelleborg at 10.15pm & got to sassnitz around 2 am. There, no bus, nothing. We stopped in a field to rest a bit. After an hour, & having seen many police cars, one stopped to ask us what we were doing here & also to show them our ids. After a few minutes talking, one of the 2 cops offered to drive us to the railway station. It was 6km from where we were & before they come we were gathering courage to walk there. Of course we accepted! That was so funny to be in a police car & that they were playing the taxi for us lol! Once at the station, we only had 1 hour before the departure of the train. We decided to go to köln again, for we had a carpool leaving from there on sunday morning. We arrived saturday in the end of the afternoon. We were extremely exhausted. We tried to find a way to get back as soon as possible to paris, but not train would make it on that night. We thought about staying in some lounge during the night, then try to take a but that was leaving at 6.45am the next morning. But we weren't sure they would take us since you have to buy the tickets from the desk & this desk was closed until 8am the next morning! But we wanted to give it a try. So we went to a lounge in the station & settled, talking about the next trips once back in paris. At some point, i was really tired & we decided to lay down & sleep a bit in the lounge. i took my sleeping bag out & fell asleep. The police from the station woke us up at 6am. We then got to the bus & had the wonderful surprize the driver accepts to take us. We suspect he kept the money of the tickets for himself, but it really doesn't matter!
So we arrived in paris on sunday, around 2.30pm. Uhhh! A long & exhausting trip, but full of many adventures!
So back in paris now, but for a week to the most, then, next destination: south of france then spain. We still need to figure out the plans, but it should be some existing moments!
Anyhow, i hope you'll enjoy the pix! Thanks for reading & allow me some time to reply your messages if you sent me some.

To be on continued
pelagus

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Posted: Jun 23, 2008 2:23am

 
 
 
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pElAgUS hellot
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