And now, blog from another continent!  Just to mix things up.

Last week Marcelo and I headed over to Sweden to meet up with our brothers.  My brother is moving there for a year away at University and Marcelo’s whanau was based in Sweden with his brother still living in Malmo.

We flew cheap cheap £15 Ryan Air into a airport about an hour and a half out of Stockholm.  Travelling on the cheap is such a pain in the ass.  However, it was a lot cheaper than it should have been thanks to the parentals paying for accommodation. Our first thoughts of Stockholm is that there is just NO PEOPLE.  Perhaps they were all hiding inside to escape the extreme cold instead of wandering out and about like the insane tourists.  Or perhaps we’re just so used to London now that if I’m not constantly dodging people on the footpath then anywhere else looks vastly empty.  The old town reminded me a lot of Amsterdam with its cute winding footpaths and boutique shops.  Damn it was cold though.   There was one point on the second day where I thought my toes had actually died and I would have to amputate.

We spent most of the afternoon in the park where we had found a hill.  We’re easy to entertain.

Jordan and I had our very first experience in an IKEA.  We were both very excited, however, due to no buses running, cold and lost we were all pretty shitty once we got there.  Well, I was.  It was much, much harder than I expected.  I didn’t know if we were meant to grab items off the showrooms or find the right section or where the damn ramp to the next level was argghhhh.  The worst part is that we’d neglected to find out what size bed Jordan had in his dorms so we couldn’t buy bedding – which was the entire reason we went there in the first place… There were tiny hotdogs that cheered the boys up though.

We then SLOWLY made our way back to the University to move Jordan’s stuff in, it was 5pm at this point but looked like midnight.? We let ourselves in the building, couldn’t get the code to work for the corridor then couldn’t get the key to work for the room.  Then we we realised we were in the wrong building entirely and flailed round for a bit to find the right one.  FINALLY, we were sorted and Marcelo and I headed out that night for good time drinks with a friend.

It was about 5 hours hungover on the train to Malmo which is a tiny city but a helleva lot warmer than Stockholm.  We we so shattered with all the travelling that we spent an entire day in the flat in our pajamas playing Grand Theft Auto and eating.

We could have done with a few more days in each city to be honest, it was far too short a trip.

Sweden Photos