Day 4 - Sep. 5th

We woke up early to get Johannes' place all nice and tidy.  We got it looking presentable and eagerly headed out to tackle the next leg of our trip.  We'd arranged to pick up a rental car at an agency that was easy access to the transit lines, but not too away.  We didn't want to go all the way to the airport with luggage in tow, but in retrospect, we would have done just as well if not better going there--we likely would have had a selection of economy cars to pick from.

We were scheduled to pick up the car at 11, and left the apartment around 10:20, figuring it would take about 20 minutes to get there once on the train.  Well, we guessed wrong. It took more like an hour to get there.  The agency was not exactly what we were expecting.  It was a Volvo service garage that had a Hertz desk in the corner of the lobby.  We walked in and there were several mechanics standing around shooting the shit while having coffee, and nobody to be seen at the desk.  Therry asked if we were indeed in the right place, and one of the mechanics informed us that the rental guy had left to go on his lunch break.  We sat around awkwardly for a bit, but the mechanic helpfully got on the phone and called the guy back in.

It turned out the guy was originally from Chile and was much more comfortable speaking Spanish with Therry than English with me.  In any case, it was a relatively painless procedure.  The guy warned us of the surcharge of dropping the car off in Gothenburg rather than returning it to Stockholm.  We were aware of the fee, and accepted it.  A few minutes later, we were ready to roll in a badass Renault Clio.  It was small and basic, and the first stick shift I'd driven in years.  It was also the first I'd driven in a foreign country, ever.

This car makes me feel big.

Ready to roll.

As soon as we were in the car, our rental guy was headed back out, presumably back to his lunch.  We had to drive past him to get on the main road, and I'm proud to say I neither stalled nor got into an accident.  Therry provided navigation for me, and without too much difficulty we found our way to the main highway.  I quickly learned some things.  Firstly, our car either had a .9 or 1.2 L engine.  I'm not sure which, but whatever it was, it lacked any get up and go.  The second thing I learned was that Swedish drivers like to speed in the left lane, and they take the "only use the left lane for passing" rule very seriously.  I inadvertently found myself with a snarling Volvo or two on my rear bumper as I tried to maneuver around trucks and such.

Our ultimate destination for the day was Gothenburg, but first we wanted to swing through Uppsala, We didn't have any specific reason to see Uppsala, other than Therry had read about it in a travel guide, and we figured we may as well check it out.

Our first stop was Gamla Uppsala, which if you paid attention to earlier posts in this blog, you may deduce means "Old Uppsala."  Gamla Uppsala itself is a small village north of the main city, but more importantly, it contains an old church and the Royal Burial Mounds, and was once the epicenter for pagan worship.  Ironically, or maybe not so much so, it was also the one time Archbishopric of Sweden.

Pimpin'

I'm no historian, but I bet this is old.

Not the most impressive organ I've ever seen (that's what she said)

Ahh, that's more like it

St. George fighting the dragon, c. 1452

Swedish coffee machine, c. 1997

We saw these silo things outside lots of churches, but we never found exactly what their purpose was

The burial mounds

I believe that is Uppsala Cathedral in the distance

Nice, um, mounds

Would you accept a ride from this guy?

From Gamla Uppsala, we made our way to "New" Uppsala, which apparently had some old tall buildings.  Uppsala was at one time the capital, before it got moved to Stockholm.  We must have missed the buildings though.  We drove around the city a bit, and it was certainly a nice town, but it was nothing especially noteworthy.  It's home to Uppsala University, which being over 400 years old is impressive in itself, but nothing really compared to Gamla Stan in Stockholm.  I didn't get to see much, as I was mostly focused on not hitting any pedestrians, of which there were plenty.

Our next stop was Anundshög, a site of burial mounds and viking ruins. We were hungry though, and decided to stop for some fast food. We had the option for McDonald's, but we instead chose Max, a Swedish chain.  

 It was pretty good, better than the average American fast food burger.  I'd imagine it's about what you'd expect from Arby's if they made hamburgers.  It was certainly no Five Guys though.  And naturally, it was pricey, about $24 for the two of us.  As if that weren't insult enough, they actually charge for drink refills too, $1.40 per.  Price gripes aside, I have to commend them on their waste practices.  They made you separate the garbage, not just recycling and trash, but individual parts--food, food wrappers, cups, straws, etc.  There were 6 or 7 different bins, all labeled in Swedish and we had to do our best to translate on the fly.  We think we deciphered the puzzle well enough.  Also, in true Swedish fashion, their bathroom impressed me:

From there, it was a short drive to Anundshög, the largest burial mound in Sweden.  Along with it are some old rune stones and "stone ships"

Tell me more about this so called "thing"

Yeah, I'll take the stairs, thanks

 

"Stone ships", nobody knows exactly how they were used, but they certainly didn't float. 

Cool panorama shot. Interestingly, the field in the distance would have been the sea at the time the vikings were here.

It says "Folkvid raised all of these stones after his son Heden, Anund's brother. Vred carved the runes."

.

The row of stones marks out the traditional road the king traveled along as part of his coronation ceremony

There were a bunch of other historical sites in the area, but we knew that we had a long day ahead of us yet, so we got on the road and prepared for a long journey across Sweden. We didn't make it too far before traffic slowed to a crawl, and then came to an outright halt.  People got out of their cars, apparently knowing that we weren't going anywhere for a while.  We were stopped for half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, but it seemed like an eternity as the intense northern sun was blasting in our face.  It certainly wasn't helping our goal to get to Gothenburg at a decent hour.

Finally traffic moved again, and we got to see the source of the congestion: a very minor fender bender.  We didn't even see the second car involved, but the way the Swedish roads are constructed, there was a barrier on one side of the road, and no shoulder on the other, so there was just the one lane of traffic with no way around it.  Sweden, you do a lot of things right, but highway construction is not one of them.  Build some shoulders on your roads so that when a minor accident happens, it doesn't shut down the entire flow of traffic.

In any case, we were rolling west again.  As a naive American, when I thought of Scandinavia, I pictured the dramatic scenery I'd seen in picutures like Norway's fjords.  Well, I was very much mistaken.  Sweden's countryside is quite boring, as it turns out.  It's very flat and agricultural.  It reminded me a lot of our midwest, only with more trees and instead of billboards and religious propaganda, we saw solar panels and wind turbines.

"I'm awake, I'm awake!"

When we were down to about a quarter of a tank, we figured it would would be a good idea to stop for gas and stretch a bit.  We pulled off at a gas station and made some more discoveries.  Swedish gas stations are almost all unmanned and automated, and they mostly sell three grades of fuel:  diesel, 95 and 85 octane.  85 octane was dramatically cheaper, but most cars can't run on it.  And of course, our little Clio fell into that category.  So, we were left with one choice.  To paraphrase Henry Ford, "We got all the grades of gas you want, so long as you like premium."  Therry hopped out and offered to pay, since the rental was on my card.  We were dismayed to see card after card rejected by the machine though, even though it indicated it accepted all the major cards (and cash wasn't an option).  I reached into my wallet and met much the same result, but fortunately, my debit card was accepted.  It took a little over $60 to fill 3/4 of the Clio's tank.  Ouch.

We got to see the sun set and got a few good photos of it:

We finally made it to Gothenburg, having found out a little beforehand how to use the built in SatNav (the Clio came equipped).  We also found out that there were toll roads in Gothenburg, and not wanting to find out how exorbitant those would be, we had the SatNav route us around them.  So we took the back way into Gothenburg, and although it was dark, we got to see some of "real Sweden."

After a while, we got to the housing development where our AirBnB place was.  Our host, Magnus, wasn't there but he'd given us general directions.  Unfortunately, the SatNav didn't want to accept Magnus' address as a valid one, so we were able to find the general area, but not the house.  His address was something like "7B", but the lowest number we could find was like 30.  We drove around the complex for 15 minutes or so, getting increasingly frustrated.  Therry eventually got out to scout the area by foot, and after a few minutes came back with good news that she'd found the place.  Awesome!

But when we pulled into the parking lot, we looked for the reserved parking spot, and found that some asshat had parked his Audi in the spot.  We texted Magnus asking what to do, but didn't hear back immediately.  We were exhausted and more than ready to call it a day, so Therry said she was fine with paying for an international call, dialed Magnus' number, and handed the phone to me.  It turned out that Magnus was the asshat--it was his car.  I guess this was his secondary house and he was in Stockholm, and had neglected to move his car before going to the airport.  He told us that there was some free-for-all parking behind a gate that we could access with the key to his place. But in the case that it was full (which it likely was), there was a pay lot a couple hundred meters away.  Not the best news, but we were fortunate and found parking in the free-for-all area.

On the plus side, Magnus' place was quite plush for our needs, 3 stories and 3 bedrooms, and there was a nice chaise/sofa in the living room.  It was a bit unprepared for guests though, there was laundry still sitting out, and the kitchen wasn't totally clean.  We didn't care so much though. We got our luggage out of the car, got into pajamas, and had leftovers with some drinks while watching Temple of Doom.    

Day 3 - Sep. 4th

We slept in and had breakfast while trying to figure out what to do for accomodations.  We'd only rented Jonannes' place for 3 days, and had to be out by noon the next day.  We figured we'd probably seen enough of Stockholm (Therry especially, having been there over a week).  We set our sights for Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, and on the opposite coast.

We scoped out a few places on AirBnB and I put an offer in for one, after much technical difficulty.  I guess since I was foreign, AirBnB wanted to verify my identity, which entailed uploading a picture of my ID.  I'm not sure how many photos I uploaded, or tried to, only to have it repeatedly fail.  We finally got it to work on Therry's computer though.  After submitting the request successfully, I was ready to get out of the apartment. 

I only had two specific things on my agenda for visiting Stockholm, and that was seeing the Vasa and playing on a good Swedish disc golf course.  Doing a bit of research, it looked like Järva Discgolf Park was not only accessible by public transit, it was also one of the highest rated courses in the country.  And as a bonus, it was 27 holes.  It was a no brainer.  

So, we got geared up and headed out to find the course.  We had basic directions, and Therry's phone to guide us. We made our way to the central station, where we'd pick up the train that would take us to Järva.  The platform to get there was just a few stories up from Hell, apparently.  We followed escalator after escalator, taking us deeper into Stockholm's depths, until we couldn't go any lower.  I'd seen pictures of artistically inspired subway stations in Stockholm, and had wanted to see some.  Well, I imagine most of those are the deep subterranean ones.  This one wasn't as snazzy as some I'd seen, but it was worthy of a photo:

Again being Swedish, although it was artistic, it had a very practical sense.  If the walls were unpainted, the stations would have a distinct post-apocalyptic catacomb feel.  As it was the, air was stale and area felt a bit oppressive, but still it was interesting.  

We didn't have to wait long for the train, and were soon on our way to Järva.  After a bit, we came to the end of the line and got off.  The area we emerged to, in typical disc golf fashion, was the rougher side of town.  It didn't feel scary or anything, it was just apparent that this was the more affordable, possibly subsidized, area of Stockholm.  According to the directions we had, it was about a 10 minute walk from the station to the course. 

We used Google maps to navigate us to the course, specifying the walking route.  That turned out to be a mistake. We followed a walking path for about half a mile, but it abruptly came to an end at a roundabout.  Google had us mapped to follow the roundabout, plus another one or two, towards the course.  The problem was that there was no sidewalk, or pedestrian path at all, that we could see, just a very busy highway.  Consulting my phone and Therry's, we started to doubt that we had the right directions, but typing in the GPS coordinates, we saw that we were indeed close to the entrance.

We knew that there had to be a better way to get to the course, but we were so close, we decided to just go for it.  We walked across medians and over an overpass, ran across roundabouts and followed a drainage ditch.  It was more than apparent that we weren't supposed to walking there, a chain between our legs would have completed the escaped convict look.  But, true to Google's instructions, we saw a sign for disc golf.  Of course, when we got to the entrance, we saw not one, but two pedestrian bridges that led straight to the park.

We walked to the parking lot, but it seemed mostly empty.  Järva is a pay-to-play course, costing something like $8 per person.  It's a little steep for a disc golf course, but I can support that, especially for an exemplary course.  But, we were too early for the pro shop to open, apparently.  We probably waited a good 10-20 seconds for the shop to open so we could pay, but nobody showed up.  So we headed to the first hole.  

I'll let the pictures do the talking here, but I'll just say that Järva is indeed a sweet course.  If I'm honest, I've played some American courses which are better in terms of hole design, layout, challenge, scenery, etc., but Järva certainly takes the cake for presentation.  I've never played a course so well maintained and manicured.  It was challenging, but I think with some practice it would be relatively easy...relatively.  In any case, it was a great course, and included good variety.  Therry didn't throw every hole, or sometimes played from my drive, but she got to experience a lot of it too.  I shot pretty well until the end.  The holes got long and I got worn down by sun and hunger. I stopped thinking about score at all.

Not sure how I feel about artificial obstacles, but this one helped the hole, I think.

This is much of what the "woods" consisted of.  A good rough, easy to find your disc, but you're definitely penalized.

One of the signature holes, though of course the camera doesn't do it justice.  Seen better in this popular video.

A long stairway to the top of a hill. A top of the world shot?

No, not exactly, but it's sure nice to look at.

Screw that mound.  It's a good hole, but seriously, screw that mound.

 Some action shots:

We finished up our round and made our way back to the train station.  Since we'd started, some disc golfers had shown up.  Disc golf culture seems to have a universal constant.  Most of the guys we saw weren't actually playing.  They were hanging out around picnic tables, drinking beer and talking.

We took one of the pedestrian bridges back over the highway, and had a much better time with it.

Sometimes there's good reason to take the path more traveled.

A sculpture in the apartment complex next to the station.

We rode the train back into Stockholm and Therry mentioned that there was a disc golf shop in Sweden, that had open hours on that particular day.  I was somewhat curious, but didn't feel the need to make a big excursion for it.  Then at one of the stops, Therry pointed out that if we got off there, it wouldn't be a long walk. Well hell, if we were right there, why not?  So we got off and again made the mistake of following Google Maps.  We got to the corner where the shop was supposed to be, but saw nothing.  We decided to walk down the block just to see if there was anything there. 

Some cool street art

Sure enough, the very last door on the block had some disc golf stickers on it and a tiny sign for discsport.eu.  Opening the door, we found another door directly behind it, but two feet lower:

We were there during apparent open hours for the warehouse, but the door was locked.  I looked through the window, and though the lights were on, it didn't appear they were ready for visitors.  Boxes were open and laying around everywhere.  It looked like, well, a shipping room for an online distributor.  We figured it was good enough that we tried, and turned around and went back to the train station.

We took a train back to the apartment, managing to avoid the chaos of central station, and by the time we got to our stop, we were getting drowsy.  We had tentative plans to try to ride one of the pedestrian ferries in the evening, maybe catch the sunset.  We took a nap and set an alarm to wake up in time.  But by the time the alarm went off, we decided we'd seen enough of Stockholm and didn't need to push ourselves to ride the ferry.

It turned out just as well. We spent the rest of the evening trying to secure a place in Gothenburg.  I hadn't heard back from the original place I pinged on AirBnB, so we sent out a bunch more feelers to other places in our price range.  AirBnB is a great service, but it really isn't meant for scheduling next-day type reservations.  Fortunately we did manage to secure one place, and we called that good enough.  We then spent a great deal of time trying to find a rental car at a decent price--also more difficult than would be imagined.  It was hard for us to find convenient rental agencies that actually had economy cars, at an affordable rate.  With perseverence though, by the end of the night we had lodging and transportation reserved for the next day.