![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kribbanI finally came around to write this. I've hidden it behind a cut to protect the un-interested.
Disclaimer-ish: I also want to say that I know most of you as well as most of my friends travel all over the world every year and I am in no way trying to make my domestic weekend trip sound any more interesting than that. You have to understand that I never go anywhere. I don't have much money and have never been outside of Scandinavia. That's why to me this is a big deal. Also I'm not writing any other account of my trip so this LJ entry is as much for my own memory as it is to brag. So there.
:-)
Malin was off from work on friday due to being sick so I didn't have to do all the last household chores (such as giving the cat lots of food and water, watering the plants and turning the radio on) by myself and rush to meet her at the station. We had planned to trip so that we left on a payday (the 25th) so that we wouldn't have to worry about money while we were away. Malin didn't wake up until after two o'clock. I did some last minute shopping and she did the chores. We had pizza, I packed in a hurry and we left for the busstop. We still left late enough for me not to have the time to buy credits for my cell phone but otherwise we were on time. Once in town I waited at the busstop while she rushed to the automated teller with both her and mine creditcard. The bus that we were taking was new to me and mostly to her as well. The wonderful thing about it was that the commuter service took us all the way from our home in Geneta to the ferry in Nynäshamn. Most people would pay 150 SEK to get to the ferry from Stockholm and back but we who lived in Södertälje could travel all the way, door to door, with the commuter service. 40 SEK total for Malin and free for me who has a commuter card. Yay for Stockholm County's commuter service!
The bustrip was long but interesting. We'd brought soda and strawberries and looked out the windows. I had almost forgotten just how much countryside there actually is just outside the cities. We were worried that we'd have to walk far but the bus took us just outside the ferry terminal. It was so much smaller than I remembered. Granted I only saw it once in the evening almost two and a half years ago. There was a almost an hour and a half until the ferry was leaving and it hadn't arrived yet so we sat down and had some coffee and cocoa at a little table. I was very nervous. I had been nervous the past few days and I was slightly nauseous. We joked about the mass of people who after fifteen minutes arrived with the bus ("Do they not know that they can take the commutertrain to Stockholm for half the price?") and who lined up in queues when there was no rush and the boat hadn't even opened yet. ("That's flock mentality right there, they have to take the over-prized bus provided by the ferry-company and they have to stand in un-neccessary lines simply because everyone else is.")
Eventually we went to queue when the ferry opened. I hadn’t been on a boat since that first trip to Gotland two and a half years ago and before then never. It was quite easy compared to the hassle of airports. You just went up to the counter, with your luggage, and showed your receipt from the Internet. There were men accepting luggage and I almost left my bag with them but they said mine passed as handluggage though it was huge, very huge. It had wheels whould prove to be good for my shoulder as Malin had chosen the smallest carry-on she could find, only to learn that it didn’t fit nearly as much as she wanted and was tiring to carry around. Ha! I am glorious in the triumph of having been proven right. Gloating is a useful tool in long-term relationships, that is something you should learn, dear![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
silversolitaire. Anyway, we went on board the newly commisioned ferry which looked a lot smaller on the inside than the old ones although it took more passangers and was larger. It probably was because all the seats were on the same floor. We left our bags inside the boat and went on deck. Malin has a thing for boats and the ocean, she claims it’s the elvish streak in her but I don’t know.
We were on the deck as it left the harbour. At first I didn’t realise the ship was moving! I only realised as I saw a blinking thing moving through the water and briefly wondered if it was a submarine before I realised it was a boey and the ship was moving. We went inside to fetch our bags for the family that had watched them for us and we found ourselves a table. We had the cheapest tickets on the outward trip so we sat in the restaurant section with everyone else. We had our own table and eventually got another one near the windows. I had planned to do some major writing and reading but found I was too tired so I just ate some cookies and strawberries and tried reading a tourist guide over Gotland instead. Malin would go out every once in a while to smoke on deck and I followed her once but found it was far too windy and cold for my taste. After about two hours we saw the infinite black when we looked to the left and a string of lights when we turned our heads right. “What’s that?” I asked and Malin said it must be Visby. It was over an hour until the boat was to arrive but she said it must take such a long time to travel that distance. We bought a hamburger & a sasuage with mashed potatoes to eat. It wasn’t very tasty but it filled it’s purpose of filling our stomachs as Malin said. When there was about twenty minutes left Malin packed her bags and left for deck. I stayed behind and tried to write an UA but found I was too tired. I packed up and left for deck finding that we had pretty much arrived at Visby already which was a disappointment. I had looked forward to seeing the town emerging from the black void. We stood on deck and saw as the captain fought to dock the ship and we looked out at the town. She thought she spotted the hostel we were going to stay at and it later turned out she was right in her assumption. When we finally left the boat we were tired but excited. One of the passengers were greeted by his two dogs who were ecstatic about meeting him, most people laughed at this. The terminal in Visby was as small as the one in Nynäshamn and looked about the way I remembered. We went to the bathroom and I mentioned to her it was the same one Robert had shot up in to and a half years ago – I have a sick sense of humour. :-)
We went outside, asked for directions and walked towards the prison. It was really not that far to walk, it took about ten minutes since we walked slowly with our luggage. It felt very strange that after all this time we were finally there. It was cold outside but we soon came to the prison which was impressive in its size, it’s stone walls painted yellow and barbed wire on its roof. A large stone wall with more barbed wire on top surrounded it and the windows were covered with metal bars. I got a bit of a shock when I opened the letterbox and didn’t find the envelope with my name on it, but it turned out to be in the letterbox behind the code protected doors. We found our room, or cell, fairly quickly. It was a bit scary to go past the door to the sealed off basement that we later learned held the isolation cells with metal beds that were still in use five years ago. Once we got inside our room however it was quite cozy. We came to the conclusion that it was never used as a real cell since it was not in the cellblocks but in a wooden compartment that seemed out of place. The walls had been painted and the floors changed so any negative energies were long gone. The beds were of course also new.
In the actual cellblock there were signs on the doors. “Here slept Tektor Lundquist - the last prisoner who was executed in Sweden until he was decapitated.” Call me squeemish, but I wouldn’t have wanted to sleep there. The prison was in use until 1998.
In our room was a bunkbed and a spare bed that we decided to use as a sofa and storage for all our stuff. The window was very deep and we placed lots of stuff on the windowsill, including two little tea light holders with candles that we’d brought to create coziness. Squee! The restroom was across the hall and although old looking had a freshlooking showerstall. We had brought our own sheets as was required and after making our beds (I got the top one), washing up and taking a look around we finally went to bed almost two hours after we had arrived. Through the window we could see the ferry we had arrived on.
It was definitely too late to fall asleep because when we woke up at 9.30 we were both dead. Since January I always get nauseous when not having slept enough so I had that to cope with in addition to being too tired. After washing up in the restroom we rushed up to get breakfast which was included in our stay. Most of it was gone of course but I ate some tea and toast and yoghurt in the dining room called “Pub Tektor”. Morbid, isn’t it?
I was really tired and that bothered me since I really wanted to enjoy the city. I went to the bath room and found I had no problem enjoying the shower despite the dirtyness of the room. ;-)
Malin went and got a shower too and then we finally got dressed and sort of packed. She went out to smoke and I took a really long time because I had to pack everything: camera, make-up, hair brush etc, since we didn’t know if we would stay out all day or not and I wanted to look good for the restaurant. Malin was smoking outside and waiting for me. I always make her wait for me.
We walked down the harbour to an icecream parlor where I bought a soda bottle to keep in my pocket for nausea and some icecream which we ate outside. It was quite cold and windy. No sun in sight. This was really sad considering that Visby has 320 sunny days a year… We continued to walk and I bought a roll of film and loaded my camera. We walked down the beach and Malin got that religious look in her eye that she always gets when she sees the ocean, the real ocean where the horizon just goes straight out in to the water, no land in sight. On the boat the night before she was joking that she “comes from a long line of sea farers” which apparently is true. We conitinued to walk and turned upwards towards the town. We came to a park called Almedalen, famous for hosting all party leaders during the televised “Politician week” in the summer. Now it was inhabited by dozens of ducks and swans that were sleeping, their tiny heads burrowed down in their feathers. In the middle of the pond was a huge statue of a metal duck. Outside the park, in front of a long stone wall where some knights who where practising sword fighting between the green of the trees. Malin sighed and said “Oh! These people! These people (roleplayers) roam freely here!”. Malin is a roleplayer but hasn’t been practised Live roleplaying for almost nine years. She photographed the knights in secret and then we moved on. We came to the Bathing Friends’ Botanical Garden which I remembered from my first trip to Gotland. That time my brother and I were sitting on the benches in the snow covered, withered up garden, freezing our pants off while waiting for the clock to turn 9 am and the city to open. This time the garden was in bloom and green although not yet in its prime. The Bathing Friends were a couple of drinking, middle-aged, upperclass gentlemen who would regularly meet for drinks and baths. They decided that the public’s knowledge of plants and herbs was important and in order to sustain this knowledge and indeed the interest for plants they founded the botanical garden which to this day is taken care of and open to the public. We saw an archway in the great wall that we had by now encountered and walked through it to find the ocean and the beach on the other side. We saw a black cat striding purposefully down to the beach and we beckoned it but it ignored us and ran down to the water where it perched. I photograped Malin and then we went back into the garden. I photograped two entish looking trees who garded the entrance to the garden with a mass of blue flowers at their feet.
While in the garden my mom called and I told her I hadn’t been able to buy credits fot my cell phone. She was very excited about our “wonderful initiative” that she had once called it and asked how everything was. Malin and I then continued to walk up to the town. At every glimpse of a ruin we walked up to it, stared and then continued to walk in somewhat the same direction.
The town of Visby is surrounded by an eight hundred year old stone wall, built to keep the peasants out. Within these walls are seventeen (17) church ruins. The wall is 3.5 kilometres, it takes about an hour to cross the city and during the peak of Visby’s civilization no more than 3.000 people lived within the walls. Nevertheless they saw it necessary to build seventeen churches. And these are not small churches either. The ruins are huge remnants of cathedrals, reaching up to the sky. I wonder what it’s like to live like that – with giant ruins squeezed in between (more) modern buildings. We read that since the 19th century it is forbidden to change the ruins but before that several ruins where chopped up and used to build houses. So there were more than 17 to begin with! All churches seem to have been either destroyed in war or simply abandoned in the 17th century.
We found the Great Square which turned out to be a huge parking lot (!) surrounded by restaurants and the only grocery store within the walls on three sides and a huge ruin on the fourth. The ruin was called St. Carin and was the biggest yet. Malin found a payphone and called her mom. Eventually we came to what seemed to be a shopping district and before we were threatened to be sucked into the commerce (I needed new shoes and a phone card) we found a little wooden café were we could eat. We each took a piece of pie which was very expensive and not that big slice anyway and went outside. We got to take salad and I made sure to take a lot of salad simply because I was angry at the correlation between the price and size of the slice. Outside was a garden with a narrow view out to the street. We sat on sturdy wooden furniture and breathed the fresh air. It was very relaxing, though a bit cold. After we’d finished eating we decided it was high time to find the museum which would close at 4 pm. It took a while but Malin’s a great map reader and we arrived fifty minutes before closing time. It was the first time on our trip that I recognized a place from my previous visit. Here is where Robert dropped me off while he went and bought his car. The museum of Gotland is a very cozy place, a high ceiling and lots of rooms that are interconnected. It’s quite chilly and in some rooms it is downright freezing, something they have arranged to protect the artifacts. I found that what I had enjoyed most during my first visit were still my favourites: the room full of rune stones, the Viking graves reconstructed within a glass casket so that the dead bodies still lay with all their possessions the way they were meant to be, the huge and eerie looking gothic wooden statues of Christ and his mother, and of course the room full of treasures. Gotland is called treasure island because every once in a while a casket filled with silver coins and jewelry is dug up from the soil. It’s a mystery why so many treasures were buried, possibly to be hidden while the owners went to war and then the owners never returned. Malin was totally impressed by the jewelry, especially a sapphire ring with a poetic inscription. It said something like “I am the sapphire” etc. We managed to see everything we wanted to before they closed.
We then went outside and wondered what the heck we were supposed to do next. We thought about maybe going to a café since it was getting cold but most cafés were closing soon. We walked around and came upon yet another ruin where some children were playing. They showed us drawings of cows and asked us which one we thought looked most like realistic. Malin said “both of them” and then they asked our names and wrote the results down on a sheet. (!) We then went inside the ruin, sat and spoke for a while until we decided it was best that we get back to our hostel and rest a bit before going out to dinner that night. We wandered slowly back, passing the candy store where I’d bought my film and got crisps (for Malin) and chocholates (for me.)
In our room back at the hostel we went to our beds and rested. I climbed up to my bunk and studied the list of restaurants in the magazine we’d taken on the ferry and had my chocolate. After lots of chatting and deciding which restaurants we would check out we fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later feeling as nauseous as I always do after a nap but a lot less tired. Once we’d finally got dressed up and I had (yet again) had Malin waiting outside the prison while I put on make-up we made our way to town. It was quite cold and windy. Apparently Visby has sun 75 % of the time but on our trip it decided to be windy and rainy.
We walked across town until we reached the great wall. I was in search of the path my brother and I had walked. From what I remembered I described it as once you walk out through the great dark wall the city ends and you're faced with vast grassy hills and meadows, scattered with ancient burial stones and with the ocean to your left. Turns out I was correct. The only thing I had remembered wrong was that you didn't climb over the wall, you had to walk through a great gate where rusty spears waited to impale you from above. I saw naturally the thick, iron chains holding it in place but I hurried through nonetheless. It was almost pitch black and cold outside the gates. We decided to hurry back to town but decided to come back and see the impressive scenery the following day.
We had been out about an hour in the cold, looking at the quaint little houses and towering ruins, hurrying down narrow streets and up windling stone steps. It turned out one of the restaurants was closed for the season, another one was terribly expensive and so we went back to the city square dominated by the enormous St. Carin's ruin and a huge parking lot and had dinner in one of the restaurants lining it. It was called The Nun and its entire interior was white stone and wood, apparently mimicking that Convent feel. We got a nice little table, a terribly cute waiter and ordered half a bottle of wine to share and a affordable, yummy looking Beef Teki with grilled vegetables and other things. After about half an hour people started welling in. The Nun was not a very big place and soon every chair and table was occupied. I kept telling Malin that soon the owners would start turning people away at the door but they didn't. What was the great attraction?
Troubadour night. The troubadour in question was talented and got a lot of applause and cheers from the guests. We got our tea and coffee and the terribly cute and sociable yet busy waiter finally had the time to take our picture. Eventually we paid and left. Right outside the restaurant a drunk person made a pass at Malin. She said "Why are the alcoholics always drawn to me?"
We walked back home the long way since Malin wanted to go down to the ocean and past that side of the wall. It was dark and cold but not to bad. We walked past Almedalen again and Malin indicated the Gunpowder Tower. "I wouldn't want to go there at this hour" she said and told me she was getting horribly negative energies from that direction. Probably all those people who've been killed there over the centuries. I later asked her about the wall and she said there's both positive and negative energies there. This makes sense, since it protected the people within the city and was a symbol of oppression for the people outside. We went past two discos in the harbour where NRJ and ZTV have events during the summer and sooner then later we found ourselves back at the prison. We relaxed for an our or two, went to the bath room, ate some sweets and listened to Malin's Walkman. Most of all we just talked and hugged.
We actually managed to get some proper sleep because we were not quite as dead when we woke up the next morning. Everything felt better, less butterflies, less nausea. I wasn't going to shower but wound up doing so anyway and we managed to get to breakfast in time. We had about the same breakfast (toast with sausage and cheese, sour milk with cornflakes and tea and coffee.) Again I managed to find Malin coffee even though most of the breakfast food was gone. She had come up with a great idea; that we should pack up and check out and then take our luggage to the ferry terminal and store it there so we wouldn't have to drag the bags around all day. We packed everything up, returning the room to its original state which was a little sad. For the final time I had Malin waiting for me outside the prison while I said goodbye to the room, the house and the bath room (!) That's just how I work.
We went to the ferry terminal and stowed our bags in a huge locker. It demanded coins so we exchanged some money at the ticket counter but the locker simply refused to close or to give us our coins back. I went to complain at the ticker counter and the woman, a very sweet looking, plump fifty year old, gave us new coins and said she'd bill the county for them. :-)
Because it was raining Malin convinced me into getting a taxi but the number was obviously wrong so we abandoned that mission to my great happiness. She told me there are only two taxi cars in operation in Visby!
We then walked into town and as we passed the prison we saw new arrivals checking in. It was very cold and windy this day and most places seemed to be closed though maybe that was just our perception. We walked around the town and took a couple of pictures, made a withdrawal from the automated teller and finally came to the wall and the hills outside it where we had been last night. It really is beautiful there though unfortunately it was terribly windy. We walked along the wall and the green hills. Straight ahead you saw the ocean. God I loved it there. There were flashlights mounted on the great wall and we photographed ourselves. After a while we walked in through another gate in the wall and walked towards the great church that some how has escaped both ruin and war and is still in use today. We wondered if it would be closed but realised it was a Sunday before noon and therefore it must be open. True enough, when we walked in the service was just wrapping up and the church goers were streaming into the side hall for coffee. The church is huge and we checked it out for a while before going into the side hall where huge painted windows covered the walls. Malin was particularly fascinated by them and took a leaflet about them.
When we walked from the church my father called on my cell phone to check up on us, and he did it in English which he always does when he wants to be funny. That made me happy. When we came to thegreat parking lot square we went into what we had read was the only grocery store inside the walls. I bought bananas and crackers for ferry (maybe soda too, I don't remember), Malin bought some cookies and we both bought a lot of postcards and stamps. With our bag we went out in search for a restaurant since it was well past lunch and we were both hungry. After some fighting about where to go we wound up in a restaurant that served pizza which made Malin terribly happy since she loves pizza. Being the nagger that I am I nagged and nitpicked about the place for a while, mostly because I didn't want to go to such an expensive place since we'd already been out to The Nun the night before. Malin promised to pay for my drink and after some nagging I finally got the pizza I wanted. We just sat there and relaxed and as I ate my mood improved. It was a yummy pizza, with salami and pineapple. We wrote our postcards and put the stamps on and talked a bit about the trip. It was a very cozy wooden looking place and there were lots of people there though not in our section. Eventually we left and I almost forgot my bag but remembered just in time. The boat was leaving in less than two hours.
We found a mail box for the postcards and then we walked around a bit, checked out the St. Carin ruin again. Malin realized she had not tried the dessert specialty of Gotland - the saffron pancake with Salmberry sauce so we decided to find a café that sold it. We did found one and she made a cute scene where she explained to the waitresses that the boat was leaving and she just realizes she hadn't gotten a bite of pancake yet. I love her. :-)
They sold her a piece with the sauce and cream in a take away box. And then we went to the boat, slowly, enjoying the surroundings. The lines at the terminal wasn't that long and after we retrieved our luggage we were inside the boat in twenty minutes. Call me silly but I like having luggage and handing over the ticket to in the counter. Always makes you feel like a vagabond. God I wish things ran this smoothly at the airports! Lots of people were going back to the mainland since the weekend was over.
This time we had seats at the head of the ship. Big comfortable arm chairs next to each other. We placed our bags against the front wall of the boat where we could see them and then we went on deck and took a couple of photographs. We could see the prison just a few hundred meters away. Eventually the boat started its engines and we went inside. We settled into the chairs, took more photographs and unpacked all our treats. Looked like it would be a very cozy and pleasant trip, especially now that we had spent the extra money on real arm chairs. There was just one thing... I got sea sick. There had been almost no waves on the trip to Visby but this time there was, and looking out through the huge windows, seeing the boat go up and down was awful. I really felt like I would throw up any minute. Malin went out on deck and when she returned she told me I had to come. As soon as I stepped outside I started to feel better.
It was really wonderful and the air was invigorating. It wasn't as cold as it had been on our trip out and it was daylight so you could see the sea with all the little islands. I went inside and got a banana and an overprized paper cut of Lipton's Tropical Tea (my favourite) which I spilled over my hand and then back outside. We took pictures as the boat got closer to shore. The trip felt like it had gone by really fast, a lot faster than the first one. When we had reached dock we went inside and gathered all our things and went to the exits to stand in line. I felt I really had to go to the bath room so I left Malin, with all our stuff, who told me that if I wasn't back when the doors opened she would leave me behind. I rushed... the wrong way. Turning around, I rushed the other way, went to the bathroom extremely fast and was back before the doors had opened.
We were kind of in a panic because the commuter bus was due to leave seven minutes after the arrival of the boat and we didn't know where the bus stop was, (buses never depart and arrive at the same stop... except for the castle in Taxinge of course ;-)
If we were to miss this bus we would have to wait fifty minutes for the train which would take longer (since we'd have to go via Stockholm) and cost about three times more for Malin. I had a commuter pass, so it didn't matter to me.
Thankfully, the doors opened a couple of minutes longer and we ran out through the gateway, which surprisingly didn't take us into the terminal at all. There was no bus stop in sight but a couple of signs pointing towards it. We ran and ran, I ran ahead, and saw the bus already at the bus stop... Thankfully it didn't leave until we had reached it, and not for a couple of minutes after that. We were so relieved, though immensely annoyed at the time table. Malin was more annoyed than me, saying she ought to write a letter to the commuter company and that if the boat hadn't arrived a bit early we wouldn't have made it.
It was after five and still bright and sunny as the bus pulled out from Nynäshamn station. We were back on the mainland.
Unfortunately there was a very foul smelling man in the front of the bus. I don't remember if he was on it the bus from the start or if he got on at a later stop. In either case, he smelled awfully! We moved towards the back of the bus and we saw that other passengers did as well. Most of the people on the bus sat with their hands or news papers covering their nose and mouth. Malin and I said to each other: how can one person smell that bad?
Not long after departure my cell phone arrived. It was my mother. She was very excited and asked what had happened during the day.
They're always so concerned about me, my parents, and they always make sure to pay attention to what I'm doing. They knew which time the boat would arrive and called when they knew we would be on the bus. She asked about the boat ride and said she and dad had read about the weather on Östersjön in the paper. Squee! I always feel like the main attraction with my parents, though of course when they talk to Rickard and Robert, they make them feel that way. After talking on the phone with them Malin, who sat on the seat behind me, and I talked and looked out through the windows. After an hour and twenty minutes the bus finally arrived. We had hoped we might arrive early in Södertälje so that we would catch early bus but we didn't. As we stepped out of the bus we were finally rid of the bad smell and we were welcomed, it felt like, home by our home town.
The bus to Geneta came after 25 minutes and we dragged our luggage on board. As we arrived in Geneta we had planned all along to go to Meza and buy some steaks to take home but it turned out it was closed. Apparently, the Syrian Orthodox Easter isn't the same week as the Protestant one, and since it's a Syrian owned and run restaurant it was closed down. We went home, left our luggage and I went out again to go to the local grill while Malin unpacked some things and our friends popped over.
Douglas was not at all happy we arrived home, but ignored us and scratched some things instead!
I bought lots of yummy things on the grill, hamburgers and French fries, milkshakes, onion rings, dip and pie. I was so happy when we came home, that we were home, that it had been fun, that we had scrumptious food to eat and that we were excited. We ate and chatted with our friends and watched a late re-run of CSI Miami. It was wonderful to be able to return to our usual life so quickly in that way.
To think, five hours earlier we had been on an island, hundreds of miles away, in a city that looks like nothing I've seen anywhere else.
Malin had to work the day after, but not particularly early, and I had the day off, so we could relax. I logged on and read some e-mails and we eventually went to bed sometime during the night. I slept really late the next day.
Disclaimer-ish: I also want to say that I know most of you as well as most of my friends travel all over the world every year and I am in no way trying to make my domestic weekend trip sound any more interesting than that. You have to understand that I never go anywhere. I don't have much money and have never been outside of Scandinavia. That's why to me this is a big deal. Also I'm not writing any other account of my trip so this LJ entry is as much for my own memory as it is to brag. So there.
:-)
Malin was off from work on friday due to being sick so I didn't have to do all the last household chores (such as giving the cat lots of food and water, watering the plants and turning the radio on) by myself and rush to meet her at the station. We had planned to trip so that we left on a payday (the 25th) so that we wouldn't have to worry about money while we were away. Malin didn't wake up until after two o'clock. I did some last minute shopping and she did the chores. We had pizza, I packed in a hurry and we left for the busstop. We still left late enough for me not to have the time to buy credits for my cell phone but otherwise we were on time. Once in town I waited at the busstop while she rushed to the automated teller with both her and mine creditcard. The bus that we were taking was new to me and mostly to her as well. The wonderful thing about it was that the commuter service took us all the way from our home in Geneta to the ferry in Nynäshamn. Most people would pay 150 SEK to get to the ferry from Stockholm and back but we who lived in Södertälje could travel all the way, door to door, with the commuter service. 40 SEK total for Malin and free for me who has a commuter card. Yay for Stockholm County's commuter service!
The bustrip was long but interesting. We'd brought soda and strawberries and looked out the windows. I had almost forgotten just how much countryside there actually is just outside the cities. We were worried that we'd have to walk far but the bus took us just outside the ferry terminal. It was so much smaller than I remembered. Granted I only saw it once in the evening almost two and a half years ago. There was a almost an hour and a half until the ferry was leaving and it hadn't arrived yet so we sat down and had some coffee and cocoa at a little table. I was very nervous. I had been nervous the past few days and I was slightly nauseous. We joked about the mass of people who after fifteen minutes arrived with the bus ("Do they not know that they can take the commutertrain to Stockholm for half the price?") and who lined up in queues when there was no rush and the boat hadn't even opened yet. ("That's flock mentality right there, they have to take the over-prized bus provided by the ferry-company and they have to stand in un-neccessary lines simply because everyone else is.")
Eventually we went to queue when the ferry opened. I hadn’t been on a boat since that first trip to Gotland two and a half years ago and before then never. It was quite easy compared to the hassle of airports. You just went up to the counter, with your luggage, and showed your receipt from the Internet. There were men accepting luggage and I almost left my bag with them but they said mine passed as handluggage though it was huge, very huge. It had wheels whould prove to be good for my shoulder as Malin had chosen the smallest carry-on she could find, only to learn that it didn’t fit nearly as much as she wanted and was tiring to carry around. Ha! I am glorious in the triumph of having been proven right. Gloating is a useful tool in long-term relationships, that is something you should learn, dear
silversolitaire. Anyway, we went on board the newly commisioned ferry which looked a lot smaller on the inside than the old ones although it took more passangers and was larger. It probably was because all the seats were on the same floor. We left our bags inside the boat and went on deck. Malin has a thing for boats and the ocean, she claims it’s the elvish streak in her but I don’t know.We were on the deck as it left the harbour. At first I didn’t realise the ship was moving! I only realised as I saw a blinking thing moving through the water and briefly wondered if it was a submarine before I realised it was a boey and the ship was moving. We went inside to fetch our bags for the family that had watched them for us and we found ourselves a table. We had the cheapest tickets on the outward trip so we sat in the restaurant section with everyone else. We had our own table and eventually got another one near the windows. I had planned to do some major writing and reading but found I was too tired so I just ate some cookies and strawberries and tried reading a tourist guide over Gotland instead. Malin would go out every once in a while to smoke on deck and I followed her once but found it was far too windy and cold for my taste. After about two hours we saw the infinite black when we looked to the left and a string of lights when we turned our heads right. “What’s that?” I asked and Malin said it must be Visby. It was over an hour until the boat was to arrive but she said it must take such a long time to travel that distance. We bought a hamburger & a sasuage with mashed potatoes to eat. It wasn’t very tasty but it filled it’s purpose of filling our stomachs as Malin said. When there was about twenty minutes left Malin packed her bags and left for deck. I stayed behind and tried to write an UA but found I was too tired. I packed up and left for deck finding that we had pretty much arrived at Visby already which was a disappointment. I had looked forward to seeing the town emerging from the black void. We stood on deck and saw as the captain fought to dock the ship and we looked out at the town. She thought she spotted the hostel we were going to stay at and it later turned out she was right in her assumption. When we finally left the boat we were tired but excited. One of the passengers were greeted by his two dogs who were ecstatic about meeting him, most people laughed at this. The terminal in Visby was as small as the one in Nynäshamn and looked about the way I remembered. We went to the bathroom and I mentioned to her it was the same one Robert had shot up in to and a half years ago – I have a sick sense of humour. :-)
We went outside, asked for directions and walked towards the prison. It was really not that far to walk, it took about ten minutes since we walked slowly with our luggage. It felt very strange that after all this time we were finally there. It was cold outside but we soon came to the prison which was impressive in its size, it’s stone walls painted yellow and barbed wire on its roof. A large stone wall with more barbed wire on top surrounded it and the windows were covered with metal bars. I got a bit of a shock when I opened the letterbox and didn’t find the envelope with my name on it, but it turned out to be in the letterbox behind the code protected doors. We found our room, or cell, fairly quickly. It was a bit scary to go past the door to the sealed off basement that we later learned held the isolation cells with metal beds that were still in use five years ago. Once we got inside our room however it was quite cozy. We came to the conclusion that it was never used as a real cell since it was not in the cellblocks but in a wooden compartment that seemed out of place. The walls had been painted and the floors changed so any negative energies were long gone. The beds were of course also new.
In the actual cellblock there were signs on the doors. “Here slept Tektor Lundquist - the last prisoner who was executed in Sweden until he was decapitated.” Call me squeemish, but I wouldn’t have wanted to sleep there. The prison was in use until 1998.
In our room was a bunkbed and a spare bed that we decided to use as a sofa and storage for all our stuff. The window was very deep and we placed lots of stuff on the windowsill, including two little tea light holders with candles that we’d brought to create coziness. Squee! The restroom was across the hall and although old looking had a freshlooking showerstall. We had brought our own sheets as was required and after making our beds (I got the top one), washing up and taking a look around we finally went to bed almost two hours after we had arrived. Through the window we could see the ferry we had arrived on.
It was definitely too late to fall asleep because when we woke up at 9.30 we were both dead. Since January I always get nauseous when not having slept enough so I had that to cope with in addition to being too tired. After washing up in the restroom we rushed up to get breakfast which was included in our stay. Most of it was gone of course but I ate some tea and toast and yoghurt in the dining room called “Pub Tektor”. Morbid, isn’t it?
I was really tired and that bothered me since I really wanted to enjoy the city. I went to the bath room and found I had no problem enjoying the shower despite the dirtyness of the room. ;-)
Malin went and got a shower too and then we finally got dressed and sort of packed. She went out to smoke and I took a really long time because I had to pack everything: camera, make-up, hair brush etc, since we didn’t know if we would stay out all day or not and I wanted to look good for the restaurant. Malin was smoking outside and waiting for me. I always make her wait for me.
We walked down the harbour to an icecream parlor where I bought a soda bottle to keep in my pocket for nausea and some icecream which we ate outside. It was quite cold and windy. No sun in sight. This was really sad considering that Visby has 320 sunny days a year… We continued to walk and I bought a roll of film and loaded my camera. We walked down the beach and Malin got that religious look in her eye that she always gets when she sees the ocean, the real ocean where the horizon just goes straight out in to the water, no land in sight. On the boat the night before she was joking that she “comes from a long line of sea farers” which apparently is true. We conitinued to walk and turned upwards towards the town. We came to a park called Almedalen, famous for hosting all party leaders during the televised “Politician week” in the summer. Now it was inhabited by dozens of ducks and swans that were sleeping, their tiny heads burrowed down in their feathers. In the middle of the pond was a huge statue of a metal duck. Outside the park, in front of a long stone wall where some knights who where practising sword fighting between the green of the trees. Malin sighed and said “Oh! These people! These people (roleplayers) roam freely here!”. Malin is a roleplayer but hasn’t been practised Live roleplaying for almost nine years. She photographed the knights in secret and then we moved on. We came to the Bathing Friends’ Botanical Garden which I remembered from my first trip to Gotland. That time my brother and I were sitting on the benches in the snow covered, withered up garden, freezing our pants off while waiting for the clock to turn 9 am and the city to open. This time the garden was in bloom and green although not yet in its prime. The Bathing Friends were a couple of drinking, middle-aged, upperclass gentlemen who would regularly meet for drinks and baths. They decided that the public’s knowledge of plants and herbs was important and in order to sustain this knowledge and indeed the interest for plants they founded the botanical garden which to this day is taken care of and open to the public. We saw an archway in the great wall that we had by now encountered and walked through it to find the ocean and the beach on the other side. We saw a black cat striding purposefully down to the beach and we beckoned it but it ignored us and ran down to the water where it perched. I photograped Malin and then we went back into the garden. I photograped two entish looking trees who garded the entrance to the garden with a mass of blue flowers at their feet.
While in the garden my mom called and I told her I hadn’t been able to buy credits fot my cell phone. She was very excited about our “wonderful initiative” that she had once called it and asked how everything was. Malin and I then continued to walk up to the town. At every glimpse of a ruin we walked up to it, stared and then continued to walk in somewhat the same direction.
The town of Visby is surrounded by an eight hundred year old stone wall, built to keep the peasants out. Within these walls are seventeen (17) church ruins. The wall is 3.5 kilometres, it takes about an hour to cross the city and during the peak of Visby’s civilization no more than 3.000 people lived within the walls. Nevertheless they saw it necessary to build seventeen churches. And these are not small churches either. The ruins are huge remnants of cathedrals, reaching up to the sky. I wonder what it’s like to live like that – with giant ruins squeezed in between (more) modern buildings. We read that since the 19th century it is forbidden to change the ruins but before that several ruins where chopped up and used to build houses. So there were more than 17 to begin with! All churches seem to have been either destroyed in war or simply abandoned in the 17th century.
We found the Great Square which turned out to be a huge parking lot (!) surrounded by restaurants and the only grocery store within the walls on three sides and a huge ruin on the fourth. The ruin was called St. Carin and was the biggest yet. Malin found a payphone and called her mom. Eventually we came to what seemed to be a shopping district and before we were threatened to be sucked into the commerce (I needed new shoes and a phone card) we found a little wooden café were we could eat. We each took a piece of pie which was very expensive and not that big slice anyway and went outside. We got to take salad and I made sure to take a lot of salad simply because I was angry at the correlation between the price and size of the slice. Outside was a garden with a narrow view out to the street. We sat on sturdy wooden furniture and breathed the fresh air. It was very relaxing, though a bit cold. After we’d finished eating we decided it was high time to find the museum which would close at 4 pm. It took a while but Malin’s a great map reader and we arrived fifty minutes before closing time. It was the first time on our trip that I recognized a place from my previous visit. Here is where Robert dropped me off while he went and bought his car. The museum of Gotland is a very cozy place, a high ceiling and lots of rooms that are interconnected. It’s quite chilly and in some rooms it is downright freezing, something they have arranged to protect the artifacts. I found that what I had enjoyed most during my first visit were still my favourites: the room full of rune stones, the Viking graves reconstructed within a glass casket so that the dead bodies still lay with all their possessions the way they were meant to be, the huge and eerie looking gothic wooden statues of Christ and his mother, and of course the room full of treasures. Gotland is called treasure island because every once in a while a casket filled with silver coins and jewelry is dug up from the soil. It’s a mystery why so many treasures were buried, possibly to be hidden while the owners went to war and then the owners never returned. Malin was totally impressed by the jewelry, especially a sapphire ring with a poetic inscription. It said something like “I am the sapphire” etc. We managed to see everything we wanted to before they closed.
We then went outside and wondered what the heck we were supposed to do next. We thought about maybe going to a café since it was getting cold but most cafés were closing soon. We walked around and came upon yet another ruin where some children were playing. They showed us drawings of cows and asked us which one we thought looked most like realistic. Malin said “both of them” and then they asked our names and wrote the results down on a sheet. (!) We then went inside the ruin, sat and spoke for a while until we decided it was best that we get back to our hostel and rest a bit before going out to dinner that night. We wandered slowly back, passing the candy store where I’d bought my film and got crisps (for Malin) and chocholates (for me.)
In our room back at the hostel we went to our beds and rested. I climbed up to my bunk and studied the list of restaurants in the magazine we’d taken on the ferry and had my chocolate. After lots of chatting and deciding which restaurants we would check out we fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later feeling as nauseous as I always do after a nap but a lot less tired. Once we’d finally got dressed up and I had (yet again) had Malin waiting outside the prison while I put on make-up we made our way to town. It was quite cold and windy. Apparently Visby has sun 75 % of the time but on our trip it decided to be windy and rainy.
We walked across town until we reached the great wall. I was in search of the path my brother and I had walked. From what I remembered I described it as once you walk out through the great dark wall the city ends and you're faced with vast grassy hills and meadows, scattered with ancient burial stones and with the ocean to your left. Turns out I was correct. The only thing I had remembered wrong was that you didn't climb over the wall, you had to walk through a great gate where rusty spears waited to impale you from above. I saw naturally the thick, iron chains holding it in place but I hurried through nonetheless. It was almost pitch black and cold outside the gates. We decided to hurry back to town but decided to come back and see the impressive scenery the following day.
We had been out about an hour in the cold, looking at the quaint little houses and towering ruins, hurrying down narrow streets and up windling stone steps. It turned out one of the restaurants was closed for the season, another one was terribly expensive and so we went back to the city square dominated by the enormous St. Carin's ruin and a huge parking lot and had dinner in one of the restaurants lining it. It was called The Nun and its entire interior was white stone and wood, apparently mimicking that Convent feel. We got a nice little table, a terribly cute waiter and ordered half a bottle of wine to share and a affordable, yummy looking Beef Teki with grilled vegetables and other things. After about half an hour people started welling in. The Nun was not a very big place and soon every chair and table was occupied. I kept telling Malin that soon the owners would start turning people away at the door but they didn't. What was the great attraction?
Troubadour night. The troubadour in question was talented and got a lot of applause and cheers from the guests. We got our tea and coffee and the terribly cute and sociable yet busy waiter finally had the time to take our picture. Eventually we paid and left. Right outside the restaurant a drunk person made a pass at Malin. She said "Why are the alcoholics always drawn to me?"
We walked back home the long way since Malin wanted to go down to the ocean and past that side of the wall. It was dark and cold but not to bad. We walked past Almedalen again and Malin indicated the Gunpowder Tower. "I wouldn't want to go there at this hour" she said and told me she was getting horribly negative energies from that direction. Probably all those people who've been killed there over the centuries. I later asked her about the wall and she said there's both positive and negative energies there. This makes sense, since it protected the people within the city and was a symbol of oppression for the people outside. We went past two discos in the harbour where NRJ and ZTV have events during the summer and sooner then later we found ourselves back at the prison. We relaxed for an our or two, went to the bath room, ate some sweets and listened to Malin's Walkman. Most of all we just talked and hugged.
We actually managed to get some proper sleep because we were not quite as dead when we woke up the next morning. Everything felt better, less butterflies, less nausea. I wasn't going to shower but wound up doing so anyway and we managed to get to breakfast in time. We had about the same breakfast (toast with sausage and cheese, sour milk with cornflakes and tea and coffee.) Again I managed to find Malin coffee even though most of the breakfast food was gone. She had come up with a great idea; that we should pack up and check out and then take our luggage to the ferry terminal and store it there so we wouldn't have to drag the bags around all day. We packed everything up, returning the room to its original state which was a little sad. For the final time I had Malin waiting for me outside the prison while I said goodbye to the room, the house and the bath room (!) That's just how I work.
We went to the ferry terminal and stowed our bags in a huge locker. It demanded coins so we exchanged some money at the ticket counter but the locker simply refused to close or to give us our coins back. I went to complain at the ticker counter and the woman, a very sweet looking, plump fifty year old, gave us new coins and said she'd bill the county for them. :-)
Because it was raining Malin convinced me into getting a taxi but the number was obviously wrong so we abandoned that mission to my great happiness. She told me there are only two taxi cars in operation in Visby!
We then walked into town and as we passed the prison we saw new arrivals checking in. It was very cold and windy this day and most places seemed to be closed though maybe that was just our perception. We walked around the town and took a couple of pictures, made a withdrawal from the automated teller and finally came to the wall and the hills outside it where we had been last night. It really is beautiful there though unfortunately it was terribly windy. We walked along the wall and the green hills. Straight ahead you saw the ocean. God I loved it there. There were flashlights mounted on the great wall and we photographed ourselves. After a while we walked in through another gate in the wall and walked towards the great church that some how has escaped both ruin and war and is still in use today. We wondered if it would be closed but realised it was a Sunday before noon and therefore it must be open. True enough, when we walked in the service was just wrapping up and the church goers were streaming into the side hall for coffee. The church is huge and we checked it out for a while before going into the side hall where huge painted windows covered the walls. Malin was particularly fascinated by them and took a leaflet about them.
When we walked from the church my father called on my cell phone to check up on us, and he did it in English which he always does when he wants to be funny. That made me happy. When we came to the
We found a mail box for the postcards and then we walked around a bit, checked out the St. Carin ruin again. Malin realized she had not tried the dessert specialty of Gotland - the saffron pancake with Salmberry sauce so we decided to find a café that sold it. We did found one and she made a cute scene where she explained to the waitresses that the boat was leaving and she just realizes she hadn't gotten a bite of pancake yet. I love her. :-)
They sold her a piece with the sauce and cream in a take away box. And then we went to the boat, slowly, enjoying the surroundings. The lines at the terminal wasn't that long and after we retrieved our luggage we were inside the boat in twenty minutes. Call me silly but I like having luggage and handing over the ticket to in the counter. Always makes you feel like a vagabond. God I wish things ran this smoothly at the airports! Lots of people were going back to the mainland since the weekend was over.
This time we had seats at the head of the ship. Big comfortable arm chairs next to each other. We placed our bags against the front wall of the boat where we could see them and then we went on deck and took a couple of photographs. We could see the prison just a few hundred meters away. Eventually the boat started its engines and we went inside. We settled into the chairs, took more photographs and unpacked all our treats. Looked like it would be a very cozy and pleasant trip, especially now that we had spent the extra money on real arm chairs. There was just one thing... I got sea sick. There had been almost no waves on the trip to Visby but this time there was, and looking out through the huge windows, seeing the boat go up and down was awful. I really felt like I would throw up any minute. Malin went out on deck and when she returned she told me I had to come. As soon as I stepped outside I started to feel better.
It was really wonderful and the air was invigorating. It wasn't as cold as it had been on our trip out and it was daylight so you could see the sea with all the little islands. I went inside and got a banana and an overprized paper cut of Lipton's Tropical Tea (my favourite) which I spilled over my hand and then back outside. We took pictures as the boat got closer to shore. The trip felt like it had gone by really fast, a lot faster than the first one. When we had reached dock we went inside and gathered all our things and went to the exits to stand in line. I felt I really had to go to the bath room so I left Malin, with all our stuff, who told me that if I wasn't back when the doors opened she would leave me behind. I rushed... the wrong way. Turning around, I rushed the other way, went to the bathroom extremely fast and was back before the doors had opened.
We were kind of in a panic because the commuter bus was due to leave seven minutes after the arrival of the boat and we didn't know where the bus stop was, (buses never depart and arrive at the same stop... except for the castle in Taxinge of course ;-)
If we were to miss this bus we would have to wait fifty minutes for the train which would take longer (since we'd have to go via Stockholm) and cost about three times more for Malin. I had a commuter pass, so it didn't matter to me.
Thankfully, the doors opened a couple of minutes longer and we ran out through the gateway, which surprisingly didn't take us into the terminal at all. There was no bus stop in sight but a couple of signs pointing towards it. We ran and ran, I ran ahead, and saw the bus already at the bus stop... Thankfully it didn't leave until we had reached it, and not for a couple of minutes after that. We were so relieved, though immensely annoyed at the time table. Malin was more annoyed than me, saying she ought to write a letter to the commuter company and that if the boat hadn't arrived a bit early we wouldn't have made it.
It was after five and still bright and sunny as the bus pulled out from Nynäshamn station. We were back on the mainland.
Unfortunately there was a very foul smelling man in the front of the bus. I don't remember if he was on it the bus from the start or if he got on at a later stop. In either case, he smelled awfully! We moved towards the back of the bus and we saw that other passengers did as well. Most of the people on the bus sat with their hands or news papers covering their nose and mouth. Malin and I said to each other: how can one person smell that bad?
Not long after departure my cell phone arrived. It was my mother. She was very excited and asked what had happened during the day.
They're always so concerned about me, my parents, and they always make sure to pay attention to what I'm doing. They knew which time the boat would arrive and called when they knew we would be on the bus. She asked about the boat ride and said she and dad had read about the weather on Östersjön in the paper. Squee! I always feel like the main attraction with my parents, though of course when they talk to Rickard and Robert, they make them feel that way. After talking on the phone with them Malin, who sat on the seat behind me, and I talked and looked out through the windows. After an hour and twenty minutes the bus finally arrived. We had hoped we might arrive early in Södertälje so that we would catch early bus but we didn't. As we stepped out of the bus we were finally rid of the bad smell and we were welcomed, it felt like, home by our home town.
The bus to Geneta came after 25 minutes and we dragged our luggage on board. As we arrived in Geneta we had planned all along to go to Meza and buy some steaks to take home but it turned out it was closed. Apparently, the Syrian Orthodox Easter isn't the same week as the Protestant one, and since it's a Syrian owned and run restaurant it was closed down. We went home, left our luggage and I went out again to go to the local grill while Malin unpacked some things and our friends popped over.
Douglas was not at all happy we arrived home, but ignored us and scratched some things instead!
I bought lots of yummy things on the grill, hamburgers and French fries, milkshakes, onion rings, dip and pie. I was so happy when we came home, that we were home, that it had been fun, that we had scrumptious food to eat and that we were excited. We ate and chatted with our friends and watched a late re-run of CSI Miami. It was wonderful to be able to return to our usual life so quickly in that way.
To think, five hours earlier we had been on an island, hundreds of miles away, in a city that looks like nothing I've seen anywhere else.
Malin had to work the day after, but not particularly early, and I had the day off, so we could relax. I logged on and read some e-mails and we eventually went to bed sometime during the night. I slept really late the next day.
