Stockholm - Västerås

I left the idyllic island of Tranholmen and headed back to the city to spend one more night before I traveled West to Västerås. My host would to be Benozir, the Bangladeshi student who I went ice skating with earlier in the week. He had cooked me a curry which he described as 'sweet'..  it turns out we don't share the same definition of sweet.  A few glasses of water later and I was off down the hall to play some indoor cricket with some of his friends from Bangladesh and classmates from Sri Lanka thinking I was not the best person to represent England.

Benozir had talked of a lake in a nearby park that had frozen over, meaning people had been cross county skiing and ice skating on it. I went on a walk the next morning to check it out and it was nestled in the middle of a forest on the outskirts of Stockholm near one of the royal palaces. There were, sure enough, people skiing on the frozen lake and an area cleared of snow with the characteristic scars of ice skates covering it from the previous day. I later wandered into the forest to enjoy its beauty but was interupted by a couple of young teenager girls shouting something at me in Swedish. 'Kan du prata Engleska' I shouted back (the only phrase I had needed to learn to get by in Stockholm) and they explained, in English, that they had spotted some reindeer and were scared in case the deer would attack them. The deer weren't reindeer but the variety I had came across on Tranholmen so I knew that the deer would be timid.. information that the girls were pleased to learn.

I said farewell to Benozir, and to Stocholm, that evening and boarded a train to Västerås with the hope of getting to find out abut Swedish people. As it turns out, it is't actually hard to met Swedish people in Sweden. Within minutes of arriving in Väasterås I was in a car with three Swedes with the prospect of joining two more once we arrived at Emma's, my host, apartment. Emma treated to me to what I believe to be my first vegan meal, a tasty one at that. Emma enlightened me that evening that it was now the week, I tend to lose the concept of a week and weekend, and that meant she would have to work the next to days. This wasn't to be a problem because her friends Linda & Martin had the time to hang out with me and show me around the city. 

Definitely more of a summer house.

Västerås is built along side Lake Mälaren although you could easily be forgiven to think this lake was a sea as it covers about the same area as Greater London. Lake Mäleran, like most bodies of water in Sweden, was frozen. This didn't deter the lakemen(?) though as they ploughed through the ice with their boats making a delightful sound that I didn't tire of listening to. As I look out from the lakeside over the frozen mass of water I spotted what looked like a little house. Linda explained it was a small hut people could rent out an live in when the lake was a lake and not ice. She continued to explain there was an artist that had built three huts which people could rent out to stay in, the one on the lake,  one down a mine and one in atree opposite the city hall. I could understand why somebody would want to rent the tree house and the lake house but the mine hut seemed hard to wrap my head round. It turns out the artist also has plans to build a hut for placement on the moon.. but don't hold your breath.

After a brief tour of the city I was asked if I like Swedish candy which I knew to be pick 'n' mix. I replied 'of course I like pick 'n' mix' and was subsequently taken to the best 'Smågodis' shop in town.. and by best I mean it had the greatest variety of sweets to choose from - over 600! Between the three of us we bought 2 kg of sweets. We returned back to the apartment and continued to pretty much finished them all before the night was out.

All smiles before the 'haunted' island.

My last evening in Västerås was spent on an island a short dive away from the city. On that island stood a Swedish castle, a past residence of the ruling monarch of the time. The island itself it rumored to be haunted and Emma warned me of all the things I shouldn't do if I wanted to avoid the ghosts. I spent the evening doing all the things she told me not to in hope of tempting a few ghosts out of the shadows.. although I stopped short of walking backwards around the castle's church 7 times in order to be confronted by the murdering ghost of a monk. Unfortunately I failed to tempt any ghosts into existence and we left the island unscathed.

I used the opportunity of spending time with Swedes to ask them about the country.. particularly where I could go snowboarding. Emma and Martin mentioned that a place called Östersund had applied to host the winter Olympics on a number of occasions so it could be a good place to start looking for a couch. I did exactly that, and the morning after the island trip I was saying my goodbyes to Emma at the train station hoping it wouldn't be too delayed so I could catch my connecting trains to Östersund.. easier said than done in snowy winter Sweden......