My morning started with a walk to Esperantoplatsen to take a photograph with the puppet.
After my morning coffee in the Språkcaféet, Google Maps informed me I only had a (relatively) short walk to get to the station, so I opted to see some bits of Gothenburg I’ve not seen before.
I had a red-pill blue-pill moment which took me down the waterfront, an opportunity to use The Mittens that was otherwise a little bit dull; I should’ve gone through the centre. That said, I got a clearer look at the area around the opera house and found myself with sufficient time to spare to grab quick look at the Domkyrken, although a service in progress meant I couldn’t look around as much as I’d perhaps have liked.
On one of the bridges over the water in the Brunnsparken, some influencers were filming their matinal smugcast about living a dream and something else yada yada millionnaire lifestyles bullshit bullshit. I decided that puppet needed a picture of something desperately important behind them that required a long stand behind the selfie-stick, something I thought had long since gone out of vogue.
I like to think he’ll pop up on YouTube at some point.
At the station I bought some stamps and found my train before more coffee and breakfast in the lounge in what might be my last visit to an SJ lounge. When I made my choice of train, I hadn’t realised that it was the one passing through Trollhättan and I was briefly torn as to whether to get off and visit the Saab museum after all. I had planned to do this at some point but was confounded by its not being open until 11am and not on Mondays. In fact, the 10:15 service to Oslo stops in Trollhättan at about 10:43, so with more planning it could have happened. But it’ll still be there another time.
The Rail Planner app hadn’t shown the presence of a first class and the SJ site wasn’t selling it anyway, so I was surprised to find the train had one as I’d been expecting to travel in second. I was not allowed in first without a reservation by the train witch who promised to see if there were seats available, but didn’t. In reality, she spent the three hours practising her rictus smile every time she walked throuh the quiet zone in second which, in fact, was plenty blissful enough. When I got off in Oslo I had a look at coach five (where first is) and it looked just like the rest of the train. I suspect it was full of noisy people working anyway. I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.
I sat on the left side of the train in the direction of travel, thinking it’d afford some pretty views and it didn’t disppoint. There was a lot of fjordery and as we started getting closer to Oslo the landscape became almost as frosty as the train manager’s soul. She announced “Welcome to Norway” as we crossed the border at Kornsjoe but I wasn’t warmed. Things suddenly felt expensive.
My host from the Pasporta Servo met me at Oslo Sentralstasjon and took me into the Indian quarter for something he classified as “cheap”. I thought that 25€ for a thali plate and a mango lassi was verging on the extortionate, personally, but it was exquisite and well-needed after my arduous journey during which I’d only had a lotus or two to eat.
In the evening I was taken to karaoke night in a pub a fifteen-minute walk from the Kongelige Slott where I spent more on beer in three hours than I’ve spent on hotels in three weeks. When we left at about three in the morning, snow had fallen.
In so many ways, really, I should know better at my age.
