As I am writing this, I am currently on a train, pulling out of Malmo station, in the very south of Sweden on the way to Copenhagen from Stockholm. I just got the bejeezus scared out of me by a "helpful" local who as he, and indeed the entire other occupancy of my carriage, alighted at Malmo kindly said "You should get off the train now" to which I replied "Oh, I thought this went directly to Copenhagen" and he said "Oh, aaaah, oh, umm, perhaps you should stay on then". Yes, thankyou helpful stranger, that was my intention. Any, it will undoubtedly be tomorrow by the time I post this online so I'm sure that I'm over it by now.

Anyway, on Saturday I got up early and caught the train to Stockholm. I was pleasantly surprised and perhaps have inherited some of my mother's love of train rides as I have so far found the European rail trips to quite pleasant and comfortable with lovely scenery along the way. I checked into my hostel, which was actually pretty nice. While being expensive, Scandinavian hostels (or the ones I've stayed in anyway) are nicer than most of the other hostels I stayed in. By comparison, I was paying about the same amount per night in London and that place was NOT nice and made any sort of bathing an extreme sport really.

I went out to dinner that night with 3 Italian guys, which seemed like it would be fun and a bit of a chance to brush up on my Italian. It all went a bit pear-shaped when one of them was far more interested in me than I was in him and wasn't very good at getting the point to leave me alone. The night came to an abrupt end when I declared myself tired at 8:30pm and shut myself in my dorm for the remainder of the evening. Fortunately there were several nice people already in my dorm to talk to.

Sunday was completely and utterly miserable and I woke from a sleep-in to rain absolutely pouring down. It was cold and windy and wet and I was feeling pretty miserable after walking around for 20 minutes or so. I chose to escape to a cinema for the afternoon instead and managed to find my way to an English screening of Wall-E, which I enjoyed. I went out for drinks in the evening with my new German friend Mona and a couple of random French guys. It took us a while to find an open pub on a Sunday but we eventually found a strange little place that had a blackjack table out the back.

On Monday, I returned to my usual habit of off-map walking and went to Gamla Stan, the old part of Sweden, with narrow cobbled streets and old stone buildings. I then caught a free shuttle bus to IKEA (yes, I'm that lame) and had fun wandering around trying out Swedish furniture in Sweden (although it's not quite as hilarious without an Erin to join in). Mona and I went to the Ice Bar in the evening which, while having ridiculously expensive cover charge for only being allowed in the bar for 45 minutes, was fun. The whole bar is made of ice, including the couches and the cups, and they give you big Eskimo coats and gloves to wear in the -5 degrees air temperature. I justified the cover charge as it was the only really touristy thing that I had done in Stockholm. And we have some hilarious photos. After they took all of our money and kicked us out of Ice Bar, we went to another bar recommended by the hostel, which turned out to be a goth/punk type bar so I enjoyed it quite a bit. Drinking was very limited in Stockholm as I payed AUD13 for a pint in one pub - note to self, check prices BEFORE ordering.

This morning, Mona and I and Robin (a boy who keeps turning up everywhere I got - flight to Oslo, hostel in Oslo, train to Stockholm, hostel in Stockholm) went to a muffin bakery for breakfast followed by some Stockholm window shopping as everything is far too ridiculously expensive to buy. I'm starting to look forward to Germany where I should be able to buy things at normal-ish prices.

Stockholm has so far been my least favourite place on my journey for reasons neither sensible nor tangible. For some reason, I have been fairly homesick for the whole of my time in Sweden despite the beautiful scenery and greatest levels of backpacker social behaviour yet. I'm hoping that moving south towards some warmer climates will ease the homesickness a bit, although I am moving around quite often this month so I suspect I will be fairly tired by the time November comes around.

Anyway, getting close to Copenhagen now so I should turn my computer off and pay some attention to where I am.

Ok, it's the next day now - Wednesday (I think, it's hard to keep track...) and Copenhagen has vastly improved my homesickness. It's nice and sunny and the city is beautiful with lakes and canals everywhere. I spend today cycling around town. There are more bikes than cars on the road here so cycling is definitely the thing to do in Copenhagen. Also very useful for seeing a large part of the city in only one day.

I'm off to Hamburg, Germany tomorrow on the train. It's a bit of a shame that I only have today in Copenhagen but when I was booking the hostel online, all the hostels around here seemed a bit dodgy so I didn't want to stay long. The hostel is a bit dodgy. It's down an alleyway, which means I'll be staying in tonight because I don't want to walk back here at night, there's a locker in my room but no lock on the door so anyone can pretty much walk in (and there's no security on the front door either so really anyone can walk in), and I'm sleeping on the top layer of a triple bunk bed which is making me a bit concerned about potential floor-splatage. So yes, off to Hamburg tomorrow.

Anyway, I am going to attempt to post some more photos tonight as I am a long way behind.

Love and hugs to Neptune and Bunni. Love to Sammy.