Circumspencing the Globe

Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s been a few days since my last entry, and I’ve only got a few moments now before I have to catch a train. So I’ll begin an update of the last few days and fill in more detail next time. No pics for now.

I was a sandwich again on Tuesday, Day 21, “wearing” all of my possessions as I walked through Göteborg with my backpack and frontpack. My walk amounted to just a spiraling trek around the city from the hostel to the train station. Along the way, I visited the waterfront and the large shopping promenade and the cobbled streets of Haga, but my brief stay didn’t do justice to Sweden’s second largest city. It was raining again and I wanted to move on to my next destination. So I boarded a train to Malmö, down low in the southernmost part of Sweden.

I arrived in Malmö in the evening and headed for a hostel about a 25-minute walk from the central station. During that walk, I became enchanted with the city, Sweden’s third largest. The word “malmö” means “sand heap,” and that’s what the city was up until the 12th century. The next century it officially became a city, and now it’s home to 280,000 people. It boasts the greatest number of preserved 16th century houses in all of Sweden. I caught an exhibit of black and white photos from 1899 and 1900 and the city looked almost identical to the way it looks now. The Court of Appeal sits in a building aptly named by its designer “The Honest Swede.” The former slaughterhouse is now a nightclub, prompting one tour guide to say that it never lost its status as a meat market.

I’m sure the sunny weather plays a large part in my impressions of Malmö. But I found the people there delightful, whether serving coffee or bartending or selling merchandise or just helping with directions and tips. Each person I encountered was quick to engage in conversation and seemed happy to use English. The population bolstered my opinion that Swedes are remarkably attractive people. A few times an hour I would spot a woman so stunning I’d practically have to sit down and catch my breath.

Malmö has canals, gorgeous public squares (especially one called Lilla Torg), a castle, museums, a design center, a skateboard park and a structure called the Turning Torso, Sweden’s highest residential building, designed by the innovative architect Santiago Calatrava.

I stayed in a dorm both nights. The first night I had only one roommate, an aloof, unkempt guy that seemed to have to strain just to nod hello. He slept at odd hours, in his shoes, with his bedlight on, and emitted a mysterious odor. In the morning I found him sitting in a lotus position meditating. Although he didn’t have facial tattoos or a harpoon, he reminded me of Queequeg from Moby Dick. The next day, I was happy to have an additional roommate, Lin, an engineer from Taiwan. When I introduced myself, I said to Lin, “Call me Ishmael” and explained later. Lin and I explored the city together for part of Thursday, Day 23. We joked about the prospect of Lin having to be alone with Queequeg once I left, sleeping with one eye open.

Late that afternoon, Lin and I parted, and I took a 30-minute train ride to Copenhagen, Denmark, just because I could. Malmö is that close to it. As soon as I got off the train, I knew I wasn’t in Sweden any longer. The population looked gritty, the rejects whom I imagine were turned away at the border by Swedish body guards for having the wrong look. I had a beer at the colorful waterfront and then returned to Malmö. There I revisited a cafe run by a very friendly man named Boo and his beautiful daughter Catherine. I then boarded a sleeper train north to Stockholm. It was a six-person train and all six showed, but it was comfortable and made sleeping easy.

Tags: Copenhagen, Denmark, Göteborg, Sweden, trains, Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 5:40 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.