Germany to Sweden

This was always going to be an intense day: One boat, three trains, three countries, seven people and nineteen hours. It all started so well with an easy wake up and everyone ready on time. The two carloads of people and luggage to the train station down the road and the return of the rental car were textbook smooth. The German pastry breakfast was delicious. The first train ride through German countryside to the ferry terminal was beautiful. The ride across the Baltic Sea was wonderfully wintry.

Thanks Sixt!

so cold

And then there we were, relaxing inside the ferry and enjoying the warmth. We knew we would be landing soon but somehow missed the announcements that it was time to be getting back on the train. I'm going to blame it on the fact that speakers on public transport always seem to be just quiet enough that if there's any noise around you then you miss all of the important words. So all of a sudden we realised that the ferry had stopped and an official guy was telling us to hurry. We RAN out to the door, down two flights of stairs: locked door!!, back up two flights of stairs, across the ship, down two more flights of stairs, and finally burst out a door to find the blessed train still there and the doors open. We hastily scrambled on and seconds later as we were still gasping and shaking from the stress and the rush, the doors closed and the train began to move.

The glorious sight of the train still on the boat

Our first transfer between trains was to happen in Copenhagen and we had only fifteen minutes. This may or may not seem like long to you, but for us who are used to travelling by plane it's a very very short time. Coupled with our experience on the ferry, we were all prepared to dash across the station to find our train in lightening-quick time. We moved like a well oiled machine: a solid ten minutes before we arrived we were all standing by the door with the bags we were responsible for and had a plan for getting to the next platform. Of course the transfer only took five minutes and we arrived to the train with no difficulties and with plenty of time to spare, but we weren't willing to take any chances that time.

As the trip progressed we slowly began to relax and enjoy the journey again and then after about an hour on the new train I realised it was getting dark outside. It was only 3pm but felt like 9 and we were still near the bottom of Sweden with many hours of travel ahead of us so we settled in and prepared for a long night.

The Sweden I saw through the train windows was comfortingly familiar after the dense population of mainland Europe. There were no more extensive apartment blocks but rather beautiful homes in their own patches of grass, and no major industrial areas but instead cute little towns and villages. Later in the evening as Adam and I were watching the houses whizzing past and enjoying their Christmas decorations it began to snow!

A really bad photo of the snow.

See? You can see it around the two street lights. And you can't tell in the photo but there's a light layer on the ground too. As we continued to travel further north the landscape became ghostly and the white gleam more and more encompassing. When the sky cleared everything had a blue hue from the light of the moon just like a painting. Sweden!

The worst thing about the train trip was that Hisham gets motion sickness really badly. By the time we arrived in Stockholm he was a wreck and needed some serious TLC. With sleep, food, hydration, and nausea pills he managed to make it onto our third and final train and stick out the last few hours to Härnösand.

Poor Hisham recovering in Stockholm Central's Burger King

As the clock struck 4am we fiiiinally arrived and trudged across the icy ground to the car. We bid a bleary welcome to Hisham's sister's house and then crashed into bed for a much needed sleep.