Stockholm, part I - Skavsta Airport and the hostel

Stockholm Skavsta airport

For me, this trip was always either going to be south to north, or vice versa. I knew that I wanted to see Saint Petersburg, more than anything else, perhaps. I wanted to see the Baltic Three, and any other cities I got to visit were a bonus. But SPB, always SPB.

Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki and SPB are in the Baltic route where several major Nordic ferries and cruisers operate. I'd always wanted to see Stockholm, but it was also one of those cities which I knew would be inevitable, simply because it was too accessible, it was the capital of Sweden, and it was one of the major Baltic ports. After I found that ridiculously cheap Wizzair flight from Budapest to Stockholm, I knew that that I'd be seeing Stockholm whether I liked it or not. I didn't really know what to expect; it was apparently one of those cities that you either adored, or disliked immensely. Ditto for Helsinki, actually - one disgruntled holidaymaker/traveller/backpacker/tourist stated that he found Helsinki to be 'a concrete jungle twice the price of Tallinn.' 

I didn't enjoy my plane ride very much. The person sitting next to me was a pot bellied, middle aged Hungarian man who drank like a fish and became increasingly boisterous as the plane journey progressed, talking to each and every single person in the vicinity - except for me, as he didn't seem to speak much English. He did attempt to say some things to me, but I couldn't understand what he was saying, of course, and he gave me a patronising smile and moved on to the next victim. One of the people he kept talking to was one of the air stewards. This stood out to me because I thought the air steward was incredibly good looking. He hiung onto the poor guy (who was around my age) and kept jabbering on in Hungarian, whilst some of the other passengers turned around to look, some of them smirking slightly, others with vague looks of disappproval on their faces. 

All in all, I was doubly relieved to reach Skavsta at long last.

I hurried through the airport and found the flygbussarna terminal, which as far as I could tell was the only carrier operating between Skavsta airport and Stockholm centrum. Bit of a ripoff I suppose - 14 EUR for the plane ride, then another 12 EUR for the bus to the city centre - but I can't really complain about getting from Budapest to Stockholm for 26 EUR, that is still terrifically cheap. 

The bus provided a very good free WiFi service, so it went by a lot faster than the 2-odd hours I was on it. 1b messaged me to ask where I was at various intervals. When I reached Stockholm City we immediately found ourselves in the middle of a girnormous traffic jam. 'It looks like the bus will be about half an hour late,' I texted him.

The Swedish countryside

'You're very slow,' he answered.

Stockholm was a lot hotter than I'd anticipated. I squinted up into the dazzling Scandinavian sun and looked on my Google maps, and walked resolutely for about 15 minutes in the opposite direction before realising my error. After about half an hour of walking (and parts of it up some unnecessary steep slopes), I found the hostel, and 1b, slouched in front of it. 

And then we went in, and I looked around. The hostel seemed nice, standard hostel fare with a nice kitchen and common room. It also had fresh brewed coffee which immediately elevated it up several ranks in my opinion. That coffee also made me frightfully sick the next day, though, and I had to eat about 3 of 1b's bananas to ward off the sickness, so I'm not sure that too much free hostel coffee is a good thing.

To be continued..