More on Norway, Sweden, Copenhagen, Poland & Berlin

Just want to finish up my post on Norway and Sweden before I get to where we are now. Unfortunately we are at an Internet cafe that does not allow USB connections so I can't upload photos. I will add the photos later.

So the Fjords were really cool and we are glad that we went. The rail pass (called Scanrail) really paid off for us and we were able to travel to the fjords essentially for free. Since we knew we wanted to take the train to Stockholm and Copenhagen it made sense to get a pass and the pass gave us two more days of travel. Glad it worked out. We spent Friday the 8th taking care of things in Oslo like finding a place to stay in Stockholm, confirming housing in Copenhagen, bills, work, phone calls, etc.

The big surprise of the day was when we went to the train station to make reservations for us and our bikes to Stockholm. We found out that Swedish trains do not take bicycles! It's so incredibly stupid because they have such a wonderful bicycle network in the cities. And they advertise the hell out of these trains: "the X2000 with a double-hinged swinging booty for a smooth ride" or something like that. Who gives a poop if you can't take large luggage with you? Isn't that the whole point of trains? If I wanted to play sardine I would get on a plane. Someone should be shot.

Anyhow, enough of my ranting. This turned out not to be a problem since we had such a wonderful place to stay in Oslo. We just left our bikes in my 3rd cousins student flat and headed to the train station on Saturday morning sans-cycles. When we got to the train station we were informed that all the trains to Stockholm were booked. The fattest man in Norway who was sitting behind the desk was really unhelpful (like most Norwegian service people we discovered). I had to ask him "ok how about the next train?" and so on. We were informed by Tubby that we simply could not get to Stockholm anytime in the next week or so. Using my super-powerful logic skills, I asked if we could go through Gothenburg or something rather than directly to Stockholm. And guess what? "A train through Gothenburg leaves in 15 minutes on track 19, and will get you into Stockholm at 18:00." Moron. So we got on the train and headed to Gothenburg. When we got to the train station in Gothenburg it was full of punk-rockers and old farts heading to the Iron Maiden concert. Strange. Everyone partying everywhere. Our train actually left out of Gothenburg about 10 minutes late because it took them so long to clean all of the beer bottles and puke from the train.

We got into Stockholm and headed to the Zinkesdamm Youth Hostel (we booked a double while on the train with handy cell phone) just a few kilometers from Gamla Stan (the old city center). The Youth Hostel was amazingly nice and a reasonable rate so we booked four nights there. Since we didn't have our bikes to get around we bought a 3 day transportation and sights pass (The Stockholm Card) and toured around the city for 4 days. What a treat! Stockholm is by far the closest city to Seattle in terms of coolness. I think I could live there but maybe the winters are too long. The city is like one-third parks, one-third water, and one-third super-clean city. We really enjoyed the sights and museums there including the Royal Apartments, the Armory, the Carriage house, the Nobel Museum, the Nordiska Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Vasa Museum, the Skansen, the Stadhusset (City Hall), and just the city itself.

View of the old town center of Stockholm, Gamla Stan, from the tower at City Hall


While I could probably write lots on each one of these sights I will just tell you about our favorites. We really liked the Vasa Museum. This old ship was built in the early 1600's as the pride of the Swedish Armada. The King at the time wanted lots of firepower on this baby so he put two full decks of cannons on it (twice the normal amount). Since ship builders of the time used no plans or made any kind of drawings or calculations, they built the ship the same as any other. Well, on the Vasa's maiden voyage it got a few hundred meters from shore and the first gust of wind blew the thing right over. It sank instantly because of all the heavy cannons and lots of people died. The neat thing is that the Baltic sea has no toredo worms so the boat was well preserved until 1961 when they raised it. Neat place.

A typical street in Gamla Stan


Heather really liked the Nobel museum. It has information on all of the Nobel Prize winners with films and all sorts of other interesting facts. They also had a temporary exhibit on Heather's favorite Nobel Prize winner: Albert Einstein. We spent about 3 hours there the first time and actually went back a few nights later and spent another hour or two. Heather was inspired, as usual.

Stortorget square in Gamla Stan near the Nobel Museum


We really liked Stockholm and are fairly sure that it will be our favorite European city. We will have to see. Since we had a place to stay in Copenhagen from the 15th to the 18th, we caught a train back to Oslo on the 14th to pick up our bikes. We stayed in Oslo one more night and went back to this kick-ass Indian restaurant we had been to earlier.

Thank goodness for Norwegian rail services. They actually have one train that runs from Oslo to Gothenburg that does accept bikes. On Friday morning we took all our stuff to the train station and got on the 6:45 train. There are not reservations or anything for this train since it travels in two countries and their computer systems are different or something so it is just a free-for-all. There were people and dogs everywhere. Makes me realize that I am not eager to take a train through India or North Africa. We changed trains in Gothenburg (where we had been a week earlier) and continued on to Copenhagen.

Last year at the ESRI Conference that I attend each year in San Diego I met a Danish gentleman named Mikkel. Phil, Mikkel and I all had time to kill before our flights home and we went to Tijuana for the day. I told Mikkel of our plans to go to Denmark and he offered to have us stay with him. I called Mikkel and told him we would be in town soon and he actually met us at the train station with his 3 wheel cargo bicycle. Mikkel, Hanne and their new son live in a really nice flat very near to downtown Copenhagen. It was the perfect place from which to explore the city. Mikkel took some time to show us around the city and spent lots to time helping us with our travel plans.

Cruising around Copenhagen with Mikkel & Andreas


We had not been riding our bicycles much recently which changed once we got to Copenhagen. Almost every street has dedicated bicycle lanes and lights. We cycled everywhere. I bought a new seat for my bicycle since my other one was hurting after about 60 km or so. The new one is a Brooks old-school leather saddle that will take some breaking in but hopefully it will be better for long distance riding. Anyway, we rode all over the city just checking things out and spent very little time at Museums although we did go to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek which had a few impressionist paintings (our favorite) and the Statens Museum for Kunst which had a full history of Danish art. Mostly we just enjoyed relaxing with Mikkel.

Enjoying dinner with Mikkel in their garden


Wind turbines in Copenhagen from the Polish ferry headed to Swinjouice


In Oxford we met some really nice people from Poland and we were invited by one of them to come and see Poland and stay at his home. Heather and I were really interested in doing this because Peter is a forester for the Polish Government. Like I said in my post of July 20th we took a ferry from Copenhagen to Poland and then cycled from Świnoujście to Łukęcin where we spent the night. On Wednesday the 20th we cycled the rest of the way to Kolobrzeg. Peter met us in downtown Kolobrzeg and took us to his home just outside of the city about 10 km to the east. Peter has a very nice home in the country and he was a wonderful host. I think Peter likes having guests since he is a little way from the city.

Poland is a very different place from the UK and Scanadanavia. It's sort of like going to Mexico but with a socialist structure to help the really poor folks. We cycled most of the way along the coast which was very nice. Poland has some sort of law about building on the coast so there aren't any buildings within about 100 meters of the beach. This makes for a beautiful coastline that is completely forested, even in the cities! Take notes USA. The only thing within 100 meters of the coast are old bunkers and lookouts which are everywhere. The whole coast of Poland that we saw was at one time or another a military base, either German or Russian. What a crazy thing to have these military installations everywhere that are just abandoned.

An old pillbox along the Polish coast. There was room inside for may two soldiers with machine guns. These kinds of things are everywhere along the coast.


Peter's home is about 1 km from a Russian air base that had only closed 10 years earlier. Many of the Russian people that worked there and their families still live there so the whole place is open and you can just go into these old bunkers and stuff. Crazy place. We cycled along some of the runways which are longer than any I have ever seen. On both sides of the runway there are these grass-covered bunkers which used to hold airplanes. The Polish people believe that there were atomic bombs stored at this airbase when it was in use. When you ask a Pole about how they feel about all this occupation and the military and communist ways they will all say "that's life" with a smile and genuinely positive attitude. I like Poland. We may have to see more of Eastern Europe as we head further south.

On the beach just west of Kolobrzeg at an old Russian airbase (not the one near Peter's home, another one)


We had dinner with the family of one of the other people we met in Oxford, Marek. Peter drove us to Marek's parents home (Marek was in Poland) and we spent the evening talking about all sorts of things. Grandma made the dinner which was really good starting with noodle soup and then some meat roles, beats and salad. It was nice to have a traditional dinner with a family that spoke almost no English. Peter's English is good enough for him to communicate but Marek's 16 year old cousin came to the dinner and spent four hours translating for us.

Dinner at Marek's parents home


Peter spent the day on Friday showing us around the forest that he manages. He is the sole person responsible for all of the activities in his forest. He decides what gets cut, where seed come from, what will be planted and even does the cruising of standing timber and scaling of cut logs. He drives a little Ford Pinto like car all year round in the forest even in meter deep snow! He showed us all aspects of forestry in Poland and the different ways that they do things depending on the site and other factors. For the most part, they use selective harvest techniques and multiple light-touch entries but occasionally use patch cuts which may be one hectare in size. There aren't any rules or regulations but since all foresters in Poland work for the government, you don't need any. Even private landowners must use a free government forester.

Peter showing Heather some of the species in the Polish forests. Thanks goodness for Latin scientific names!


Harvesting trees Polish style with an old Russian tractor that constantly breaks down


On Sunday we went to a party on the beach in Kolobrzeg which had live techno at full blast. The weather was nice and we spent the day on the beach with thousands of other partiers dancing to techno music. It was a blast. That night we went to Peter's parents flat in an old communist-era building and had dinner with them. Started dinner with soup and then moved to some fried meat things and coleslaw. Again, very good food. Then Peter, his dad and I proceeded to drink a bottle of vodka one shot at a time saying "na zdrowie!" each time. I think poor Peter had a little too much but I felt fine. Thank goodness. You must know how to drink in Poland I guess, Russian influence maybe? Fun anyhow.

Partying on the beach at the "Sunrise" festival



On the 25th we caught a train to Berlin on a 1950's Soviet jobby. Nice roomy train with plenty of room for bicycles. Just like a train is supposed to be. Take notes Sweden. After changing trains twice (in Białogard and Szczecin) we arrived in Berlin without a place to stay at 11:00 PM. After searching for a while and stopping in to many hotels we found one which gave us a private garage for our bicycles and a very nice room. You have to splurge evey now and again. Breakfast included though which is good.

On the roomy Polish train from Kolobrzeg to Bialogard


We have spent the last few days touring around Berlin on our bicycles. Berlin also has good bicycle lanes and lights but not as good as Copenhagen. Since we didn't think we were comming to Berlin we didn't bother to get a Rick Steves book for this area. After waking up on Tuesday and trying to figure out what to do and where to stay we realized how much we rely on and enjoy the Rick Steves books. I felt like I was missing a leg. So we spent a couple hours trying to track one down in Berlin with no luck. Oh well. Now we know. We spent the rest of the day cycling around the city dodging rain and looking at the sights. Berlin is really cool but still kind of scary. You go into East Berlin and it is like another world. Think of all the ugliest 1960's and 70's buildings you have ever seen (like UW's Seig Hall) and pack them onto huge nicely treed boulevards. It's so strange. There is construction everywhere to replace all of the infrastructure that the GDR never maintained. Things are changing fast. It's really neat to see. Tuesday evening we met up with a friend of Marek's for dinner and had a nice time discussing a Polish person's life in Berlin.

Yesterday we did the tourist thing and cycled first to the Deutsches Historisches Museum where we learned about the National-Socialist government and how they legalized the robbery and extermination of the Jews, and saw an exhibit about how the German people dealt with the war and it's consequences. It was very informative and thought provoking. Heather and I both learned a great deal. Next we cycled along the old site of the wall (is is marked with a brick line on the ground) to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. This museum was built in like 1948 right after the war and they have all sorts of stuff on the history of the wall, escapes and life behind the wall. It's neat because the museum exhibits were all created as it happened so everything is in present tense. Makes you feel like you are back on 1961 when the actual wall went up.

Cycling along the old location of the wall. Most of the area where the wall used to be is still undeveloped.


We grabbed some dinner in the trendy student area of East Berlin and the headed to Parliment (the Reichstag) to see the new building. This building is the one that was burnt (probably by the Nazi Party) and then used as an excuse to start the whole anti-Jew and anti-Communist movement. The building sat unused for many years as a bombed out structure and then was redone when the wall fell. The dome that use to be on top of the building was replaced with glass and you can walk to the top of it, all the time looking down into the Parliment chambers. Very symbolic. The message being that all Germans should keep a close eye on their government and get involved.

Brandenburg Gate from the Reichstag


Tomorrow we head for Amsterdam! We of course have photos off all these things and I will edit this post with the photos when we get to an Internet cafe that allows USB connections. I hope all is well with you, where ever you are!