Saturday, August 24
I don't even know what to write today. It's been an emotionally heavy day.
I'm not very fond of this hostel. It's clean, no sign of bugs, and breakfast was pretty good. Probably not worth whatever i paid for it, my receipt does not have an itemized bill and it's suspiciously high, but good anyway.
Last night i had rolled in at 10:30pm, been handed a brown paper bag which i knew included a towel but was heavier than expected, and walked up to the third floor and into a pitch-black room to fumble around with just the screen of my phone for fear that the flashlight would disturb my roommates. The numbers are not on the ends of the beds, they're on the nightstand/"safes" up by the head, which was difficult to determine and then read in the dark. I had finally figured it out when i found two empty beds next to each other and walked up between them to fully inspect the setup for numbers.
I couldn't find a power outlet last night, so i didn't have a chance to charge my devices. I just turned my laptop screen as low as it would go, finished my log, crawled under the blanket, and went to sleep.
Waking up today, i realize that i'm literally in the attic. The peak of the roof is in the center of the room, and the ceiling slants down over the heads of the beds. I suppose i knew this last night, it just hadn't really occurred to me that i have literally been shoved in the attic. How is the floor bare concrete up here??
Another thing i noticed now that i was awake was, there are no sheets on this bed. There was an un-cased pillow at the head and a folded blanket at the foot, and that's it. I'm jumping ahead here, but when i finally went to take a shower tonight, i pulled that towel out of the paper bag only to find sheets in there with it. I have never been to a hostel that makes you put the sheets on the bed yourself. Furthermore, instead of a fitted sheet for the mattress, there is a huge pillowcase. I'm supposed to slip the entire mattress into a huge pillowcase?? I was supposed to do this at 10:30pm after a long day of travel in a pitch-black room with up to two dozen sleeping humans in it???
I have not been to a lot of hostels, but also i've never been asked to put the sheets on the bed my damn self. I know it's not a hotel but there's still a level of hospitality that's expected. This is bizarre.
But what's really bad is the power situation. I couldn't find a plug last night because there is only one plug per bed, and they have a reading lamp plugged into each of them. The plug for my bed is on the far side of the bed next to me. The lamp cord runs all the way over there to get to me. There is no other source of electricity in the room.
I knew i was going to need to deal with some power issues sooner or later anyway. I only brought one plug converter, and a power strip. I'm gonna show my entire ass here, but i thought the plug converter i had also converted the voltage, since European outlets are twice as high as American ones. It has a tiny light on it that tells you when power is going through it, i have always thought that light meant it was successfully stepping down the voltage.
Turns out i have just been extremely lucky this whole time that every device i've brought with me overseas has been rated for either voltage. The power strip i brought with me this time was not. I fried it immediately at Jake & Cyndi's house. Plugged it in and little puffs of smoke came out right away. Cyndi reminded me several times over the next few days that i had tried to burn her house down.
The hostel in Oslo only had one power outlet in my bunk, but i got away with that because it also had a USB-A and a USB-C coming off of it, which i can charge everything i have with except for the batteries to the R6m2 (my big camera). Only they require the full American plug.
The guy in the bed next to mine has a power strip that he's replaced his lamp with. I had figured this was the route i'd be going anyway, so i took inspiration from him and put that on my to-do list today. And now i know i need one with a long cord.
I am not super thrilled about adding additional weight to my backpack.
I did lay in bed quite a bit longer than i should have. I'm just so tired. In general, at this point. I may be too old to be doing this kind of shit.
My phone, my watch, and my laptop were all at about 45% last night, so yes, charging would be essential, but even knowing that charge was quite a long way off, i just lay in bed, scrolling through bullshit on my phone, because i was not inspired to go exploring today.
I finally realized that it was nearly 10am and i had paid for a breakfast buffet without asking any questions, like "what hours is it available?" or "where is it?"
The geography of this building is already extremely wonky, and finding breakfast was not obvious. I followed the coffee cup signs first, but that just led me to the lobby. I did eventually find there were signs that say "Breakfast," but they don't start from the stairwell.
No one checked my card or anything to see if i had paid extra for breakfast. Did i even need to add this on? Or was this included already anyway? I have no idea. But also, i wouldn't even know about it if he hadn't added it on. So. Who knows.
Decent breakfast, i had two sandwiches, figuring it was late enough that i would just call this "brunch" and not need another meal. It was getting on 11 and they were still serving, so i probably didn't need to worry so much.
I looked up Stockholm on Atlas Obscura. It gave me 127 items. For reference, Copenhagen had 45 and Oslo had 19.
I scrolled through the whole list, then skimmed it again backwards. I found absolutely nothing that seemed like it was worth tracking down.
I found that, for all of my saved travel destinations on Instagram, i had nothing for the entirety of Sweden.
I started searching duckduckgo and google for things to do in Stockholm. Went through a few listicles, and saw absolutely nothing that appealed to me.
What am i doing here?
I went outside to sit on a bench and stare at the water just outside the hostel. What body of water even is this? I think it might be called Stockholms Ström, not sure.
And i got into a death spiral.
Friends, this is where things start to get a little rough.
I did know there would be days like this. It was inevitable.
I just sat there for i don't know how long, staring at the water, feeling alone, wishing Amanda was here with me. I mean, she is here with me, i'm still posting in the "Amanda + Trevor's Europalooza" blog because i have her with me, but like. More than just her ashes in a necklace. More than just in spirit. I need her here for real support. To grab me by the hand and lead me somewhere.
I kept thinking about all the adventures we had together and all the places we traveled, and how she always had ideas for things to do and see. And how i will never have that again. How naïve it was of me to think that i could just fill both of our roles on my own!
Things just got worse from there. I don't want to revisit the entire thought chain, obviously. This is hard enough as it is.
I got to the point where i was in serious danger of just letting loose and weeping in public. So instead, i got up, and just started walking deeper into the island. My hostel is on an island, i don't know if i said that before.
It helped. I found a really weird sculpture park, which i filmed a bunch of on the R6m2, but didn't take any photos with my phone, so it's not in today's Instagram post. Then i ended up down by the docks, and just kept walking around the water's edge. I was almost all the way around when the land to my left became a giant hill, and suddenly there were gates built into it. Like there was an underground bunker. I kept walking, and i passed two more gates.
I got to the road with the bridge i'd initially walked onto the island last night from. There was the entrance to the underground bunker. It was open. It was charging admission.
It's a toy museum.
...
Huh.
I was feeling a little better from my walk, but the echoes of the past were still too loud. I wasn't sure if i was cold or not, with the breeze coming ashore i could go either way. Logically i felt like i should feel cold, but in actual fact, i was fine. Not cold, but like, i could be cozier, you know? Should i go back into the hostel and attach the sleeves to my jacket and the legs to my pants? Or will i just be too hot later?
I did go back into the hostel.
No one was in my little attic room. I had a little bit of a meltdown for a while. Just pacing circles around the weird, long table in the middle that can't really have any practical application given the lack of lighting and power in here. At least i kept it off Facebook this time.
It's lonely out here, on this trip, by myself.
I'm just having A Lot Of Feelings.
I don't know if there's really nothing interesting to do in Stockholm or if it's just my state of mind. I just didn't know if i could muster the drive to go sightseeing today. I just did not think i had it in me. Especially with absolutely no destinations in mind.
I finally relaxed enough to look at it objectively. It's a beautiful day, and the hostel sucks and you're running low on power. There's no sense in staying in this room. Maybe you don't have anything you really want to do, but you can go for a walk. Just go for a walk.
I could cancel the rest of the trip right now and go home. I wouldn't get all of my money back, but at least i would stop spending money, and that's almost as good as a refund, right?
But then i look at it this way.
I could be sad and lonely at home on the couch.
Or i could be sad and lonely in a new city that i might never get the chance to see again.
I went outside and i just started walking.
For five hours and thirty-nine minutes.
Which, incidentally, is the exact same time as my first marathon. I may not be *good* at marathons, but i do finish them!
In the end, i had a nice day!
The weather was gorgeous, i was glad i did not zip any arms or legs onto my garments, and i saw a lot. Stockholm is a bit of a weird city, but it felt more welcoming and comfortable in the sunlight.
I did take a lot of breaks, just to sit down and stare at the water and contemplate. But i always got back up, and just kept walking.
Across the Ström from the hostel, there's a big statue of an ice cream cone. I didn't head toward it on purpose, but i did end up over there. I got a waffle cone with two scoops: one scoop rhubarb, one scoop cloudberry. I had never heard of rhubarb ice cream before today. I had never heard of cloudberry at all. Both were fantastic.
I saw a sculpture called "Arch" by Ai Weiwei. I saw a sculpture called "The Cuckhold of Skeppsbron," the only thing i found from Atlas Obscura today. I found a sculpted fountain of a naked man fighting an alligator with a hammer. I found a four-story-tall mural of a tall woman with a face either in her abdomen, or on the side of her purse, and a short man with weird toes. I saw many stenciled graffitis of a deer face, always on the plywood covering a construction site. Maybe it's not graffiti, maybe it's branding? Unclear. I walked through a bustling pedestrian street with nothing but restaurants and souvenir shops. I walked down "the thinnest street in Stockholm, perhaps in all of Sweden!" which was not as wide as my wingspan. I also saw a large water pump that, according to Maps, is a tourist destination. I saw a huge protest in support of Ukraine.
Drew, who can see my location on Google Maps, sent me a list of historical sites i was close to that he thought i should check out; i found Harald Lindbergs Trappor, but i got very lost trying to get to Slussen; every direction i went seemed to be wrong. Or maybe Slussen is just a much larger district than Google Maps makes it appear.
The two paragraphs above are out of order and shuffled, but i didn't really want to go into detail on all of those things so i matched them with like items.
I did eventually get my power strip and another plug converter, though i had to walk much further than i expected to get there. Scandinavia doesn't seem to have any sort of an equivalent to Target or Shopko, as far as i can tell there's no big-box department stores of any kind. Which is great!! I love that for them. But, since everything around here is independent shops or more localized chains, i have no idea what store i'm even looking for to find these things. Google Maps suggested grocery stores for power strips. It did lead me to an electronics store called Webhallen, but walking in, i could see that their stock was...extremely limited. It looked like a GameStop with 80% of the inventory removed. I looked at literally every single item in the store and, finding no power strips, went to the counter to ask the clerk if they sold them. He told me he needed to help another customer, because they are on a queue system, and the polite thing to do would have been for me to ask how to get in the queue, because i had stood by the counter and waited for the two customers before me but apparently there were deli numbers or something i don't fucking know, but instead i got a little pushy and told him i just need to know if you sell power strips GOD DAMN IT but without the god damn it part. He said he might but they'd be in the back, but he didn't think he had any right now. So i pushed it a little harder and asked if he knew where i could get one. He said something that sounded like "Shell and Company" and gestured in a vague direction, diagonally across the huge courtyard outside the store.
Great! I have more guidance now than fuckin' Google was giving me.
I tried searching for "Shell" and all that came up was the gas station. I tried "Shell & Co" and it gave me a hair salon in Canada. I tried many variations, and no luck. So i just started wandering in the vague direction he had kind of pointed.
I was not seeing anything remotely resembling a place that might have power strips. I started crossing a street and saw a place called Electrolux. That seems like it might have electronics! Oh, it's a kitchen supply store. And it's closed.
I went a few more blocks before i finally thought, okay, i need something more to go on than "this way-ish" and "sounds like Shell and Company." There was a public library, i considered even popping in and asking a librarian. Is that silly? Maybe. Are librarians used to silly? Almost certainly.
I leaned up against a tree for a minute and thought of more ways to combine words that might lead me to "Shell and Company." I don't know what it was that finally did it but i successfully decoded it to "Kjell and Company." Hooray! Why didn't that come up when i just searched "Company" or "And Company" earlier? Huh, Google?? HUH????
The enshittification is real.
Anyway the one nearby was closed.
But they have other locations! And one of them was still open for another 45 minutes, and i could walk there in ten!
So with that done, i figured, it's 5:30, i've already accomplished more today than i expected to from the state i was in this morning. Maybe grab some food, and go back to the hostel? Take a shower? Perhaps do some laundry?
I'd passed quite a few restaurants on the way to Kjell and Company, so i decided to just jump into whatever caught my fancy. By the time i'd reached the courtyard that Webhallen occupies a small corner of (Medborgarplatsen), i hadn't seen anything attractive that was open. But in this courtyard were some food trucks. Cyndi had told me that hot dog carts are big in the region, and that everywhere kind of puts their own spin on it; Huan-Hua had said something similar regarding the weird hot dog i ate at the airport in Iceland.
So i went ahead and stopped at a hot dog stand called Downtown Burger & Hot Dog, and i certainly did see some inventive hot dogs on their menu. I ordered The Double Roll, not really knowing what i was getting into. At first i thought i might need to order two hot dogs to call it a full meal for me, but their regular dogs were like nine bucks and the double was fourteen. At that price, was gonna make do with one either way, i just expected that it would be like. Really good. Super gourmet hot dog.
What i ended up with was an absolutely absurd amount of food. For what i have been paying for meals in Europe so far, i would expect this hot dog to be more like $25. So it's two hot dogs in a tortilla, right, but also the tortilla is filled with potato salad, shrimp salad, crispy onions, and many sauces. He rolled the tortilla like an ice cream cone, stuck a fork in the open top, and handed it to me upright.
Fourteen bucks and it included a Coke.
Also, fucking delicious. Incredible. Just. A+ all the way through.
Despite being my second and final meal for the day, a day in which i spent six hours walking, i did not think i was going to be able to finish it. The last inch and a half of that tortilla were so dense with potatoes, it presented a legitimate challenge to me. But i got there.
I returned to the hostel, getting back to the attic room about 6:30, and still being the only person there. Not surprised, really, i'm sure everyone here is tourists and everyone else had actual plans for this city. Things like attractions, rather than emotional rollercoasters.
I did take that shower, and i did bring my Scrubba bag with me, and some laundry. This is the first time i've used the Scrubba bag, another piece of equipment i'd intended to test before the trip and just never got around to. It's a waterproof bag that essentially has a washboard built into it, so you can clean your clothes just by squeezing.
I could only fit one shirt, one pair of boxers, and one pair of socks in it at a time, so one change of clothes minus the pants, and it's difficult work to knead the detergent into it properly. Also the bag popped open while i was going at it. I may have been working it too hard.
The clothes that came out do smell clean, though! I've hung them over the head of my bed to dry. I only did the one set, it just took so much time in the shower to do that first load that i didn't want to keep going. I think there's only one shower on this floor of the building, i don't want to monopolize it too long. Also the shower itself is a pain in the ass.
So there we have it. My day got off to a terrible start, but i think i salvaged it in the end. I don't feel bad about just walking around and seeing what i could see. I saw some interesting things! I also discovered the source of the music from last night, which is going again tonight. It is literally miles away, but it has a clean shot across the water to get to my bedroom window.
Since i'm leaning into kitsch on this journey, let me leave you today with a quote from one of the most interesting electronic billboards i've ever seen. This may not be exact, the shots i have are only on the big camera and it's locked in the safe for the night already and i don't want to dig it out.
"You had a dream that you knew how to make it all work out, and it brought you great joy."
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