6 October – 8 October
Swedish Meatballs
Crossed the Norwegian border into Sweden a couple of days back. In fact we crossed it a couple of times, much to the puzzlement of the Norwegian Customs Officers who had pulled up the usual van-load of suspect Eastern Europeans who were probably just on a family holiday. Or??
We have had such a hard time with tolls in Norway that we were not confident that we could spend our remaining currency until we knew there were no more toll booths! Within 5kms of the frontier we were about to head to a shop to spend up the coins we had left, (those of you in the know will remember that Janita cannot leave a country without spending every last cent of that country's currency! She left the last Norwegian shop with 50 ore [about 10 cents], which Paul promptly threw on the ground) when we saw a sign saying Toll Ahead. We were not at all surprised that the Norwegians might extract yet another pound (or krona) of flesh for driving on their fairly average roads. However, we did the good people of Norway an injustice. “Toll” also means customs and so we crossed the border – not much of an issue these days – did a U-turn and drove back to Norway to spend up our leftover change. By the time we crossed back to Sweden, the boys of the Customs service had had their fun for the day with the hapless immigrants from 'the new Europe' and had retired to their heated office.
Open rolling plains have predominated in our drive down to Stockholm - much like northern Germany but far less crowded. Great roads and no TOLLS.
Our Stockholm rental house is in the countryside near the small city of Sodertalje (try pronouncing that!). Again a very comfortable place with all the mod-cons including wireless internet. The city itself seems to be the home of Scania. A huge plant sits on the fringes of town but, like most Swedish industry, it is very clean.
So far this trip we haven't talked much about our Sat-Nav, better known as “Nav Girl”. She has done better here than she did in the USA, where the multi-layer freeways threw her a little! Her main problem here has been the number of new roads that have been built in the last couple of years. (Her maps are 2006) As a result, she sometimes gets quite lost and we are sure she just blurts out directions so as not to appear foolish. Our favourites are the “Turn Left's” which she hits us with while we fly along a motorway at 120 klm/hr. Yes, in Sweden, we are actually allowed to travel at the HUGE speed of 120, compared to the max of 80 in Norway! Yesterday, in combination with our poor instructions to her and her poor directions, we managed to drive about 60 klm to a supermarket that was about 7-8 klm up the road!
Oh yes: and the meatballs – we had them for dinner.
Swedish Meatballs
Crossed the Norwegian border into Sweden a couple of days back. In fact we crossed it a couple of times, much to the puzzlement of the Norwegian Customs Officers who had pulled up the usual van-load of suspect Eastern Europeans who were probably just on a family holiday. Or??
We have had such a hard time with tolls in Norway that we were not confident that we could spend our remaining currency until we knew there were no more toll booths! Within 5kms of the frontier we were about to head to a shop to spend up the coins we had left, (those of you in the know will remember that Janita cannot leave a country without spending every last cent of that country's currency! She left the last Norwegian shop with 50 ore [about 10 cents], which Paul promptly threw on the ground) when we saw a sign saying Toll Ahead. We were not at all surprised that the Norwegians might extract yet another pound (or krona) of flesh for driving on their fairly average roads. However, we did the good people of Norway an injustice. “Toll” also means customs and so we crossed the border – not much of an issue these days – did a U-turn and drove back to Norway to spend up our leftover change. By the time we crossed back to Sweden, the boys of the Customs service had had their fun for the day with the hapless immigrants from 'the new Europe' and had retired to their heated office.
Open rolling plains have predominated in our drive down to Stockholm - much like northern Germany but far less crowded. Great roads and no TOLLS.
Our Stockholm rental house is in the countryside near the small city of Sodertalje (try pronouncing that!). Again a very comfortable place with all the mod-cons including wireless internet. The city itself seems to be the home of Scania. A huge plant sits on the fringes of town but, like most Swedish industry, it is very clean.
So far this trip we haven't talked much about our Sat-Nav, better known as “Nav Girl”. She has done better here than she did in the USA, where the multi-layer freeways threw her a little! Her main problem here has been the number of new roads that have been built in the last couple of years. (Her maps are 2006) As a result, she sometimes gets quite lost and we are sure she just blurts out directions so as not to appear foolish. Our favourites are the “Turn Left's” which she hits us with while we fly along a motorway at 120 klm/hr. Yes, in Sweden, we are actually allowed to travel at the HUGE speed of 120, compared to the max of 80 in Norway! Yesterday, in combination with our poor instructions to her and her poor directions, we managed to drive about 60 klm to a supermarket that was about 7-8 klm up the road!
Oh yes: and the meatballs – we had them for dinner.
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