Hello Dandelion Travelers!

After 3 hours of my last flight to Stockholm, Sweden I have finally arrived!
Here it goes. Before I left California, I researched and booked everything in advance.
1. Where will be staying (Skanstulls Vandrarhem AB Hostel)
2. How I will be going to get there from Arlanda airport
3. How much will this cost
I wrote everything down on some binder paper so that I get a better feel for what I will be doing from handwriting it. Sort of like taking notes to study for tests or exams. Yea…no. I arrived and I didn’t follow any of my directions. I was on the plane and about to land at around 9:30 PM, Swedish time. I’m guessing I missed the supposedly 20 hours of light in the summer because there were barely any lights looking down from the view of my airplane window. There were scatters of lakes and water everywhere because Sweden is situated on little islands. There were no lights or cars out from what I can see. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be like Romania where I felt so lost and then asking myself, “What the hell am I doing here again?” I got off the plane then walked through these funny entrances that were automatic, yes, but they took really long to open and also the two automatic doors opens toward you. Here I am with my 3 luggage; a stuffed travel backpack, my 50 lbs/25k suitcase, my cheer bad that is about 20 lbs, and my school bag that is about 10 pounds. Don’t ask me why all of it was so heavy. I walked towards the immigration kiosk and it was dark all around the airport. I walk up to the kiosk and there were no lights except for these kiosks that were lit by these green lights around the glass. It felt like I was standing in line to go on Disney’s buzz light year ride. I was already feeling a bit nervous and hoping that there will be some place open to exchange money because I had forgotten to at Heathrow Airport.
Finally there are lights! Yay. Now off to the Arlanda Express that takes me to Central Stockholm in 20 minutes. I went on the train and there was a family who was speaking in Cantonese. Since I speak Cantonese too and also feeling a bit lost, I decided to make small talk with them in Chinese. There was a girl my age, Celine, her Chinese mom, and her cute little sister. They reminded me of my mom and sister…but there was one thing…they all had an English accent (London accent). Imagine a Chinese family from England with a British accent. It was really weird! Celine and I got along really quickly and I talked to her mom in Chinese on where I will be staying and doing in Sweden. I had a gist of where I was going but her mom was so scared and worried for me because she saw that I was relying on the binder paper to get where I want to be. She’s very similar to my mom and even acted like her. They were so surprised that I was traveling alone at night and carrying all the luggage that I have so they invited me to go in their taxi and insisted that they drop me off to my hostel. They were on holiday for a week and staying at the Hilton Hotel nearby by hostel. My first encounter with people in Sweden was Chinese people. They invited me to sightsee with them on Monday. Chinese mom was still so worried for me that she paid the taxi driver for my part to make sure I get to the hostel safely. It was a $40 taxi ride!
For Late Arrivals to the Hostel:
1. Go to the pin pad 20 meters away and type in the number that you received.
Okay, there was a pin pad right next to the door of my hostel so I kept punching in 4708B and wondering why it didn’t work! For about 10 minutes, I was pulling my bags back and forth between the two doors. One door with the pin pad and the other with the entrance. I gave up and I asked someone to help me.
“Do you speak English?” I asked as this beautiful, blond, tall and slim couple past by.
“Yes.” He said.
“Can you help me open this door?” The guy was eager to help me and he read the directions from my binder paper to his girlfriend as they both tried to figure it out.
“20 meters!? This is not even 20 meters away from the door. It’s about 3 meters.”
How in the world would I know how long 20 meters is? I’m American! I use feet and inches dammit.
He figured that when it says 20 meters, it’s all the way at the end of the building. Of course. He opened the back way to the hostel and held the door for me because I was struggling with my suitcases down the stairs. My second encounter of really nice people.
Just as I thought my night was about to end, it was about 11PM and I got my keys to this cute little IKEA-looking hostel dropping and tripping over my luggage. When I walked in the kitchen area there were some young girls and guys talking and laughing. They didn’t even look at me when I was struggling. When you stay at a hostel, it’s not like the horror movie people, it’s very nice and there are usually people from all around the world who are easy to talk to. We all share rooms and bathrooms. I was carrying my luggage and it was too big to fit through the little hallway where the young people were talking.
“Sorry, huge suitcases coming through!” I said as I excused myself between them.
“Do you need a hand with that?” A tall guy with red hair and an Irish accent that looked incredibly like Rubert Grint (Ron from Harry Potter aka my future hubby) got up and decided to roll my luggage to my room.
“Is this for two weeks!?”
“No, it’s for a year.”
“Oh wow, studying here eh? This is actually really heavy, what do you have in here?”
“Yea, I brought my mother with me, do you want to say hi to her?”
There was another person who came to see why we were laughing and giggling and he asked me where I was from.
“I’m from California.”
“Oh. I just had been there last year. I visited all the touristy bits. You should come out with us tomorrow if you want. We are heading down to the pubs.”
It’s exciting already! I’ve met some really nice people and from all over Europe in my first few hours in Sweden. I’m ready to start this year. Thank you mommy! I love you.

IKEA Lights

Tack for reading my blog. Subscribe if you want it to let you know I have a new entry!
From Skanstulls Vandrarhem AB Hostel in Stockholm, Sweden

Love, Dandelion Traveler

I like their bike lanes better, it’s away from the cars.

You don’t even have to lock it! How sweet is that?

22 Aug This entry was published on August 22, 2010 at 10:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.