Once more, there has been a long delay in me posting a new journal, but once again,, I have been busy traveling. On 28^th August, Diana, teammate Mari and I left for a new Scandinavian adventure as soon as we had finished soccer training at the Club.

To save money, because, after all, we are poor female soccer players, we planned our trip around (a) where we wanted to go and (b) how we were going to travel there. This resulted in our departure from Oslo train station on the overnight train at 9:00 pm. I have never slept on a train before, and in fact, I still haven't, as I was awake for the better part of the journey.

We arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, at 07:00 am and were left to kill time till 0900. It appears that nothing at all is open in Sweden at this hour. None of the three of us were in the best of moods, so when we finally found an open café and ordered ourselves a coffee and a muffin, we were quickly feeling better and good to go.

Our first stop in the City was the museum of Vasa. I had read about this museum and had even seen a TV program about its treasures, so I was excited to be finally going. The Vasa houses a ship that Mari said was built in 1628, (I apologize if the dates are a little off.) The Swedish king wanted it to be the biggest ship ever built and a symbol of Swedish power. It is too bad that there were some major MAJOR flaws in its design and that it sank right after being launched into the harbour. In 1961, again Mari’s date, it was brought to the surface and put into the museum. The ship is quite a sight.

After the museum, we walked back along the water to the royal palace, and compared to Oslo’s palace this is huge. We watched the changing of the guard together with thousands of other people. I didn’t realize so many other people were going to be there, I would have left earlier to get a better spot if I had known.

From the palace, we walked through the old city before meeting one of Mari’s friends and heading for lunch at about 2:00 in the afternoon. After eating, it was basically packing our stuff together and heading to our ship. We were taking the ferry across to Helsinki in Finland

Before departure, I quite liked the rather romantic ideal of sleeping on a boat; The reality was different. We were in the cheapest cabins, so this meant we were on the bottom level, well below the water line and under two levels of parked cars. This was not a problem other than the fact that on this night, the ferry went through a major storm and I didn’t just think, but I knew that a level of cars was possibly going to land on my head. It was another night of very little sleep.

We docked in Helsinki at 10:00 am. Meeting us off the boat was Team Strommen’s manager Rigmor. She soon had us checked into our hostel and found us all full Norwegian soccer supporters' outfits. It was strange to see D in a Norwegian jersey, but at least the colours are much the same as Canada’s. Norway was playing France In their final game of the group stage of the European Cup and we were going to support three of our teammates. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for Norway, a tie saw both teams through. Unfortunately, this meant for a pretty boring game. However, our teammate scored Norway’s goal, and it was a great one. This made the whole trip worthwhile. The game may not have been the prettiest we have seen, but it did mean that Norway went on quite a run in the competition. They lost to Germany in the semi finals 3-1, and from what I have heard it was a really good game. The Norwegians ended the tournament in third place

We spent our last night in Helsinki at a hostel downtown. It was great to be able to sleep in a bed that didn’t move. Our flight left Helsinki at 1:00pm, so we had the morning for a quiet and leisurely stroll. However, we did have to shop for a new bag, as the duty free shop on the boat was a little too tempting for us.

This was one of those enjoyable, though fast trips, but I am very pleased to have made it. I am so fortunate to get the time and have the opportunity to see these fantastic places, even if the time we had to spend there was all too short.

 

 

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