The great Swedish train crush and the most inappropriate named chocolate ever

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My journey to Malmo should have been very simple; cross the road to the central station in Gothenburg, get on a train, 2 hours later get off. However, fate decides to throw me a curveball. Actually to be precise the Swedish railway system decides to throw me a curveball as for some unknown reason they use the height of summer and tourist season to do all their engineering works so I discover there are no trains going to Malmo and I had to get bus replacement to another station and then pick up the train. Ok I can do this… I can negotiate a bus in a language that is so alien to me I might as well be from Mars. Luckily the Swedes are amazing at English and finding an official looking person I ask where I can get the replacement bus. However, here’s where Sweden loses its reputation as a land of sensible ideas and becomes bonkers. The bus replacement leaves 20 minutes earlier than the train it is replacing… so I have missed it! Now I don’t know about you but there is no logic in that for me. So I hunt down a new bus (refusing to accept I would have to wait two hours for the next one) which takes me to a tiny station about 20 miles away and I get on a train there that is going to Malmo but will just take longer. That’s ok… at least I am moving south and it has air con…curveball number 2…the train I have to get on has air con that is about as powerful as an asthmatic climbing up a hill and it’s packed. I don’t mean packed as in I have to sit with someone I don’t want to; I mean packed as in there is virtually no standing room as the train before it was cancelled and there seems to be an urgent need for the whole of Gothenburg’s suburbia to migrate south for the summer. The heat is unbearable; the crush of people is quite scary, yet somehow, 3 hours later I arrive in Malmo…the Swedish equivalent of a ghost town. Luckily my hotel was just over the road from the central station and I checked in. Dumped my stuff and headed out and found a lovely canal cruise which promised the highlights of the city without having to lie on the floor or do any other strange manoeuvres as Gothenburg’s finest made me. The trip was actually very relaxing and although the main harbour area was very quiet, it was the canals that weave through the middle of the city that showed Malmo at its prettiest. A very lush, green city with grand merchant houses made for a very pleasurable journey. The highlight for me was seeing the Turning Torso building. A crazy apartment and office building that does indeed turn…it looks like its being twisted anyway. I then took a walk through the town and up to the main square which was surrounded by stunning architecture. There were virtually no people in the city despite it being a Sunday afternoon and glorious weather. My map was easy to follow and I managed to see all the main sights and take in a delightful bar with good pear cider (all in the name of keeping cool you understand) and witnessed the hilarious sight of a child who was so busy playing on a handheld games console that he walked smack into a lamp post and proceeded to cry so his mother could kiss and cuddle him and I could snigger into my drink! Lovely dinner sat in one of the old squares and I really had seen everything there was, thank God I didn’t have more than a day here and there was nothing else to do. Oh.. and my great discovery… chocolate with the best name ever… PLOPP!!!!!! Ha ha ha, sorry, the 6 year old in me will never tire of inappropriate names for things.

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