Sweden, Train north

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Untitled Before we parted Marylee did inspire me to travel north above the arctic circle so on Sunday I went to Ostersand to take the scenic train, Inlandsbanan, up to Gallevare. I stayed in Ostersand for three nights, the first at a bed & breakfest where I met a member of the Swedish parliament. He was an AFS exchange to San Deigo 1991 and we talked politics for three hours, I was thinking he was an interesting fellow till he told me he would have voted for George Bush.

One thing that Sweden is famous for is taking a number when you enter an office and wait your turn till your number is called. At times it is very helpful like at the tourist office when they are helping hundreds of people each day and makes things go smoothly. Other times its like a Saturday Night Live skit, you walk into to the office to ask a question no other people are waiting to be helped and they make you walk back to the door to get your number then they wait five minutes to call your number and there is no one else in the office.

I went to the barber in Ostersund and the first thing the lady says to me is yei hnafhqwkk likis and since I don´t speak Swedish I didn´t understand her, so she just walked up to me and hand me a number. So I´m waiting with a couple of other guys, and the one before me is an older gent with thinning hair and the barber did a nice job of cutting his hair so I told her to cut my hair the same way. She said she couldn´t because I didn´t have enough so I said just make it look good and she said that wasn´t possible but to sit down and she would try. She was a very nice lady though when she found out I was from Oregon she thought I had come along way just to get a hair cut, and when I told her I had search all over Sweden just to have her cut my hair, I finally got her to smile. She did a very nice job.

The next day I got on the train to see the sites of the Inlandsbanan.

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