Riding the Rails from Stockholm to Trondheim

We had an early start to the day on Saturday, waking up at 6 AM to pack up and make it to Stockholm Central station for our train to Northern Sweden. We made it to the station with no real issue and enjoyed a coffee while waiting for our train. Sitting next to us was a group of three travelers, including an American in his late 30s who apparently at one point bragged to the others that if they should ever lose their passport he knows a guy. Always reassuring...

We boarded our sleek, Swedish high speed train bound for Ostersund in Northern Sweden around 8:30. Seated across from us were two women in their 70s who appeared to be something of the Swedish female version of Stadler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show. They chatted and giggled and carried on about Lord knows what for the majority of the 6 hour trip. They had event bought their own copies of the day's newspaper and worked on the crossword puzzle side by side, which was almost unbearably cute.

My Mom and I plugged into my iPod and relaxed as the spectacular Swedish countryside whizzed by at an average speed of 100 or so mph. Through the intermittent rain we gazed out the window at beautiful, rich green pastures and stunning inland lakes and rivers with hardly a standing structure in view along the coastline. More often than not, the most obvious buildings on the lake were just that - on the lake. There were tiny hits built on stilts in the middle of the lake, presumably for fishing and maybe even drying of fish that were caught out on the lake.

Our afternoon stop was in Ostersund, a small, seemingly industrial town in north central Sweden. Our main goal for the brief two hour stop was to find a suitable place to grab a light lunch. After wandering around the central pedestrian shopping district, my Mom waved me over to a small kebab shop that had the Greece-S. Korea World Cup match on. The shop was run by a youngish guy, probably about my age who spoke broken, but still pretty good English. When we had nearly finished our meal, he struck up a conversation with us about where we were from. Aside from his confusion about whether California was a city or a state, he was fairly well informed about American life. He asked us what we thought of Obama and how the U.S. took care of those who were poor and unemployed. He began to extol the virtues of the Scandinavian social welfare state and how comfortable it made life. He then explained to us that he preferred George Bush to Obama on account of his policy towards Iraq. It turns out that this man is from Turkey but of Kurdish ethnicity and very much approved of Bush's policies which he took to be the most positive for the Kurds of any American president in recent memory. My Mom pointed out the strange combination of our new friend's approval of a strong welfare state and preference for GWB. So far, our brief interaction in Ostersund has proven to be one of the lasting memories from the trip.

After lunch we boarded a Norwegian train that would take us to Trondheim. Stadler and Waldorf were once again sitting across from us as the train pulled out of the station. I struggled to keep up with my point and shoot photography out the window as we passed by more pristine lakes and climbed higher and higher into the mountains that form the border between Norway and Sweden. There were still remnants of snow on the peaks of the mountains we saw in the distance and melted runoff formed waterfalls cascading down the jagged cliffs that lined both sides of the railroad tracks. Eventually, we made our way down the mountains into a lush, green river valley and the river that ran alongside the tracks opened into open waters. The sun finally decided to show itself as the train made its way into Trondheim at 8:15 PM, giving us a taste of the late night sunshine that awaited us at the northernmost destination on our Great Scandinavian Adventure.