Leaving Helsinki for Stockholm...

I thought about walking from Helsinki's central station to the hotel using my iphone's SatNav, but I didn't get very far and decided instead to go against the grain of my own thinking and jump into a taxi. We got stuck in a small jam but soon I found myself checking in to the Scandic Paasi and making my way to room 602 which was at the end of a corridor on the 6th floor and oddly in the same position (albeit in a different hotel) as the room in which I stayed the last time I was here, back in February 2020 and also in a Scandic property. In Finland all the doors open outwards (it's a fire precaution). I've probably mentioned that before too. I think it might be the same in Sweden too and, therefore, I'm guessing it's the same in Norway, who knows? Next time I find myself in Oslo I'll know for sure. The room was pleasant and after dinner I sat and watched an episode of Top Gear, the one when they go to Australia to herd cows using their cars. Mildly amusing and enjoyable to watch and I'm now looking forward to the next Grand Tour on September 16th on Prime. The following day was relatively free. Well, the morning was relatively free. I had to be on a flight to Stockholm at 1425hrs which, miraculously, would get me into the Swedish capital at exactly the same time so I amused myself by going to the gym and getting some much-needed exercise. I jumped on an exercise bike, set it for 60 minutes on a high setting (17 out of 20) and then sweated my way through what was quite a work-out. By the time I got off the bike and wiped it down I was in need of wiping myself down. The tee-shirt I had been wearing was wet through with sweat and I'm sure those in the lift moments later were looking at me in disgust as, to be fair, I must have been whiffing somewhat. But not for long. Once back in room 602 I took a shower and then packed up ready to leave the hotel. There was a metro station virtually next door and I rode the train for two stops to the central station and then took the sky train (was that it's name?) to the airport where I found everything very simple and easy. Why? Because there was nobody around. Remember that Finland only has a population of 5.5 million and they have a bigger land mass than the UK (where the population approaches 70 million). So there was nobody around and it was fantastic. I checked in my bags immediately, security was a doddle and soon I found myself in an empty airport wandering towards gate 36a to catch my short flight to Stockholm. I was amazed at the lack of people, it was fantastic and yes, before you ask, I could live in Finland. The stark contrast between Finland and the UK was all around me. There's probably no better way of illustrating the lack of people than showing you a few photographs (you can see some in the previous post, but here's some more).

I could get used to this. Helsinki airport is like a ghost town.

 

Empty, no people, lovely!

Where is everybody?

Hardly anybody around at Helsinki airport

Helsinki airport is empty, nobody around, brilliant!

This is what I like, hardly any people...

Nobody around...

Nobody around at Helsinki airport

But things changed when I reached Stockholm. The flight was pleasant and virtually empty and after touching down I made my way to baggage reclaim where I encountered people. Oh no! Not people! It was the last thing I needed, crowds of travellers, but I was one too so I couldn't really complain. There were sniffer dogs at customs and once through the other side I made my way to the railway station to take the Arlanda Express into the city and to my hotel the Scandic Malmen, which in my opinion wasn't as good as the Scandic Paasi in Helsinki. There was a big reception area and I vaguely remember not staying here but coming to the lobby on a previous visit to Stockholm when I was staying in the Nofo hotel. At the time I remember thinking that it would be a good hotel to book should I ever find myself back in the Swedish capital. Well, there I was, in the Scandic Malmen about to check in to room 702; actually, I can't remember the exact number, which is just as well as the room stank to high heaven because there was a drainage issue, and I couldn't stay there, the whiff was too much, so I bowled down to reception with a view to finding another hotel if I had to; the man on the front desk, who resembled Rutger Hauer's replicant in Blade Runner, looked for another room and initially said he didn't have one, but eventually I was given room 341 on the third floor which, compared with the room on the seventh floor, was tiny and had a very cramped bathroom. Not brilliant it has to be said and because of 'the environment' they weren't going to be cleaning my room daily, which meant I'd return later to an unmade bed, nothing more depressing than an unmade bed. The last time a hotel said it wasn't going to be cleaning my room was in Pittsburgh in May at the Hilton Garden on Forbes Avenue. I spent a week in that hotel and whenever I returned to my room there was my unmade bed competing with Tracey Emin's work of art. I suppose I could have made the bed myself, but that would have been missing the point. During my stay in the Pittsburgh Hilton Garden I ended up with a foot infection that later needed two weeks of treatment with antibiotics, and bearing in mind that the only place my feet were exposed to the outside world was in the hotel room, I'm guessing that's where I picked it up. Anyway, fortunately I picked nothing up in room 341. 

I was in Sweden for two days conducting interviews and meetings. Prior to the first one, which was on the other side of town to the Malmen, I found an amazing little bakery. I'd been up at the crack of dawn, had a quick breakfast in the hotel and then took the metro to Hotorget from where I walked the rest of the way. It was fairly easy using the iphone's SatNav and I reached the bakery at 0730hrs. My meeting was scheduled for 0900hrs so I settled in with a couple of bakery items and two cappuccinos. It was Wednesday, half way through the week, and I'd resigned myself to not getting much in the way of exercise. But I suppose the two bakery items were a bit excessive... and the two cappuccinos. After the interview I walked back across the city. I didn't do too badly until the very end of the journey when the SatNav confused me again and I think I probably walked around in circles a few times before finally finding my hotel. Half way back I stopped for lunch and sat outside in the sunshine. It was hard to believe I was in Sweden as I could easily have been in Italy or the South of France. I ordered salmon with asparagus and skin-on potatoes, plus a Carlsberg (no alcohol beer). It was pleasant and prepared me for the rest of the journey back to the Malmen. I had one more interview to do. I got back to my hotel around 1430 hrs and went straight to my second appointment which was around a 20-minute walk away. The person I was interviewing had joined me for dinner the night before and we had sat outside in the warm evening air chatting about this and that. All very pleasant. But now it was over and we'd said farewell and it was early evening and I had time to kill. I wandered up a few streets as the light faded and found an Italian restaurant where I ordered a pizza and salad with another alcohol-free beer (make that two) and then I wandered back to the hotel knowing that tomorrow I'd be flying back to the UK – what an awful thought. Back to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak and all the shite I left behind earlier in the week. I wasn't looking forward to landing on UK soil and I wasn't looking forward to the flight either, with British Airways as opposed to Finnair. It was as if a little bit of the UK had flown over to Sweden to pick me up and return me to the shite of the cuntry. Yes, I'm back to taking the 'o' out of country, it's that bad, in fact it's much worse than it was the last time I bastardized the word. Still, back I must go, but I had a few hours to go and most of it, of course, would be spent sleeping. I switched off the lights, drew back the curtains and lay on the bed thinking bad thoughts.

In the morning I discovered there was a gym in the hotel but it was too late to start building up a sweat. Instead I decided to enjoy breakfast and managed to eat a handful of small cookies on top of my original healthy muesli-based breakfast and then there was a rather nice cinnamon pastry slice that I enjoyed immensely. But I'd also started fretting about what I was eating and how much exercise I'd be doing on my return to Shitsville. After breakfast I nipped out and found a cafe where I bought a blueberry pastry and a cappuccino. I later considered another coffee and another pastry before resigning myself to the fact that I needed to get to the airport. I went back to the Malmen where I had left my suitcase in a room in the basement and then rolled down the street towards the metro and the start of my journey home. Here's some more images...

The Arlanda Express into Stockholm city centre...

People! At Stockholm's baggage reclaim area.

Lobby of the Scandic Malmen in the early hours.

View from room 341, Scandic Malmen

Beers with my pizza meal.

Coffee and a pastry before an important interview.

I bought these in the early hours...

The British Airways flight to London Shitsville.

The hours passed by and soon it was time to board the UK flight. It was, of course, a full flight, as I might have said already, and I had the misfortune of sitting in the middle seat, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I was still annoyed about the middle seat and about going home. I was now sitting in a little slice of England which was going to take me home and dock with the mother ship. I ordered coffee and a KitKat and then just sat there occasionally looking out of the window to assess whether there was going to be any turbulence. There wasn't any, the flight was perfect. I sat next to a woman who was knitting a small octopus for a charity supporting mothers who suffer premature births. We landed safely and because I hadn't booked a return cab I jumped aboard the Heathrow Express into Paddington, took the Bakerloo to Oxford Circus, the Victoria Line to Victoria and then a direct train home.

In New Delhi, Day Two...

Well let's start with the end of day one: after about three hours' sleep I got up and moseyed around, checked things out. I took a look at the pool. Miles too cold and nobody else looked interested so I contented myself with touching the water, as if to confirm my suspicions that the water was cold, off-puttingly cold.

There are two restaurants here at The Park: Fire, which is the Indian restaurant – and by this I think they mean the place where the Indians like to eat, or possibly the place where you can get proper Indian food – and Mint, which is more mainstream, but still offers Indian food. Mint is where breakfast is served.

The pool at the Park Hotel, New Delhi...

Prior to any of the above taking place, I had an amazing rain shower. Not as invigorating as the one I took in the Act Hotel in Japan in October, but invigorating enough to make it excellent. Later, after everything that has happened in these three paragraphs, I headed outside. One thing I do know about India is that wherever I go, I'm hassled. Taxi drivers, auto rickshaw drivers, people trying to sell me something, it's non-stop. While walking, however, I met a nice guy, whose name I can't pronouce now, but he worked at the hotel at which I was staying, the aforementioned Park, as a cleaner. Seven hour days and he's happy. He lives in Delhi, has a wife and two children of school age. He likes cricket. He walked with me and at first I thought he was after something (money) but he wasn't, he was very friendly and took me to an emporium where I bought a small elephant and a fridge magnet. He gave me directions home, but I was soon lost and had to resort to the iphone's GPS (God knows what I would have done without the iphone).

One thing that amazes me about the Indians is there ability to put themselves in danger on a daily basis – simply by crossing the road. You must remember that here in Delhi (and in other big Indian cities) there is a lot of traffic and no rules of the road. People simply get behind the wheel and put their feet down. It's down to the pedestrians to keep out of the way (as I found out last night when I was nearly run over). I swear the guy accelerated, but there you go. This new pal of mine simply stepped out into advancing traffic and advised me to do the same. "It's alright, it's alright," he said as I bravely followed. And he was right. They have nine lives or charmed lives or both and yesterday it seemed that I did too.

I'm pleased with my elephant and fridge magnet and have put them in the hotel safe as somebody I know claims he stayed in this very hotel and had a pair of sunglasses stolen from his room. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. In fact, the hotel is very nice and so are the people that work in it. Mind you, all Indians are nice, they're all very polite and helpful, especially my friend from yesterday who I hope I'll meet again some time over the next few days.

When I got back to the hotel I had dinner. I'm a little paranoid about eating and drinking here as so much has been said about not drinking the water (I only have bottled water), cleaning your teeth with mineral water (yes, I did that yesterday and will be doing it again very shortly) and washing your hands all the time. Well, yes, I've been doing that too. I've had two rain showers in under 24 hours and washed my hands too and I'll probably wash them again in a second.

The food here is amazing. I opted for the Mint restaurant and it's one of those self-service buffets offering wonderful food: cooked vegetables, curry, rice, such an array of stuff that I can't remember exactly what I had to eat. Suffice it to say that I ate well, washed the lot down with bottled water and then went back to my room. I hit the sack at around 2200hrs (certainly no later than 2230hrs) and while I woke up around 0200hrs I got back to sleep and woke up at gone 0800hrs. Outside the fog was so thick that I could see nothing from my hotel window. It's clearing a little bit now at 0943hrs, but the air quality here is very poor (it even says so on my iphone).

I had a shower and shaved and headed down for my first breakfast at The Park. Brilliant. Everything I dream of: curry for breakfast and again I can't remember the names of the dishes, but some kind of potato-based curry, fresh vegetables and vegetable strudels, little ones, like mini sausage rolls but hot. I also had porridge, which tasted like porridge – and by that I mean it tasted like the porridge I remember from when I was younger. Somehow the porridge I have at home is thicker and less 'oaty' in taste, but here in New Delhi, while the porridge is a little more runny that I like it, it had taste. There were some incredible pastries: mini ring doughnuts with icing, croissants, pastries, mini muffins (I don't like muffins, although oddly I dreamed of eating a chocolate muffin either last night or the night before). I had some weird 'root remedy' tea, which was nice, plus a couple of slices of toasted brown bread without butter (I couldn't find any butter). Mint is a buzzing place full of people, mainly Indians because, hey, I'm in India, but a few westerners. In fact there are a lot of westerners here and you know what? I hate it when I see a western person with one of those red dots on their foreheads. It's not a good look! Unless you're Indian. Talk about 'cultural appropriation'!

I've watched a bit of Indian television and it goes without saying I can't understand a word of it, but who cares, it's just for background at night and first thing in the morning. It's the same as British TV except that it's Indian, get over it. So now I'm back from breakfast and a little annoyed that I haven't managed to see the Taj Mahal, which is something like three hours away by car. The problem is money. Yesterday none of the cashpoints wanted to give me any money and I'm going to need some for tomorrow. Without money I was unable to pay for a trip to the Taj Mahal and as a result I've felt rather despondent about things. I went to bed feeling depressed and anxious, but feel better today. I put my inner misery down to being away from home and also being so far away from home, but also the jet lag, although I'll be honest, I feel fine this morning, much better than I felt when I was in Japan. In Tokyo I was tired and sleepy virtually all the time. Here I feel better, much better. In fact, shortly I'll be heading outside to sort out the money situation and then I'll check out other places to visit, like the Red Fort, although time is not on my side, but I've got to do something, see something, go somewhere other than just my planned meetings tomorrow.

At night all I can hear is the sound of train horns. During the day it's car horns. The sun is trying to break through the mist (or the smog) and I'm ready to hit the road, sort out the money and go somewhere 'touristy'. Or perhaps I'll just mooch about. The iphone's fully charged if it's needed, but if I have money I can always get a cab, although I don't really want to do that if I'm honest, I don't like being ripped off and while I'd imagine the taxis are metered, the rickshaws aren't and I remember in Bangalore getting into disputes with the rickshaw drivers.

Incidentally, there is a bike share scheme running here in New Delhi, but if you saw the traffic on the roads you'd steer well clear, I can tell you. Photos to follow...