Scotland and Sweden

I made it back all in one piece!

Scotland and Sweden were amazing and I had a ton of fun. I'll start at the beginning.

My friend Joe, from W&J who is studying in Munich, came in to Ireland on Wednesday. We left for Glasgow, Scotland Thursday evening and went to the hostel. After some confusion with the rooms we both ended up getting free upgrades at the hostel. We went out to see the town a bit and had some Scottish beer at a local pub. We went in early so we could get up and see the city Friday.

On Friday we walked around the city and saw some pretty interesting buildings. Unfortunately it was pouring rain and made taking good pictures difficult. We hurried through the city to see as much as possible since we had to leave for Stockholm in the evening. The rain forced us inside to the World's Tallest Movie Theater to see a movie and dry off. After the movie we took the train to the airport and caught the plane to Sweden.

Our flight ended up being delayed by an hour so we didn't get into Sweden until around 11. After the hour bus ride to Stockholm city centre and figuring out the subway we didnt get into the hostel until 1:15. We immediately went to bed to rest up for a big day on Saturday.

We slept in a bit on Saturday and when we got up we moved to our new hostel since Friday nights was booked. After checking in and dropping our bags off we headed to a ticket center to buy tickets to the Bandy game on Sunday. I'll tell you more about it later. After tickets we headed to IKEA, the main reason I wanted to go to Stockholm.

IKEA was HUGE. The largest one in the world. It had about 6 floors and the warehouse alone was bigger than IKEA Pittsburgh. Immediately we went to the restaurant to eat. I told everyone there that I worked in an IKEA restaurant and they loved it. The workers asked me all kinds of questions about our menu and how we do things. It was pretty funny actually and everyone looked at me kind of weird since I was taking millions of pictures.

The rest of the store was pretty overwhelming. There was a cafe on every floor and the building was cylindrical so you were constantly walking in circles. I got a few catalogs and floor plans along with the tons of pictures I took as souvenirs.

After IKEA we went back to the hostel, dropped our stuff off and went to grab some food. We walked around the city a bit at night and found it difficult to find a place to hang out with a younger crowd. We ended up finding a bar with some live music and Swedish beer.

On Sunday we woke up pretty early and headed to town looking for some Sweden hockey jerseys. No dice on the hockey jerseys, but I did find a nice Swedish soccer shirt. We moved our stuff back to the hostel we stayed at on Friday because it was much nicer and cheaper. We were getting geared up for the big bandy game of Hammarby vs. Sandvikens. It was the semi-final game for the local team Hammarby.

Since probably all of you don't have a clue what Bandy is, check out the pictures. Its basically a mix of field hockey, soccer, and ice hockey. The game is played on a ice rink that is the size of a soccer field - HUGE. The sticks are like that of field hockey, but the rules are extremely similar to soccer and there is no hitting. Its 11 vs 11 and is very fast paced. The locals were amazed that we had heard of this game before. The only reason I heard of the game was because of my friend Anders who plays on my hockey team and is from Sweden.

Bandy was pretty intense. The fans were crazy. The fans chanted the entire game and waved huge flags. They screamed at the refs and yelled what I think were profanities all game long. Remember, everyone spoke Swedish, although most spoke english as well. At one point kids were lighting fireworks off IN the stands. Unreal. It was pretty fun to see how into games these fans would get. It was a great experience. Even though Hammarby lost the fans still chanted until they left the ice. The coolest part of the game was at the end when the team skated to our section and the captain gave a speech. Probably since their season was over, the captain spoke a bit and led the crowd in the team song. The team handed their sticks to fans and shook hands with the kids. I will try to upload some videos of the game, but i dont know if the internet here will allow me.

We went in early Sunday and got up at 8 to catch our plane back to Dublin. We thought we might have missed our flight to Dublin, but we made it with about 30 mins to spare. European airports, like American airports, can sometimes be really fast or really slow. Stockholm wasnt the fastest.

When we got to Dublin at 12 the fun really began. We had a 5 hour wait coming for us. 5 hours wasnt worth paying 12 euros to get to and from the city so we chilled at the airport. Around 4 I went to check in and found that our flight was canceled. Needless to say, Joe and I were pissed. RyanAir offered us a flight at 9 but told us it would likely get canceled too. We asked for a refund and had to take the train to Cork. The train cost a fortune (60 euros compared to 18 by plane) and took another 3 hours to get back. We made it back at 9 and finally completed the big trip.

I had a ton of fun and really loved Stockholm. I wish we could have saw more, but our plans were a bit limiting and took some time. It is definitely a place to visit.
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Other than the big trip...we won our hockey game last week 1-0 and mathematically sealed the championship up. We'll get our trophy next week after the last game.

Mom and the crew come Saturday and should be pretty fun. They arrive in the heat of the St Paddy's celebration...should be a good time.

Next week we'll be going to Galway and Killarney hopefully.

Check out the pictures from Scotland and Sweden! Talk to you soon

- Travis