Guest Blog: Bike-packing Across Scandinavia at 64 (5-6 June 2024)

Odeshog, Sweden

5 June 2024: Wednesday

For the past two days in Sweden, I slept in blocks of time. Yesterday, I took three naps ranging from an hour to five hours. Last night, after the sunset just before 10 pm, I put down Dark Matter and fell into a warm sleep for about five hours until about 3:30 am. Just before sunrise, the sky was already lit up. I went down for coffee and my bag of breakfast, identical to yesterday’s. I ate and finished the book that I started sometime Monday. It was pretty good, but I am not eager to start on another one of his novels any time soon. I do look forward to seeing the series on Apple TV, though. 

Showered, packed, and headed downstairs. I bought a ticket on the tram downtown, had to switch trams after the first three stops. A woman was curling her eye lashes and applying mascara while on the tram, a far sight better than applying it while driving to work in the morning, like I have witnessed in the US. 

Seven more stops, and I was in downtown Stockholm. 

Stockholm Central Station was only about four blocks away. I sat down inside around 7 am and tried to purchase a ticket online. I thought better about it, tried to find a ticket booth open, failed, so I went back to the little curved wooden bench with my back to the escalator. I felt this was the safest way to put my credit card information into the app, hoping to keep my information free from criminal eyes. 

Unfortunately, both of my credit card companies rejected the $99 charge for the ticket to Odeshog. One bank is closed until 8 am DC time. So I called the other one. One hour, four customer service and fraud protection, and four rejections later, I finally got the charge approved. 

Whoohoo! 

Uncharacteristically, I managed to keep my cool and remain polite for the entire hour conversation. By the time, I got the ticket, however, I only had 25 minutes to find the track. First things first,  I needed a bathroom. 

I never get used to unisex restrooms. The first one I had ever seen was more than a decade ago in DC. And even today, they make me uncomfortable. 

I made it to the gate a good three minutes before the train rolled in. I boarded Car 5 in the middle of a dispassionate horde of Swedes. Although I had paid $20 extra for a free breakfast and coffee, I ended up with a seat with no breakfast. Perhaps, going in and out of the app in the various attempts to rattle some sense into one of the credit cards, I had clicked the wrong button. 

Car 4 was the food store. I bought a coffee and a muffin with a strange fruit in it. Back at my seat, I tried the fruit, but it was so bitter that I didn’t eat any of it. The taste reminded me of the one and only nisepero or common medlar that I had eaten 40 years ago in El Salvador, that didn’t agree with me and sent the rest of the day at regular intervals between the bed and the outhouse.

The rest of the muffin was moist, lemony, and delicious. Then suddenly, I got ill. Sick to my stomach, but worse, dizzy. I started to black out. I was 30 minutes from my destination. I closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, and tried to relax. For a minute or two, I experienced a state of darkness and physical weakness. Had I been standing, I am certain that I would have fainted. I lost consciousness for a very short period of time, and when I started to recover my senses, I still felt ill and dizzy. By the time my stop at Mjolby arrived, it took every ounce of focus I had to stand up, pull my bag out of the overhead, and advance toward the exit. 

On the platform, I walked slowing, thinking about sitting on one of the benches, but the fresh air helped. Inside the tiny station, I found a bathroom. Unfortunately, it cost 5 Krona, or $.50, and they didn’t accept cash. All the relatively complex instructions on how to do it were in Swedish. I asked a young lady, who was sitting alone actively communicating through her phone, if she knew how to do it, but she politely said, No. 

I finally figured out that of the two options, I could go to a website, set up an account, and pay to pee. So, I did. 

Over the next hour, I drank plenty of water, walked outside and sat on a bench, only to be driven back in by the cold wind. Even at 60 degrees, the brisk Swedish wind was formidable. 

I arrived at two possible causes for the dizzy spell. One was dehydration. I knowingly, had been drinking more diet drinks and coffee at the expense of water. I I know better. So maybe it caught up to me. The other possibility was that this tiny common medlar, the size of a grape, had caused an allergic reaction. 

In any case, Christian and his youngest son arrived and off we went to his home in Odeshog, a village about 20 miles south. The landscape is relatively flat and lush farmland. Beautifully tranquil and sparsely populated. 

We picked up where we had taken off nine years ago, when I last saw him. His son was excited to see an American (don’t ask me why). We caught up on his new business. He and two business colleagues produce and sell high pressure personal protective gear for spray washers 42,500 PSI. 

At his house, I immediately napped for about an hour. I felt better, but still weak, when I awoke. We talked, had coffee, and I drank plenty of water. Then we went for a short walk. His wife Hannah arrived home from work. She is an ordained priest for the Lutheran Church. This was the first time I met her. 

As a family of five, they live in a huge 4,500 square foot rectory. Hannah has decorated the home beautifully with Christian iconography, much of which she picked up while living and working in Palestine. 

A business associate arrived, and I took advantage of the time to nap again. I awoke feeling better yet. 

In the evening, we ate pizza, and I played a game of Ludo, or Parcheesi, with the kids. It was fun. The two oldest each performed a song on the piano and violin. They are great. 

Around 9:30 pm, I excused myself and dove off into sleep. 

Oseshog, Sweden

6 June 2024: Thursday

National Day of Sweden

Christian and I set up my bike. He gave me a spare front light, batteries, a lock, tools, and many other items. Then we drove to Jonkoping, 40 miles away, my first destination on the bike. In the car, we cruised there in 45 minutes. We purchased what I needed for the bike, including a pump cell phone holder, and some other items. I bought some strawberries for dessert. 

When we got back, we enjoyed a Swedish feast: Pickled herring, small potatoes (made by Hannah), Swedish meatballs (made by Adam and Esther), salad (Adam), and for dessert Isaac had made three pies, two rhubarb and one apple. It was marvelous. 

We all napped. Hannah went to church to deliver mass and later bible study. I rode my bike a short distance, attached the other items, and played Parcheesi with the kids. 

I fell asleep around 10pm.