h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had some time left over after purchasing the train ticket, and I looked around for someting to do in the main hall of the central railway station in Stockholm.
http://www.ai-studio.com/jason/photography/stockholm/color/006.jpg

I spotted a tiny café with a few bar style high chairs, with legs of bamboo and seats of braided white plastic, accompanied by even fewer but matchingly high tables.

I studied the coffee menu and decided to try the vanilla latte - I'm not really a drinker but more of a person, and I prefer my coffee sweetened and/or flavoured.

I didn't need to add any sugar - I think they had used some sort of vanilla syrup, and the coffee was hot and strong and slightly sweet tasting, and the foam on top rich and creamy.

I chose a chair in a spot of pale sunshine filtering through the distant glass windows in the arched ceiling high above me, and sat down (or up, rather) to enjoy my latte.

I looked at the people passing by; arriving and leaving, meeting someone or saying goodbye. There was amazingly many of them, considering it was Good Friday - I would have thought most people would have left already on Thursday. So many individuals, each and every one different and unique.

The over all tempo was slower than usual however, making the place look less of an hill, and you could tell it was a holiday. And in the corner with the little café time seemed to move even slower.

Music was being played in the background - it sounded like a female Scottish folk singer accompanied only by a guitar - soft songs with a bitter sweet touch and interesting twists and turns in the melody. A voice with the sound of experience - I imagined a woman around 40.

It brought back memories from summers past, summers spent at international folk music festivals, where this kind of music is common. And I thought, with some nostalgia, of those years in the past, when the festival was mostly visited by geunine folk music fans, and you could always trust to run into befriended souls and sit up late discussing Tinuvian nose singing with complete strangers. The grande finale wout take place outside the city, and one year I hitch-hiked my way back to the city centre.

It was 3 am and a bit chilly, but it wasn't completely dark since the sky was light - but I was too tired from all the dancing to walk back. I stood by the exit from the parking area, and I wasn't the least bit worried about hiking on my own - sure, there was a chance that I might be picked up by a freak - but if I was, I knew it'd be a folk music frea, just like myself.

And the young man who stopped to pick me up fitted that description - he had spent his last money on a big Siberian jew's harp(?), and didn't have enough petrol left for his drive back to his home town!

When I heard this, I offered to pay some petrol money for the ride, but he wouldn't hear of it. He said he'd wake up a friend of his and borrow the money needed from him. The rest of the way we discussed various festival artists until he dropped me off right outside the hotel entrance.

Lately, the festival crowd has been growing, added to by people who've come more for the sake of partying than for the concerts, and it's more difficult to find kindred souls. These people seem to spend most of their time in one of the many beer tents - and the beer tents have been growing in number, as have the stalls selling tingle-tangle.

Tingle-tangle from North and South America, from Africa and Taiwan; dream catchers, necklaces with feathers, necklaces and earrings made from odd-looking pods and seeds, woven jackets and shoulder bags, wooden statuettes, hand-coloured scarves and weird hats.

Slowly my thoughts ebbed out, and I returned to the hall and my coffee. I studied the big time board to see from which platform my train would be leaving, and I noticed that theree'd be a train bound for Copenhagen leaving after my train - and I got a sudden urge to jump on tht train instead! Reminiscenses of summers spent rail-hiking in continental Europe are never far away in my mind!

I toyed with the idea for a while - then I reminded myself that I had promised my mother to come visiting over Easter, that I was due back at work coming Tuesday - and that I hadn't brought my passport. That last fact was indisputible, and I consoled myself with another vanilla latte, and savoured it while returning to watching the mini-plays taking place around me.

You took me right along with you, Titania. Beautiful imagery.

You know what? I've never taken a train. It's something I've always wanted to do. Well, technically, I rode a train when I was a little kid for about a 25 mile trip, but I don't remember anything about it.

Hope you had a nice visit with your mother.

Very well put together, Ti - as WM says, it's like having been there.

Whenever you do jump on a train to Copenhagen, just let me know OK?

I really enjoyed reading that, T.

I love travelling by train, always have!

While I still was entitled to youth discounts, I used to spend all my summer holidays travelling around in Europe with the InterRail card - Z has written an edited entry about it here: A907463

I have travelled by train in Europe even after losing the discount, but not quite so often - but the InterRail card is what my mother and I used to go to Switzerland last summer! For long distance train travels in Europe it's usually the cheapest kind of ticket

I've seen so many train stations in so many different countries - it always brings backs memories...

Hopefully there will be a folk music festival in Falun this year too - but it has always been balancing on the edge of bankruptcy - I've been thinking of going to the festival in Kaustinen in Finland instead

If I ever do jump on the train bound for Copenhagen I'll be sure to give you a shout, Santra!

Titania, thanks for taking us along on your journey and flavoring it with your personal insights.

I've only traveled by rail a couple of times that I can recall. The first time, when I was a Cub Scout, between towns along the same stretch of coastline (a very short trip, really); and once from Germany into France and back for a shopping trip of some sort. These days, I suppose I could look up AmTrak in the local area and book a jaunt with my wife, though I'm not convinced it would be as romantic as doing the Eurail hopping you've described. Ah, to young and carefree again! (Along with all the insecurities and promblems? Maybe not.)

B4

You can always act young and carefree and enjoy the thrill of having laid the insecurities behind you, can't you? I tend to try at least (please don't ask about my track record )

Ti - always welcome. We could probably spend at least 10 minutes exchanging InterRail musings (as I belive has happened here somewhere b'fore)...

Definately my favourite method of transport - and I can indulge my favourite pastime, people-watching.
Strangers don't seem to mind you chatting to them either.



I could almost taste that vanilla latte, you have a talent for writing, Titani.

People-watching is such a great thing

T, that's beautiful. Please write these things down more often

Thank you!

I'm still a bit amazed by the response I've had so far to my various attempts at expressing myself and my thoughts and my feelings in writing - and, as I mentioned the other day to an h2g2 friend - I'm surprised that I manage to do it in English, having to consult a dictionary or a thesaurus every now and then...

...whereas I seem completely unable to get the same flow in words in Swedish - and I've tried several times in the past...

I'm actually beginning to enjoy writing - but only in English - and to think it'd take me almost 40 years to find out!

Don't be so amazed, you're obviously a natural Maybe you've had a previous life as a british author?

I enjoyed it very much...and even more so thinking that depending on which time of day it was, I might have walked right past you while you were enjoying your latte and musing...

Ti, that language thing's quite funny - I have quite unconciously been thinking along the same lines but never really thought the thought out loud ( - nearest term available just now as I'm really trying to do some rather intricate DTP work)...

Whenever I try to write some longer text or even just turning a larger concept around in my head, I quite often - after a while - find that I have slipped into English.

Just like the infuriating habit Windows sometimes has of changing the keyboard language setting without me realising that I have pressed the magic key combination

I wonder if there is a proper word for being "own natural language challenged"...?

"Own natural language challenged"? I like that expression!

There is an actual term for being "Own natural language challenged"
It's called George Bush.
Oberon2001 (being seriously below the belt)

Maybe it is the influence of h2g2.

I find myself thinking more and more in English instead of in Dutch.

I think you all express yourselves wonderfully in English. But aren't the Romance languages supposed to be the ones that have all of the great nuances? They certainly sound prettier than English.

*wanders off to find a romantic nuance*

Why not a nuantic romance?

Roman languages like French certainly sounds very nice - at least in my ears Much as I like speaking French (as well as I can) - which includes waving my arms about much more than I do when speaking English, I certainly do not feel too comfortable writing it...

C'est la vie, I guess

Whew! Good thing you didn't say C'est la guerre, or you'd have been moderated!