Destination: Stockholm

The sojourn to Sweden's Capitol begins.

Anne had arranged for a vehicle to come into our possession. Whether these means be legitimate, or a be questionable, I dare not inquire.

Regardless of those means, dubious or otherwise, we begin our morning by feverishly packing up and preparing for the journey ahead.

Linköping lies about 200km south to the island-city of Stockholm. This distance is much akin to the one separating Santa Cruz and San Francisco (thankfully excluding Highway 17 in favor of much more leisurely roadways); leaving only a couple hours of actual travel time.

This is new and exciting!

That aside, we set our departure time to hit the highway for about 14:00 (2pm, if you’re keeping track).  
But first things first:

• A trip to the dump to sacrifice Anne's old TV
• Gathering materials in order to build shuriken targets from the hardware store

Awww.. no it isn't..

• And finally, heading to the bus station to pick up Steve Olsen (one of the instructors from the taikai). 

I am charged with the illustrious task of dragging the hulking television down to the car.
Despite four flights of stairs, the fellow residents of the apartment building survive unharmed, and the T.V. remains in one piece.
So far, so good.
A short drive later and we arrive at the dump. Which doesn't look as much like a dump so much as a glorified recycling center. A few employees in matching hooded waterproof uniforms stand around idlely; not even batting an eyelash at me as I struggle to haul the television out of the trunk. I suppose that kind of work is above their pay grade.
Once the drop has been made, we make our way off to the largest hardware store Anne can think of.
The name of it was K-RAUTA; some strange Finnish company. It was like an Orchard Supply store and a Home Depot had a child, and the child would never clean its room, no matter how often their parents asked them.

This would be an appropriate time to mention my experience I've been having with communicating through the "language barrier" out here in Sweden.
Everyone speaks English. And I mean EVERYONE. With varying degrees of skill and accents ranging from hard-to-understand, all the way to the sound of a native speaking Californian.
It became clear to me in the hardware store, that I was all too smugly taking advantage of this situation; not fully realizing that it had more to do with being in the city most of my time, rather than a matter-of-fact that every Swedish citizen spoke perfect English.
I approached older man working near some plumbing supplies, and without a second thought, ventured to ask him if he would educate me on where to find some metal chain.
His initial puzzled look evaded me at first, shooting by like a misfired arrow.
I made a gesture with my hands, linking my thumb and forefingers together.
"Chain. Metal chain."
He looked at me, and gingerly turned and pointed towards the back of the building. And with an upward glance of his eyes, seemingly to be searching for the rights words,
"ehhhhh. ummmm.. Wall."
At this point I was beyond certain that I was at the disadvantage here, and I felt quite ignorant for assuming he would communicate with me so easily without even asking him first.
Luckily, by some divine grace, Anne began an easy approach down an aisle at my 9 o'clock. I hurriedly waved her over. And just as the pressure of his thoughts pressing against the language barrier was building to the point where the man was nearly ready to explode, he turned to her, and with great relief, he let loose:
- a wave of Swedish bursting from him and crashing upon her like water bursting through a dam.
Needless to say, I understand none of it. And the short conversation back and forth sounded no more like Swedish to me than any other ancient Nordic dialect. However, as I suspected would occur, she had somehow gathered the information we needed and we thanked the man, and headed toward the wall of chains.

The place was large, and a bit of a mess. For about thirty minutes of work, all we managed to find was about six feet of chain, and some zip ties. I've done better;
But also, much, much worse.





  Completing this task, at least in partial, lead us to our next objective: Acquiring Steve Olsen from the local bus station.

Lucky for us, we were still rolling in the car. So we were able to pick him up in style; chauffeuring him back to Anne's apartment, where she would be letting him stay for the remainder of his trip in Linköping while we were away up North.
We stopped back at the apartment and dropped off his bags. After that was said and done we strolled out for a nice lunch and coffee.

The company was good, and the conversation well received.

Steve mentioned a desire to find a loaf of the finest Swedish bread, and mailing it to his mother from town. This began our small quest to locate the best Bakery in the area.
Anne already knew a few places, and after only visiting two of them, we sauntered into a shop more than suitable. The wood floors were old and stained, and the walls spoke of the many years they had been penetrated by the delightful odors of bread and pastries.
This was definitely the place.

Steve and Anne regarded a bread-weathered grey-haired woman who emerged from the work in the back rooms. A brief conversation lead to a quick decision. Steve would be back on the morrow to collect his prize and send it on its way to the United States.










 By this time, running a bit late, we scampered off back to the apartment and bid Steve a wholesome goodbye.

All things prepared and the car packed up; we hopped on the E4 highway, heading northward.
First stop: Stockholm.