Only my friends provided Swedish warmth

The cold of sunshine

The journey to Stockholm was quite pleasant, as we flew over the Southern parts of Sweden from Denmark unto Arlanda airport the countryside was a white-out with snow.

Winter had arrived in Sweden just when we were thinking autumn had come early in the Netherlands, it was getting cold at home but I had not yet resorted to the almost Eskimo look.

Amazingly, in Stockholm even though it was cold, the sun was at its radiant best as I hailed a taxi-cab from the airport to my hotel which was supposedly in down-town Stockholm. The taxi driver said he knew the place but I began to have my concerns when he started typing every variation of the tonal representation of Radisson except the right spelling.

Putting the s before t in hotel

When I offered advice about the spelling he obstinately refused to accept that he might not be aware of where he had to go, I just prayed I would not be doing an unexpected tourist trip round Stockholm before I was ready to be a tourist.

In the meantime, Waffy had arrived at my hotel waiting for me as we hit a bit of traffic and soon we were at our destination without any real sign of our having gone round the town – thankfully.

For a supposedly 5-star hotel, I have been in 4-star hotels that would make an assessor grudgingly award Radisson Blu Strand Hotel a charitable 3-star rating at the best of times; I have seen better service and attention to customer service.

My room with an enlarged version of cubicle and the bathtub just about long enough for me to stretch my legs. I thought cathode ray tube televisions were so last century in hotels, not in this vintage hotel if one were to put a finer point on the detail.

It leaks milder than it’s broke

I ran a bath and found I could not drain it as big puddles of water formed from the leaking tub, that did get fixed when we went out on Saturday though expressing the fault in English did not seem to convey the severity of the situation until Waffy said it in Swedish.

Apparently, the Swedes cannot bear to think of something as broken, a sense of unease and shock seems to take over the face when told of faults.

If I thought there was a sense of indifference about others on the streets as people bump into you without apology in Amsterdam, in Stockholm it is a veritable art of calumny, they are completely oblivious and unconcerned at remonstration – you get a look from the offenders as if – What is your problem, I was just taking my space regardless of where you are?

Their way in your way

After breakfast in a converted church building of about 7 floors where the African equivalent of Pentecostalism appears to thrive for meeting places, we went to the Far Eastern Antiquities Museum where exhibits from the Chinese Terracotta army were on display.

There a man in a wheelchair ran over my foot and cared for nothing as if being in a wheelchair gave him that right and though I used a cane, my foot was a pathway, an inconsequential bump on the way to his intended destination.

You got to the point where it did not seem to matter anymore, you just walked and hoped and prayed.

Foods and palates

Whilst the further north you go from the Mediterranean food loses vivid colour, palate and taste, we did find appealing restaurants with Swedish fare on the Friday night and a Lebanese restaurant in the company of another friend from the Saturday night.

I thought giving a Lebanese restaurant the name Sahara was a bit of a misnomer, Lebanon is hardly near the Sahara except if Sahara means something else entirely.

There was quite a variety of cold and warm small dishes called mezes along with the wonderful company of people who I have befriended through my blogs – there is something in blogging and it does have the value of establishing friendships.

We did not get to do much else of Stockholm, our mornings were quite late in starting but it was a very worthwhile visit, the received wisdom is to do this in summer, it is cold days like the ones I had that makes one a helio-phile.

I'm told it snowed in Stockholm

Tundra-times loom

This should have been done in the summer, Scandinavia is not for Sub-Saharan Africans at this time of the year nor is it for the faint-hearted or the warm-blooded.

However, gratitude and appreciation cannot be delayed for the discomforts of the weather, I heard this morning that it had snowed overnight in Stockholm so I should be prepared.

Happily, I packed my shorts and T-shirts, my sandals and sunglasses back into my wardrobe and prepared for the trek to the North Pole with huskies to my sleigh.

Alright, 3 years ago, at just about the same time, I was in Stockholm but on business for just one night staying in a hotel that was so out of town, it was another country or I mean, it was literally in the country.

Plans that work over those that fail

Itching to get out of town this weekend, plans were well ahead of other office plans which somehow have a regularity of failure that nothing was so certain – so rather than cancel, I just waited for the reality of farce to materialise and once that happened I booked my flight, my hotel already secured from days before.

Nothing too formal on this trip, a change of Ascots and the mandatory bowler hat for weather so treacherous, maybe I am a woos, people live there comfortably not accounting for the extreme notion that the sun sets at 10 in the morning having risen 30 minutes before.

My good friend who provided great succour to me when I was in hospital just over a year ago and visited me in the milder winter of the Netherlands in December is my hostess.

We’ll be snapping away at Swedish heritage before I return on Sunday. Ah yes! I am prepared for the situation where I might wear a pair of leather gloves over an underlying pair – I don’t do cold that well.

My blonde narration - Stockholm

No freeze yet

It is strange that my first visit to Scandinavia was work-related and definitely not at a time of my choosing. I remember when I was about to be sent to Norway in January, I had visions of myself in a cryogenic experiment where defrosting me back to resuscitation would have taken years.

For someone who has spent more than half his life in temperate Europe, you should have heard my shrill pleadings that I am from the Tropics, I prevailed and really, I told my manager, if I was not in Sweden by the end of October, it would be Summer before I embark on an Arctic journey.

That is the impression you get about Scandinavia, extreme and on the edge of a crevice, one false step and you are in the bottomless oblivion of the coldest darkest place only to be recovered like poor Tutankhamen some 3,000 years in the future.

Anyway, it was not all that bad really, I have decided, part of my 2008 itinerary would be Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, though apart from the land that makes up Denmark excluding Greenland, the other 3 countries are really large expanses of land, one could be deluded into thinking the world ends at the northern reaches of the Netherlands beyond which – dragons be there.

Famous Swedes

As I came through Arlanda airport in Stockholm, the walls were covered with pictures of famous Swedes and you suddenly realise you do have to be informed of who is really of Swedish descent beyond Brigit Nilson, Bjorn Borg, Annika Sorenstam, Sven Goran Eriksson and ABBA.

There was a bit of disorder at the taxi ranks where on the left we had the licensed hackneys and the right had the suspect hailers, not that I saw the difference between the taxis, but on the advice of another traveler, I kept to the left.

I was prepared for Sweden, I had informed a Nigerian blogger (Adeola) living in Stockholm that I was visiting for a night and wondered if he would be free and available, gladly he obliged – he runs the Thy Glory O Nigeria blog space.

Hospitable receptions

I got to the office just before noon, there was a temporary scare when the first tow hosts I mentioned at reception were not available, I saw the face of the receptionist go white and red as I phoned Amsterdam to remonstrate that I had just travelled 800 miles into tundra and my hosts were absence without leave – that was remedied a few minutes later.

We got straight into the business of the day and as it got to 14:00hrs, I had to ask if the Swedes ever had lunch, somehow, they assumed I would have had grass-based baked dough with filling enough to make you vomit your feet from inside out as my lunch – I would not however pass judgment on the hospitality of Sweden, the folk were pleasant enough.

It was dark by 16:00hrs or thereabouts and my hotel was supposed to be down the road and as the day closed, I found myself walking through a tunnel and down a dark and lonely road wondering how I ended up down this path in the middle of nowhere, but the company I work for scrimps and scrapes in the most miserly fashion, there are times I have had to vehemently force them up-market to an acceptable standard.

Apparently, a friend of Adeola works at the hotel which is Scandinavian staple and my room had been upgraded, well, it was apparently – I travel too much to be appreciative of subtleties like this – I apologise.

Then I found I could get a voucher for get online for free only to find that I had to go down to reception to get the voucher – and this a 4-star hotel – I think NOT!

Other hotels in the group I have been to in other countries South have a notice at reception announcing this kind of offer such that one does not have to halt from the far-end of the top-most floor for a voucher that is probably best paid for than suffer the fuss acquiring an entitlement – better still, the reception should ask guests if they would require the service at check-in, just as some ask if guests would take breakfast or use the health facilities.

The room was comfortable and there was at least one English news channel, so, I was fine with that.

Stockholm in the dark

Adeola and Louise the lady would works at the hotel arrived about 20:00 and we decided to go into Stockholm to see some sights and have a meal. Adeola’s knowledge of the roads was exemplary, well, enough to make a comedy sketch titled – “Right here, left there and just straight on” – but for Louise, who knows, I might have had opportunity to plant three flags at the North Pole – Nigerian, British and Dutch.

Not to forget, my stomach was still big trouble for me, there were times I could not keep a poker-face for the pain I was suffering but I ventured on something Swedish at a restaurant in town.

The dish was diced beef, diced potatoes and onions, then a smallish ramekin of egg-yolk – just the kicker to make you see everything again, I said – that was put at arms-length to the meal.

It did however reinforce the generalisation I have held that the further north you go from the Mediterranean the less the colour in the national foods on offer; more so, I was thinking I would be served elk – anyway, considering how cold it gets up North one wonders if chickens have to be shorn of their feathers in the spring like sheep – the crazy thoughts one has about these places.

It was a beautiful clam night and we visited the old palace and even witnessed the changing of the guard, those uniforms most have internal thermal regulation – the things we do for king and country.

When I returned to the hotel, I was glad I did not rely on my hosts to have a social dimension to their abilities which would have been different if I had visited France or Spain – maybe human warmth does depend on nominal regional weather patterns.

The Entrapment of a nation

Adeola has written a book about Nigeria and there is no doubt that he is a believer that the country not only has potential, but there are possibilities that could be exploited in these times.

I need to take more time to read it through, maybe when I am in Barcelona next week, but as I read the first few pages, it clearly exemplified the sad case of a country with great potential and people but a political situation that fails to inspire and lead towards achieving the greatness usually ascribed to Nigeria.

This is no apologia and it can be mistakenly read as a polemic by those who cannot objectively accept the facts and seek solutions – indeed, as a Nigerian, it is probably more comfortable to go aggressively onto the defensive even when our position is patently indefensible.

The Entrapment of a Nation shows how poor governance, rotten representation, a seemingly national mindset in the quest for money at all costs without commendable virtue and complacency with a corrupt political order keeps Nigeria entrapped in low achievement despite our vast resources – but optimism, hope and faith abounds.

Adeola seeks the glory of the great nation of Nigeria, he represents a growing community of smart young Nigerians whose expectations of the country would no doubt lift that country out of its quagmire a lot earlier than many of us sceptics have predicted or surmised – they seek a common good around which we can rally for making Nigeria great for all the good reasons in the world.

My copy is signed by the author.

How was I to know that my hotel was on the shores of a picturesque lake? My realisation at breakfast which was rushed so that I could start the day early – Scandinavia needs another visit and this would be 2008 – Deo volente.