Sunday, August 29, 2010

Sweden

Got back from a three-day trip to Sweden last night. It was actually a one day trip, if you consider that I was in transit for two of the three days.



Sweden is a lovely country with friendly people. The climate was good too, with summer drawing to a close. But one thing that struck me was the number of smokers I came across -- I don't know where the country ranks in terms of number of smokers per capita, and so on, but people don't seem to be bother about emphysema, cancer, and the like. No regulations on public smoking also meant that I was exposed to quite a lot of second hand smoke during my waits at the railway station. One more thing: people are permitted to take their dogs inside trains too. Good for them.



I spent the one day I was there at Lund, a charming university town more than a thousand years old. The only negative aspect (two, if you count the taxi driver whom I think charged me double the actual fare) was my missing the train to Stockholm because of mistaking the inbound train for the outbound one (in my defence, both trains arrived at the same time, and no train numbers are displayed on the departure and arrival boards), and having to rush to Copenhagen and take an alternate flight, with all the attendant worries about changing your ticket, catching your connecting flight on time, and so on.