2014 had me bear the ignominy of experiencing
two winter seasons in the same calendar year. The first was a chilly 30+ days
in the Southern African country of Malawi, starting from somewhere in the first
week of June to a couple weeks into July. The second was during a short stint
in Scandinavia, towards the turn of the year.
***
It’s a sunny afternoon when my phone buzzes with
an incoming call from some random landline number. At the other end of the
line, a lady with a high-pitched voice says she’s calling from the Norwegian
embassy. My Visa is ready, she says. I could pick it that afternoon if I was
around town, she goes on.
I had been chasing this for some couple of
weeks. But every time I made my way past the security detail, there was always
that one document missing. This had been the third attempt.
Long story short, I make the short journey to
the Norwegian embassy on Akii Bua Road. I am ushered into the high-walled edifice
from where I am supposed to confirm the good news. In the waiting room is a
burly security chap whose face suggests he’s been trained to look mean.
I guess it’s their way of showing responsibility.
He looks totally different when a female officer he is crushing on crosses his
path (Okay, I made this up). He is big and tall, with a skin complexion that
looks closer to navy-blue than black.
I exchange pleasantries with Mr. Officer before he
sends me over to the counter. The lady across the counter looks at my twice
before handing over my passport. I am Sweden-bound, finally.
My destination is Karlskrona, a small town in
Blekinge County, somewhere along the Baltic Sea. The trip is only a couple of
days away. Sweden is almost snowing, I am told. I talk to a couple of workmates
who had been there before.
“That jacket you are carrying is going to feel
like a vest. You had better find warmer clothing”, said Mohammed, an office
colleague. We are on our way to the airport, and I can almost imagine how cold
it would be for my jacket to feel like a vest. “But I handled the winter in
Malawi”, I whisper to myself. I try to forge a confident look and assure him I
will handle.
“My friend, you are going to freeze. The
temperatures in Sweden are almost Sub-zero”, he goes on, looking at me with the
kind of pity you would reserve for a quadruple amputee. We part ways at the
Check-in (he was going to Nairobi), leaving me to embark on my 12-hour plus
flight.
The flight is rather uneventful, save for the
funny accents from the air hostesses. They sound like they are nibbling on some
hard sugarcane. My KLM experience ends in Copenhagen, and I am supposed to find
my way to Karlskrona.
This is 12 hours and 55 minutes later, and I am
yet to reach my destination. From Copenhagen, I take a train that does another 3
hours or thereabouts, at one point changing direction and leaving my head in a
spin. Imagine sitting in a bus speeding in reverse. You look at people around
you and they are all looking normal. And calm. They look unbothered. Like wet mushrooms.
Poor you. You are clutching both sides of your head, with your eyes half
closed. That is how I felt. Motion sickness, clearly, is not done with me yet.
At the end of each train cabin is a running
screen showing different destinations and the respective arrival times. Every
stop is preceded by a croaky voice that announces the latest stoppage and the
name of the station. Several stops later, the train grinds to a halt. We’ve
finally reached Karlskrona.
I can almost feel the coldness eat into the
marrow of my fingers as soon as I touch the ground. Google maps say my hotel is
a 5 minutes’ walk from the station. I almost take a cab, out of the fear that I
might freeze on tarmac and end up looking like a giant glacier. A pair of
gloves I had got from Malawi saves the day, and I am able to reach my hotel in
one piece.
Clarion is a strategically positioned hotel that
makes one imagine what it feels like to live in Nirvana. Each day, you wake up
to the sight of the calm Baltic sea, in a serene environment you would
sacrifice anything to have all year round. It makes you imagine what you miss
because you could not afford one of those prime plots on the shores of Lake
Victoria.
The
Food
In his article titled Dark lands: The grim truth behind the 'Scandinavian Miracle', The Guardian
columnist Michael Booth talks about Denmark's
22m intensively farmed pigs, raised 10 to a pen and pumped full with
antibiotics. I am inclined to believe this is the case for Sweden as well. They
(the pigs) seemed to be part of every single meal.
There was bacon at every breakfast serving, some
fried pork at lunch, and a bit of bacon
as part of the dinner menu. I can excuse the coffee because I felt like the
whole town had been locked up in some giant freezer every time I stepped out of
my room to do the short walk to office.
The fish was always raw and cold. Like a
forsaken corpse in one of those hit-and-run accidents on a rainy day. I had
stumbled upon it on my first meal, and I almost felt it breed before it could
reach my stomach. That was the last time I tried it out. The Irish potatoes
tasted real, though.
Karlskrona is one humble town. Motorists stop to
allow pedestrians cross. You would have to write your Will first before
attempting the same in Stockholm or Copenhagen. It has a rich history as well; of
culture and naval warfare.
One morning visit to the naval museum lifted the
lid on this copious collection that left me in awe of Swedish history. I had
been able to see the Baltic Sea that I only read in history books, the Sub-marine
we studied about in high school physics and the ammunition detail I had only watched
on History Channel. Here I was, feeling like the most fortunate man after Adam (before
he ate the fruit).
My journey back featured a sojourn in
Copenhagen, Denmark’s hyped metropolis. The last day in the capital saw me traverse
Vesterbro, one of Copenhagen’s administrative districts. The streets have a
high concentration of restaurants, each at an approximate 10 meters from the
other. They have a richer food variety as well, although I found them pricier than
Karlskrona.
Vesterbro is more populous. There are people
from all walks of life. While majority of the folks in Karlskrona looked 6 feet
tall on average, Copenhagen had them all. Native Danes. Short Chinese with bad
hair. Fat, Black women with bandy legs. Stocky men with wide faces. Everyone. All
the specimen drafts God played with before coming up with a final copy of a
decent human face.
On my early morning walk to the train station, I
espied a lady slouched at the edge of one the buildings. She was black, and looked
to be somewhere north of 30. She cut a miserable look, and wore a tight pair of
pants with a body-hugging top that struggled to veil mounds of carefully
packaged cellulite. She must have been one of those hookers living their dream, in one of the
world’s most expensive cities.
A lot had been said about Denmark. Michael Booth
had not spared Copenhagen in his master piece either. He said the trains
sometimes don’t leave on time. I almost missed my flight after there were no
signs of a train 5 minutes after it was supposed to have set off. I had to
catch a cab – A Mercedes Benz (forget our jalopies, here) – to the airport.
Dan A.
