Goteborg, Sweden. The ferry trip.

Part 1: The ferry trip.

On Monday I woke up at 5:30am. This is the earliest I have woken up in the past 4 months! The reason being that myself and five friends were heading to Sweden and the train was leaving at 7:01am.

Christoph, his girlfriends Christine and I caught the 6:22am bus to the station where we met up with Katherina, Drew and Alan. We bought the tickets and for some stupid reason had to validate them in the machine ten times each! The Danish are so efficient in many ways yet they fail at the most simple things haha.

We managed to get on the right train to Frederikshavn (landing place for ferry) and Drew and I cracked open a celebratory beer. I hear you thinking, 'but it's only 7 O' clock in the morning!' Well I would advise you to save the shock for later because it will most likely get worse.

Upon arrival in Frederikshavn we made a bee line for the ferry office to pick up our tickets. Disaster number one struck. The express ferry that we were supposed to be taking was canceled because the sea was too rough. This meant that we had to wait until 2pm for the normal ferry to come. It also meant that we had five hours to kill...

I adopted a positive mentality. Shit happens and you make the most of it. After all we were on holiday and in good company. We set out for the centre of town to see what was happening.

Turns out not much was happening at all. Hardly surprising considering it was only 8:30am and being a Monday. We were starving so we went into the first place that looked decent. I ordered some Polser (sausages) with some frittes (chips), a nice healthy breakfast.

After eating ourselves stupid we set off up the main street. Dotted randomly up and down the streets were these weird pieces of playground equipment. I say playground equipment but really you wouldn't want your kids playing on these things. They looked like lawsuits waiting to happen, so of course we all had a go.


The first shop we found was called 'Tiger', it's like the Danish equivalent of an Australian two dollar shop except there is no way in hell anything will ever be two dollars. The first thing Alan did was go and set all the egg-timers in the shop to go off in five minutes. Alan is 28 for the record but a very funny guy (British).

Drew and I bought 'Sheriff' badges for the heck of it and then waited in suspense for the timers to go off. When it actually happened it was a bit of an anti-climax. They must have been for people with sensitive hearing or something, they were bloody quiet. I still pissed myself laughing however as I had mentally hyped it up that much.

Moving on from Tiger we found a seedy looking book/video shop and had a look in the rack out the front. The first VHS Drew pulled out happened to be a German S&M one with a pretty graphic cover. We spent the next five minutes laughing at all the vintage porno on display and then someone spotted a bar called Jerry's. By this time it was around 10:30am.

They sat us in the corner out of the way of the respectable people. We soon found out the reason for this, it smelt bad. After looking at the menu's for awhile Alan spotted something called 'the tower'. Take a guess at what it was, I'll give you a clue: It was in the beer section.

Well you guessed right. 'The tower' is four liters of beer in a massive bong like object with it's own beer tap down the bottom (picture on right). It is truly a feat of engineering. Only the guys felt like drinking at this early hour so we got four classes and got to it.

We all wanted photo's with the tower in all it's greatness and we made a note to come back to Jerry's on our return trip for another tower.

We managed to kill an hour or two in Jerry's and then head off to see what else the town had to offer. It was a sleepy kind of place and didn't look like it would have a great nightlife either.

Christoph went off by himself for awhile and we plotted a way to play a practical joke on him. We decided on finding a piece of paper that looked similar to the ferry ticket and dropping it off the side of the walkway that leads to the ferry itself. Because it was so windy we knew that he would have to run a good hundred meters to catch it and that would prove immensely funny for the rest of us.

A few hours later and we put our plan into action. I started off by telling him I had a sore ankle because I had tripped over something, this would give me an excuse not to run when I dropped the ticket. Then Katherina suggest that we take a photo 'over by that exit'. We were all lined up and I said 'oh here's the ticket Christoph', and pretended to look in my pockets. Katherina then said 'smile everyone' and I threw the fake ticket over the side. It fell down around fifteen meters and everyone just yelled 'Christoph run you've got the longest legs.' It was comedic gold, but really one of those things you have to be part of to laugh at.

Christoph swore in German then ran down the stairs after the piece of paper. We were all pissing ourselves laughing and when he actually managed to catch the piece of paper and dropped down to his knees we laughed even harder. We then yelled out telling him to look at the piece of paper. The expression on his face when he realised he had been played was bloody funny. He took it well however and I'm sure we will be giving him shit about it for the next five months.

The ferry was massive, nearly 45 meters high. It was like a small city with slot machines, bars and a even a restaurant. We went straight to the top deck to take in the view, it was very windy. I was in the mood for a Titanic pose photo, but it was that windy that it was making it hard (see my attempt on the left).

I threw some snow from the top deck on the cars that were driving on board which I'm sure they appreciated. I was wearing the sheriff badge which gave me the authority however.

We all went back inside after the ferry had left Denmark and tried to find somewhere to sit. The only decent place left was conveniently placed near the bar/restaurant. There was even a dance floor.

About one hour into the trip and we realised why the express ferry had been canceled, because the sea was too rough for a smaller ship to journey through. People were been sick left right and centre and the waves were slapping on our viewing window which must have been at least 25-35 meters above the sea! Katherina and Alan were sleeping, Christoph was sitting with his girlfriend and Drew and I were walking the ship playing the slot machines.

I started to feel really sick so Drew and I went outside to brave the elements. It was insane. The wind was so strong we could barely walk and the waves were crashing near us and on us. We went right to the side guardrail to take it all in and it was very impressive. We managed to survive a few minutes outside before heading back in but it was worth it. Not only was I feeling better but I was actually hungry as well!

We went to the cafe area where everyone was looking very sorry for themselves which made me feel even better haha. We bought some sandwiches and took them back downstairs to see how the others were fairing. I sat down opposite Christine and started eating quite vigorously. This turned out to be a mistake, she started gagging and then had to run with Christoph to the toilet.

Drew, the barman and I thought it was pretty funny but I did feel a little bit bad. After eating we kept moving, this proved to be the best way to not be seasick. All in all it was an enjoyable trip even though I thought we were going to sink at one stage.