Trains, Trauma, Lockers, More Trauma, Angels, Ships

It's amazing how many things can go wrong in one day. Guess I shouldn't be surprised by this any more, but no matter how hard I try to make things go smoothly, something dumb always happens. When we returned from our wonderful, unexpected evening in Flam, I immediately went to the ticket office and changed our ticket to Stockholm for the following morning. I quizzed the girl at the counter to make sure we were leaving on the 7 AM train. This was important because we had a ship to catch that afternoon. Her attitude was indifferent and I had the distinct impression she didn't like me very much, but she assured me we were on the 7 AM train which arrived in Stockholm at 1 PM. So imagine my surprise when we got to the train station at the crack of dawn and the conductor looked at my ticket and said, "No, this ticket is for the afternoon train." What?? NO!! We're supposed to be on the early morning train - the afternoon train will get us there too late and we'll miss our ship to Estonia! In a panic, I snatched the ticket out of his hand and raced back up the stairs to the ticket office which (of course) wasn't open yet. I stood impatiently for 15 minutes, staring through the glass wall at the employees milling around. Could they really not see the distraught traveler with her face pressed against the glass? Obviously I needed immediate help. When the doors finally opened, I bolted inside and told the clerk my sad story and how I really, really needed to be on the morning train. He said, "Well let's see if it's sold out or not." For several nail biting minutes, I watched him search his computer, my eyes boring into his skull while silently chanting, "You will find a place for us. This will all turn out OK." My mind control seemed to work and with the proper tickets in our hands, we were finally on our way to Sweden. Whew. Trains are a great way to see the country and we rolled along past pristine lakes and green fields, enjoying the beauty of Sweden for the next five hours. We arrived in Stockholm in the early afternoon and had a few hours to kill before heading to the ship. Dragging our luggage through the train station, we noticed some lockers where we could stash our bags while sightseeing. We asked a nice man how the lockers worked, and he indicated that you simply put your belongings in the locker and turned the handle to lock it. Piece of cake. We put everything in a nice big locker and walkled to the Gammla Stan (old town) area. This was my favorite part of Stockholm, with its ancient buildings and narrow, cobbled streets. We found an inviting coffee shop with a warm, wonderful atmosphere. Tourists from all over the world had written glowing comments on the walls inside the cafe. We sat on cushiony chairs and Kyle swore this place had the best pastries ever. We decided to come back again and continued on our tour. We followed twisty, turning streets and alleyways and when it was time to head back to the station and the lockers, we realized we were a little bit lost. We had forgotten to leave breadcrumbs to trace our way back, darn it. Luckily, after quizzing a few people, we found our way back and went to retrieve our things. But of course it wasn't that easy. To our dismay, we realized there was a step we had failed to perform in the luggage stowing transaction. You were supposed to go to go a TV screen in the middle of the row of lockers, pay money and receive a code to get your things back. Oops. I tried calling a phone number on the screen but the instructions were all in Swedish. What the...? A very nice Swedish man, let's just call him an angel, tried to assist me. He went to an office across the hall but nobody there knew anything about the lockers. He came back a few minutes later shaking his head and said, "I'm sorry. I can't help you." I raced back up to the tourist information office where I had to take a number and hopped from one foot to the other while waiting my turn. Mr. Swedish Angelman suddenly appeared by my side and spoke Swedish to the clerk and reassured me that everything would be OK. The clerk told me what I should have done and I said, I know I know but I've never done this before, blah blah. He called someone on the phone and said they would meet me downstairs. Mr. Angel accompanied me back down the escalator and I told him how much I appreciated his help. He said he was a retired subway driver and had plenty of time. Back downstairs, he flagged the worker over to our locker and to my great relief the worker told me this happens a lot. I was happy to know I wasn't the only dork in the world. With the locker open and another disaster avoided, I was flooded with emotion and gave Mr. Angel a great big hug. I was so relieved, it was all I could do to keep from blubbering all over him. He was so nice to help two strange foreigners and I know I will never see him again, but wherever you are Mr. Swedish Angelman, thank you so much for helping us out that day. We took a train to the ship dock and got there just in time. I told Kyle I had had more than enough excitement that day and we headed to the lounge. We enjoyed another sumptuous dinner buffet, listened to dance bands, kereoke, and an excellent guitar player from Bulgaria. Our ship cruised past the many islands and archipelagos of Sweden, into an never ending sunset. Next stop: Estonia.