Garbo and Herring and Porn. Oh My.

All that said, language issues didn't trouble me too much that first night.

Well, there was a minor hairy moment when I tried to buy a cup of tea and a croissant at the airport and realised that I hadn't yet learned, of all words, "and" (turns out it's och). Rather than chicken out and speak English on my very first Swedish attempt in Sweden, I settled for asking the tea in Swedish, then pointing to the croissant and nodding in enthusiastically in a manner intended to convey "and that too please". It seemed to do the trick.

The minor thrill of asking in Swedish for a cup of tea and receiving a cup of tea paled though in comparison with the fact that the coffee shop radio was playing, fabulously, Lay All Your Love On Me. Less than an hour in Sweden and I'd heard some ABBA. Not even being charged a small mortgage payment for a ticket on the Arlanda Express could dampen my good mood after that.

Nor could the fact that when the train pulled into Stockholm, I remembered that I'd forgotten to check the address of the hotel and knew only that it was "a couple of blocks" from Centralen Station. After walking "a couple of blocks" in most directions from Centralen Station in fast fading daylight and light snow, I finally noticed the helpful sign that lists most of the major hotels in the area with arrows pointing in their direction. Ahh. The Sheraton will be that way then. Yes, I'd chosen the Sheraton because a character from the Millennium books stays there. What's your point?

After flouncing around the hotel hallways pretending the Secret Police were after me, I headed out into early evening Stockholm to flounce around the streets pretending the Secret Police were after me. And also, find some dinner. A few hair raising moments with an oddly complicated road crossing that took me via a bus stop to the opposite side of the road from where I wanted to be, and I made it onto the bridge that took me to Gamla Stan.

The city of Stockholm, as you may or may not know, is made up of lots of islands. Not unlike Venice, though chillier and with rather more Swedish people. Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is the original island, from where medieval kings and queens ruled the not un-intimidating Swedish Empire. Not least amongst them, one of my heroines Queen Christina, daughter of Gustav Aldolf who succeeded him upon his death when she was six years old. In fairness, my heroine is the Greta Garbo version of her which may or may not be entirely historically accurate ;) Happening upon the royal palace while looking for something else (namely, dinner), I was so inspired that I stopped flouncing around pretending the Secret Police were after me, and started striding around pretending to stop wars and fall in love with John Gilbert.

The best way I can describe Gamla Stan is to say that I expected at any moment for witches with long knobbly fingers to reach out of upstairs windows and snatch children to eat. The tall, narrow buildings, crooked windows and cobblestones are right out of a fairy tale; but no bluebirds singing along with princesses here, this is the world of the original, dark and twisted Grimm fairy tales.

And even better, porn. Not in the fairy tales, but in a bookshop on a main road in Gamla Stan. I was idly wandering along, glancing in shop windows and testing my Swedish by trying to translate signs announcing sales and book titles and such. I had managed to puzzle out a couple of the titles on display when I noticed... well let's just say I didn't need to understand Swedish to guess at the plot of the book. It was the sort of image normally wrapped in several layers of cellophane in England (err, I imagine). Naturally I came over all British, jumped a mile, blushed to my toes and glanced around in panic to see if anyone had caught me looking.

In an attempt to lower my blood presure a little, I decided it was time for dinner, so pressed on and crossed another bridge. I would discover once I looked at a map the following day that I'd wandered over to Södermalm and Millennium-land which was exciting except I didn't know it at the time. Assailed by a gorgeous smell, I headed straight for a fish & chip style van where I informed the friendly man that this was to be my first Swedish meal and asked him for a recommendation. Shockingly enough, he recommended herring.

I sat on a bench overlooking the Baltic Sea (right on the lock in fact, that separates the lake Mälaren to the Baltic Sea - wonderful things, maps) and tucked into undoubtedly the yummiest meal I've ever had out of an aluminum carton, of fried herring, mashed potatoes, red onions and carrots.

Having pretended to be Greta Garbo, seen some porn and eaten some herring, I decided I could call it a successful first night in Sweden.