Welcome To Malmo Prison
Foise - 4th July
The first time we went to an IKEA store was in Hong Kong and the only purchase back then was a lint roller. It would be wrong of us to come to the home city of IKEA and not experience the great shopping phenomena, so this morning we went to buy a lint roller. An hour and a half later we escaped with 9 items for NZ$46, all worthy purchases, especially the monkey which was a third of our total purchase costs. The rest of the goodies are hidden in the bag for unknown reasons.
This is the candle section, there are thousands of them.
Both the Swedes and the Danes love candles; no home is complete without lots of them of every room.
Candles bring light, warmth and happiness especially in winter when the Swedes and Danes suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder.
The IKEA store was large, the car park even larger and the queues at the in-store food hall were lengthy so we went into Almhult for lunch to celebrate surviving IKEA for under $50.
Scandinavia doesn’t encourage tipping, but if you feel the need then 5% in cafes and restaurants is fine. To keep costs down, to the owner and the customer, a lot of cafes have limited staff, normally 1 or 2 people at the counter. When there is only one person on the counter it can be annoying to others when the non-Swedish people want the lady to describe everything, take out the onion, ask for it to be toasted and then want a real coffee made, not just poured from a jug, because the staff member does everything on the spot before serving anybody else. Cutlery, condiments, serviettes, water etc is all self-help on a side cabinet and then they ask you to put your dirty dishes on a trolley. We happily oblige as its normally good food and in Sweden it’s reasonably priced.
Our mid way stop today was at Kristianstad, we have now collected the set of Kristians after visiting Kristiansand and Kristiansund in Norway. Kristianstad was a Danish City named after King Christian until the 17th century when they lost it to Sweden. They have some lovely old buildings with the architecture having a Danish influence. According to Wikipedia the Germans, Dutch and Danish like to go there for their summer holidays, I’m pretty sure its summer now but as you can see from the photos the only people enjoying the weather are the ducks and some bloke in his shorts [ED – Actually, a visitor from Enner Glynn helping make up the crowds of tourists at the gardens today…].
This is our accommodation for the next few nights, Malmo prison, cell block 5. Just kidding mother, our hosts entered their address into AirBnB with a gate entrance number first and this is where Google Maps decided to bring us.
We did eventually find our accommodation in Fosie, a suburb of Malmo, quite some way from prison; luckily, as they probably didn’t appreciate us driving right up to the gate then going across the road for a photo of their security cameras.
The weather was only wet in Kristianstad today so, after we checked into our Airbnb, we walked to the nearby mega mall for tea and groceries.
Today’s ABBA tribute is I’m Still Alive” (1979), for all our experiences today, from the IKEA walking marathon, to the rainstorm in Kristianstad, and then to our prison visit. I even survived my doggy nachos which were described as deluxe, I think not.
Yes I’m still alive
My life is rolling on
Gently, from day to day
Memories will fade away
Yes, I’m still alive
The agony is gone