Stockholm - by duChats

If I, for a moment, could venture some advice off the bat today. When one travels in the manner such as us, you need to be on top of many games, one being correspondence. When you are visiting many cities, bars and places its hard to keep tabs on the various nights out. Because really, you lot have no interest in our Daily activities, just those involving sunset and the odd beer!

So it was onto Stockholm (9th September 07) after a few nights spent in the Swedish country side, which I might add is a beautiful country side. Lakes, forests and little red Swedish houses. Postcard stuff. The idea of the night was to basically find a suitable venue to watch the impending Italian massacre. As one does, it was to the nearest Irish bar. With France v Argentina glowing on the big screen, it was happy days. Not so happy for the surprising amount of French in the bar, and we took to supporting the Argies.

We found ourselves in a curious bar after O’Leary’s. This place was either Genius or just second-rate bar filler. They had turned a mini shopping mall, the middle part, into a bar of sorts. So here we were surrounded by clothes and shoe shops, all the while sinking soup. A rather large dance floor presented itself, as did I, on it, for some pre-emptive break dancing action. See there were a few professional dancers in attendance and milling about said floor, I thought, instead of being Act 2, I’d just pop on the floor and show them some Kiwi style straight up. Lucky, because this black chap jumps up and owned the place…..not after some sweaty heaving from yours truly!

We befriended a few Swedish lasses outside, both oddly named Sanna, who took upon them selves to show us some Stockholm nightspots. And you can imagine our surprise when the first and only port of call was to be Sodermans local Metal joint! Now, 2 of the touring party hit the ground running here, and 2 had various pained looks upon there faces all night. Richards in particular was in his element. Stripping down to the wife better for AC/DC’s Thunderstruck must have struck a cord with the local munters, and he soon found himself swimming in ‘Complementary’ pints. I recall Harbott and Arblaster chatting with the DJ, searching in Vain for a recent top 20 hit……sorry lads, not this time.

duChats

Stockholm - by Steven Harbott

ABS AND WERIDOS
Greetings all It is I, Steven Terence Harbott making my first confession/ blog entry on Van tour 2007. So after our so called ‘have a couple of quiets beers and watch the rugby’ reconnaissance mission ended up turning into as the previously mentioned massive night, most people wouldn’t be looking forward the prospect of being back in the pub for 1pm Rugby game. But this my friends was no normal day, oh no, this was the 1st All Black game of the world cup. This for a Kiwi is as good as Christmas for catholic, Ramadan for Muslims, or Master Yoda’s birthday for IT professionals (sorry duChats). This is our religion and the mere fact of a hangover that you could sell to science and lack of sleep weren’t to prevent these likely lads paying there respect to the almighty Abs in the only way we know how….. So back to O’Leary’s it was. We were like 4 giggling teenage girls on there way to a Westlife gig. As we discussed the prospects of what we hoped would unfold…would they do the new Haka?, who was going to dot down first? and Would Italy defence crack quicker than a bowl of riceies….. So in we strode and claimed the spot bang in front of the big screen beer in hand, Abs jerseys on and with kick-off but minutes away disaster struck. Now you may not believe me if told you but Rugby isn’t exactly the biggest sport in these parts and Sven the Bartender wasn’t quite sure :

A) what rugby was and
B) what channel of the million sports channels they had it might be playing on.

What proceeded as kick-off came and went was something resembling a Benny Hill sketch as every Kiwi who would wander off the street, realise the game had kicked off, storm up to the bar, swear profusely at Sven who would then feverishly flick through another half a dozen channels hoping in vain the game might be on and that he might be able to leave his shift without a sky decoder inserted in a place where the sun doesn’t shine (and no I don’t mean Dublin here!!!). 20 minutes in ….success. A German sport channel was found showing the game. Unfortunately the damage was done 38-0. Apparently,(from what I have read) the best 20 minutes of rugby seen for some time…buggar!!! Never mind it was a great result and it set the day up perfectly as more celebratory’s were in order.

Now the problem with 1pm kick-off is that there is a certain amount of down time from after the game till when the bar start to pick up so with a pack a cards in our hands we decided to do a bit of people watching down at the main square at a local café/ bar. What better way to spend your afternoon, than watching the world roll by watching the beautiful people of Stockholm go about there lives. Now it goes without saying that every town has there share of crazy folks but unfortunately I think we inadvertently stumbled into there Swedish Crazies AGM as there were more Looney tunes in the square, than in a Warner Brothers cartoon. Personally, I think listening to ABBA will do that to you…. One such character whom we affectionately referred to as Stink eye , due to his love for starring competitions, took a liking to lads. Clint being the friendly fella that he is, unfortunately broke the first rule of dealing with crazies by making eye contact and form there on in “old Stinky” wouldn’t leave us alone. He pulled up a pew next to the table and was watching our card game so intensely you would have sworn he was notorious card counter from a Vegas Casino gambling circles in a previous life. So after the bar staff realised what was going on they launched into a 3 strikes and you’re out type removal strategy.
Strike 1. Lovely bar maid comes out and asks you to leave…which he did but after 10 minutes he was back.
Strike 2 . Two lads from the bar physically remove you….. old stinky was dragged out like sack cement……but 10 minutes later again he was back
Strike 3 One Barman holding a baseball bat doing an impression of Barry Bonds with the other two lads trailing him tell you in Swedish what they are going to do with this bat if they ever see you on the site again……. Needless to say Old Stinky wisely decided to call it a day after that and that was the last we saw of him.

The rest of the night was spent bar hopping through the pubs and clubs of Stockholm. One interesting bar was called the Vampire bar which is a perfect reason why you should never judge a book by its cover. A gothic style bar with all sorts of Vampire paraphernalia adorning its walls we were just about to do the big 360 degree turn and head straight back out the door when we heard the music playing. Elvis?, that’s a bit out of place, 60’s music in a Gothic bar. Lets have a beer! So I strode up to the bar. Nice All Black jersey said the pretty blonde girl behind the bar. Thanks. How do you know the All Blacks. Oh I lived in New Zealand a couple of years ago in a place called Takapuna, do you know where that is?. Oh I’m familiar with it, go on I replied. Yeah I worked at a bar called the Copper room, have you been there? Well you could say that, you could also say that I if it wasn’t for that bar I would have had enough money to do this trip 2 years ago, but that’s neither here nor there. Small world!

BUSHPARTY & THE DAY THE THUNDER STOPPED

I know im going to fly against popular opinion and probably get disowned from my family for saying this but I like Australians…there I said it. I just can’t help but like our West Island Cousins (except on the sporting field, which goes without saying), and it seems no matter where you go in this globe you will always meet a bunch of them and have a great night on the gas.
One such group of lads we met on our Travels were from Mackay, Queensland. We originally met them in camp site in Denmark and we ended bumping into them once again in Stockholm. The call was made for a few quiets around at Rolling Thunder (our vans nick name). Now as the beer flowed, the yarns got a bit taller, the voices a bit louder and the laughter could be heard all the round the campsite, so after a few warnings from the campsite security we eventually got turfed. The campsite security told us there was beach about a km away, so off we strode with a couple chilly bins full of piss, an iPod stereo and a spot light just slightly dimmer than the sun and a gas powered generator to power up the other two items. Now with only our cell phones to light the way (Shore Boys!!) we set off on our bush expedition. Like Indiana Jones we set about hacking our way through the local fauna until we found a clearing. There we set up shop and drank the rest of the night away.

The next day with our heads a little sorer myself and Clint who were on Van repair detail set about town trying to get our muffler fixed, which had a hole in it. After journeying unsuccessfully to 6 mechanics workshop (and embarrassingly one police station which looked like a mechanics) we turned around to head home. About 30 meters from the camp site disaster struck! Old rolling Thunder ground to a shuddering halt with liquid spurting out of the motor. Oh dear would this be the end of the van tour?
Hang on isn’t one of those Aussies we drank with last night a mechanic said Clint.
He sure is , I replied, lets go wake them up. So off we went to see if they would have a look at it for us. Sure enough without any problems , Scotty was under the bonnet trying to give CPR to Rolling Thunder (and basically save our tour!), 2 hours later he was done. A loose fuel line connection to our carborator was the culprit, and so the tour lived to fight another day. Thank goodness we had met the Aussie boys. I think im just about ready to forgive the underarm incident…..

The Begining - Van Tour 2007

So it has come to this, the great tour of our lives. People, the Van Tour of Europe has begun. As I type this, the first of many Tour updates, we are actually speeding thru a lush German country side. Harbott at the helm, Arblaster in Co-pilot and myself and Richards are holding strong in the back lounge. Let me detail you our home for the next 7 weeks, I kid you not it’s a dead set house on wheels.


The 3 lads, myself not included, spent a good few weeks in Amsterdam tracing down this beauty, and what a sight she is. 1979 Fiat Camper, it just rolls off the tongue and screams class.

Splendid in beige and maroon, this four sleeper has it all. Fully refitted with stove, stereo system (Surround sound), fridge and the ever essential lavatory. We have dead set hit the mother load. We have all the mod cons, including laptops, SatNav and more electronics than a Dick Smiths. It is really the Shore Boys on Tour……

Amsterdam to Hamburg - Day 1

Excitement comes in varying forms, and this could be no truer than a place like Amsterdam. But this was a new kind, one that has been building for some time. Years in fact, constant talk of the tour. From bars to lounge rooms, Globetrotter to Dublin. Many a minute has been fritted away talking about this very journey. And here we were, 9am Thursday 30^th August 2007. 4 lads, brought together from around the globe, bound by one charge and one goal.

As the Van Stalled on the first corner, a brief moment of unease hit, but as the 1979 fiat 2.4 flat engine roared into life, a hearty round of cheers went up and we were off……with TomTom (SatNav) safely navigating thru Europe we set sail for Hamburg. According to TomTom we were about 4hrs from the German City, this was travelling at normal car speeds circa 2007.

What we all failed to grasp was the fact our Van had a top speed of 90km. This was all to evident when we hit the Auto barn, and it felt as though we were doing the speed of Smell as the Audis, BMW’s and Skoda streaked past I’m sure travelling somewhat close to the speed of Halley’s comet! Revising our original goal of a 5pm arrival, the old girl slumbered her way into town around 9am.

We had picked out Camp round care of the Lonely Planet – Europe on a Shoe String book, which had proved a wealth of knowledge thus far, but was about to put the kibosh on a decent parking spot for the night. As we cruised up this particular lane looking for said camp ground at 274, nothing to be found. Around 11am we found it at 374 and closed. Thanks lonely planet, we really enjoyed the night in a truck stop 20km out of town. Haha. Well day one was a nice wee learning curve, and interestingly ended with us all sober. Oh, and we had McDonalds for dinner…we’ll we were in Hamburg

Hamburg to Plon - Day 2

Leading on to Plon , sea side town in Germany, we discovered the Van was playing up some what. Stalling every time the van came to a stop. Oh shit, suddenly the bargain of the century seemed a little off. After hours of debate on mechanics, our complete lack of motor engine knowledge and the fact some one brought half cooked bread rolls and we didn’t have an oven. We decided to kick on to the camp ground and sort in morning. It was then we discovered the real reason for the stalled engine, the fact that when we were moving the lads in the back were running, a full Stereo system, laptop, charging between 1 and 4 cell phone, lights, fridge had not been of concern to us. But the battery was taking the brunt. Haha. Now we just read in the back.

A few drinks at the German camp ground, after a quick spag bowl. We really had no idea where the hell we were, but that’s the fun. Already we have discovered the joys of German beer, and its price. The local drop, coming in plastic for that authentic Eden park feel, is some what cheap. 1.60 Euro for a 6 pack, and tasting very good! Love it. Needless to say we have stocked up for Denmark, the floor covered in a few creates.

Plon to Copenhagen - Day 3

Copenhagen. Two things come to mind when thinking of Denmark. Lego and Hans Christian Anderson. Thankfully none of these subject are going to be mentioned again in this next yarn. We hit Denmark via the Ferry from the main land Germany and quickly landed at the Charlottenlund Fort Camping ground. This place is like a mini North Head in Auckland, with actual old Gun emplacements and showers in what would have been the old bunkers! The kind of place JB would get a little excited over

After a quick setup, beers and the bottom of a bottle of jagermeister, we Google’d (Free Wifi – Shore Boys!) some bars and found the home for the night. The Student Moose Bar, beers coming in at 2Euro. It’s a deal, it’s a steal it’s the sale of the fuckin century! This place was our kind of bar, and to be fair we dominated from the kick off. Befriending all and sundry, before long regaling the locals in what will become stock standard tour yarns. Apparently according to some study the Danes are regarded as the happiest people on earth, well they never questioned us four lads, because at that point I think we would have taken the chequered flag.

As is natural in these situations, every opportunity to move on to greener pastures was met with indignation and snorts of disagreement (we had a list of top bars in the back pocket) mainly due to the cheap beer and wide-ranging attention we were receiving. Well, they say the grass is not often greener. Anyho, the night ended in splintered fashion, all the lads flowing in at ungodly hours with yarns to divulge. Sunrise is no time to be getting home, and we all decided in unison, which in itself was curious, to stay an extra night and actually see the place with the aid of sunlight.

Copenhagen to Gothenburg - Day 6

Once again TomTom was on the receiving end of some odd stares and even a few choice words, after it decided to point us towards the Ferry to Sweden instead of the more beaten path of the Giant Bridge. Never mind, we are becoming the regular sea rats. So it was up the picturesque Swedish coast. Now, Sweden has always been a curious little country in our minds, and its hard not to hum the odd ABBA song and think blond! I can’t speak for the whole team here, but I can’t help hoping to run into a Swedish Volleyballer, with low self esteem, nymphomania and a petulance for Southern hemisphere accents! Maybe its just me?

So Gothenburg is a city that has nothing to do with Batman, a mild letdown to be sure, but we pushed on and found our little camp ground out of town. And once again the place was top draw, never before have I seen such an eye for detail in the cleaning stakes. Europeans love a sparkling toilet. Gas stations, road stops, Burger King….you name it…. Immaculate. Sorry I digress, but you can just about walk into a toilet and wipe, flush and wash with out touching any surface but yours! We popped into town and being a Tuesday it was quieter than my stand up career! Nice place though.

Gothenburg to Lidkoping - Day 7

Being nearly 500km to Stockholm, and wanting to get there for the weekend, we decided to take a few stops thru the middle of the country. Sweden is tailor made for camping, or maybe camping is tailor made for Sweden? Which ever it is, there are some mint spots here. Lidkoping, a cheeky little town perched on the edge of lake Vanern about 150km from Gotenburg. They always say the unplanned nights are the best ones, and with this in mind we decided to have a quiet at Harry’s. The nondescript hotel in the middle of town. Being the only customers for the first hour is a nervy experience, but we weren’t about to let that ruin our night. As the beer went south the numbers increased until it was clear that on a Wednesday night in Lidkoping, everyone who’s anyone heads to Harry’s, which strangely enough was right next door to Sally’s? Wonder if they have every met? Bar tab was left open the whole night, and combine this with a random game (money in) of Black Jack in the corner it became a rather classic night and add in the fact we decided to Jenny Craig it and miss dinner. We all put in 100Kroner ($20nz) each, and hit the table. I believe it was Steven that proposed to the lovely dealer first, second and third. At one point claiming his winning would go on the honeymoon, Phil was referring to her as his future ex wife, Clint was all charm and I’m sure she was giving me the Glad eye. In all fairness her night would have been crap had us four kiwis not stumbled across Harry’s. Melliner (dealer) was reading a book before we took to the table, and I’m sure it was Black Jack for dummies. So it was for 4 hours that we tried to win enough to pay for our relentlessly developing bar tab.

Up and down like a whore draws, but the house always wins. We befriended a group of Swedish lads and Victor was a gambler, at one point taking it on himself to loose all his weeks wages in one hand. What he failed to realise that Melliner our dealer was as lucky as a fuckin dog with 2 tails. To the point where Phil was checking up her sleeves, I presume for Aces, but with Phil you never know.

The night ended with us clearing the 2500 Kroner tab (52 pots), then some Swedish wrestling outside, and a couple attempts to throw young Lars and Victor into the local river. Funny at the time, I can assure you. They didn’t seem to find it so amusing. A good tip in Sweden is to perhaps pay for the first round, thus knowing what each beer cost before the tab is opened! Totally worth it!