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…..