The Sweden Diary, day one to fifteen

Day 1

Tuesday December 21

Mark:

Another day another pack up and go as we prepare to leave Berlin. All the way down five flights of stairs. Yes people, we’re on the fifth floor, not the third as advertised. It is a really big job to get everything out of the room, onto the landing, then get it all the way down the stairs to the courtyard, through the hostel, out onto the street and then finally across the road to the car. Back and repeat. Now it’s a three hour drive to Rostock for the six hour ferry to Trelleborg. And from there, just a 25 minute hop to our housesitting apartment in Malmö. On the boat we manage to claim just the best spot, a full on couch at the front facing out onto the open ocean for a wonderfully relaxing trip.

In Malmö and it’s out for a lovely evening with our hosts and Maja’s longstanding friends. 

Maja:

I am so happy to be able to meet Adrian again. Adrian is my homie, my friend that I treasure beyond the world. I am absolutely delighted about meeting him. He is one of the very few people in the world I feel completely relaxed being with. We meet way too rarely since we’ve been living far away from each other for the better part of our adult lives, but everytime we meet we both treasure it and it feels like we’ve never been apart. We’ve decided that me and Mark will house-sit his and his girlfriend’s apartment while they are visiting their families for christmas and new years. It’s a perfect match; we get somewhere nice to stay with all amenities you miss in a hostel while we rest up for our next adventure, and they have someone to take care of their house so they won’t have to worry about burglars or anything. And I guess they just want to be a bit nice to us which is greatly appreciated. 

When we arrive we share a wonderful meal of their favourite local dish of falafel and then continue along to the local brewery for some beer tasting and gossip.

Malmö, we’ve arrived! 

Day 2

Wednesday December 22

Mark:

We have this place for the next nine days, leaving on January 1, to where we still don’t know, but probably Prague. With New Year on the horizon and the traditionally quiet subsequent days and weeks, we don’t expect anything to be happening there for a while either, so are envisaging a week to ten days of just getting our bearings and rehearsing, possibly identifying a venue or two around the town and maybe even speaking to some of them if we can. But for now, we’re going to just totally take it easy for a day or two before we set ourselves up to begin rehearsals and consolidation.

Maja:

As a university student I used to live in Lund, the next town over, so I know the area quite well. I was a student at Lunds University where I got my masters degree in Computer Science and Engineering. So this place is very familiar to me. I really look forward to taking Mark to Lund one day and just walk around there and show him all the places. After graduating I got my first job in Lund as well and lived there for another couple of years. I pretty much went back and forth between Japan and Lund, living in both places to and forth for that time period. Lund to me is the place I was living in when I turned from a kid to an adult. I’m originally from Stockholm, but I haven’t spent that much time in Stockholm as an adult, so I am very excited about showing Mark my adopted city. The city that I first made my own. 

Day 3

Thursday December 23

Mark:

I wake with a song idea and get right to it. Six Sense Lover begins. Before Maja’s even up for breakfast I have a pre-chorus, chorus and what I think will be a second verse. More lyrics that fit the form get written during breakfast, then we’re back to it properly shortly afterwards. By a little time after midday we have a first draft of a full song. Later on, thinking it needs a little more, we return to it and add that little more. Now it feels done.

With that, we take ourselves out shopping for Christmas supplies.

Day 4

Friday December 24

Mark:

It’s Swedish Christmas this year which is celebrated on the 24th, not the 25th as I’ve always known it. So Maja’s in charge for a full Christmas dinner spread of small dishes, almost Spanish tapas style. Brilliant. After that, it’s the main event which I’ve heard a lot about. The whole of the country stops apparently to watch what is essentially a one hour advert for Disney as we’re taken through the years all the way back to the beginning and right up to the latest releases. Got to admit, it’s really good fun watching cartoons like this and hearing well known Disney characters speak Swedish.

And yes, it really, truly feels like Christmas. 

Maja:

Merry Christmas. This is my first Christmas ever away from my family, and it is with a strong feeling of sadness that I prepare the traditional dishes. But at least I’m not alone and it is really fun to introduce all the fun little traditions to Mark.

I serve him the traditional ansjovis potato gratin (Janssons Frestelse), oven baked mustard ham (Julskinka), boiled potatoes with pickled fish (Sill), and some smoked salmon. And of course, Mark loves the Janssons Frestelse the most. He is a fishy guy that Mark. 

To me it feels good to at least have the traditional food, when I can’t go visit my family for christmas. At least I give them all a call. 

Day 5

Saturday December 25

Mark:

Today is just Saturday. Christmas has happened. Now, finally feeling somewhat rested and more alert than we have for a while, we get properly stuck into Diary writing for the first time since getting here.

Day 6

Monday December 27

Mark:

We haven’t been out of the apartment since Thursday. So it really is time for us to get out and have a proper look at this coastal city for the first time. It’s a big enough place with a population of around 350,000, and a lovely shopping square leading to the main town which is dominated by the Triangeln shopping centre. All this is less than ten minutes walk from the apartment which sits right on the edge of the main district. Sales are underway and the streets are bustling but freezing cold. You really don’t want to stay outside too long, so indoor shopping centre it is. Once in there, you feel like you could be anywhere. 

Day 8

Wednesday December 29

Maja:

I can’t believe I’m getting properly sick. Again. I’m so incredibly sick of being sick. It feels like I’m sick all the time. And now it feels like I’m catching something really bad. I need to call Adrian and tell him. It’s with a feeling of embarrassment that I call him. There’s really no way around it. I am house-sitting and turning very ill. I think that I may have Covid. If I do, they won’t be able to go home when they need to. I feel so bad about that. Well, I need to make the phone call. So I do, and both Adrian and his girlfriend are incredibly understanding. They even have Covid tests in a drawer, so both me and Mark test ourselves with a complete conviction that they’re going to show up positive. They’re not. Both are negative. I’m not quite sure if I’m supposed to be relieved or not at the result. But the tests are antigen tests and the covid variant Omicron that is everywhere now isn’t showing up on the antigen tests that often. So it could still be covid. But maybe, just maybe, it’s just a cold and I’ll be back on my feet in a couple of days.

Mark:

We need to look at this in a bit more detail, but from what we can tell right now, Corona restrictions may well be starting to drive us east. We’d already decided on Prague as our next destination and were thinking of heading back into Germany after that, possibly Hamburg. But as we start to catch up on the news, harder travel restrictions are being put in place all over western Europe, especially Germany. Some eastern countries are looking, on the face of it, like they might be better for us. We’ll be leaving on Saturday so we really have to start making this decision now.

But today we begin to have something else to think about. Maja’s feeling ill. For now I feel OK but this really doesn’t look good.

Day 9

Thursday December 30

Mark:

We have to accept the tour is over. At least for now. The Corona situation in Europe is worse than we thought and travel just about everywhere is looking prohibitive. Oh well. We always knew this could happen so we’ll just be happy that at least we managed to get Berlin and show just what we could do if we only gave ourselves the chance. But as well as the tour ending here and now, symptoms of some kind or other are starting to hit both of us now. And that’s along with a heavy tiredness that started in Berlin and which neither of us has been able to shake. With all that going on, we haven’t been able to get rehearsal done at all and we really thought that would be a big part of this week or so off the road. It’s time to consider options. Are we just going to go back home to Ireland? As we’re seriously starting to consider this, the possibility of an apartment in Stockholm comes up which would be available to us until at least some time in February. Which means we could stay on the mainland of Europe and ride this out in Sweden. Which would mean we would still be on mainland Europe if and when things do open up again. It would be a long way to drive to Ireland and then to drive back out here again. Would we really do it? No idea. So yeah. We’re going to Sweden.

But wow, we really have threaded the tightest of needles. Looking back, our first show was in The Trap in Clara on November 6 and we declared ourselves ready, for the first time, to actually play a full show with all our own material on November 5. The day after the show, Maja flew to Sweden to have wrist surgery. Which meant that, factoring in recovery time, the very earliest she could drive to Berlin from Sweden was Wednesday December 1. Thursday saw us buying the equipment we needed that couldn’t be brought by plane which made Friday the first day we could try to actually play. Which we succeeded in doing, also playing a show the next day. From there, we had just over two weeks to tackle Berlin which we very much did until our last show on December 19, just as the whole city closed for Christmas, and now we’re looking at a Europe that has pretty much closed for Corona. From starting all this in earnest in May, we really did just make it into the very last two week period we could have played in, and we couldn’t possibly have been in Berlin a single day before we were. And while the tour might be over now, it’s so vitally important that we got at least Berlin in to demonstrate to ourselves that what we’re doing really can be done, and that our songs really can have the effect on audiences we were confident they could have. Yep. Eye of the European Corona needle. Wow. 

But for now, we have to take care of for now. Which means going and getting another test because we really don’t believe the negative result the home kit gave us. So we drive to a testing centre about 20 minutes away. On arrival, we see the queue is huge. And it’s cold, although at least not raining. But still. You’re sick, you have to go out and get tested, and in order to do that you have to wait out in the cold, and possibly the rain. It takes us two hours to get to the head of all this and briefly into the relatively warm refuge of the small, temporarily raised testing building. If we weren’t sick when we arrived, we probably are now. But no. We fit all the symptom profile but again, tested by professionals this time, once more we come out negative. What is going on? I’m just feeling a bit yucky but it’s getting stronger. Maja is just not good at all. Today really can’t have helped. But even today it still wasn’t a PCR test, just the normal 15 minute antigen test we did ourselves, just administered by professionals this time. We still don’t trust the result.

Maja:

It’s horrible. Everything is just horrible when you have to stand outside for 2 hours with a 40 degree fever.

We have to talk to Adrian about staying longer. I don’t think I can handle an eight hour drive in two days’ time. 

Day 10

Friday December 31

Mark:

New years is cancelled. And today is no holiday for us either. Maja has decided to book a PCR test. First thing in the morning. She wakes me and says, come on. We have to go now. Today’s testing centre just happens to be in Lund where Maja went to university and then spent the first few years of her professional life. We go and get her tested in a car park and try to get a test for me too but are told no. Fine. If Maja comes out positive, we’ll just assume I am too, although we’re kind of assuming all that right now anyway.

We’ve been meaning to come to Lund for me to get a look at this important place in Maja’s history and a drive round it today is really the best we’re going to get as it’s clear we’re both on our way to being sick by now so a bus ride and a walk around and a visit to any of Maja’s old favourite haunts really is not on. A drive round it is and I get to see Maja’s old apartment, all the university buildings that mean so much, and the office block where her professional life began. It all really adds context to see this part of her history so far away from London and what I know. There’s not much activity outside, but I really get a feel for this place as we drive through whole sections of the town dedicated to university buildings. And then a drive through the small town centre itself. But Maja is starting to struggle and we only just make it to the end of the tour when she says we really have to start the drive back now.

On this drive back, if we had any doubt, it becomes painfully clear that Maja cannot make the eight hour drive to Stockholm yet or any time soon. She gets home and heads straight to bed. I stay up and spend the rest of the day alternating between watching movies when she’s asleep and being in the room with her when she’s awake. As midnight approaches we hear fireworks outside and I go and have a look from the bedroom window. Yes, they can be seen all around in front of the apartment which is facing a large semi circular crescent. Nearby and beyond the buildings we can see, fireworks are being set off and can be seen exploding all around above the buildings. Maja forces herself up to come and join me at the window as we watch the intensity of the fireworks increase and count down the last 10 seconds of 2021. She was in Sweden for this last year and we counted down together while I was in London, an hour behind. This time we’re both in Sweden. The last second ticks down and 2022 arrives. Before the first minute of the new year is out, we’re both in bed. 

Maja:

I really struggle right now. Everything hurts, my fever just won’t go down no matter how many paracetamol I take, and I need to get my hands on a PCR test. When I wake up I once again open up the fully booked web system to see if there’s any new times available and I’m in luck. There’s one today. In Lund. But we need to leave now. I wake Mark up and force myself up and to the car. The parking space is a 10 minute walk away and there’s at least a 10 minutes drive on the highway to get to Lund. The drive isn’t fun, but I’m still quite alright. 

I’m quite happy that this enforced drive takes us all the way to Lund, because I’ve really wanted to show it to Mark. So after taking the PCR test, we drive around and I try to tell him a little bit about the town. I show him my school and office buildings and some buildings I’ve lived in. But it all is very forced and I have a hard time enjoying it. After only a very short drive around town, not much more than five minutes, I realise that I need to go to bed now. I can’t hold on much longer. Sightseeing is cancelled and I take the fastest route back home. As we’re on the highway I feel so bad that tears are running down my cheeks as I desperately try not to pass out. 

Well, back in bed and I don’t move until just before midnight when I get up to count down the new year with Mark and watch the fireworks. 

Happy new year.

Day 11

Saturday January 1

Mark:

I wake and realise this thing, whatever it is, has fully got me now. I get up and leave the room with vague intentions to write but soon realise, no. Can’t. I immediately go and join Maja back to bed. With the bedroom having an en suite, we will barely leave this room for the next two days. We already knew our hosts were going to stay away while we were sick. Today they tell us they won’t be here until at least next Saturday. Hopefully we can get well and get out of here and back to Stockholm by then.

Maja:

Mark’s got it too now. That’s not good. We’re both too sick to take care of each other or ourselves now. I can’t walk to the kitchen. It’s just too far away. We don’t attempt to eat for days. Our diet consists of tap water from the bathroom, two metres away, paracetamol in a desperate attempt to lower our fevers, and the odd cracker.

Day 12

Sunday January 2

Mark:

Maja’s PCR result comes back. Negative. So that’s that. Good news we suppose, but that doesn’t change the horrendous way we both feel; even a walk to the kitchen is an intimidating prospect beyond either of us right now.

Maja:

I don’t understand how the test could be negative, and I don’t believe it either. This is the worst I’ve felt in ages and Mark is just as bad. We can’t and won’t move at all. 

Day 13

Monday January 3

Today is the first day both wake up feeling somewhat OK but we don’t push it at all.

Day 14

Tuesday January 4

A good job we didn’t try to push it yesterday. We’re thinking we could consider leaving for Stockholm tomorrow but when we get up and try the lightest of household tasks, we soon collapse back in bed. Nope. This feeling good thing is just an illusion. Maybe if we take today as easy again, we can start to get things organised tomorrow with a view to maybe leaving on Thursday. 

Day 15

Wednesday January 5

We think we’re going to go have a last look at the town today but the weather closes in on us and it gets far too cold, wet, and not at all fun to be out. But still, we have made it out and walked a decent distance. We’re starting to feel ready to tackle things now. Back to the apartment and we start to get all our stuff together and tidy the place to make it look brand new, although we’ve kept it in pretty good shape this whole time. But yep. We’re definitely planning on leaving tomorrow.