A bit of miscellany this time, in fact its a selection of things I randomly noted from a recent driving tour of Denmark, Sweden and back through Germany and Netherlands.
Bicycles are big........and virtually every road and city paths has cycle paths, but as a mere pedestrian, I felt second class, as high speed cyclists travel on shared spaces with walkers............. possibly my lack of awareness, but seems like increased risk of getting run down by a cyclist than a car ?
Cash is disappearing in Sweden, residents seem to use credit or debit cards for small purchases in a shop or newsagent and in the shopping center car park in Gotenburg, the only way in and out is by card, no tickets, no pay stations.
Similarly in the same Shopping Centre the Swedish mobile operator 3 shop happily sold me a micro data sim for my IPAD, but didn’t accept cash at all.
By the way, the SIM worked in both Denmark and Sweden, no issues with excessive roaming charges.
There's lots of water, lakes, fiords, canals, rivers etc which is attractive and over all I managed to use seven ferries, from large ocean going to a wooden “raft” across a short channel. To this add lots of bridges going from island to island and seeing Stockholm and Kobenhvn by boat illustrates why the Vikings came from this area.
Do you go to Macdonalds ? Do you clear your tray and rubbish ? Do you separate the card board and paper from cups, from straws and plastic, do you empty your old food and drinks into special slots first ? In Sweden you do, and everyone seems to accept this as the norm, maybe that’s why their recycling record is much better than the UK.
Because of my journey I also needed four currencies, £, Euros, SW Kronor, DK Kronor, as Denmark and Sweden are like the UK in not joining the Eurozone ............. not impossible to cope with although the bureau de change or banks make a nice little profit each time you change ...............but really but come on its time everyone got on board and we had one European currency.
No booze in Swedish shops, except for shandy type beers (hard drink is only for sale in official shops) so at the shortest crossing points to Denmark lots of bargain booze outlets just inside Denmark, which are very bus=y with visiting Swedes stocking up, maybe the attempt to restrict alcohol isn’t really working
In some ways pleased to be back but an interesting experience nonetheless in two similar but different countries
