06.39 As I got off the bus in Sundsvall yesterday I realised that my backpack had gotten off at the railway station which is the stop before the bus station. I guess old habits die hard. All I could do was to go back to the railway station and prevent my backpack from boarding another bus. A brisk walk up to Christer´s place followed after that. Now we had breakfast and are getting ready for the second half. It is time to play on the other half of the field. We are also waiting for reinforcement.

07.47 Things are rolling again. Two middle aged ladies are wondering about how and where they should sit. How should they act to make both the bags and legs fit? Which old movie would be shown on the TV-screen? I hope they will be quiet during this bus trip to Stockholm.

10.32 The ladies got marginally more quiet. I don’t know what they are saying now. They have left the bus to do some shopping. We’ve already bought what we need here at the Preem petrol station in Gävlebro just outside of Gävle.

13.15 The bus trip ended at the bus station Cityterminalen in Stockholm. From there we´ve found our way to a place that can serve us lunch. We’ve followed old habits and traditions and sat down at Sala Thai at the Central station.

Riksdagen, the parliament of Sweden. It has 349 seats.

Parliament and government buildings in the same photo.

14.05 We’ve decided to give ourselves this trip´s first bench break. The backpacks are in a locker at Cityterminalen. Our premier break is in the park outside the building where the government is housed. I feel stagnant and tired. It sometimes is great to just be, sitting on a bench and in the sun and see what happens around you. The preparation of a feast at the art academy is one of the things happening around here.

15.07 The sun is shining from a clear blue sky, a sky where an aeroplane with a banner is flying. We’ve moved to the quay by the City Hall. Prince Carl Phillip just left from here. It isn't anyone of the royal family, it is just an old steam boat. We’ve had ice cream and I also had some coffee.

A nice Saturday at Stadshuskajen (City hall quay).

The boat Prince Carl Philip doing a small tour on Riddarfjärden.

Here´s the meeting point for the psych experiment. What is that? Our trip?

16.17 We kept on resting. We sat just by the City Hall. We’ve now returned to Cityterminalen. Here we are waiting to board the next bus. It will take us to Nyköping and the trip´s first accomodation.

18.02 Today’s final bus trip will soon come to an end. It is time to unhook the safety belt. The travel time just flew by and the there is no longer any sunshine.

Peter has jumped off the bus in Nyköping and didn´t have to go all the way to Kalmar.

18.35 Well wow, what can I say! Here we got to our hostel Railway just before the rain started. We thank whatever almighty power and punched in the door code we had been given. Nothing happened. I had a new attempt with a similar result. I tried to phone the ones in charge but managed to call Nyköping’s other youth hostel. Hang up, recall and make it right! I got a reply and a new code. Now we are in room 3. The seagulls are screaming and my stomach will soon do the same. So why did we go through this just to get inside? Well, the hostel is without staff during some parts of the day. You get one code to get into the common room and one to get inside the box where the keys to the rooms are. This has worked like a charm each time we’ve been here but not today.

19.20 We had our dinner at Pizzeria 12 at Borgaregatan 12. The sky remains dark blue and we’ve bought some breakfast for tomorrow´s early morning.

21.14 After relaxing in the room we´ve begun to act. I had a shower and Christer has phoned the substitute, reinforcement Roberth. He has been wished a safe trip and has been informed that we will keep in touch.

One can’t help to wonder why the three of us don’t leave Sweden at the same time and place. The answer is the fact that we had originally planned to leave Sweden on the 20th of June and Roberth would join us on the 23rd of July. It didn’t go as planned. Christer was at the hospital in the beginning of June and he wasn't ready to leave when we planned. Christer and I had to change plans and flights. Instead we made a shorter trip to the Nrtherlands and Belgium (for details look in that travel journal) and a shortened trip in southern Africa. It is this adventure that now takes place. Roberth had booked his trip according to the original plan and is on his way to Cape Town now.

Sunday 19th of July

04.03 I had a strange dream tonight. I dreamt that I was looking for something connected to Mozart. Well that is enough of tonight, time for today. We just had a light breakfast and are about to leave the hostel.

05.08 We caught the bus to Skavsta airport. We’ve had our backpacks checked in. After that we had planned to have a solid breakfast. We rethought it all. A sandwich with different things on it cost 58 kronor, US$7.13. Sandwich, coffee and juice were available for 88 kronor, US$10.81. That would make the breakfast more expensive than the flight itself (without additional fees).

05.41 We bought drinkable yoghurt and a small sandwich each in a kiosk. After passing security we´ve bought us some coffee. The guy at the cashier must have been sleepy. I asked for a large and small coffee and he asked if we wanted a Falcon (a Swedish beer brand). He eventually got us the coffee. I paid him 15 kronor, US$1.84 and asked if I could pay the rest on my Visa card. That wasn't possible, no contact with the banks. OK, I said, how much do I owe you? Well, he replied you already paid me 55 kronor, US$6.76!

06.35 We have boarded the Ryanair plane. Classical music is being played in the loud speakers. I think it might be Mozart. We are about to take off for the airport Frankfurt Hahn in Germany.

GERMANY

09.25 Everything is going according to the plan. We’ve had some coffee at Jung. It is a café here at airport Frankfurt Hahn. Our next step will be to get us a bus ticket away from here. We are heading on to the main airport, Frankfurt Flughafen.

10.10 We are heading on without any delay. Soon the bus will leave for the city’s main and real airport.

Christer having a coffee break at Café Jung.

We´ve just arrived at Frankfurt Flughafen.

12.22 We are back at Frankfurt Flughafen. We are planning to get ourselves something to eat while we wait for the check-in to start. Christer just left to check for options. We are sitting in the same part of the airport as we were at last year.

13.06 We’ve bought some light meals. As soon as we have finished it we´ll head for the check-in.

13.52 The check-in went smoothly, almost too smooth. Our backpacks were nearly checked in for our final destination Johannesburg. We will be staying for almost a 24 hours in the United Arabs Emirates and will need our stuff there. After the check-in we´ve prepared ourselves for the trip. We’ve shown our passports and passed security. We are now sitting at gate E5.

14.52 With bare feet and tired heads we´re on seats 32H and 32K. We are flying with Etihad Airways with Abu Dhabi as our destination. Etihad Airways is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates.

Waiting planes at Frankfurt Airport. For example you can see a plane from the Dubai airline Emirates.

Finally we´re on the plane. Coming up is a six hour flight.

18.43 We’ve set our watches for Emirates time. Below us are friends from the past, Hungary and the Danube. In front of us, in the next hour, is a meal. Will it be chicken or lamb? Will we be drinking juice, soda or wine? A verse from the holy Quran could be heard in the loud speakers before we left Frankfurt. It was a prayer for a safe and happy trip.

We´re flying over southern Germany.

19.57 It was delicious! We had chicken with pasta and mushrooms, bread, Edam cheese and Italian crackers. I gave my salmon starter to Christer and I had his cheese and mushrooms. We had wine to the bird. The meal was rounded up with coffee and a pastry. I treated myself a Baileys on the side. There is an ashtray on the inside of the door to the plane´s toilet. I´ve seen this on other flights as well. Why is there an ashtray on a no smoking flight?

22.31 After we had flown over what we think was Bagdad, seen a mysterious light over Basra and some lights over Kuwait we´re out over open water again. We are flying over the Persian Gulf and are approaching our destination.

23.30 We are about to land and will soon enter the next country.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

23.50 We’ve landed but some time still remains before our heads can meet some pillows. All Abu Dhabi has to offer are luxurious accomodation so we are going to Dubai to spend the night at more reasonable prices.

Monday 20th of July

00.27 It is 40 years since Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon. We are about to take our first steps in the United Arab Emirates. We will first have coffee and muffins at Starbucks here at the airport. So, this was where the next Starbucks visit took place. I did wonder about it earlier this summer.

01.06 It is warm and damp outside, we don’t mind it. We are sitting inside an airport bus. It is free, included in the ticket price. It will take us to Dubai, 150 kilometres and 1,5 hours trip to the east.

A midnight coffee at Starbucks.

Our nice room at Country Club Hotel.

03.47 Hello, Christer said from the other side of room 302 at Country Club Hotel. We’ve paid US$100 for the room with a large deposit included. I am about to wet my torso and the clothes that have covered it. The taxi that took us from the bus stop to here almost went away with our backpacks. What have I done to my backpack? It keeps trying to run away from me. First the incident in Sundsvall, then the attempt to get straight to Johannesburg and now this!

04.29 The call for the morning prayers has silenced, the time has come to go to bed. It has been a long day with a long transport. An odd detail here is the fact that city is swarming with life during the night. There are among other things construction workers at several construction sites during nighttimes. It is too hot during daytime.

11.10 We had a need for sleep. We are here in the hotel room in Dubai. Our friend Roberth is as we speak at the airport Schiphol in Amsterdam. He will soon take off for Africa.

12.56 Roberth has been in the air for about an hour on his flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town. During the same amount of time we´ve walked from our room down to Country Club Café and back. We had their lunch buffet in the cafe. It consisted of salad, shish kebab, lamb and vegetable rice. Christer also tried some spicy fish. We are preparing to head out and check the neighbourhood.

A strange mist over Dubai this hot day!

Christer taking a walk in the neighbourhood close to our hotel.

Al Rafaa mosque, Dubai.

Green road signs, beautiful flowers and lots of sand of course.

Christer found some cool air coming out from the New Gold Souk building.

The Country Club Hotel, our temporary Dubai home.

14.14 We’ve finally returned to our room. We’ve seen and documented the area around our hotel, around us is a haze and lots of heat. It might have been illuminated haze that we saw as strange light over Basra and Kuwait during last night’s flight. We´ve got vapour on our camera lenses during our walk. We remembered that saliva keeps vapour away. The neighbourhood feels newly built and I’ve not found any postcards. We’ve found a golden mall (New Gold Souk). It was a mall selling gold. Another thing which was golden with it was that it had an exhaust which blew out cool, wonderful air. It is only +38°C in Dubai today :-)

15.19 Our clothes got soaked with sweat within seconds and beverages were required. We’ve headed out again though. We’ve taken aim for a mall further away. We are currently at Al Kuwait Street. The weather is beyond hot.

16.13 We didn’t visit any mall. It was too hot to walk any further. We went inside a small store and bought things to drink for then, now and later. I just received a text message telling me that the next accomodation is confirmed. That is good to know since we are about to leave this one. I can’t say that I want to get out in the heat. The only hot thing I long for is the hot water in the kettle. We are about to have afternoon coffee. We haven’t seen a single pigeon here and we haven’t had any bench break. Another thing that we’ve noticed here is the fact we´ve mostly met people from Pakistan, India, Philippines and other Asian countries when we´ve been visiting hotels, restaurants and stores. The Arabs who are just one third of the population keep a low profile. The only Arabs we’ve seen so far are the ones at the passport control yesterday.

Downtown Dubai, hot, very hot!

Peter has been shopping something to drink and other necessary things.

Air conditioned bus stops in Dubai.

17.11 We’ve checked out and are on our way in a taxi to the bus stop. The stop is by a building called Chelsea Tower. We got the deposition back. It was 94 dirham, US$26.50. The cost for the room ended up at US$73.50. Not bad at all for a great room in this country. We are driving down Sheikh Rashid Road.

17.30 One doesn’t have to be outside for long before one start to sweat. It is great that we got inside the bus before the sweat kicked in.

18.14 We’ve just begun to roll out of Dubai and we just passed a really tall building, Burj Dubai which reaches to a height of amazing 818 metres. There are construction sites everywhere here. They are building everything from skyscrapers to metros. Dubai Metro is a project that costs 3,9 billion dollars to construct. There are stops after stops along the road to Abu Dhabi. The tracks are elevated on concrete pillars here outside of the city.

Highrises in Dubai.

A bus trip through the desert.

Peter outside Abu Dhabi International Airport.

19.36 We are back at Abu Dhabi International Airport and are seated on a bench at terminal 1. We will not remain here much longer. We are after all flying from terminal 3.

20.26 We are at check in counter 76. We’ve been standing here for about ten minutes. At first the guy had problems to sign us in. Now he is doing his best to find us some seats. We won’t be able to sit next to each other. He is making a phone call. We will soon find out how it goes.

20.59 We got the final two seats on the flight. We are not sitting next to each other. I wonder who will be my neighbour. We are having some coffee and pastry at Segafredo. This was cheaper, well less expensive than expected. One pastry was never counted for.

21.22 It is time for a correction again. Everything was counted for. Christer had ordered some special. It was on a discount. We are sitting by gate 35. There are people with cover jackets here and some with masks over their mouths. It isn't the kind of mask that doctors or dentists use. It is more kind which is used by people who work where stone dust can be found. It has been a pleasant stay here and our home has as mentioned been great. It was a pity that breakfast wasn't included but whatever we slept through the breakfast hours.

Passengers on their way to Johannesburg.

21.58 Sweet music can be heard from the loudspeakers in the cabin. People are looking for their seats. A beautiful stewardess is struggling with a heavy bag and a cellphone speaking young lady just passed me. I think that my seat neighbour has arrived. Yes here he is. We are twenty minutes away from take off.

22.57 We didn’t take off as planned at 22.20. We haven’t taken off at all. We remain on the ground. We are slowly being pushed, driven back to where we started from. We are being so by a vehicle with a flashing light on the roof. All of this can be seen on the monitors on the seats. The reason why we haven’t taken off is a wrongly parked Indian aeroplane. It blocks, is in the way, disturbs.

23.24 We finally took off. I don’t want any contact with ground until we are in Johannesburg. I guess that Roberth has already reached Cape Town. The next things are change of time and a Quran verse on our monitors.