08.36 There are days when you just want to stay in bed. This is not such a day. First of all, I have slept on a sofa. Second, this is the day Christer and I will start a new journey. It was Christer´s name day the last time we were out traveling. Today it's my turn.

09.58 Most of it is organized and breakfast has been eaten. Not much more remains. Oh yes, we are supposed to travel. We are right now in Christer´s apartment in Sundsvall.

10.30 I checked my email and received a message from British Airways. They want us to check in online. It is time to get ready!

10.59 We have checked in and we have a boarding pass each to London. The one to São Paulo will be fixed later at Heathrow. Time passes quickly and we are about to leave.

Christer starts this trip with a visit to an ATM in Sundsvall.

11.35 With enthusiastic steps we´ve walked the first part of this long journey. Outside the window, we can see Sundsvall´s railway station. Soon we will depart with a train bus towards Hudiksvall. We will cover the first bit by bus. The trains between Sundsvall and Hudiksvall are down at the moment. On this bus there is a sleeping area of the type we've seen before on Turkish buses. At the entrance to the centre of the bus there is a small wall to the left of the stairs. In this wall there is a gap and a small sleeping compartment, mainly intended for the assistant driver.

12.45 Andersson’s Bus has taken us to a summery Hudiksvall. Here I met a girl who used to be my pupil. She had arrived with the same bus and she´s continuing with the same train we´re going with. She is traveling to Hässleholm and is a bit nervous about her long journey. We shall travel further than that. Now it is time to board the train.

Peter is switching from bus to train. The location of this drama is Hudiksvall.

14.15 Onboard the X2000 train we have bought the "Small bistro menu", coffee, juice and sandwiches. Our train keeps going towards the south.

15.22 The train will continue without us. We are now at Arlanda airport and Christer is looking for a TV. He will not buy one. We want to see the World Cup game between Japan and Paraguay. The game starts at 16.00.

16.09 A TV is finally found. Yes, we had found two others, one in the departure lounge and one in the restaurant New Orleans. It was a bit crowded at both places. Here in a café there is more room.

16.49 It's half-time here at Simply Coffee. It is 0-0. I just had a second cup of coffee.

Travelers at Arlanda airport watching the world cup game Paraguay vs Japan.

17.54 The game ended 0-0 and the players are waiting for extra time. We are waiting for the free bus number 14 which stops at the Jumbo Hostel where a room is waiting for us. Jumbo Hostel (http://www.jumbostay.se) is a hostel which is to say the least special. The entire hostel is a converted aircraft. It is not cheap (US$50/night) but still the cheapest you can get at the airport if you don´t want to sleep on a bench (as we did in 2004).

18.09 It was easy to get to the Jumbo Hostel. Two stops, and then we were there. Now we are in room 742 watching TV. Right now we are in the 103rd minute of the game and it is a Japanese freekick.

Jumbo Hostel

18.30 The extra time is completed. Penalties will decide the game.

18.42 Paraguay converted all of their five penalties and are still in the tournament.

19.53 We took the bus back to Sky City and had dinner at the restaurant Alfredo's.

21.32 We're back in our room at the Jumbo Hostel. It reminds pretty much of a ferry cabin. It is time for the second half in the last eighth finals of the World Cup. It is currently 0-0 between Spain and Portugal.

It is hard to believe that you are inside an aircraft.

21.52 Portugal has conceded their first goal in this World Cup. David Villa has scored.

22.26 Spain took that last quarterfinal spot. Now it's time to sleep. It will be an early morning tomorrow. Then we´ll get out of this airplane and into a more mobile one.

Wednesday 30th of June

04.13 There is a first time for everything. I’ve just had a shower for the first time on an airplane. Christer has just climbed down from the bed above. He is heading for the shower now.

05.10 I'm sitting on a bench at the bus stop Flight School. We are waiting for bus number 14. We had breakfast before we left the plane. In the sky, a cloud which resembles South America can be seen, is it a sign or what?

A sign in the sky, a cloud that looks like South America.

06.06 Today’s first gate is F61. It was easy to get here. Now it really begins to feel like we will travel somewhere.

06.43 Our fellow passengers are looking for their seats while classical music is being played here. We are in positions 16A-B. Three rows ahead is number 13, no superstition on British Airways.

We are about to land on English soil.

08.35 We’ve switched to British time and just landed at Heathrow. Just before we landed we saw a large stadium and beyond that another stadium where there were ads for Etihad, the company we flew with last year. The big stadium turned out to be Twickenham, home of British rugby.

UNITED KINGDOM

09.26 Christer is away looking for somewhere where we can leave our big backpacks, my old seasoned bag which appeared on all trips since 2000 and Christer´s newly purchased backpack.

10.09 The backpacks have been x-rayed and placed in the storage here at Terminal 5. We bought bread and healthy drinks at Marks & Spencer. A Sikh in a white beard and a neon yellow vest passes us. We’ve not seen any trash cans here at the airport. Is it due to "security reasons" or? IRA and others tend to like to place bombs in litter bins. We will take the opportunity to throw our rubbish when someone with a cleaning trolley passes by. We were in Sundsvall a day ago, where will we be one day from now?

10.50 The bus operator is called "The Airline". Our destination is Oxford and our driver has just left the bus.

10.56 We’ve left the bus. It didn’t want to leave from here. Possibly there is something wrong with the accelerator. Some passengers murmur that it shows that they have come home to England again.

11.05 It's just to take the ticket and board the next bus. Luckily, we have no luggage we need to move. The reason for this Oxford trip is that our plane to Brazil leaves late in the evening and we are not very eager to spend a whole day at Heathrow.

12.35 We are studying in Oxford! Christer is studying the map and I study the people. We´re having a bench rest. People are dressed in summer clothes and we’ve seen buses from City Sightseeing here too. A man just rolled by in a wheelchair here on Queen Street. Our bus took us to the final station, Gloucester Green, from where we walked and have seen Oxford Castle.

Peter is walking in Oxford.

Oxford Castle

Conservative Club in Oxford.

13.02 Tennis is being played on the other side of the river behind me and mallards swim in the canal. We are at Christ Church Meadow. A brown white goose with a black neck swims by. Nearby is Merton College, Oxford Botanic Garden. It is a nice quiet pace here. There are many bikes and you can not avoid thinking about the environments in which English detective stories usually take place. It's a warm day today. We have to take it easy so we don’t get too sweaty before our flight tonight.

St Aldate´s Street, Oxford.

Typical environment in Oxford. The picture is from Christ Church.

Peter is studying an Oxford city map in a nice environment.

13.57 View after view have been seen and immortalized in this interesting city. We’ve seen buildings like St. Mary's Church, Radcliffe Camera and now the entrance to the Bodleian Library. There are lots of people on the move, many are tourists.

14.46 We had found an eatery, The Nosebag, a Malaysian restaurant. First, we looked up the pub "The Eagle and Child", a pub that we perhaps will visit later, a pub where J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis and others sat talking about their books and ideas for books. On the way back we saw a guy in a Brazilian club football jersey and later we saw Cafe Brasil, signs of what awaits in the near future. Before we had time to return to The Nosebag they had closed for lunch. Now we are considering how to spend the near future.

Gondolas at Magdalen Bridge.

Cricket boys being photographed at Magdalen College School.

Beautiful buildings in central Oxford, including All Souls College.

15.04 We are now outside the city's police station, Thames Valley Police Station. It is here that you could see the detectives Morse and Lewis (if they existed in real life).

15.33 There will be no visit to "The Eagle and Child". Instead it becomes a dinner meal at another pub, O'Neill's Pub & Grill. Here we will be having Irish food and drink. We are along New Inn Hall Street.

16.32 We enjoyed Mixed Grill, good and welcomed. I had a beer to the food and Christer a cider. Now we are taking a last bench break in a park close to one of the channels. About half an hour, we´ll travel back on the bus.

Cornmarket Street, Oxford.

The pub "The Eagle & Child" in Oxford, a favourite pub for famous writers.

Thames Valley Police Station. For those of you who like English detective dramas the place is famous.
TV detectives Inspector Morse and Lewis were based here in Oxford.

Christer is trying "Mixed Grill" at the pub O'Neill's.

18.20 We had a bit of sleep on the bus back, well, not so little either. We are now back at Heathrow. Soon the bags will be retrieved and the next phase of the journey begins.

18.55 Roger Federer and Robin Söderling have lost in the Wimbledon Tennis. Christer Lundstedt and Peter Johansson have checked in on the flight to São Paulo. We have collected the backpacks and will brush our teeth before leaving the backpacks.

19.41 We’ve checked in our backpacks and are waiting for information about which gate we shall go to.

20.16 We are having coffee while we are waiting for information about the gate. Coffee has been purchased at Pret, fresh, natural. It seems to be a health profile for most of the food and beverage sold here at Heathrow.

20.42 We now know which gate is the right one, B46, and we are now going with a transit train there.

21.28 We’ve boarded the plane to São Paulo. We are sitting on the ground floor. The aeroplane is double-decked. This is something entirely new for me.

Thursday 1st of July

CHANGING TIME ZONE

03.20 The time has changed. We have switched to Brazilian time. In addition we also got a new month, July. The sleeping has gone well so far.

04.20 After some trouble, we had breakfast and filled in the distributed immigration documents to Brazil. It is a bit shaky, turbulent. Far down there lights are visible from a city, possibly Uberaba.

05.14 We cannot land. We spin around in the air here in anticipation of better weather, landing conditions. The fog has covered São Paulo. We are currently at 6400 meters altitude.

05.40 It seems that we have started the descent. Flight altitude drops on our monitors. Now it is 4200 meters, soon we hope to land at the airport Guarulhos.

05.42 Of course we are going down but not to the right airport. The fog is still there. We have to land at the airport in Campinas, an airport free from fog.

Boredom at Campinas cargo airport.

06.00 We’ve landed and are awaiting clearance for what happens next. There outside the plane, so teasingly close, are Brazil and South America.

06.07 The captain just said that we will make a short(?), stop here before flying to Guaralhos. More information to come.

06.56 It's actually still fog where we are going. We will soon have a new crew coming to this plane and perhaps even no fog.

08.16 The Danish writer Nielsen wrote the classic piece "The fog is lifting". This is ever so true in São Paulo as well. I want out of the plane now.

09.33 The fog may have cleared but not the morning traffic. The traffic in São Paulo is where our new crew is caught.

09.56 Finally! We are starting to gear up to re-raise against São Paulo. People are unusually calm and collected.

10.17 New bid, new times. We remain on the ground for at least 30 minutes. It seems to be many aircrafts which are about to fly. We must not leave the plane because we are at a cargo airport without facilities to accommodate passengers.

10.50 We are off the ground! Before we took off a few passengers were upset and angry. A female lawyer wanted some papers to fill in. She was not happy with the ones she had been given and demanded new ones. She wanted compensation for this delay. She accused one of the staff of telling lies about the departure times. The designated flight attendant was very factual and informed the angry lawyer that there most certainly was exactly as she had said.

Finally we fly again!

We are about to land in the huge city São Paulo.

11.16 It is an amazing experience to land in São Paulo. It feels like the city has no end. There are houses so far as the eye can see. Somewhere among all of this the Guarulhos airport should be.

11.28 We’ve landed but can´t continue to our gate. There is another plane there. People are standing and walking, although they are asked to sit down. The lawyer writes as much as she can and are telling others to also complain and write. An Italian man next to us seem to be mostly just amused. He just smiles when the lawyer asks him to fill in the paper.

BRAZIL

13.06 We're finally through the passport control and are now in the country. It took time to queue at passport control. It took almost an hour to arrive at the passport police. In the queue there was also a Swedish family with children who would go for some form of international exchange in the city Londrina. A South African guy we talked to asked about our trip and would himself attend some kind of church meeting in Curitiba. Then we retrieved our backpacks, which already stood waiting at the side of the luggage strap. Now it's really close to experience Brazil.

14.26 We’ve withdrawn some money from an ATM and had something to eat, expensive things. Two bottles of juice and two sandwiches cost US$12. Now we are sitting with our newly purchased bus tickets for the airport bus into the city centre. We are in a new country and a new continent for us. There are only three passengers on the bus including us.

15.54 The first room number in South America became 602. We are at the Hotel Rojas All Suite (http://www.rojas.com.br). It was a relatively short walk here from the Praca Republica (Republic Square) where the shuttle bus has its last stop. We got a good price here by booking through the Hostelworld website. Now we´ll see what we do next. It is nice to have a nonmoving place to stay in. We have more or less a separate apartment, bathroom, hall/TV-room and two bedrooms. Just perfect!

Informative toilet signs at Hotel Rojas.

17.11 We have no electricity. However, we have hunger. See, there are two reasons to go out.

17.58 We’ve done some shopping at Econ Supermarket. We bought drinks, bread and a little yogurt. It is good to have that something to support the breakfast tomorrow.

19.05 It's time for dinner at Feitolucce Pizza on Avenida São João 1288. It is a simple little hangout that offers what we need, food. We’ve ordered a medium pizza was. There were some difficulties in terms of language, to say the least.

We have a nice view from our hotel room.

19.48 We got a half pizza each. There was a large pizza cut in two. It became as much pizza at a cheaper price. We thank you very much. I also got a fridge magnet.

20.35 We´re taking it easy and making ourselves ready for well deserved rest. São Paulo is not a small city. The metropolitan area has an area of 8479km², slightly larger than the Swedish province Södermanland and inhabited by 18,9 million people. To understand how big the city is we can mention that São Paulo has 77 shopping malls, 19, long distance bus stations, 33 000 taxi cars, 10 000 city buses, 12 500 restaurants and 42 000 hotel rooms.

Many of the high buildings in central São Paulo are residential.

Our "home street", Avenida São João.

Friday 2nd of July

07.52 It´s not often you go to bed at 20.48, Christer said yesterday. After that we both fell asleep and slept until 07.30. Now the first full day on Brazilian soil awaits us.

09.22 Breakfast was tasty and good, two kinds of juice, strong coffee, several different kinds of bread, cheese, ham, fresh fruit and cakes. Now we're looking for a TV channel which shows today's World Cup football. On one of the channels they have informed about the hours banks are closed during Brazil's world cup game. The TV channel might be the one which shows the game later on. We will go out for a short while and return before the kick-off.

10.29 We’ve went out on the streets. We have familiarized ourselves with the neighbourhood. Now we are back in the room sitting in the couch and await the quarter-final Brazil vs Holland. Out on the town we’ve seen people blowing into vuvuzelas. Some have an amplifier in the form of a pump connected to their vuvuzela. Many windows are decorated with Brazilian flags and a large proportion of the people around were wearing some form of football shirt.

Peter in São Paulo.

Football fans walking past our hotel. Note the vuvuzela with an amplifier on the left.

11.02 This year's first World Cup quarterfinals have begun. In each quarter-final there is a country which we are visiting during this trip. How many of them will make it to the next round?

11.12 Brazil takes the lead 1-0 through Robinho. Euphoria erupted in the stands and out in the streets here in São Paulo. We heard fireworks go off and saw a guy in a football shirt running like a madman across the street outside yelling. It was a harmless thing to do since the streets are basically empty of traffic now during the game. Even the cleaning staff at the hotel watch the game screaming all through the first half.

11.50 The TV channel (think it is TV Globo), has a report from "the home front" making an interview with the player Lucio´s mother.

12.10 Holland has equalised. It is somewhat quieter surroundings. Now the Brazilians must score. We have no time for over time. We have some things to accomplish before the next game today.

12.25 Holland takes the lead 2-1, Wesley Sneijder scored. It is even quieter now.

TV interview with the national team player Lucio´s mother.

12.51 This was not planned. Brazil are out of the World Cup! I wonder if we Europeans dare to show ourselves around town? Christer will probably not wear his orange shirt this day.

13.24 Now we travel by metro in yet another country. We went down into the underground at the station Santa Cecilia not that far away home the hotel. We are going to buy our bus tickets for Sunday. People do not look too sad. Are there other things in life than football?

13.33 We’ve changed the metro line from red to blue. In the red we had time to talk to four Brazilians. They were a bit drunk, unhappy with the national team coach Dunga, and wondered where we came from. Although we clearly said we were from Sweden they came with other ideas, we were from England or maybe even China? Do we look Chinese?

The bus station Tietê.

13.59 We're on a major bus station named Tietê. It is actually the world's second largest bus station and have buses to 565 destinations. Here we bought our bus tickets for Sunday's bus trip to Curitiba. We will travel with the company Itapemirim.

14.12 We had a hamburger lunch at Bob's Burgers here at the bus station, cheeseburgers, strips and Coca cola. It may not be healthy, but definitely tasty and necessary right now.

São Paulo has a very good metro. Each ticket costs around 1,50 US-dollars.

15.49 We made a brief stop at the internet cafe ServNet before we walked home to the hotel. Now we are watching the second quarter final, Uruguay vs Ghana.

16.21 Just before half-time Sulley Muntari gave Ghana the lead, 1-0.

16.46 Gooooooal! Uruguay has levelled the score. Diego Forlán scored with a free kick.

17:24 There will be 30 minutes of football, someone must win. It will be overtime.

18:02 Ghana got a penalty in the final seconds of the overtime. Asamoah Gyan hit the ball into the bar. Now we´ll have some more penalties to decide who the winner will be.

18.18 Ghana missed two more penalties and Uruguay is the winner, really disappointing for Ghana!

19.02 We have moved to the churrascaria (barbecue restaurant) Prazeres do Sul. They are offering buffet food. In addition, you get the filling from various pizzas and grilled meat, large pieces are cut in slices from the barbecued meat. This place can be found at Largo do Arouche 226.

20.52 There is a quiet evening. We have been reading in our books and looked out of the window. We’ve looked down the street and also at people in the flats opposite our hotel. Many have put their shoes on the windowsills outside their apartments. Why?

Dunga is a donkey! The national coach´s popularity plummeted after the 2nd of July.