Two intense days

So I'm back from my little trip to Stockholm. As you may have read below, I went with a friend to Stockholm to see Coldplay. We took the bus from Malmö at about 10 p.m., and then slept through almost all of the eight hours it takes to get there. I had been kind of worried about being able to sleep, especially since we had a LONG day ahead of us after arriving in the big city, but it was quite ok. I mean, it wasn't like sleeping in a king size with high thread count-sheets, but it was ok. The only time I woke up was when the bus left the high way to pick up and drop off passengers, which happened three times in the cities Helsingborg, Jönköping and Linköping.

We woke up just as we started coming into Stockholm. There's about one million people living there, and it's spread out a fair bit. What struck me was all the new-looing malls and shopping cnetres everywhere. Car dealerships and H&M:s and everything you can think of, many times over before we got to the central station in Stockholm (train and bus that is). I wonder what's gonna happen with all that if the economy keeps acting like it has been.

Anyway, after arriving in the middle of Stockholm, bright and early in the morning (about 6:30 a.m.), I opted to pay for the cab to our hotel since we don't really know the area and were not jumping up and down at the thought of walking for half an hour with our bags (yes, we did of course have quite a bit of lugage even though the trip was only two days long). Plus, it was my friend's (Hanna for those of you who know her) 25th birthday. I had secretly changed out reservations from the half-crappy hostel we were supposed to live in, to a nicer hotel with a balcony and real bathroom and a nice breakfast buffe. So when the taxi arrived at the hotel Hanna started saying that this can't be the right place, and my plan to tell her about the surprise was a bit cut off. For some reason, I hadn't thought she'd say much, since I was the one in charge of all the arrangements anyway, haha. But she was very happy and thanked me much.

Since we couldn't check in that early (apparently, check in nowadays in Sweden is at 2 p.m. at the earliest!), we just left our bags and freshened up a bit, and then strolled down towards the central parts of the city again. It was still quite early, but there was still people out. Sometimes I think Swedes have some perverse thing with getting up early. But it served us well since we needed to get some breakfast. I actually had coffee, which is not common for me, I usually don't like it at all. But I thought I was gonna need it. It felt like when you've been on a plane over the Atlantic for eight hours and you have to stay up a while longer to avoid jet lag - only this time we had about 18 hours to go until bedtime.

After spotting at least one celebrity (they are fairly concentrated to Stockholm) and doing some shopping (the birthday girl did more than me, I'm kinda broke this month, waiting for my first pay check from the university that will arrive in the end of the month). I realized I'm not the biggest fan of snooty shop-people, who seem to be a lot more common in this city than in Malmö. I don't know if I'm being paranoid, or maybe they reacted to my accent, which is a southern one, and even if it isn't ridiculed as much as the southern US-accent, it still gets a fair bit of grief for not being pretty enought. We ate som lunch, but I had trouble sustaining my apetite, since my nerves were reminding me that I was going to get to see my favourite band soon. It's weird, I get kind of teenagy when it comes to Coldplay. More about that later.

After buying some bubbly and other alcoholic beverages we went back to the hotel and checked in. By then my feet were getting sore from all the walking, and I realized it had been stupid to not bring two pairs of shoes. Thank god I did that. We got to chill for a while, showered, made ourselves pretty and then left again, this time on the subway. Arriving at the Globe Arena, which is about 15 minutes on the tube from where we were, we realized that our planning to be there early to get a good spot was not all that thought through. A lot of people had thought the same thing, only arrived even earlier. The supporting act (Albert Hammond Jr. from the U.S. and the band The Strokes) was to begin at 7.30 p.m. and it was now about 5 p.m., and there was already a huge line in front of the doors. So we stood there, a bit cold, eating some chips and drinking some soda mixed with some of the above mentioned beverage, but not really getting the result we had planned on. It was kind of cold and people in line didn't seem to be in a party mood. And, they all seemed younger than us. Almost anyway.

There was the usual British (why always British) guys selling bootlegs, t-shirts and ear-plugs (which we actually got some, but late ron realized we really didn't need. It didn't feel as disturbingly loud as it sometimes does at these things). When they started letting us in, we took a few more quick sipps of our drink and put it with all the other trash that had accumulated by then (McDonalds-rappers and bits of food, cups, newspapers etc.). Getting into the arena, we realized that we still had a good chance to get fairly close to the stage, which we we're doubting when we saw the long line outside. And after what felt like hours and hours of waiting, we finally got to see the best band in the world. Two glorious hours, which contained beautiful music, screaming fans (including me of course), sweating, more screaming, confetti in the form of butterflies all over the part of the audience that was right in front of stage (including me) and much much more. I again felt kind of old standing there. Even if I could see people that were my age or older, almost everyone seemed to be about 18 or so, or younger. I wonder if I'm liking a band whose fans see them more as the Backstreet Boys or something. Not that I listened to them when I was 18. But still, it feels strange. One of the explanations is that at the concert, you can either get seats (all around the arena, up high) or standing ticket, which means you pay a bit more and don't get to sit down, but you get to see the band a bit more up close and dance and scream without feeling like you're disturbing the people around you. It seemed as if most of the adults where choosing to get to sit down in real seats, even if a lot of them stood a lot. But I like being down there in the sweat and the screaming. Just in the case of Coldplay and maybe a few other music acts. Not with every concert I go to.

So, after Chris Martin (singer) seemed chocked by the loud singing from the auidence on the very popular song "Fix You" from 2005, and more confetti, and extra acts and all of this other great amazing stuff that I'm beginning to forget already, we bought our t-shirts, got our coats, went on the tube again, ate some McDonalds (again my apetite wasn't really there, this time for different but related reasons), we arrived back at our hotel at 1 a.m. It was a long time since I slept that well, being sooo tired by then.

And one great hotel breakfast, shower and one last tube trip back to the central station later, Hanna and me were back on the bus, this time at 11 a.m. It was full, and we were bored almost the entire time, even though we got to see some parts of Sweden I haven't seen before and I got to read trashy paparazzi-picture-filled magazines and read a nice review of the concert in that days paper. Trying to stay happy, happy for the wonderful experience that was the night before, I - whilst listening almost exlusively to different Coldplay albums in my mp3-player - started to become more and more sad. It's stupid, but just as the las time when Hanna and I saw them perform in Copenhagen three years ago, I get this anti-climactic feeling, where it's like - "Ok, so this was so fantastic, but now you don't get to experience it again for at least a couple of years". And it's so short. We spent all this time travelling, spending all this money on the trip and the hotel (althought that was a fun gift I guess), for a bit less than two hours of bliss. And it's not like I regret it at all. I loved it. But I'm still kind of sad.

Sorry for a very long rant, and the half-depressing ending. I must say, I love the fact that there are about 20 clips on YouTube already, with videos from that night. And not all of them such when it comes to quality. It makes it all a bit easier, to be able to watch it again. And again.

So, how old am I exactly? 16? or 25?