Herräng 7

Goodbyes. I left Herräng half glad and half sad, and also half dead I must say. Half glad because I’m looking forward to plenty of sleep, a bit of privacy, clean bathrooms and hot showers. Half sad to stop dancing for a while, to leave the happy Herräng world and my new friends. Alanna got up really early to say goodbye which made me glad and sad at the same time. Leaving behind some really cool people always sucks. But I’m sure I’ll see her, and Raul, and Bella, and hopefully a few others again. After all, the swing dancing world is a small one.

On my travels, I have been growing as a person. Today, I experienced something unbeknownst to me: I missed a bus. I missed the bus from Herräng to Hallstavik even though I was at the bus stop 20 minutes early. Herräng is a tiny village consisting of a main street and a few side streets. At the end of Herräng is the Baltic Sea. The bus from Hallstavik enters Herräng at one side of the village, stops a few times, turns around, stops a few times on the other side of the main street, and drives back to Hallstavik. This happens every two hours or so. At least, that’s what I thought. I was waiting on the side of the street where the bus would stop after turning around, right before leaving the village. I saw it coming, stopping on the opposite side of the street where a woman boarded it. I decided to wait for the bus to turn around and come back instead of crossing the street. In fact, I was feeling a bit smug about that woman who had needlessly rushed to the bus and who would now get a tour of Herräng instead of taking her time and cross the street to wait with me. Well, my smugness disappeared when the bus never came back and I realized that it did not always turn around but sometimes took a different route back to Hallstavik. This was confirmed later by a friendly local who told me exactly that, about half an hour later. It was then that I felt half dead, tired, cold, sick and a bit embarrassed.

Instead of waiting for the next bus two hours later, I got a ride to Hallstavik by an elderly Swedish couple (have I really never hitch-hiked before?), and thus, I missed my train to Gothenburg (Göteborg) only by a few minutes. Missing my train was a bit unfortunate since I had a really cheap ticket which I had bought from a fellow dancer whom I gave my ticket to Stockholm in exchange - she had had to change her travel plans. Her Gothenburg ticket was connected to my missed train, so I had to get a new one which cost twice as much. But it turned out that I couldn’t have used her ticket anyway since it had her name on it. This way, I avoided an unpleasant situation in the train.

Anyway, I’ll be in Gothenburg tonight, sleep, wash my clothes, and get better for the next three days before I meet up with Sally and Leo, take the boat to their island and have an awesome Swedish time!