Premade decisions

Trying to decide whether to continue on the cycle path next to the road or turn off and go through the woods I saw this:

It’s the only place in as far as I can see where there’s an easy crossing.

Decision made.

Jag äter en fisk! 🤯

..I’m having fish for lunch! (lit. “I’m eating a fish”)

I’m at the restaurant at the ~~end of the World~~ southernmost point of Sweden and they’re selling the kind of fish they only sell in this season (do fish have seasons??) and I didn’t buy ice cream, so it seemed like a good idea.

I have no idea what the menu says:

Actually, that’s a lie. I have gathered quite a lot of words and I’m pretty good at guessing. I can read things like ‘drinks’ and ‘sandwiches’ and ‘children’s menu’ and ‘hot meals’ and ‘baguette’ and ‘hamburger’ and ‘with chips’ or ‘with bread’. I can even read ‘smoked’ and ‘salmon’ and guess at ‘mackerel’ and ‘potatoes’ and ‘salad’. What I can’t read so well are the other kinds of fish or what’s been done to them. And I don’t know enough things to know if I like them even if I could read it. And what kind of sauce is sauce??

And I didn’t fancy the sound of ‘3 kinds of salmon’ or the look of some of the things people were eating.

But.

There was something that some people were eating that looked pretty good, so I went and asked for it in my best restaurant English 😉

“This one? Like fish&chips?” She smiled.

“Yup, please?” I smiled back.

Job done. I took the tray she handed me and found a table to sit at.

(Hah! As if life’s that easy. 😅

First the fork slid off the tray as I reached for my bike. Then everything else fell off as I bent down for the fork. Then the bike threatened to fall over. Arg. I gave up on the bike, took the computer off the front and went to the nearest table with space for the bike and sat down. Then I got back up and collected the bike, manoeuvring it slowly into position.)

Anyway.

The timer bleeps when your food’s ready to collect

Look at this!

Easily my best fish ever. And the batter! Ein Traum 🙂

There was a steady stream of people buying lunch,

eating lunch,

and clearing up after lunch,

A bin each for food, paper plates, drinks cans, some things I’ve forgotten and a rack for bottles as well as a space for trays.

No masks, no contact data, no officious people. Just happy well-fed people.

Admittedly it’s summer and it’s outdoors and warm and sunny, and granted, I haven’t eaten out much in a while, still feels good though.

And the fish was great 🙂

…and they all handed their passports over and 3 fell out..

Having got through the Danish checks I assumed they wouldn’t check again in Sweden.

I was wrong.

The Swedish border controllers were stricter than the Danish, although they didn’t make us take our luggage out of the bus which was nice of them.

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, and a lot of hi vis people getting on and off the bus inspecting things and talking into their walkietalkies and/or phones, three people were told to get off the bus for unknown (to me) reasons.

I overheard one lady asking why she couldn’t continue on to Malmö, only to get this reply:

“I ask the questions here.”

And that was that. End of conversation.

They were eventually (~40 minutes later) taken to one of the rooms in the building on the right and the bus was allowed to finish the journey in peace.

Danish Corona testing

Just after we drove off the ferry in Denmark, the driver told us to get our passports and Corona certificates ready.

The bus stopped at customs and a couple of men in high vis jackets and gun belts appeared.

They were ‘only’ border control guards, but with their safety vests and guns they were still quite alarming.

‘Everybody out. With their luggage. Standard procedure.’

We all piled out, grumbling about having to pack our drinks and computers (or whatevers) into our bags again.

Once we were all out more high vis men appeared and headed into the bus.

Turns out they weren’t only’ checking passports and negative corona test result or vaccination certificates, they were also searching bags and presumably hidden people.

One of the men reappeared with a stray backpack.

‘Whose is the bag?’

Someone went forward to collect it.

‘I said they should take ALL their luggage with them. Empty the bus!’

Told you they were scary.

Everyone duly queued up and took their hold luggage out of the bus and lined themselves back up on the stripes on the tarmac.

More high vis people appeared. These were wearing army hats and seemed responsible for checking passports and corona test certificates.

Everyone who could prove their innocence was allowed to heave their luggage back into the hold and get back on the bus.

The few untested and unvaccinated people were marched off to be tested while the rest of us waited more or less patiently for them to get their results back.

It’s obviously not even close to what other people have been subjected to.

But.

In my imagination it didn’t take much for one of them to say something like, “Ok, we’re done here. Shoot the one’s without paperwork”

😦

It’s quite unnerving to realise just how much of a terrible activist I’d make.

Given the choice I’d take Danish pastries over Danish security guards any day..

😜