Jonkoping, Sweden

August 29, 2009, Saturday
Jonkoeping, Sweden

We left the hotel from hell and we are happy campers!! I’ve double checked to make sure I did NOT book us in to the same place when we come back through Copenhagen and I did not. Whew!!

Last night was party night outside the hotel and there was loud, continuous revelry until heaven only knows what time. Fortunately I can sleep through anything but poor Don is such a light sleeper that I fear he must have had a bad night.

When I checked out I noticed that there was a different charge for each nigh we had stayed in the hotel. I asked about this and was told that they have a sliding scale for charges and it works based on demand. In other words, if they are really booked up, you pay more but if they have a lot of empty rooms, the price goes down!! Sounds wonderful but how in the world do these people plan trip costs?? I looked at the price that the Internet had told me we were going to pay and we actually paid almost $100 less, so I just kept quiet. My guess is that the Internet gives the highest possible rate although with this hotel, who knows!!

We got on the road at a decent hour and before we knew it, we were back on another ferry!! This was a very short ride and we barely had time enough to climb up into the passenger waiting area when it was time to go back to our car.

So tonight we are in this small city enroute to Stockholm. We are bad in our favorite hotel chain and we have a room that is familiar and welcome!! The weather driving here was very strange. The sun was shining brightly and every half hour or so it would just POUR down rain for about 2 minutes and then clear up. And it is quite windy and getting colder. The landscape is flat and wooded and I was hoping to see some wild life but no luck. There isn’t even any road kill, so there must not be too much going on in these woods! The most excitement we had was when we spotted 5 cows!! Pretty pathetic!

Don announced that he wanted Swedish meatballs for dinner so I looked at the menu as we signed in and the offerings were hysterical: Lasagna Bolognese, Mexican Taco Plate, Swedish Stew and some other non-descript stuff. I was highly amused that they offer an international cuisine at this little restaurant!!

For the first time we have had credit card trouble. We tried to charge our gas today and they wanted a PIN number for our credit card. I had been told by a friend that they had recently run into this and that it was REALLY inconvenient but I didn’t take it to heart and put PIN’s on all our cards, so we had to pay cash. Tonight I’m going to call the credit card company and see how to put PIN’s in our cards. Geez!! Just when you get something figured out they go and change it on you!!

Well, I called the bankcard people and they told me that the ONLY reason you would need a PIN is if you were making a cash withdrawal!! Interesting. They will not give a verbal PIN and told me that NOBODY should be asking or getting my PIN. Hm-m-m!! Well, we’ll see how it goes from here on out. What they said made really good sense to me so at least I can fight if somebody won’t take my credit card again!!

Had dinner at the hotel and Don said that it is the first decent food he’s had in 5 days!! He was as thrilled with the meals at the last place as was I!!! We would have eaten elsewhere but the hotel rate was all inclusive and we just felt like we should eat what we already had paid for!!! Silly….but true!!

Sweden has less English in it’s signage and I’m expecting to see and hear less and less English, although the hotel is very fluent in English.