A trip to Falun

In the beginning of January, I went to Falun to visit my parents. They live a seven hour train ride from Lund and when I booked my tickets I got to experience one of the weird things about the Swedish train ticket system. The ticketing system in Sweden is nothing at all like the Swiss one. It actually resembles the system for the flight tickets more... Why? Well, to get a good price you have to book your tickets far in advance since the prices go up the closer to departure date you come - at least on popular travel days and times. This time I booked kind of late (that is not three months in advance) so the tickets were quite expensive, but ok. The funny thing was that the 1st class ticket was cheaper than the 2nd class one! This happens now and then since people in general travel 2nd class to save money and never even consider checking the 1st class price. It is very weird anyway.

However, as a 1st class passenger, my ticket to Falun not only was cheaper than the 2nd class ticket, but it also included breakfast since I left quite early in the morning. So there I was, sitting in a nice chair on the train having an excellent breakfas and paying less than many in the crowded 2nd class carriages!

Then I reached Falun and my parents and met a winter wonder land! The temperature was about -25 C all the time, and the sun shone from a blue sky. Falun really is a very nice town and almost every day I took a walk along the river and one of the lakes close to my parents house.

The sun stands very low during winter and the light is fantastic. I really love winter, and dressed in long johns, warm glowes, good shoes and Matts' warm winter coat I could enjoy the cold. I did get an ice mustache though as well as nice, red cheeks, but I really didn't freeze.

From Falun I took the train to Kumla to visit my grandmother and then I went to Örebro to see my brother and one of my sisters as well as meet her boyfriend for the first time. Then I went back to Lund. During these parts of the trip I did experience more of the Swedish train system. First, going to Kumla, we had to go on a bus in the middle of the train trip since the rail was broken for a bit (probably due to heavy cargo trains with bad wheels literally cracking the cold rali). Then, from Örebro I once again had to take a bus instead of the train for the first bit since a train had derailed... And then, of course, my last train was about half an hour late to Lund... But all in all it was a very good trip.