June 24: Day 54, Rest day in Skellefteå
Midsommar today - and a rest day! I didn't set an alarm this morning and slept in until 830. Well, it still felt indulgent to me...
For further indulgence I went out for breakfast. I wanted to have pancakes: Google Maps thought there was a cafe nearby that was open and served pancakes. I was skeptical; Sweden isn't big on cafes. Secondly, everything closes for Midsommar - last night on Midsommar's Eve almost nothing was open, including supermarkets. And pancakes are a bit of a stretch for the Espresso Cafe, which is a Starbucks clone whose webpage wouldn't display the menu for some reason; most likely they don't have a kitchen.
For some reason probably involving unreasonable optimism, I went out there and it was all true! They were the only place open on the whole street, and they did serve pancakes. They weren't fat pancakes served with cream and other good things, but thin and cold and with a small scrape of jam. (Note to self: don't forget to mention that the monkey paw twitched...)
They also served big coffees, so I hung out there for about an hour. This was a good morning! I should do this again.
I met up with some friends for lunch. We started by visiting some tourist spots around Skellefteå - remember the odd houses I passed? They are Bonnstan, an old Church Town: church attendance was compulsory back then, and short-stay cottages that were built so people who needed more than a day to travel to church could stay there overnight. These are rows of wooden houses, touching each other, and you can’t help but wonder about the fire risk - and having looked, of course there have been a few notable fires.
The afternoon was spent planning out the next part of the route. I don't like booking accommodation too far in advance, but things get really sparse towards the end. There's a few nights where there's only one option for hours in every direction, so if that is unavailable it'll make life very complicated. I booked a few of those up, even though they were non-refundable; so if I get sick or delayed or can’t keep to the schedule, it's going to be expensive.
Last night, all the restaurants were closed - except for an Eritrean place, which was pretty good. Tonight even it was closed! I have a microwave in my room so I picked up a microwave dinner from the supermarket. I also picked up some breakfast and lunch supplies and some Powerade so I can get on the road a bit more efficiently tomorrow morning.
But tomorrow is a shorter day, only 6 hours ... so maybe I'll spend the extra time sleeping.
The slightly underwhelming breakfast pancakes.
What I’m listening to: The Message medley / Michiru Oshima
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6ILhM901JA
This is from the soundtrack to “The Message”, a 2009 Chinese espionage film.
