Danish to Swedish to Nordic in a day

I do not sleep alot, but 4 hours is probably too little in this case. Took 35min walking unusually slow on my slightly blistered toes to Copenhagen Central train station, snaking by the canal and the tip of the red light district. Pleased with myself for spending all DKK36.50 of my remaining coins on apples, bananas and a ham croissant - not a single Danish amount left, which helps from the ever growing coin pouch that contains the little bits left of my previous trips. This city is really big on 7-11, you find one at every other corner of a main street, helps if you have to grab something at 5 in the morning.

First day into my 5 day rail pass, which I thought was really easy to use - you just fill up the date of your travel and show it to the inspector that keeps popping up to check after every station. The train sped by the airport and across the bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden - another piece of amazing human engineering feat that spans across the entire channel separating the two lands. In the distant, I could even make out a massive wind farm in the middle of the Baltic sea, trying to lift themselves from the morning fog. The 30min journey to Malmo central ended up to be twice the length as the train hit some problems and had to reverse back into another station for all the passengers to hop onto another.

The sun was coming up on the horizon as I strolled past workers on the morning rush hour. Headed to Lilla Torg, to find Pronto cafe beside a lovely old phone box recommended by Richard. Alas, I was too early, the only people up this early being the folks replenishing the beer drums of the restaurants and bars in the square. A short stroll around and my short Malmo experience has come to an end. Glad that everything in Nordic region can be paid by electronic - guess they have to if their stuff are that expensive! Caffeine fix sorted out by trusty Nationwide card that doesn't charge me for foreign usage; at least not till June if I remember correctly.

The 9.03 am train to Oslo, via Goteborg was really comfortable, considering this is equivalent to the regional trains in our context - seats wider than Ryanair, individual reading lights and radio, and even handy power sockets although the angle was a abit weird since it was hanging off the ceilings above the seats. At Helsingborg, had to run off to the first carriage before it split off to Goteborg. 3 hours in, we arrived in Goteborg, extremely modern looking connecting to the bus station that made Victoria bus terminal look like prehistoric. Grabbed a Subway sandwich and jumped onto my next train to Oslo, another 4 hour journey across the Swedish west coast. Operated by the Norwegian train company, NSB, the carriages look and feel like Eurostar's business class, except for the food and champagne, but nonetheless made me feel that I have basically got half the value back from my £240 railpass.

The journey to Oslo rekindled the reason why I am taking this trip again - tracks going through mountains (not massive though), crossing tiny towns, overlooking frozen lakes, etc - how did the rail engineers do all these? The first sight of snow sent my heart fluttering again. Been a visual person - I am always the first to choose a window seat, on flights, bus or trains, you cannot ask for anymore better than this. Listening to Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed" from the "Into the Wild" soundtrack makes me so look forward to even more from the few weeks. Norway is definitely going to be even better. The leg to the Arctic Circle is a huge unknown, the ride across Siberia is going to be heaven or hell.

I had 5 hours to see Oslo before my overnight train to Bergen and managed to catch the main sights in town, highlight been the Vigeland Sculpture Park, with tens if not hundreds of unique sculptures of family interactions. Look carefully at every of them and you will realise that there is not one that is the same, and the unique aspect is that each portrayal is so real life. The Oslo bay wasn't as beautiful as I thought as the day has been overcast mostly, with the sun struggling behind the thick clouds. Had enough time to pop into a pub overflowing with Liverpool supporters for the Champions League match against "yet again" opponents Chelsea. Really disappointed that the Reds went 3-1 behind by the time I left to catch the train after a brilliant opener by Torres. Promise myself not to let this affect my trip - *trying my very best!!!*

Paid additional £5 for a standard seat for the overnight train, with a sleeper costing a ridiculous £160 on top of my inter-rail pass!!! Ended up on a carriage full of school kids returning from some excursion back to Bergen - my earphones cum earplug are proving to be really useful, passive blocking of at least 80% of the ambient noise without even playing anything.

Woke up on multiple occasions through the night, not the most comfortable train ride but I guess I was just getting what I paid for. Kept an eye to the full moon sky for any signs of the elusive Northern Lights but the only thing showing up was clouds, and more clouds. Arrived at Bergen 6.30am, with my next train leaving for Oslo at 7.50am. The skies were raining quite heavily, not the kind that you get in the tropics, but heavy enough to put you off most things. This is one of those annoying things that you have to get used to when travelling between winter and spring; well, at least Bergen seems to always bear the brunt of the Atlantic front blowing across UK (I noticed this during BBC's weather forecast, you will notice that the west coast of Norway always rain every other day).

The journey back is to take me to Myrdal where I will change to the well-known Flam railway. It leaves from Myrdal at 863.5 metres and goes through 20 km of tracks, and over 20 tunnels drilled directly through the mountains before reaching sea level Flam town, which is a Fjord port accessible all the way from the North Sea. I had to pay additional for the tickets as they were not covered by the Inter-rail pass but did get 30% discount off the original value. It's quite an amazing engineering feat and I definitely recommend anyone to take it if you plan to come to this area, but include some hiking in between and the journey will be definitely be better mine! Boarded the 12.25pm train back to Oslo, another 5 hours through Europe's highest plateau - the Hardangervidda, a flat plain completely covered with pristine powder even at this time of the year. Loads of people get on and off along the various stations and you can see them doing cross country skiing on the giant white sheet of snow, which was so hurting to eyes under the best sunshine I have so far on this trip.

Found out that there were no overnight trains on the eve of Easter - DARN! how can I forget that? Luckily, there was an overnight bus heading to Trondheim, but cost NOK49.50. The frustration of last minute travel suddenly hit me again with my poor planning. Because of my change in plans to improve my chances of seeing the Northern Lights, I decided to head further up north to Narvik, I decided to pay the premium and not want to regret not trying after going so far (Lesson learnt from my last trip). So it's going to be another of train and bus ride tomorrow, and let's hope I will be able to find somewhere to stay in the town, where I really need a nice shower after 2 days on the road.