A short while later I took the train to the city center and met some ladies in their fifties that had the same kind of hat that I had. One of them said nice hat to me and after that we spent the ride talking about a lot of random stuff, fun ladies. I was a bit surprised when they asked me for bad words in Swedish given their age but why not I guess. Then I got to the city center and man was it full of orange people. It didn't seem to matter if it was a baby or a couple in their eighties, they still had funny hats, glasses or flags painted on their cheeks. I'm not a complete stranger to carneval events but I didn't expect many people above 70 to actually get dressed up for the event. Then I spent the next hours walking around in the city. I started walking on the most crowded street and kept going wherever there was the most people just seeing where it brought me. Most crowded also usually meant either past a DJ or a flea market so it worked out well.
After passing everything from phone chargers to suitcases to overpriced hotdogs that I bought I ended up at a Burger King with some newfound friends. I already had the impression that everything was more expensive today than it usually is but when the woman at the counter told me that a cheeseburger would be six euro I was chocked. Still, she did say that they were larger than normal and the queue was already growing behind me so I ordered one. When I got it I realised why it was expensive (by Burger King standards), it was at least as large as three normal ones. Unlike Burger Kings normal ones it also tasted really good.
When I finished my big burger it had started raining and I needed to go to the toilet so I decided to head to a nearby bar I know (Burger King toilet queue being half an hour long). Usually they have a nice offer of an ice cold pint for three euro fifty and I asked for exactly that but unfortunately they didn't have it today, instead they went for plastic glasses for five euro fifty. The size was the same but the price two euro higher, five fifty. No need to complain but I decided to grab a bottle next instead, I don't like drinking from plastic glasses if I can avoid it, or plastic in general really. It doesn't taste as good. When I asked for a bottle it got a bit funny again. The waitress grabbed a bottle but then poured it into a glass. Half an hour later I went for a third try. This time literally asking her to give me the actual bottle and got the confusing reply "No glass". No glass should mean I get a bottle, right? It took around fifteen seconds before I realised that the word glass has multiple meanings, nothing made out of glass allowed. Thankfully I knew the waitress in question a bit so we laughed it off.
It does make sense considering the amount of people that were there and the even greater amount that would arrive later, glasses would be dropped and a floor filled with sharp pieces of glass isn't really nice when it's crowded. I went out for one last walk through the surroundings before it got dark and when I came back some friends of mine had arrived. Then we just had a great day and night at the place. How can a night not be great when you beat your friend at pool while the live band plays one of your favourite rock songs? A long time later we left the bar to head home, I managed to miss my bus by about twenty meters and as the next one would come in 58 minutes I took a nice long walk home in the rain. Just five kilometers, not that much. All in all a really great kingsday.
I had some trouble choosing which picture to go with as they were either full of people or full or orange but trust me, the city was full of both. I also like the riding cops in this pic so it will have to do. Photo was never my strong side as a journalist anyway.