008 Helsingborg, twice, then Karlstad

Sunday night, I slept for the first time in the tent that Jeroen has lent me. It is small, but quite comfortable, and really small and light when packed, so I decided I like it. I packed everything, and walked to the seaside in Helsingor in Denmark. From there you can see Helsingborg on the other side of the water in Sweden. There are boats going there every twenty minutes. I walked to the place where the cars stand in line to pay for the ferry, and stuck up my thumb. After about ten minutes, a lady stopped and said I could come with her, but only to the other side, because she lives in Helsingborg. Turned out that she works in Copenhagen, but lives in Sweden because the houses are cheaper. I went with her, and thought it would be no problem to find a ride up north when we got there.
Boy, was I wrong.
The lady dropped me off at an onramp to the highway. I stood there for about an hour, with no-one stopping, except a lady that it was better to move a bit along the road, because there was a better point to stop. I did so, but it didn't help much. In the end, a guy stopped. He didn't speak English, so it was a bit hard to communicate, but I found out quite quickly that he was going on the right highway, but in the wrong direction... He let me out at a bridge over the highway, so I could cross it and try to get in the right direction. Somehow, that didn't work out very well eighter, because there was hardly any traffic, amd the people that were driving there pretended not to see me. I know what you're thinking now, you would ignore me as well if you saw me standing with my bagpack along the highway. But remeber, I hitchhiked all the way through Germany and Denmark, so it couldn't have been me. I was already warned for this, but Sweden is simply not a very good country to hitchhike in.
I gave up, and decided to get back to the city center. It was about 5 km away, so I started walking, and trying to catch a ride at the same time. Somewhere halfway through the walk, I was picked up by a girl going into the city. She was lost, so we had a nice drive though town. She dropped me off at the trainstation in Helsingborg, where I started 2 hours earlier. she promised me that if I would still be there, she would pick me up at 9 in the evening and take me a bit up north along the right highway. That was nice, but I hoped I didn't have to wait untill then to get away from there.
I went to the place where the cars exit the ferry, and started to try to catch a ride again. Because of the ferries, the cars come in waves, with 20 minutes of nothing in between. I stood there for 2 waves, once holding up my sign for Goteborg, the other time just with my tumb. Both things gave me the same result.
In the end, I went to the train station, and looked at the train prices to Karlstad. It turned out there was a relatively cheap connection with would take me there all the way (about 40 euro), so I decided I would take that one.
The trip consisted out of two trains with once busride in between. After the first train, which was delayed, I got out with exactly 8 minutes to get to the bus. However, they didn't put up any signs, told no-one where the bus was hidden, and to complicate things they put a lot of other busses there as well. After some frantic running up and down the station (with my big backpack), I finally found a lady who told me that it was at the other side of the station. So i run there, with 1 minute left, get out and there is... no bus.  Then a cabdriver tells me that because of construction work, they moved the bus stop to the back of the station. In the distance, I can just make out the bus standing there, with all the people already inside. 30 seconds left. I sprint there, while I see the busdoor closing. Just before it wants to pull out, I wave my arms, the driver sees me, and I get into the bus.
The rest of the trip was quite ok, although I kept wondering where I would sleep that night, since I didn't know if there would be space in the youth hostel in Karlstad. But then, one hour before I would arrive, I get a message from Tryggve, a friend I know from the time I was in a language school in Spain. I wrote to him a couple of days back asking if I could stay at his place on Tuesday. Now it is Monday, and he sends me a message saying it is fine if I come by. So I aske him if I can come a day early, which is also ok with him. It is so great to know such hospitable people! He picked me up from the station, and now I am in Karlstad.
So, hwat did we learn from this story? That somehow, quite often, things work out more or less in the end, but never the way you expected it to.
Probably I will try to get to the place where I want to start my long distance hike from on Wednesday, but first I stay a day in Karlstad.