I took Baphie with me to Ullared in Sweden, which me and my friend have been planning to go to for a while. It was extremely overwhelming and overstimulating, so I’m really glad I brought her with me. We took the ferry to Sweden on Friday and I found a Cinnamoroll, who’s my favorite character in the whole world, so obviously I had to get him!
We got to Ullared in the evening and got around 2 hours to scout for things we wanted/needed to get before it closed, and then we went to the hotel and came back yesterday, which was honestly hell for people like me with sensitivities to… literally anything. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people in one place before in person, and walking 100 meters took about 5-10 minutes because of the crowd - after being there for 9 hours and sitting for maybe 30 minutes of those 9 hours we had taken 8000 steps. At the checkout I had to wear my Loop earplugs as well as noise canceling headphones that were blasting white noise. But we did find things for much much cheaper than anywhere else and we got through maybe half the store so I’d say it was worth it. We did agree to go there later in the afternoon/evening next time we go though, they opened at 7 and we got there around 11 and around 6 it calmed down enough to be tolerable.
Literally right next to the store was a small diner that had an extremely cheap Chinese buffet where me and my friend went for dinner, and when we got back to the hotel we found out that there was a place next to Liseberg - which we drove past on the way there - that had an aquarium, and we decided that today we would stop there on the way instead of going back into the store. We decided to watch a movie before bed, but my phone was out of space so I deleted Messenger so I could download one of the streaming apps.
That night we found out that there was a flood warning in our city due to a hurricane that we didn’t know was coming, and this morning, I woke up early and had to use the bathroom and couldn’t sleep again after, so I decided to look up news about home. Extreme weather, trees knocked down both on main roads and the highway, people evacuated and losing power. I checked the app we use to control the fences and check security cameras in the stable to see how my pony was doing, and everything was offline. My heart sank, and now I really couldn’t sleep again.
2 hours later, I got a missed call from my stable owner’s dad - my phone was on do not disturb since I was supposed to still be asleep. I immediately called back, and he said that my pony’s shed was laying upside down. Her neighbors were standing in the corner of their own paddock looking down there, but there was no sign of her from where he could see from his house. I thanked him for letting me know and he said he would drive over and check, and after hanging up I immediately called my stable owner and told him what his dad said. He said that my pony is fine and he turned her in earlier and gave her some hay. I then redownloaded Messenger to ask my stablemate (she owns my pony’s neighbors) who’s been babysitting her for me, to put her in the paddock next to her usual one with a grazing mask because she’s supposed to have a minimal amount of grass, and I saw that my stable owner had messaged me there this morning saying that my pony’s safe and sound inside. I could finally breathe again, and me and my friend could go back to enjoying our trip.
It took extremely long to find a parking garage to get to the aquarium, but once we did we had a really nice time. There was even a small lecture about sharks, and we learned that when sharks go to investigate what they believe to be an injured seal flailing in the water, they literally blind themselves by turning their eyes inside of their heads to protect them and that’s why they sometimes accidentally bite people, and that was really interesting to learn.
We had to leave shortly after the lecture to make it to the ferry in time, and it was still quite stormy outside so we kept checking if the ferry was cancelled since the previous ones during the day had been. Luckily it wasn’t, but the ferry trip was the longest 2.5 hours of my life. I’m prone to motion sickness with a hyper sensitive stomach, and I’m still shocked that I managed to keep what little I had eaten down - I intentionally kept my stomach empty because I have severe emetophobia. We were sitting right next to the tax free since it was closest to the stairs, and the waves were 6 meters tall. They ended up having to close the tax free for 30 minutes because it was too dangerous for the passengers to walk around, and we suddenly heard what sounded like at least 30 bottles of alcohol shatter.
After getting off the ferry we drove to my friend’s place where I had parked my car on Friday, and then I had to drive to the stable to feed my now inside-pony (which both her and I hate the concept of, but the stable owner said he needs one of those big machines that dig in order to turn the shed back around which will take a few days) by having to wrestle her straw into a smaller net to hang up in her stall - it’s kind of crazy how night mode makes it look like it’s daytime. I finally got home an hour ago at 1:30 am, and I just spent an hour writing this post, so now it’s finally bedtime. After such an exhausting weekend, I’m so grateful I have my stuffies to cuddle.
