Our new expedition to Sweden started on Tuesday morning when Erminia left from Cagliari to reach Milano Linate airport, then Milano Malpensa where she met up with Sonia. We hadn’t seen each other for the past four years (since Andreas’ concert in Sundsvall back in July 2002) so we were very happy to finally meet again with a holiday to spend together ahead of us.
We left with a SAS flight at 8 pm and after landing in CPH Airport at 10.15 pm, we reached our hotel which was right beside Tivoli amusement park.
We spent the following morning in Copenhagen as tourists. We enjoyed our short visit to Denmark even though the weather was not so friendly…rainy and rainy…
In the afternoon we reached Malmö by train and after a quick shower in our hostel, we were on our way to Mölleplatsen, feeling thrilled about the events to happen. For the ones who might not know that, Mölleplatsen is placed inside a BIG park in Malmö, with many gates to access it. Typically we chose the wrong one, then the wrong one again so we had to walk a long way before reaching the right gate and finally entering the concert area…and to our surprise we were on the front line…
Andreas’ concert started at 7.30 pm sharp. We really enjoyed the show, singing along every single line… on the other side the public seemed a bit cold and distant… but Andreas and the band were definitely great on stage. After Andreas’ concert we stepped back …uuush what a mistake!!! We did not know that Andreas would sing again just at the end of the show together with Jill Johnson and Tomas Ledin… At the end of the gig we remained closed to the stage, hoping to meet Andreas and give him the presents we had brought for him and his little daughter. But unfortunately there was no shadow of Andreas… luckily we met Jennie and gave everything to her, telling her that we would follow the tour to Jönköping and Gothenburg. We then went back to our hostel…

We had decided to skip the concert in Karskrona planned for the following night. We spent instead a very nice day visiting Malmö. At night we met up for dinner with Magnus, a very nice boy that Erminia got to know through an e-community.

[In the meantime in Italy…]

While Erminia and Sonia are enjoying their Swedish dinner and the company of Magnus, Laura is on her way to Sweden. After a working day, she left from Malpensa Airport at 9 pm and landed in Copenhagen Airport at around 11 pm and reached Malmo by train. In the hall of Central station she finally met up with her friends. Magnus brought us all back to our hostel where we talked about the previous days in Sweden. Laura was very curious to know about concert in Malmö and time just flied talking and talking and when we finally switched the light off it was almost 2 a.m.
We woke up at 7 am and to our disappointment the bar where we were supposed to have breakfast would not open until 10 am. We still managed to have some breakfast in a kind of ‘7 Eleven’ and after collecting our stuff we moved to the train station. Our train left at 9.48 and after a transfer in Alvesta we arrived in Jönköping at 1 p.m. enjoying the punctuality of Swedish trains that in Italy can only be dreamt about.
We reached our hotel where we had some rest and we also had our rehearsing session… Andreas would be proud of us!
We then went to the concert venue, a park not far from the center, where we arrived at 6 pm just when Andreas’ bus was arriving. He and the band got off the bus and we waved hello to Andreas who came to us… hugs and kisses… he thanked us for the presents…then a few words and a couple of pictures together ( this would end up to be to only moment spent with Andreas off-stage during our stay in Sweden…).
After the happy meeting, we entered the concert area and reached the front line…wow… Everything was ready on stage for the concert and at 7.30 pm Andreas’ music broke the air…

The set list was as follows:

- Show me love
- Shine
- The Caravan
- The Games We Play
- Sunshine of Mine
- What if ( beautifully performed with Jennie and Monika)
- Glorious
- Fools like us
- Sing for me

Andreas was in very good shape, he moved and jumped on stage keeping the public involved who replied by clapping hands and singing along.
The band was also at the top, all the members seemed to have great fun on stage and this is all it was about…music, fun and, as often repeated by Andreas on stage, love…
After the mistake in Malmo, we decided to keep our place in the front line to be able to see Andreas again at the end of the show. Jill’s concert was hugely enjoyable with great music and a fun country touch.
What we would have ever imagined was to find ourselves jumping and ‘singing’ during Tomas Ledin’s concert. We were very involved by the music and the glad atmosphere around us and even though we could not understand much of what he was singing about we found ourselves shouting like all the other people to the rhythm of his songs… sooo much fun and laughing. Just at the end of ‘Sensuella Isabella’ (definitely our strongest point…) Jill and Andreas joined Tomas on stage to end up the show with a song that, as we know now, is called ‘Blå blå känslor’.

After the concert, we went back to the center of the town feeling a bit tired after 4 hours of clapping hands and jumping and singing and laughing…
We ended up eating French hotdogs at a small kiosk where at 00.50 they played ‘Sing for me’ on the radio and we started singing again. After all, isn’t Andreas asking us to sing for him?

We waved Jönköping goodbye the day after at 1 pm and reached Gothenburg where we were welcomed by a beautiful sunny day and a lively and crowded city getting ready for the Athletics Championship which would start the following day. We hadn’t booked any room in Gothenburg. Our original plan was in fact to leave our baggage at the baggage room at the Central station, go to the concert and then sleep at the airport (which we are pretty trained to…) waiting for our early flight to Copenhagen. But since the baggage room would close at midnight (and we might have been still at the concert by that time), we finally decided to rent a room in a hotel right beside the Central station.
We then left to the Trädgårdsföreningen park and to our surprise it was very close to the station so we didn’t have to walk a long way. Once again, it was pretty good timing since we reached the gate about half an hour before the opening when there was just a small crowd waiting and, thanks to our fast running once the gates opened, we conquered the front line again. It was pretty warm and so we sat down as most of the people there enjoying the sun while waiting for the concert to start, every now and then looking around us, hoping to see our friend Kajsa who we knew was also coming to the gig. We actually managed to meet up with her after Andreas’ gig.
The setlist was the same of the concerts in Malmö and Jönköping but to our opinion… the concert was better, the audience more involved, more noisy… as Kajsa pointed out ‘…Gothenburg is a music city, it knows how to do it…’

After concert we walked around the park hoping to see some familiar faces, musicians’ faces… but this would not be the case.

We then went back to our hotel and after a good sleep (1 or 2 hours, thanks Erminia for setting the alarm clock…) we left in the middle of the night to Gothenburg Landvetter Airport. We took off at 6.30 am and after a transfer in Copenhagen we landed in Milan at 10.30 am and, feeling a bit sad, we said goodbye to each other… until the next time!

We would like now to close this trip report, that we hope you enjoyed reading as we enjoyed writing and, above all, living it, with a line ‘stolen’ to the wonderful man that brought all of us here…

‘Fools like us will never change
Never get enough
Now we need you like a drug …’

…love…

Erminia, Laura and Sonia