Two suitcases and a lot of snow

My sister was studying in a little town in Sweden called Skovde and I had gone over for a visit. My flight out of Stockholm was at 7 in the morning. The earliest train from Skovde in the morning would have got me there too late for my flight. So we decided that I would take the night train and reach the station in Stockholm in time to take the last night bus to the airport. I would then have to relax in the airport lounge for a few hours before it was time to check in. It didn't quite work out that way. I got late, took a later train and when I reached Stockholm I had missed the last bus to the airport. I was told that I could catch the first bus instead, at 5 in the morning. Oh well, I thought, settling down on a bench in the station, my enormous red suitcase and slightly smaller black one by my side, this is my punishment for running late. A hard bench instead of a comfortable lounge. It turns out that my punishment was just beginning. A security guard walked up to me and told me that I needed to leave. He said that the train station is closed for the night. Closed? Let me explain. I come from India. Our train stations are milling with humanity 24 hours a day. This was a new concept to me. I asked him what I should do. He suggested (I think - he barely spoke English and my grasp of Swedish is non existent) that I walk upstairs to the bus station and sit there. Grumbling under my breath I wheeled my luggage to the bus terminus and settled down there. This time it took a guard fifteen minutes to find me and inform me that in half an hour the bus station was going to be put to bed and would open in time for the first bus to the airport. I felt a flutter of panic. This is how I found myself standing on the street in Stockholm early one morning in February. I could not afford a taxi to the airport, nor could I afford to check into a hotel. Bewailing my poverty and the fact that the rupee divides by sixty to yield the euro, I started to trudge the streets in search of shelter. In case you were wondering, walking through snow, shivering, with two large suitcases in tow is no fun at all. I found a McDonalds (and promised to never, ever curse at the omnipresent happy yellow M in my life again) and settled down there for about an hour. Then, you guessed it, they closed shop too. One of the staff there told me that there was an all night coffee shop across the street. Getting there meant climbing an over-bridge. I slithered and cursed my way across, one suitcase at a time, stopping every few steps to wallow in self pity. I spent the rest of the night on an uncomfortable stool at the coffee shop, nursing an espresso.