Back in April at the Eastercon in Bradford, Michael Cobley mentioned that a sf con in Sweden had invited himself and John Meaney as guests (though not as actual guests of honour). I’d always wanted to visit the country, so I said I’d go as well. I looked into it, and discovered there’d be a few other people I knew – both from cons and online – also attending, including one of the actual guests of honour, Lavie Tidhar. So I bought membership, booked my flight and hotel room, and the con even asked me to appear on a couple of programme items. Which I was happy to do.

The convention was called Fantastika, it was this year’s Swecon, and it took place in a suburb of Stockholm called Sickla.

I was originally going to write about the con in your usual con report format – a linear narrative, beginning with my arrival in Sweden, and ending with my return home. But a lot happened over the weekend, and it’d probably end up as TL;DR. So here’s a few of the more memorable incidents from Fantastika 2013 instead:

• Agreeing to meet up with Lavie at Arlanda Airport so I could tag along to his signing at the SF Bokhandeln. But after waiting an hour in the airport concourse, he texts me that he’s already on the train, having been nabbed by his wrangler. So I make my own way to the book shop, wondering how we missed each other in the airport… only to learn later he landed at a different terminal.
• The Arlanda Express is a modern, fast, electric train that runs every twenty minutes between the airport and Stockholm’s Centralstation. It also costs SEK 260 for a single.
• Exiting Centralstation and discovering the map and directions I’d printed out from Google Maps were near useless. I had no idea where I was or where I needed to go. I figured out heading south was good… and when I came to water, I managed to get my bearings. From there, it was easy.
• Stockholm is a lovely city. Very impressed.
• After the signing, I travelled out to Sickla on the train with Jo Walton and Karin Tidbeck (the other GoHs), Lavie and Rebecka from the con committee. Lavie and I headed straight for the hotel to check in. As we approached it, a voice yelled out of a window, “I can hear you moaning from the second floor, Lavie!”. It was his agent, John Berlyne.
• Lavie, John B and myself went for a meal later that evening in Urban Deli, a nearby delicatessen/supermarket/restaurant. I was impressed that the menu was colour-coded for gluten, lactose and peanut intolerances. Despite knowing that Sweden was expensive, I was still a little surprised by the SEK 710 bill.
• The next day, I returned to the Urban Deli at lunch-time for a sandwich. They didn’t have any that were lactose-free, so the young woman behind the till happily fetched ingredients from around the shop to make one for me. Excellent service.
• I had no intention of buying any books at the con, and after seeing the prices in the SF Bokhandeln was firm on that resolve. But Johan Anglemark pointed out that SAAM, a Swedish fan organisation, had brought along several thousand second-hand US and UK paperbacks for sale… at SEK 5 to SEK 15 each. I ended up coming home with seven books: five from Jo Clayton’s Diadem of the Stars series, a Mike Mars paperback, and a sf novel by a woman writer of the 1970s I’d never heard of, Gertrude Friedberg. (I also bought a copy of Karin’s collection, Jagannath: Stories, so she could sign it for me.)
• Pretty much everyone in Stockholm uses their debit/credit card to buy things. Hardly anyone uses cash. I saw someone using  a card to buy a packet of crisps at a bar. I had taken cash with me; I ended up with half a ton of change in my pocket.
• The people at the con were a lot friendlier and welcoming than I think would be the case at an equivalent-sized British con. I met loads of really nice people. I can’t remember everyone I spoke to, but as well as those mentioned earlier they included Steve, Emil, Miika, Nene, Anders, Thomas, Jon-Henri… and no doubt numerous others.
• My first programme item was on at 10 pm on the Friday, which is the latest I’ve ever done a panel. The title was “Fantasy and sf worth reading”, and I think Lavie, Jo, moderator Linnéa Anglemark and myself managed to come up with a number of recent books worth reading. And yes, we did mention Ancillary Justice.
• On the Saturday, Lavie, Mike C and John M were signing at the SF Bokhandeln, so I cadged a lift in with them, and spent an hour wandering around the old town. It was fascinating. But also really busy. A bit like York during the tourist season. Committee-member Ebba came with us and en route asked if we could pronounce the SF Bokhandeln’s address, Västerlånggatan. She said my pronunciation was “very elegant”. Not sure what that means.
• Learning that the Swedish for “mushroom” is svamp. Which has to be the best word for fungi ever.
• Mike C and the monster breakfast. (The hotel laid on the usual European buffet breakfast, and there was more than enough to choose from – even for me.)
• I attended more programme items than I typically do at cons. Around half of the programme was in English. By the Sunday, I was timing how long into an item before Lavie mentioned Shimon Adaf’s name. And yet on the Sunday, in the one programme item in which Adaf was on-topic, “What sf is written outside the English speaking world?”, Lavie completely failed to mention him.
• The con venue was excellent. The Dieselverkstaden is an old factory that has been converted into a library, cinema, climbing school, function space, bistro and coffee shop. It’s located in Sickla’s Köpkvarter, which is a massive retail park with a huge shopping centre. There was no shortage of places to buy coffee or food. (Although I never visited it, I was much amused by the name of a local Indian restaurant: Holy Cow.)
• On the Sunday night, the dead dog party took place in a British-style pub nearer the city centre called the Bishop’s Arms. It took me four tries to order a Swedish beer called Rapa – must work on my accent.
• On leaving the pub, after being given excellent directions by Anders, I led John B, Lavie and Icelandic author Emil Hjörvar Petersen to the Texas Long Horn steak house. Afterwards, John, Lavie and myself ended up walking all the way back to our hotel, which took almost an hour, through a mostly-deserted Stockholm. A somewhat odd end to the convention, but never mind.
• The trip home went smoothly… right up until the moment I left Manchester Airport. The taxi to Stockholm’s Centralstation arrived early, so I ended up catching an earlier Arlanda Express to the airport. Which proved to be almost deserted. The flight was smooth, albeit a bit bumpy as we went over the Pennines. There was hardly any queue for passport control… And then I got to the railway station and had to wait an hour for a train. Which arrived early and sat at the platform for thirty minutes, but we weren’t allowed to board until five minutes before departure. The train was late leaving Manchester Piccadilly, so we ended up stuck behind a slow train… which resulted in a 15-minute delay. If you think the UK has a good railway network, you are either an idiot or you have never visited another country.

Fantastika 2013 was definitely worth every penny. I liked Stockholm a lot, the congoers were amazingly friendly, I had some really interesting conversations, the venue was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’d definitely do it again.