Arrival

All right! I'll do a bit of backtracking in this post.

day 0. from iowa to florida.

I don't have too much to add about this leg of the trip. It went quite smoothly, and I got Chipotle at the Atlanta airport. One man waiting for the flight to Florida was upset because he was a first-class passenger originally, and then a man went up to the counter with two enormous suitcases and a thick stack of papers, and "claimed his right to sit in first-class"... so the hapless other passenger was downgraded.

There was also a dog onboard, and apparently half the passengers were allergic. It caused quite an uproar and widespread discontent in the boarding queue.

And this was taken from the airplane. Goodbye Iowa, hello Florida... but only for a day.

day 0. leaving the united states.

I stayed the night in Florida with my dad at our house, and then we finished packing and organising our belongings that night and the next morning. By 8 o'clock in the morning, the limousine service driver was at our driveway to take us to the airport. From there, we boarded and flew to Newark with only a minor delay. We arrived within plenty of time still to take a pause before the next flight. I drank a small cup of coffee in the hopes that I would sleep more easily on the plane (for those of you who don't know, coffee has the wrong effect on me).

A random airport worker drove by in one of those vehicles that taxis people between gates. To get pedestrians out of his way, he hollered, "BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEP!" at the top of his lungs, and people laughed and moved to the side.

The hour arrived all too soon to board the plane in Newark. We hopped onboard, settled down, and prepared ourselves for the long flight.

Sometime during the night, we flew over Greenland. All my photos are dark, and there's honestly nothing to see besides large clumps of cloud. No land was seen from our altitude, but I have proof on the map that we flew over the tip! (Perhaps it's not the most exciting thing to simply pass over Greenland, but hey- I thought it was interesting. It took about three or so hours from Newark to reach that point.)

day 1. arrival in sweden.

Arrival was roughly half an hour earlier than we expected, so we landed in Stockholm around 7 o'clock in the Swedish morning. The flight attendants served breakfast around 6, while we were crossing the skies over Norway, somewhere north of Bergen. We had been served food every half hour (or so it seemed to me) all night, so for once, I didn't starve on the flight overseas.

Above: The view over Norway. Most is shrouded in thin layers of cloud in this photo, and hardly distinguishable as land. But we could see the lakes of Sweden from our aerial vantage point, even through the misty clouds.

My stuffed penguin enjoyed staring out the window. xD

Stockholm Arlanda drew near as we descended. The map above shows our flight path.

As we cruised over Uppsala in our descent, the country terrain became more clearly visible. I took photos from my phone (as are most of the blog photos I'll be posting) as we passed over.

More of Uppsala from the sky. It was a gorgeous day when we landed, in fact- any clouds cleared up, and the sky was bright and clear the whole day. There was even a breeze, and the temperature was around 21 degrees Celsius (around 70-something Fahrenheit). The flight attendant soon made an announcement that European regulations require all electronics, including mobile phones, to be powered completely off during landing.

Quite close to Arlanda. (Nomyphonewasnton.)

We were allowed to switch our phones back on once we had landed. The airport is quiet at 7 in the morning. I don't think too many flights come in so early, and especially not during summer hours. In fact, I believe we were the first flight in, because there was no customs line.

For some reason, the Swedish exit/escape signs remind me of Portal (the game, if you know what I'm talking about). The hallway was also quite deserted. (Aperture Science, anyone?)

The driver my dad hired had a large van to fit all the suitcases in the back, which is a good thing. I took some (blurry) photos as we passed through central Stockholm on our way to the hotel in Kungsholmen.

Above: a blurred picture from the road through Stockholm.

Our hotel was, of course, filled with international tourists- as well as quite a few Swedes who were visiting the Sthlm area. The main event happening this week has been Stockholm Pride, and many chose to dress for the occasion.

8.30 or so in the morning by the time we arrived and settled in the hotel. The view from my window was pleasant enough, besides the apartment complex that faces directly across (it's in the next photo, and to the right of where this photo ends). I can't imagine how tired the apartment tenants must get of hotel bookers staring into their windows at odd times. Especially if you're me, and you accidentally set the flash on your camera. Jag är mycket ledsen.

Above: the apartment complex I spoke of.

My penguin enjoyed the view, at least.

For the rest of the day, we went to find lunch first. Along the waterside was a quaint little restaurant that seemed popular. Most of the dishes on the menu involved salmon, so my dad agreed to get food there. It was quite busy, and we queued for lunch trays for a time before we reached the order window.

They somehow misunderstood which salmon dish we wanted (likely because I was too skittish to translate "smoked salmon" into Swedish, despite knowing what it was called), but it was salmon nonetheless. It still tasted great.

I suppose I'll do well in Scandinavia. I'd eat salmon every day if it were offered to me, without complaints. I once ate salmon every day for two weeks straight during a semester because I ran out of other ideas.

Definitely not smoked. Men vad gott det var.

Above: view from the restaurant along the water. The waves were moving quickly due to the wind, and so a lot of people came out to kayak or canoe. Everyone else lay on the grass, sunning on towels, or jogged/walked/biked with their dogs or kids.

Dogs are just like kids: both need to be fed and walked on a regular basis.

Above: photo from the walk back to the hotel, still paralleling the water.

We tried to find a French restaurant for dinner later, which we did find without getting lost (despite the many times my dad thought I'd lost the way), but there were no seats to sit. We ended up having dinner at the hotel instead, which was still good.

Summer hours generally mean hardly any traffic, even in Sthlm. But there was some standstill traffic on the way to the hotel in the morning, and traffic stopped from around 17 o'clock until 20 o'clock (yes, 24-hour time is a lot easier to use). This photo was taken at about 18.30 during a traffic jam. I think there was actually an accident down the road, because there had been an ambulance siren not too long before.

Sunset is around roughly 21.15, but the sun doesn't seem to completely fall below the horizon until sometime after 22 o'clock. And then the lights from the apartments across the way filtered into my window, anyhow.

This is around 22.30 or so. It was either a very clear day, or actual sundown was by then. My phone lightened the colours for some reason; it wasn't actually this bright out. It wasn't entirely black, however.

It should have been nearly completely dark by the time this photo was taken, at around 23 o'clock. The next night was a lot blacker, probably because of clouds.

I'll try to catch up on my posts now, before classes start tomorrow (Monday 4 August). So this concludes the end of the travelling part, and then I'll post the next day (which was mainly spent learning the subway system of Stockholm's transportation system).

Vi hörs!

/The Swedish Fish