Time for Fika (Sat through Mon's activities)

Good morning. It is 10:14am here in Östersund, Sweden. The sun is bright amongst the crystals in the snow from the window I am sitting in front of -- just a glorious morning. Today, I am took a half-day off from going to work at VTC Gymnasiet so I could catch up on some sleep from all the traveling. (This is a long post, so have a cup of coffee as you read this.)

To fill in the blanks since leaving LAX – the British Airways delayed flight was 11 hours long direct to London Heathrow. The last 3 hours were pretty miserable. My body was not used to be confined to a small Southwest Airlines coach seat for that long. There was always a line to the restrooms and I was in a window seat, so it was difficult to get out and stretch my legs. My iPod would not work, no room to use the small laptop; however, the seats had a small LCD screen and some media (BBC TV-shows, movies, music) for us to enjoy at no extra cost. The crew also gave us decent beverages and interesting food. Around sundown, everyone had to shut the window shades until after sunrise, as to not awake the business travelers. We finally arrived in Heathrow, trying to find our legs and thought we could use the new high-speed train to London for a few photo-ops. Well, due to the flight being late, helpful BA people throughout the airport advised us not to go due to time constraints. The only train we could use was the one taking us to the Baggage Claim area. It is like stuffing a Chicago "EL" train during rush hour. The airport itself was FULL of advertisements for perfume, Virgin, technology, Beckham -- LOTS of Beckham, but there were no garbage cans or other useful things to do. We finally sat at a Smoothie Bar, relaxed a bit, trying to find out what to do next. The youngsters went off to find some Tea & Crumpets, while the adults went shopping. (BTW, Rose, I should have bought that little wheeled baggage carrier -- my computer bag was 30-something pounds!) And of course, the US Dollar holds no weight much more in Europe and is about 50 cents. I did find a tiny Apple Store amidst everything. LOL. Alas, no free internet to work with though.

I got a couple of trinkets for m'ladies (Rose & Allie) that cost a couple of pretty pounds (terrible pun!), found the youngsters who lost track of time and walked briskly to the next gate. All customers boarded at the same time on this full flight. The length of this BA flight was about 2.5 hours, but took some time on the taxi to up and abroad to Stockholm. Let me tell you, both landings of these flights were like riding an old wooden rollercoaster -- side to side even while touching the ground and braking. Sheesh! While there were MANY BA employees throughout the planes and airport, and all of them were British friendly -- I think some of the buns in their hair were a bit too tight. When they said "lovely," it was a with a tight molar-to-molar grin.

We made it to Stockholm in the later evening. We stood in line to get our passport checked, where no one smiled and when they saw the US colored passport, the flow stopped like during the VISA checkcard commercials, where someone pulls out cash. You also get the stink-eye. Finally moseying on over to the Baggage claim, we waited.... and waitied... and waited... watched a young airport tech walk down the baggage belt area, disappear, pop back up and then the announcements came -- technical difficulties with the baggage. Then after 3 more rounds of this, none of our stuff came up (except for one our students' bag) and then the airport started to shut down. Dave had to fill out this big form and listen to the fact that BA's Terminal 5 (opened up 5 days ago) continues to screw up baggage across the world. (We called the next day, and no one at Stockholm Arlenda -- airport -- had a clue of where are stuff is). Dave finally found a train ticket office and purchased tickets to get to Stockholm City, where are night stay was. Tickets are not cheap! The rest of us converted some USD to Kronnors (about a .6 rate, give or take). We took a very nice high-speed train (205 k/h) to Stockholm City, where the temperature was a brisk -9 degreees Celsius.



We checked into this VERY nice hotel right next to the train station: The Nordic Sea. We stayed in the express rooms -- with bunk beds. (L'Urbz's CSUF dorm room is bigger!). However, the desk attendant was extremely pleasant and we all felt a certain sense of relief to actually stand and walk outside (not at an airport). All of us freshened up and explored the streets of Stockholm for about 2 hours. We found a 7-11, McD's, Burger King, Subway, and other places of the like. We also found people yelling on their cell phones outside of pubs. Luckily, 7-11 carried some personal items (perspirent, tootbrushes, shavers, etc) that cost too much.



We finally settled on a burger place, where combo meals were dependent on Mayo or Big Mac like sauce. The sodas were Coke Zero and Sprite Zero. The food was ok. Dave told us not to eat at McD's -- it is not the same wonderful quality as in the US.



Around 11pm local time, we finally all hit the sack, or I should say, we hit the bunks -- I had to ask Dave to sleep on the top bunk since I weigh a bit more than him. We had to get up around 7am to get going. When the wake-up call rung, we thought it was for the luggage. Alas, it was time to get up and go. The hotel provided a very nice breakfast buffet and we were off to see a few sites of Stockholm. All of us brought our cameras and walked via Dave's fast pace to downtown Stockholm. It was a Monday morning workday, and it was bustling of people. (I will post more pictures later.)




After about 90 minutes, we quickly walked back to the hotel to check out, walked on over to get our train tickets, hopped on within minutes, and we were off to our SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) flight. This airport is about half the size of Ontario. We guess because it was a local flight, security was not as scrutinizing as the bigger airports. We grabbed a few drinks and waited a bit for the plane to board. We practiced our Svenska. (I can pickup reading, understanding a lot of the vowels and words, but speaking it has been difficult for me due to the emphasis on vowels. The others are doing much better than me with the phrases.) This was about an hour flight to Östersund. Flying over the pristine countryside was beautiful -- snow covered mountains and farmlands. Another windy landing, and this time, we get to exit the plane outside to the tiny airport. Magnus (left in the picture below) and Lennart (right in the picture) awaited us. They were probably the first people to smile at us in terms of being happy to see us!




They graciously took us to the Electric Company's water tower to have lunch. It was a buffet of salad, veggies, beans, moose-meat, and lots of coffee. For myself, enjoying most Polish food all these years is making it easier for me to adjust to some of the tastes here. The view from the restaurant was spectacular. I let the students use my camera with the zoom lens and they went to town with it. As we drove by, you could see where the paths were for bicycles, walking, cross-country skiing. Everything in this city is close enough for everyone to get around without driving. (You can see some of this in the gallery I will be posting.) We then went shopping at a place that resembled a Target store (even the logo was a red dot surrounded by a sea monster dragon around it in a circle) to look for some clothes. I struggled here to find my sizes and such. I even used the dressing room to make sure what fitted. Thank goodness I did! So, today I am wearing a brand new outfit (black polo and grey slacks). I will share more on this adventure with Mrs. Urbz later.



Late afternoon, the families arrived to meet us and pair up with our students.



I went grocery shopping with Lennart and met his family. They graciously let me use their home and accompanying apartment. They made a marvelous chili dinner, and their welcoming of me was even warmer. I was a a bit nervous and extremely tired, so I am slightly self-conscious in how I came across. Hopefully, not too bad. But wearing a Chicago Cubs T-Shirt (it was opening day in the US), a big jacket, equipment everywhere, and being short and plump with 2+ day old clothes... it was not quite feeling comfortable with myself. (Today has been better.) We had a very pleasant conversation during and after dinner about family life. After dinner, Leonnart generously let me plug my Mac into his house network and I found Rose online. The quality of our iChat video was surprisingly clean, and so she hooked her connection up with my 4th period class and Mrs. Harding was there to join the across-the-world discussion. The lag time was quite minimal.

After all that, I finally retired to the apartment, organized and charged all my equipment and clothes. It took my mind quite some hours to finally unwind. It was so quiet that I could hear the ticking of the light timer on the wall. Finally, after about 3am, I finally rested.