Hello everyone!
I am writing to you from my room at the STF Vandrarhem youth hostel in Umea, Sweden. The current time is 11:14 PM, and I just finished all 32 hours of travel between when we started at 8AM on Friday (Central time) to just 15 minutes ago when I got the key to my room. I posted a picture of it.
Our trip to Sweden was not as seamless as we had hoped, however. Friday morning we got to the airport 3 hours early (because the hotel shuttle required us to) and found our plane heading to Newark, NJ. I saw Amy Sutter there and we talked for a little while- she's going to Vermont. We found out right before our departure time that another airplane was experiencing some technical issues, and the passengers from a Houston flight were taking our airplane. This was really the point at which I knew Continental was not thinking ahead, because basically all of the people traveling to Newark had connecting flights, some international, and they would have to rebook us all. Two group members got on another flight to Newark on Northwest, but the rest of us were told to wait until a 3:15pm flight to Amsterdam. As we get close to boarding, we find out we do not actually have tickets for the flight, but are just on the waiting list. Since I have a different return flight, I was not with the large group of 8 that was placed on the list but among the rest of the remaining students who were behind the big group. As the plane begins to board, only the big group has tickets, and we 5 remainders begin to panic because our faculty adviser was getting on the plane, and we would have to make our own way to Umea. Luckily, they still had many of the bulkhead seats free, so all of us ended up getting good seats interspersed throughout the plane, and we all took off for Amsterdam together.
On the flight, I sat next to two Danish women, Inger and Anna, mother and daughter (Inger, the mother, was 84). We had some polite conversation (although getting through the accents was hard at first; good thing I have had a little practice over the years) and then Anna told me she lived in Minneapolis and I brought up Danebo on the river and she recalls having met or seen Bebo either at Danebo or at St. Peder's! Small world, eh? The funniest part for me was that Megan, a student traveling with me on this program, sat next to me and she told me afterwards that she didn't have a clue what either of them said the whole time.
We arrived in Amsterdam at 6:15am their time, 11:15am our time, and the first thing we hear is "final and immediate boarding call for flight (?) leaving for Stockholm in gate D67," which was our connecting flight. We had come out at gate E32, and the gate D1 could be seen in the distance. Needless to say, we missed our flight.
We once again had to change our flight, but as we were doing so we found out our baggage had flown on our original flight to Stockholm, and we all sulked around knowing we won't see it for at least a day. Luckily, there was a morning flight to Stockholm, and we all got tickets for that one no problem.
As we landed in Stockholm at about 11:00am Stockholm time (4:00am Central) I was just starting to fall asleep for the first time. It was then I realized how long of a trip this could be.
We landed too late to catch the one connecting flight to Umea on Saturday, so we all hung out like zombies on the floor of the terminal in Stockholm waiting for our fearless leader (Roland Thorstenson) to figure something out. What we ended up doing is taking a 3-hour train to Sundsvall, and then a 4-hour bus ride to Umea. I have tried desperately not to sleep because I don't want to fall victim too badly to jet lag, but I probably fetched 3 hours worth of sleep total, making the amount of sleep I've had since getting up at 6:30am Friday to catch my original flight roughly four hours. I'm exhausted.
I had a moment right before I started writing this where I started feeling the pangs of homesickness: I think this picture explains it all:
The toilet paper is like cardboard with the top layer taken off, exposing the frayed ridges in the middle.
In all seriousness, however, I am already having a great time, making new friends, trying to speak Swedish, and not yet overwhelmed by my situation. The biggest difference between Sweden and Minnesota? Here, everyone drives Volvos and Saabs, but the sports cars have been replaced by micro cars and even the school buses are made by Volkswagen. Love you all, and I will update when I have some daytime pictures of Sweden to show off!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We'll ship you some nice toilet paper from the states.
ReplyDelete-Matt
lots of love from back home. Muzzy just pooped in your room, so i think she says hi. She waves with both paws for treats now. Adorable, but i have to go let her out.
ReplyDeletelovies from your sis