Getting There
- Ryan & Heather
- Feb 16, 2016
- 5 min read
February 15-16, 2016
š·
Since we had mostly finished packing the night before, there were only small things to do in the morning, but these tasks added up pretty fast. Between packing toiletries and performing the standard collection semi-monthly hygiene routines, the morning filled up. After Heather got her nails done and I had said my farewells to the electronics, we grabbed a quick lunch at Bagel Street Cafe and Heather drove on up to Pleasanton.
Once we reviewed our itinerary and detailed all possible means of contact with Heatherās mum and gran, we re-weighed and adjusted our bags to ensure they were within the 10 kg limit (this is actually much smaller than most people think). We said our goodbyes and Heatherās mum dropped us off at the Pleasanton BART station with a couple minutes to spare. After a transfer to the Oakland Airport BART line (which appeared to be powered entirely by a mechanical pulley system), we had arrived at Oakland International Airport almost exactly 2 hours early (nailed it).
Upon our arrival at the Norwegian Air check-in/reception, we saw a long line of folks being funneled through the human cattle-funnel politely called āribbon lanesā. Since we were only bringing carry on and were carrying what appeared to be an e-ticket (although since it was in Norwegian and translated via Google Translate, we werenāt quite sure what was actually writen), we thought we might have a shot at going straight through security. However, to hedge our bets, Heather braved the human cattle-funnel while I cheerfully walked through TSA pre-check to ask the apparently unoccupied document-checker about bypassing the check-in desk. Unfortunately ā no dice. It turns out that Norwegian Air is one of the only airlines (if not THE only airline) that exlcusively does paper check-in. They donāt even have the basic infrastructure to support e-ticketing at OAK! In any case, it tooks us about an hour to get through check-in and security, at which point we regrouped, ordered a dinner from Chilis to-go, and bolted onto the plane.
By the time we got to our seats, we were so hungry that we managed to finish off our fairly massive burger and fries. After acknowledging our trashy, but highly American cuisine (and rapid rate of consumption), we sat back, relaxed, and actually somewhat enjoyed our flight on Norwegian Air. This 787 wasnāt that different from other 787s, but it was the little things that made all the difference. For example, the windows were 65% bigger and could be electronically configured to change the tint color and opacity (way cool). In addition, the bathrooms were actually kind of spacious and featured automatic mood lighting, and motion activated sink and toilets (woah!). To top it off, the cabin ceiling lights would change colors (and at one point displayed a rainbow along the nose-tail axis of the craft). Pretty nifty!
Although we had some time to doze, we only got a couple hours of sleep on the flight. Arriving at Stockholmās airport, we passed through immigration in record time, and found out that Sweden apparently doesnāt do silly things like customs and luggage inspection. Since we didnāt have any baggage to claim, we followed the copious number of signs to the express train to Stockholm (theyāre pretty big on iconography here). When we arrived at the entrance to the metro, it looked like something out of Journey to the Center of the Earth ā but with escalators. We descended into the cavernous depths about 5 stories before reaching the boarding platform. I mentioned to Heather that we would probably be safe from any supersonic windstorms here, but she seemed more interested in the approaching train. Upon boarding, we noticed that the interior of the train was a spitting image of a pristine IKEA showroom (but longer), complete with exposed wood panels, plexiglass overhead bins, and cutesy low-power lighting. The train itself even assured us that it was the most environmentally-friendly way to get to Stockholm. Heather knew she was finally home.
During the 20 minute ride, Heather snapped an alarmingly large number of a pictures of the passing rural snowscape, pointing out to me that these photos āhad snow in themā. Meanwhile, I was wikipediaāing every interesting building we passed and comparing the trainās displayed speed and altitude with the ones calculated in my Android app. (To my dismay, it turns out they donāt pressurize trains in Sweden ā even if they are moving very quickly).
Once we arrived at Stockholm Centralstation (itās actually spelled this way), we descended underground again and came out into what appeared to be the worldās fastest underground people stream. While Heather and I tend to walk more quickly than most folks, everyone in this packed, kilometer-long tunnel was moving so fast that we had to get a bit of a running start to merge into it. Commuting is serious business Stockholm.
After successfully transferring to the metro (which took us much longer than weād like to admit), we rode the metro south to our stop at Skanstull. At one point during the 15 minute ride, Heather got all excited and pointed out a man standing by the door. She assured me that this man is almost certainly a Swedish actor in the TV series, Hemlock Grove. Not knowing the actor nor the show, I just took her word for it. Now we can say we saw someone semi-famous in Sweden!
When we exited the metro station, we were surrounded by European-style apartment buildings. We also noticed that it was the golden hour, even though it was midafternoon ā we had forgotten how far north we were and that the sun was going to set around 4:30 PM. In the fleeting light, we snapped a few photos before arriving at our Airbnb stay. Once we cleared the door code and located the right apartment (the instructions were somewhat cryptic), we were greeted by a spacious living room, but a tiny bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen. Seems like the Swedish have their priorities straight.
After being in-transit for 15 hours, the shower felt amazing. As Heather puts it, we get to āwash away the public transitā. I tend to think of it as āexterminating government cootiesā, but I digress. Although the shower helped, we were still exhausted, and knew if we didnāt keep moving we would probably fall asleep within minutes. So we bundled up and braved the below-zero (Celsius, that is) streets of Stockholmās Sodermalm area (or SOFO district for short).
As we walked towards the center of town, we passed a couple of dogs (or āold pupsā as Heather puts it), which Heather immeidately found very cute. This was somewhat puzzling to me since neither of these dogs were particularly remarkable in any way. But, deducing that the environment had changed, I asked Heather, Does snow make things cuter? YES! Well, now we know.
When we reached the center of town, we headed north on Soderledstunneln (the main street that runs north south through this area). At this point, we were pretty hungry, so we entered an indoor marketplace and ordered ourselves some Moussaka (very Swedish) and a Falafel wrap (even more Swedish). While the meal itself was good, the highlight (for me at least), was the incredibly creamy butter you could put on the seemingly endless mountain of rolls. Even so, it was definitely more butter than roll.
Even during our meal, Heather was starting to crash, so we looped back to the apartment through the icy neighborhoods. While we attempted to stay awake reviewing photos and writing in our journals, Heather went to bed around 6:45 PM. Due to an urgent work issue, I went to bed an hour later. Sleep never felt so good.
The concise and artistic Heather version of this post can be found in the image below:
š·
Addendum: map of where we traveled in Stockholm š·
Comments