A Pretty Swede Time

Stockholm and Åland

Well, you guessed it, something went wrong on this trip too. I guess it’s starting to become a requirement now.

Anyways, Blake and I made the 4:30 am train to Dusseldorf. This train to the airport was only supposed to take an hour…supposed to…

Over TWO hours later, we make it to the airport. But our flight was at 7am, which meant boarding was at 6:30, and we hadn’t checked my bag or cleared security. We rushed to baggage check only to be told that our flight was getting ready for takeoff and that we would have to purchase another ticket to get to Stockholm. What a wonderful way to start the day.

So we checked from airline to airline, and most were asking over 300 euros for a one way ticket…ridiculous. We decided to check one more airline, Air Berlin. They only asked 140 euros and the flight was scheduled to leave in 40 minutes! Yay German airlines!

So we quickly checked my bag, went through security and made our way to the gate. The gate however, was completely empty, so we checked the flight information and we’d had a gate change. So we ran over to the new gate, only to see there was a delay for our flight. So we sat down for breakfast and relaxed a little before it was finally time to board.

We somehow made it! Stockholm is one of my favorite cities, especially in the summer time. We only had a few hours in the city before we had to get on a bus out to our ferry. We spent most of our time in the old city, Gamla Stan. We ate Swedish meatballs and just enjoyed wandering the cobble stone streets. Then we took a 2 hour train out to Kapellskär, the port from which our ferry to Åland was leaving. Then after a 2 and a half hour ferry ride, my grandparents picked us up and drove us out to their home in Vårdö.

 

As you can imagine, this was a LONG day of travelling, so we slept for a long time. The next day we drove around the island and walked a little in the forests behind my grandparents’ house. The following day, we biked to the church of Vårdö, caught herring with my Uncle, and used the sauna 3 times (with quick jumps into the Baltic in between). Blake left the next day to go back to Bonn to be with his host family one more day before leaving for Texas.

I have about another week at my grandparents before I make my way back to the states. I’ve spent some of this time catching up on homework that’s due in a few days. Aside from that, I’ve just been enjoying the scenery here. It’s truly incredible. Not many people live on these islands, which can make you feel somewhat isolated at times. But that’s kind of peaceful in a way.

I’m kind of ready to go home, however. I’ve been gone for almost four months now. Most of our program is already back in Texas, and it’s made me miss my friends and family that I left behind. Good news is, I only have a few more days until I’m in Texas!