Ready to go!
8/31- Day 1, Travel Day
Our plan for the day was to fly into LaGuardia airport in NYC, ride the shuttle to JFK airport, store our luggage, then go out and explore the city during our 10 hour layover. I researched how to ride the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge, sights to explore in the area, and then how to return to JFK in time to board our flight to Sweden.
GiGi dropped us off at the Nashville airport early this morning. We made it to LaGuardia and boarded the shuttle bus for what I am hoping ranks the top of our most nauseating bus rides of this trip. It is hard to imagine larger holes and bigger bumps and sharper, faster turns in the roads of Nepal or Cambodia!!! We find the sketchy-looking baggage storage location. There is a guy who checks in your bag and deposits it in a loosely roped-off area in the middle of a busy walkway. He might glance -at everything you own for the next 7 months- every once in a while between clients. We are tired, hot, hungry, and the bags are really heavy for our unconditioned backs. We decided to ditch the whole plan and stay in the airport. Our first of probably many days of changed plans. 🙂 –Klaff, 8/31/15
NYC Plan B
9/2 – Day 3, Stockholm
Busses, trains and trams – Oh My!
Stockholm has a very extensive public transit system. All roads lead to Stockholm Central Station, where you will find dozens of gates and links for trains, trams, tunnels, and busses. Today we used all 4, but it wasn’t until we decided to try the fifth option that we made our first big error. We opted to hop on one of the city’s unique public options, the intra-city ferry system. We would take a 10-minute jump across the water between two of Stockholm’s 14 islands to save a bit of time and get a new perspective of the city. Well, we got plenty of perspective as we boarded the wrong ferry late in the afternoon (“Oh, you wanted the other one. The only way to tell them apart is that the one you’re on had no turnstile at the entrance. You wanted the one with the turnstile.”). It took just under two hours to make the round trip back to our starting point. We did what any frustrated American would do, we took the tram back towards our hotel and had Burger King for dinner. Take that, Swedes! – ALaff, 9/3/15
Pics below. Click on the pics to zoom!
9/3 – Day 4, Stockholm
Dad says I have to pay for this. Do you accept smiles and Southern accents?
Back at Gigi’s house, if you wanted to find the kids, the best place to look was in the tree line. Anna, Caleb, Téa, Isabelle and Thatcher were always outside and usually up a tree. No major injuries occurred, so all seemed well, but I guess Anna had one that was waiting for the right moment – across the Atlantic. Seems that a scratch that she got climbing a tree got infected and we had to try out the healthcare system at our first international stop. Good thing most (all) Swedes speak great English. Took some time, but she is now all drugged up and ready to go. We decided to use the burned day to catch up on homework, blogposts, and missed sleep (Haven’t slept past 3am yet. Jetlag/acclimation time is real!) In case you are wondering – uninsured costs: Doctor $211; 10 days of tetracycline $35. A nurse option was offered for $95, but the nurse would not have been able to prescribe meds. -ALaff 9/4/15
Beautiful views on a long ride
Beautiful views on a long ride
Beautiful views on a long ride
Hanging in there…
Couldn’t make it