Well well well. It has been a long couple of years waiting for the pandemic thing to simmer down so we can travel again. It hasn’t really happened but now that we are vaccinated and double boosted, the world seems a tad less scary so it’s time to go.
This specific trip has been on hold for two long years. We had planned a tour of Sweden after my annual international data conference but since the latter didn’t happen, neither did the former. After multiple postponements and lots of negotiations, the conference is on and so is the trip.
For the first time in more than 20 years of attending this conference, Frank is hanging out while I work. I have never been fond of the “conference spouse” concept but it doesn’t bother him and since he can talk to anyone (really! And they usually start the conversation!), he’ll get to entertain himself while I take care of business.
Because this is a combination work/fun trip, this blog will have a slightly different feel to it. I’ll be writing about the travel parts but not the conference parts. Otherwise I’d need to change the names to protect the innocent. 🙂 I’ll number the posts but they won’t match up entirely with the days so don’t panic if there is a break between stories.
We started this journey in Buffalo traveling to Stockholm. I had enough miles to get us both round trip tickets for this particular set of flights even if it wasn’t the perfect set of locations. We landed in Stockholm at 10 am on Saturday with a destination of Götenburg – the other side of the country. The best option was a rental car to get us their so after traipsing through the airport and rental car center, we set out for the 5 hour drive in our Ford Kuga hybrid (like an Escape I’ve been told). The sunshine was blinding and Pandora worked just fine as we drove. We made a few stops: lunch (bought at a Coop where Frank got a curried chicken bagette and I ate a chefs salad with my fingers cuz they didn’t have any forks. Grr…) and the liquor store for wine (it was the start of a holiday weekend!), bathroom and ice cream breaks.
We got to Göthenberg about 6pm -damn Stockholm traffic – and realized that we didn’t have the exact address for the AirBnB apartment. After some frustration and problematic messaging we found our way to our home for the week. In all the time we’ve been renting apartments through AirBnB and VRBO, this is only the second time we have unknowingly booked a flat where someone actually lives full time. It’s a little weird being in a place with someone else’s stuff but it is airy, comfortable, and well stocked. They even left us a good starter set of groceries: eggs, juice, cheese, marmalade, bread, etc. And honestly we were too tired to care. A quick shower, a change of clothes, and we were off to find real food.
The are of the city we are in has a few lovely bistros and cafes. We found the best option on this night was a French bistro. Dinner was lovely: moule frites and French Reisling for Frank; steak frites and CĂ´tes du RhĂ´ne (or some similar French red) for me. Then off to bed for a good night’s sleep. Of course the sun doesn’t set until 10:30 or later so it took several melatonin and a few glasses of wine but we managed.
Data for our travel day:
- Hours traveled: 24
- Hours slept: 4 (on a plane! Real sleep!)
- Kilometers driven: Approx 600 km
- Words of Swedish spoken: 1
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