Monday, 21 December 2009

Mad Violinist (my hubby) and I are going to Sweden! Woke up early this morning at around 6.40am as I had some work I needed to finish. I had already packed my luggage on the weekend. It was hard trying to keep everything under 20Kg. Even harder to try to keep the hand luggage under 7kg! In the end I used the theory that women are allowed a handbag as well as a hand luggage and brought both.

It’s 6pm and our hire car driver Sood arrived to pick us up to take us to the airport. When we arrived to the airport, the Qantas check-in counter was not opened yet. We went to look for the currency changer. By the time it was our turn to get the money, the one we found had ran out of Swedish Kronas. They did not have Danish Krone either! So I ended up only buying British Pounds instead. Lesson learned – don’t leave currency conversion to the last minute at the airport. The lady at the counter was very helpful, she rang around and told me which counter I could go to get the Swedish Kronas. The only set back was that they only had 500SEK which was equivalent to our AUD$91.82. I was too anxious, thinking that this rate seemed good enough and bought 2000SEK. I would soon realise that it was much cheaper to change money in Sweden!

Flight to Tokyo – Narita Airport

Our flight was around 10 hours long. It was not the best of flights. After ascending though, people were allowed to remove their seatbelts and the people in front of us leaned their seats back! After a few hours, I felt very much like a caged animal only allowed to be in one spot. We did not get window seats, we got aisle seating all the way. The first meal was a choice of Japanese pork with rice or a chicken dish with potatoes. We had two meat pies each at Sydney airport for our dinner, so we were not that hungry. I decided to eat something and ordered the Japanese pork with rice. It was quite salty. Since my camera was tucked away tightly in my hand luggage which was in front of Mad Violinist’s (MV) seat, I could not be bothered to take the camera out to photograph the meal. The portion was small, but fortunately we had already eaten. MV thought the smell of that meal was not very good.

Since we departed at 10.10pm, I thought I would fall asleep on the plane, but I did not get much sleep, it was mostly just shut eye and I had a cold from the flight because it was too cold from the air conditioning despite having a blanket. I started having a sore throat, then coughing and a runny nose. Not a good start I thought, but overall still very excited abou the trip. I watched Julie/Julia and Bruno on the plane

Breakfast was a choice of eggs, sausages and hash brown or Japanese rice with minced chicken and scrambled eggs. I chose the Japanese choice and MV chose the sausages and eggs. This time the meal was much nicer I thought.

When we landed I was overjoyed but my happiness was short lived. I started feeling the pangs of stomach ache and had to rush into one of the toilets. After sometime, I emerged not feeling too good and MV was mad. While waiting for me there were throngs of people going pass him and he just knew that all these people were going to be ahead of us. He was right, the wait through security check and customs was as bad as you can imagine. There were about 4 security check counters available, but only one was opened. 3 staff manned the one counter and they made everyone take stuff out one at a time. It took a long time before it was our turn. When we finally got through, we had a 45 minute wait for the shuttle bus to take us from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1. Fortunately we had 5 hours to waste at this transit point or we would have missed our connecting flight.

When we finally got to Terminal 1, it was a case of looking for the right area to check in for our flight to Zurich. We walked for miles, already very tired we decided to get a trolley for our hand luggage. Thankfully, our main heavy luggages were being moved along behind the scenes, we just had to show our baggage tag each time we checked in. When we finally found the counter for checking into our next flight, it was closed! I had read about the Day Showers and Day Rooms on the internet before our trip and knew it would be great to freshen up. I was thirsty and tired. We finally found them and booked a room for an hour, just for showers. We had wasted so much time at customs, we just did not have enough time for anything else.

After the shower, Mad Violinist used the internet for half an hour and I decided to hunt for water and some food. I was hungry again and still extremely thirsty. Throughout the airport, there were vending machines I could buy an assortment of drinks from, but from what I could see, they only accepted cash! I was only going to be at the airport for 5 hours, what did I need cash for! I just wanted to buy everything with my Visa card. Even McDonalds did not sell water! I finally found a convenience shop which allowed me to pay for one bottle of water with my Visa card. The water was around 160 yen, that was around AUD$1.80 or AUD$1.90.

I had also decided to get the Panadol equivalent and some lozenges as my throat was beginning to hurt alot and I was coughing quite a bit. MV had a Fillet o fish from McDonalds while I continued to eat the eel and rice dish I bought while I was out hunting for water.

Here are photos that I took at Tokyo Airport: [Link]

Flight to Zurich

We finally made it to our next flight and this time still on the aisle seat but I felt a little more positive about Swiss Air. They had the option of viewing our trip via the camera they had installed on the plane, so despite not having window seats, we were able to follow the flight.

Food was good on this flight, MV had penne pasta and I had rice with beef. It was good, again no photo because this time the camera was in my hand luggage in the overhead compartment and once it’s in there, there was no taking it out, I could not be bothered. I watched a Michael Douglas film called “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”, it was a thriller and it was quite good. I decided to try to fall asleep after the movie because I was quite tired. I was woken up by MV because I started to snore quite loudly. I could not get back to sleep after that, only little shut eyes. I was also cramped in my seat as it was restricted by people in front of me leaning back and I had no room behind me to lean back much.

The little baby in front of us cried quite a bit. MV thought the little cries were cute, I did not think so, I was tired, cold, coughing with a runny nose. I think I knew why the little baby cried so much, I suspect it had blocked ears like mine. Due to my sinus being blocked up, my ears could not unblock too. While I was on board that plane, my ear ached and I could hardly hear. Baby must have felt the same.

3 or 4 hours before landing they gave us some refreshments and a light snack, in between there were sporadic moments of drinks delivery. The light meal was good, it was a sushi roll wrapped in a triangle with seaweed around it and salmon on the inside. I asked for more of it and the stewardess gave two more to me. What a pleasant surprise

Two hours before landing, they fed us some kind of roll. I got MV to try it and then I tried it and could not determine what it was. I gave up on eating it and went for my reserve sushi rolls instead . One was quite enough, so I saved the spare.

Entering Zurich was good. The landing was superb and smooth, and I could see snow out the window! We only had 45 mins to get to our next flight! The airport was quiet, clean and efficient. There was airport personnel pointing to where we had to go. We took an internal train to the right terminal / gate.

Flight to Stockholm – Arlanda Airport

There was quite a queue to get through to the connecting flight. We were asked how long we were going to stay and where was our main visit and where else we were travelling to and purpose of visit. The little bottle of water I had accumulated on the flight from Japan was also confiscated.

I think I fell a sleep a little bit on this flight, I think I snored too , but MV let me sleep. They fed us a little chicken roll and I got to drink a lot of water and went to the toilet. I think I was the first to use the toilet on board that flight. MV watched what they put on which was a gag reel. There was no sound because earphones were not supplied. This was another Swiss Air flight but it was the no frills short route version. The plane was comfortable enough, the person in front of me did not lean back, so I was comfortable. Landing was smooth and I saw snow out the window, I was very excited but my ears were blocked and was painful. I was also really really tired.

Arrival at Stockholm Arlanda Airport

No security checks required. We disembarked the plane and headed straight to look for our luggage. There was quite a wait for our bags. I found a trolley or MV and left him to it. I found a seat for myself and waited, decided to ring mum without thinking of the time difference. It was 5am in Sydney.

Finally we got our bags and we headed out to look for our shuttle bus, but we could not locate one. We then went to find the information counter. At the information counter we found out that the shuttle bus did not travel to the Radisson Blu SAS Strand. So it was either a train ride to Central Station and a 20 mins walk or a 565 SEK fixed price taxi ride. We decided on the taxi. We found a taxi instantly and the ride was about 40 mins.

Let’s just say it did not cost 565SEK despite agreeing earlier on that it was the fixed price. The driver decided to short change us. I argued a little bit with him and he gave me more change back but still not the full amount. I was too tired to bother, but still mad. We got into the hotel and just chalked it to experience.

While checking in, I asked the hotel reception staff if it was common for Swedish taxi drivers to short change tourists, she told me that it was not a common practice, but there are a few shonks around and she kindly told us the names of reputable taxi companies. I guessed we got the shonk.

It was time for a long needed shower and bed. The room was a little small to what we were used to in Australia, but it was clean and very presentable. The staff were friendly and helpful.