{"id":17055,"date":"2024-05-16T18:50:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T22:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=17055"},"modified":"2024-05-17T00:35:18","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T04:35:18","slug":"back-to-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2024\/05\/16\/back-to-sweden\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"
Position: 58\u00b039’58.3″N 13\u00b051’51.0″E<\/a><\/h6>\n

\"taytay-swift-eras-tour-poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been quite a week. Quite a couple of weeks in fact. Fans of this blog will be happy to know we are back on the road and exploring exotic and out of the way places again. And it almost didn\u2019t happen. Albuquerque\u2019s mysterious energy vortexes held us tightly in their grip and only grudgingly let us go. More on that in a moment. But we are back in Sweden and have slept on Aleta for the first time in nine months. She still floats and the systems seem to function as they should. She only needs a mast and her sails remounted and we\u2019ll be off sailing for points south.<\/p>\n

Last year we barely touched Sweden, so this week we\u2019re renting a car and making our way east towards Stockholm. We\u2019re in no hurry. Stockholm is besieged by Swifties<\/a> (including my daughter Emma), many of whom attended the Eurovision song contest in Malm\u00f6 last weekend. Come Sunday, Tay Tay will perform her last gig and hotel prices will halve. But enough of the future, let\u2019s talk about things we\u2019ve actually done.<\/p>\n

Roto-Rooter<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I abandoned Carol to the hard work of preparing absolutely everything for our trip and went to Gaithersburg to facilitate a meeting for my clients at NIST<\/a>. Back in Albuquerque, Carol ran her dad to the dermatologist (thanks to a last minute cancellation), arranged for a new roof for the house, prepped Bodhi for his summer home, and picked up Bob\u2019s summer caregiver Anna. Then the toilet exploded, and Roto-rooter came calling twice in two days to fix it. Carol got about four hours sleep each night I was away. Arriving back on Thursday, I took care of a couple of last-minute honey-dos that took most of the evening. We woke at 6:00AM on Friday to pack in anticipation of our 10:30 flight to Amsterdam via Houston.<\/p>\n

ABQ is a small airport and mercifully uncrowded. That means the ground staff are less harried and a bit friendlier. Checking our bags, our United representative congratulated us on our packing and clever distribution of weight. Between the spare parts for Aleta and Carol\u2019s steamer trunk\u2019s worth of clothes, I thought we\u2019d done rather well. Up in the terminal breakfast beckoned as we waited for our plane. It was delayed. First by an hour, then another hour, and then another. United sent us more messages than a teenager addicted to Tiktok. With our four-hour layover becoming reduced to mere minutes, it was clear we needed another plan.<\/p>\n

Frying the Fiendly Skies<\/h6>\n

\"united-stratocruiser\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our itinerary took us to Amsterdam where we\u2019d spend an expensive night in the Sheraton and go and explore the city for a day before catching a flight to Copenhagen. CPH is about an hour from where Aleta spent the winter. Realizing we wouldn\u2019t make the connection, Carol cancelled the hotel ten minutes before we\u2019d have to eat a couple of hundred dollars in no-show fees. I then called United to reschedule our original flight and negotiate a free-to-us hotel in Houston. They sent us options for three flea pits within a bus ride of the terminal. That left rescheduling the KLM flights from AMS to CPH.<\/p>\n

In the old days airlines were service companies. They cared about their passengers and often did wonders to make sure you got where you wanted to go. These days they\u2019re barely disguised extortionists ready to shake you down for money at any opportunity. KLM wanted $1,026 to change our tickets to one day later. Considering we\u2019d paid $396 for the pair of them, I swallowed my rage and got creative.<\/p>\n

Phoning United\u2019s Premier desk back, I convinced the young woman at the other end to reroute us directly to Copenhagen the next day via Chicago. When she protested that Copenhagen was more than 350 miles from our original destination, I countered with, \u201cI\u2019m a million miler with United and I\u2019ve been flying with you for over 30 years. I think you can do us a solid and make an exception.\u201d And she did. It was the kind of old school service you don\u2019t get from airlines today. Except if I\u2019d been any type of regular traveller, we\u2019d probably have been SOL<\/a> in ABQ.<\/p>\n

Downstairs we retrieved our bags, negotiated a free hotel for our extra night in Albuquerque and got $80 worth of food and drink. The next morning we flew to Copenhagen via Munich without problems.<\/p>\n

Pollen<\/h6>\n

Still battling jetlag yesterday, we agreed that driving seven hours to Oslo was imprudent and likely impossible given we finally got on the road at 1:00PM. Instead, we opted for a small cabin on a quiet lake just outside Gothenburg. It was idyllic and regeneratively peaceful, so we were very surprised to learn from our hosts that we were three miles from Sweden\u2019s second busiest airport.<\/p>\n

Here, 1,200 nautical miles north of Albuquerque, about halfway up Saskatchewan, spring is just springing. The lilacs are only just popping out and bright yellow pollen blankets everything. It is a full month behind New Mexico. May\u2019s annual high-pressure system has set up and the clear blue skies don\u2019t fade until well past 10:00PM. Morning begins at about 4:00AM, although there\u2019s a gentle glow all night. Here are a few photos taken from our porch last night.<\/p>\n

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