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Published: January 23rd 2007
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Our journey to here, Uppsala SWEDEN, can only be described as a comedy of errors-one that is not yet amusing to us as we continue to recoup from our 48hr travel time, delayed flight, missed flight, and an ongoing drama of lost baggage that remains lost! Still we can manage a wry smile as we retell this tale-one that we hope will be a future source of amusement, rather than of woe (which our current jet lagged melodramatic selves dictate!)
It was with an overwhelming sense of relief, moreso than excitement, that we climbed into the car with our trusty travel companions Leah and Tony to head to the airport on Friday afternoon. It had been by far the most stressful week we had experiened together in a very long time but at last we could sit back, breathe and relax...we were on our way! This sense of relief lasted for the 10 minute journey from Newcastle to Wallsend when we received a phone call to say our flight had been delayed. Not a big deal right? WRONG!!! Instead of our intended 1030pm departure that night, our flight was delayed until 730am Saturday morning. This also meant that instead of
a 3 hour stopover at Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA and a direct flight then to Stockholm, SWEDEN, we were instead blessed with an 11 hour stopover in MALAYSIA, a 14 hour flight to London, and a connecting 3 hour flight to Stockholm. Needless to say this was less than ideal, with our 26 hour travel time blowing out to over 38 hours.
Still we carried on to Sydney airport (pointless not to with a 5am check-in on Saturday am) and upon arrival were ferried off to the Mecure Hotel overnight. We managed to catch our flight the next morning (with May braving the early 5am check-in time to come say farewell!) and arrived in MAYLASIA mid afternoon (Aus time). A fancy hotel room had been organised for our stopover with 2 awesome buffet restaurant meals thrown in. It was a really fancy hotel so all-in-all it was the most pleasent part of the whole trip giving us the chance to sleep abit, eat, shower and even watch some Aus Open tennis matches!
We got back on the plane to London in the wee small hours of Sunday morning which was pretty tough going as our body clocks were telling us
Swedish Breakfast
Abit different to the traditional Aussie bacon and eggs! A mixture of crispbreads and rye bread eaten with traditional Swedish spreads (cavier, smoked ham/cheese, sweet cheese-all from a tube!)in combination with salami, ham, cucumber, pate, boiled eggs and a massive block of cheese! Very yummy to sleep whilst the flight attendents were trying to ferry us on board and feed us up before lights out. I don't know that I've ever been as tired as I was right then-But it was good in that when we finally managed to drift off to sleep, we stayed that way for the better part of 7 hours.
The point at which things really went awry was with our arrival at Heathrow airport. We disembarked at 635am leaving us less than 40 minutes til our connecting flight left for Sweden. We raced through the airport, catching a shuttle to the terminal from which our flight was to leave, only to be met be huge line-ups of passengers going through liquid inspection bays! New regulations have just commenced in UK requiring that any forms of liquid carried in hand luggage are restricted to quantities smaller than 100mls. Anything larger than this must be in checked-in luggage. Having no idea of this prior to arrival in the UK, Adam and I were loaded up with heaps of toilettries that exceeded the 100ml size restriction that we could either check-in or throw away. In the midst of debating what to do
(having stood in this line for over 20 minutes and all but missed our flight) we were told that we had been misinformed as to the correct terminal for our flight departure and needed to catch a shuttle to a different terminal. To make matters worse, our hand luggage exceeded the allowed amount of only one article each (with my handbag counted as one article!!!) and therefore needed to check luggage in.
So we spent a very harrowing few hours at Heathrow airport having missed our flight and going round in circles until we finally got correct instructions about checking-in additional luggage and rebooking tickets for a later flight. One very nice BA worker managed to put us on standby for a 1040am flight to Stockholm which we eventually managed to get seats on so we arrived in Stockholm 2pm local time (midnight Sunday Aus time).
Alas-it doesn't end there! On arriving in Stockholm, we discovered our 3 main pieces of luggage, that were checked in way back in Sydney, did not make it Sweden. It is now Tuesday midday and our luggage still has not made its way to us!!! We're hopeful of a delivery later today
which will at last allow us to put our flight woes behind us and look forward to all the amazing things we travelled around the world to see!
The up-side of all of this is that we have been blessed with the most wonderful conditions since our arrival in Sweden. Flying into Stockholm the land was white with snow newly fallen in the 24 hours prior to our arrival. Seeing Luke and Maria again at the airport was so great and being shown around their home town of Uppsala, 40minutes north of Stockholm, has given us so much insight into their lives here-its been amazing to see that, and so good to all be together again. Taking some time out from our jet-lag recovery, we headed into Uppsala city yesterday. It was -7 degrees when we headed out with the snow making every little thing so incredibly beautiful. Its just breathtaking here. The boys have enjoyed small snowball fights just walking around the town (with Maria and I doing our best to stay out the way) so God help us when we actually have some time to all go 'play' in the snow. Today we're kicking back and enjoying
being on holidays...we're about to head out and negotiate a Swedish supermarket in the hope of being able to buy something to make dinner for our hosts tonight. Its colder today, -10.6 degrees out, so we'll be rugging up!
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Jade
non-member comment
You're making me "travel sick" for Europe!
Hello Lovelies! So sorry to hear of your baggage woes, and your travel trouble, particularly at good ol' Heathrow. Seeing you in -10 C and snow Mandy has really made me travel sick. I LOVE SNOW! So now I'm also a bit jealous as by the time you people get back (if ever), you'll have done so much more than I could ever hope to do at the moment. But I'm determined to be back over there soon, hopefully sooner than I think. This travel blog is a fantastic idea. I've been piecing Damien's and my trip to Europe together in the wee hours lately from receipts and what not as I've decided to make an illustrative journal of our trip. I bought some paper at an art supply store and I'm eventually going to have the book bound. Next time I travel I'll be doing my best to keep a blog instead of just sketching. Anyway, I best let you go! Lots of love Jade xxoo