Back in Stockholm

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So my trip has begun, well sort of...

I'm back in Stockholm, landed at Arlanda airport about an hour ago, at the inhuman hour of 0.40 am.
My dad met me at the airport, and congratulated me of being a free man (or an unemployed former student perhaps 😊.

So university is over, which is very very strange, it's going to take me a while to fully understand that I am no longer a student!!
I handed in my master's dissertation this morning, 13,347 words of hard work!! I think the result was quite OK though, comparing the British and the Swedish business cultures and advising what adjustments a British company may need to make in order to successfully enter the Swedish market.
I then checked my marks for the last courseworks and exams at the end of June, and I got an average of 70.25 (out of 100) which is very good and equivalent to an undergraduate first, or an award with a distinction (as it's called for master's).
Nice end of uni!!

I met Kei at Heathrow (a former coursemate from ESCP-EAP in Paris).
He was heading for Tokyo and his flight left just about an hour before mine, and both of our flights departed from terminal 3. Yeah it's a small world!
As we both have Star Alliance gold cards we met in the Singapore Airlines lounge, where I had some chicken karma and red wine. We then moved over to the United Airlines Red Carpet lounge which is the lounge ANA uses for its flights to Tokyo.
Got some help with seat assignments for my upcoming RTW trip from an extremely helpful UA lounge agent who spent a good 15 minutes sorting out my booking. She even came into the lounge to hand over the revised booking and the new seat assignments to me personally. That's what I call good service!! Well done!!

After Kei had left for Tokyo I moved over to the SAS/Air Canada "London lounge" to spend some time in their cinema room with a large wide-screen TV (unfortunately only showing BBC 24 that day) and also had a few more drinks before departure.

The flight London-Stockholm was uneventful, although I did have a free middle seat, which was nice.
The new stupid security regulations in London meant I had to check my standard hand luggage and could only bring my laptop bag onboard, so I had three pieces of checked luggage which apparently equalled around 53 kilos.
How on earth did I manage to bring all that to Heathrow by public transportation? I have absolutely no idea...
Fortunately I wasn't charged for the overweight, which would have cost me a significant amount of money. Even with my very generous baggage allowance as a gold card holder (40 kgs) it was still overweight.
So a big thanks to the very nice check-in agent!!

Now when uni is over, and I have moved out of my room in London, it's time to do some serious thinking about what needs to be done before the trip starts: vaccinations, buying a new suitcase and digital camera, money matters and currencies, book the remaining accommodation etc.
But I think I'll sleep one or two days first... :D

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Photos

Stockholm
Stockholm city centre (Strandvägen)

The SAS lounge at Heathrow
The self-service bar in the SAS lounge at Heathrow

The Cinema room
The Cinema room in the SAS lounge at Heathrow