Regina to Malmo

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We flew out of Regina the morning of December 22. COLD weather that we were happy to leave behind. Our flight was a little late as the plane was coming into Regina from Toronto where the Ice Storm of the Century was occurring. That didn't bother me so much as the fact that we were flying TO Toronto to connect to our flight to Europe.

We ended up flying out of Regina about an hour late, at 12:12PM, by the time de-icing was completed but we had a 5 hour wait scheduled for Toronto so no worries there. As we approached Toronto's Pearson Airport we could see that the roads, trees, buildings were all completely covered in ice. The runway was clear at Pearson airport but the taxi lanes to the terminal were covered in really rough ice. It was worse than a Saskatchewan grid road.

The wait in Toronto gave us time for lunch, then reading and snoozing until our Boeing 777 flight which boarded on time but ended up leaving a bit late with de-icing delays. The wind was in our favour though so we expected to reach Munich in 6.5 hours instead of the scheduled 8. The flight was uneventful, with Alex and Greg sitting in front of us. Meals were the usual mediocre airline stuff but there was good TV and movies available and we all managed to get a little sleep.

We actually arrived 45 minutes early into Munich which gave us nearly 5 hours to wait until our flight to Copenhagen. By now we were all getting very tired but between eating and reading and snoozing, we survived the wait and caught our 90 minute flight on Lufthansa in a smaller, older plane. We landed in Malmo at 4:20PM local time (9:20AM Saskatchewan time) on December 23, 21 hours since we left Regina.

There is a train station right inside the Copenhagen airport so we bought four tickets (two family tickets) to Malmo and caught the train for about a 30 minute ride there. I texted Fredrik's brother Jesper that we were arriving and he met us in Fredrik's car at the Malmo Central station. Unfortunately it was already dark so we didn't see much on the short drive to our Intervac exchange home.

Jesper let us into the house and handed us the keys to the car and house and headed out to catch a bus home. Very nice, stylish, modern Northern European, Ikea styled home. Large kitchen, dining room, living room, laundry room and bathroom and office on the main floor and three bedrooms, family room and bathroom upstairs. We discovered the internet router immediately but to our dismay, they had not left us the password. This was troubling for me and the end of the world for the kids. Luckily, one of the nearby neighbours apparently had unprotected wifi which we could access most of the time with only one bar of strength. This got us by with email until Fredrik replied to my email the next morning with the password.

There was pasta, meatballs and wine left for us so supper was provided and we didn't have to leave the house at all our first night. The weather here is cool, -5 to -10 (balmy compared to our -2- to -35 in Saskatchewan) and rainy and windy off and on. Later in the evening their neighbour Carina came over to introduce herself and offer some shopping and taxi suggestions. We finally fell into bed around midnight and all had a poor night sleep at first but slept in until nearly noon the next day.

December 24, Christmas Eve, cool, cloudy, drizzly day. their house is not decorated much but we did find one Christmas music TV channel to leave on. Greg ended up sleeping on the family room couch as he felt he was going to fall through the bunk bed in his room. We moved the PS3 from his room out to the family room and Greg and I played FIFA off and on through the day. Later on we bravely took their car out for a short adventure to buy groceries. We ran into Carina there, and bought about $1,800 Kronor ($300) of groceries then returned home. That's about it for this day. We spent the rest of the day reading or playing FIFA. We all had trouble getting to sleep this evening, still jet lagging a bit, but were all up before 10AM on Christmas morning.

This was the kids' first Christmas away from home, no gifts here or anything to really make it feel like Christmas. Greg and I played FIFA a bit, and the kids of course have internet communication with family and friends. Our friend Jim Hornell is Chairman of the Board of Hockey Canada so he and his wife Mim are also in Malmo for the games. They came over to have Christmas dinner with us this evening which was really nice but also kind of surreal, the six of us being together here, all from different places in Canada, all together half way around the world here in Malmo for Christmas. Jim brought us each a hockey Canada toque and pin for Christmas gifts, and two little bottles of wine from their hotel as we told them we were out and all the liquor stores are closed for two days.

In the evening we phoned our parents and the kids used Alex's iPad to facetime with their parents and grandparents in Kamloops. Chris and I were pretty tired later but the kids are so wired for the start of the hockey tomorrow I don't know if they'll get to sleep at all tonight!

Thursday, December 26: Opening Day World Juniors!!

We took a taxi to the Malmo Isstadion to watch Canada crush Germany 7-2 in the opening game of the World Juniors! Place was half empty (50% Canadian fans and 50% empty) so the atmosphere was festive and loud! We switched our discount corner seats for great seats in amongst the majority of the Canadians on the side. We ended up sitting next to Eric, a friend of Randy Todosychuck Jr., son of our friends Randy and Marilyn, in Vernon! Eric has been travelling around Europe, couch surfing, since October 1. All the TV cameras were above us, pointed at the smaller group of fans across the rink but we had the giant Canadian flag passing back and forth over us on our MUCH noisier, more fun side.

After the game we walked down the street to COOP grocery store to buy sandwiches, etc. and came back to eat in the rink lobby. Checked out the Fan Zone after that and Greg almost won a toque, taking shots at a plastic goalie. We stayed on for the USA CZE game and switched sides to be behind the benches, centre ice again. We had some guys from Alberta and one guy is related to Alex's boyfriend whose wedding she almost attended last summer! Maybe Canada is a much smaller country than I thought, or its just that everyone we know travels to all the hockey games.

USA and CZE both looked pretty good but USA was fast and moved the puck really well and completely overpowered CZE winning 5-1. Looks like Canada will have some stiff competition on their way to gold!

After the game we all walked out to find the bus stop for a cheaper ride home but it was cold and raining and we had no umbrellas so we flagged down a taxi for another 200 Kronor ride. Will really have to get better prepared for more bus rides from now on.

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Comments

[Garth]

Wish we were there
Hey Roger and Chris, the house looks very modern. Enjoy the hockey and say hello to Mim and Jim.