The plane ride itself is definitely worth touching on. We flew Ryanair which is a REALLY cheap airline that flies into and out of tiny airports outside of major cities. We got to the airport in Charleroi, south of Brussels, and as we headed through security I took all the stuff out of my pockets, took my belt off, and threw my bag on the conveyor belt. I knew I had liquids in my bag, but I had decided that this was a cheap flight, small airport, and they wouldn’t really care……wrong. I step through the metal detector which goes off, because I didn’t take my wallet out of my pocket. Then the security guard pats me down and gets a little too close for comfort a little too quickly as he slides his hands inside the waistband of my pants to check for concealed weapons. Following my body cavity search, I was wanded down and then asked to step to the side as another security person literally emptied everything out of my bag. Let me tell you, she was pretty close to not letting my deodorant on the plane which would have been a catastrophe for anyone on the trip. Thankfully…my Old Spice convinced her to let him through.
Once I was through security we had about 30 minutes to kill before we boarded the plane. I had packed some PB & J’s for dinner, but no drink due to the liquids policy (I wasn’t about to push it THAT far). So, I had to willing let the airport rob me in order to get some sort of liquids in my system. I looked at the menu from the one snack stand open in the airport and decided to buy the cheapest drink possible, which was a tiny juice box sized container of milk that cost me 1.60 Euro (about $2.40)! Not only was it tiny and incredibly expensive, but it also tasted like I was drinking warm buttermilk, not the delicious ice cold skim milk I was craving.
After my wallet and I suffered through the milk box incident, I made my way into line to board the plane. Now, Ryanair isn’t like your average plane ride where you have assigned seats. Instead, with Ryanair you have a ticket and it’s a free for all to see where you sit. So we trek onto the runway, up the stairs, and into the plane where the seats looked like a cross between an elementary school bus, and an arcade racing game. As we ascended into the air you couldn’t hear a word the captain was saying and in order to talk to one another we had to scream because it was so loud on the plane. A few min into the flight, instead of the usual continuing ascension, the plane suddenly dropped down and we felt our stomachs drop like we just went over the hill on Apollo’s Chariot. The rest of the airtime we didn’t have much to deal with other than the live QVC we had in front of us as flight attendants strolled up and down the aisles selling everything from cigarettes to perfume to plastic baggies filled with shots of liquor.
About two hours later, we descended upon Stockholm and as we neared the ground someone says “look at all the snow out there!” So I decided to look out my window and I see about two feet of snow on the ground, and as I search out the runway I continue to see white. We were getting closer and closer and although it wasn’t two feet of snow, there was still snow on the runway. The wheels touch the ground as the plane begins to land and suddenly we are jerking from side to side as the pilot attempts to land us on the icy runway. Just when I am SURE we are going to spin out and hit something, the plane comes to a stop and I realize we’ve made it safely. We burst into applause and laughter as victorious music comes over the loud speaker to celebrate us landing safely.
From there we got on a bus to head into the city. I was expecting the bus ride to be about 15mins or so, more of a shuttle into the city than anything else. An hour and a half later we were in Stockholm, I was exhausted, there was snow everywhere, and the seventeen of us began to wander the city in search of an ATM and the subway. Over an hour later, we FINALLY made it to the apartment and I just about passed out on the floor, which now seemed comfortable after trekking the snow in frigid temperatures for an hour or so.
The next day was fairly uneventful as we attempted to stay indoors and warm most of the day and do some group bonding. At night we headed out to find a place to eat, and ended up finding a couple of restaurants that were amazing and had delicious food. I had a salmon that was as thick as a filet mignon and with the salmon I had a grilled potato, some tomato salad, rice, and a warm Swedish tea (on the house) to finish it off. Probably one of the top three meals I have had abroad so far.
After dinner we all ended up going out to the Absolut Ice Bar. Absolut Vodka is made in Sweden, and the ice bar we went to was pretty awesome. We got there, threw on cloak like coats over our other coats and headed into the ice bar where literally EVERYTHING was made of ice. The benches, the bar, the walls, even the glasses were all made of ice. We ended up hanging there for a bit and grabbing a drink, but eventually headed back towards the apartment.
On the way back we grabbed a snack at a hotdog stand off the main road called “Sybilla.” These hotdogs were unlike any other hotdog I have ever had. They were not in a bun, but instead they were in wraps, and the wraps had mashed potatoes, lettuce, onions, ketchup, spicy mustard, and oh yeah….a hotdog in them. I know what you’re thinking…GROSS! But I’m here to tel
l you it was pretty good. Definitely an interesting combo.Sunday was our day to explore Old Town Stockholm. It was a pretty neat little town and we stopped off in an all you can eat buffet for lunch which ended up being some more AMAZING food. Everything from Swedish meatballs to tons of different types of fish, and of course, mashed potatoes. It was delicious.
Sunday night was quite the interesting end to our journey in Stockholm. We had booked flights back to Belgium for 6:30am Monday morning because we didn’t have class until 4pm. This was a great idea except for one small detail…we hadn’t really planned what we would do from 12am ‘till 4am when we had to catch the bus back to the airport. We took the subway from the apartment to the area where the bus would pick us up, but at this time of night on a Sunday, just about EVERYTHING was closed. We started off hanging in a McDonald’s where I grabbed a late night McFlurry with Daim bar in it. After a while hanging in there and seeing a police officer searching a man’s bag while questioning him at the table next to us, a couple of us decided to find out if anything else was open. We found the ONE bar that was open, went inside, and started watching the super bowl. We figured this was the perfect option, except for the fact that the bar was pretty full, we still had a couple hours to kill, and the rest of the group was inside McDonald’s amidst the interrogation. After quite the ordeal of phone calls and text messages to try to figure the situation out, the group had been kicked out of McDonalds as well as 7-11 and they were headed our way. We didn’t think they would get into the bar seeing how full it was, and began to assess the other options. The alternatives weren’t good. We could wander the streets of Stockholm in the freezing cold or cycle in small groups through the bar, which we were pretty sure wouldn’t work. Seeing as this was literally our only feasible option left we were on the edge of our seats to see if the group would get in. We saw the rest of the group approaching expecting them to be immediately rejected, but much to our pleasant surprise, the bouncer let them pass into the bar. At that moment we felt like WE just won the Super Bowl. We had done it. All 17 of us hanging out in the ONLY place open at 2am on a Sunday night, and on top of all that…we were watching the Super Bowl. Pretty good deal.
The way home wasn’t much shorter than the way there…in fact in was longer. Our door to door time was 11:30pm to 12:00pm the next day. Basically the trip to Stockholm….was an adventure.
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