Uppsala: Min 5; Max 13.
The Dubai to Arlanda flight was (thankfully!) not as full, so we had 4 seats for the 3 of us. Eskil was very tired and cranky, but at least he had Thomas the Tank Engine and Charlie & Lola on TV. We were all exhausted, but at least the Emirates flight was quite nice. It was more comfortable than Qantas, and the flight crew were lovely. Every couple of hours they came with something different for Eskil. At one point they even took a family photo. We have hidden this away so not many people can see it; those who have have laughed. We seem to spend flights constantly asking for milk for Eskil and filling all the bins with nappies.
We were due at Arlanda at 10:50, but we were early and arrived at 10 am. Perfect! My parents were landing around the same time, so as we were going through baggage pick-up and customs we kept our eyes open for them. We didn’t see them, so we headed to our pre-arranged meeting point, the Grand Cafe Stockholm. Darn – they weren’t there either. Never mind, we had our first snack in Sweden, and Eskil met his new love – Prinsesstårta.
When well over an hour had past and my parents still hadn’t arrived, we started looking into things. We found out their flight was getting in at T2, not T5 like our international flight, as their flight was arriving from Germany. And T2 is a long, long way from T5; airport staff travel by scooter. We used the phone to warn the car hyr place that we’d be late, and walked and walked and walked towards T2. I think Scott and Eskil made it as far as the far side of the terminal with the most shops, T4, then I made my way to T2. No sign of them at any of the meeting points, cafes, and no one had heard of lost Americans at the information desk. I went back to Scott and Eskil and we headed back to the Grand Cafe Stockholm in the hopes they would be there.
Unfortunately, there were no familiar faces at the cafe. (Had we stayed there the whole time, we probably would have seen the rest of our party, my Tante Sandra, Mandie, Daneen, and Michelle, as they went through arrivals. Oh well.)
I went to another information desk, and this person was very helpful. She looked up the passenger lists and found my parents had missed a connection and would be on a different flight arriving after 2 pm. She also signed my phone into the airport’s wi-fi, and I received an email from my father confirming they’d be on a flight after 2 pm. So they hadn’t gotten lost in the airport, and we knew they’d be arriving at T2. It was a long walk back there, but we could take our time as we had hours to kill – and as we had an Eskil and, of course, ALL our bags at this point.
We made our way slowly, with Eskil looking at airplanes, rests at cafes and benches. We saw our first rhunestone. We saw a Norwegian Airlines plane dedicated to Jorn Utzon. Eskil drank milk.
And to try to keep him awake, Eskil went up and down escalators. And up and down.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. The flight that was supposed to arrive at 2:55 pm finally arrived after 3:15 pm. My parents didn’t appear through the gate until nearly 4 pm – and Eskil was fast asleep in a pram borrowed from the airport. Oh well, at least my parents were accompanied by a VERY helpful member of airport staff. She helped us to the correct stop for Berta, the bus that took us to the car rental office. The bus was CROWDED, but as it took us straight where we needed to be for free that was fine. We picked up our car, they installed Eskil’s car seat, and we were finally on the road in Sweden!
We drove to Uppsala via slightly smaller roads rather than taking the motorway that would take us there directly. We went via Sigtuna, and I exasperated Scott by being VERY tired and unaccustomed to being on that side of the road. In Uppsala I navigated to our accommodation quite easily.
After super wonderous showers, we decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was lovely. And there was beer.
Eskil had been impossible to wake since he went to sleep at the airport, even though Scott was picking him up, putting him down, he was in the car, the hotel, on the bench seat in the hotel, people talking around him, etc.
It had been a long day for all of us; we’d not really slept since we’d left Hobart almost 2 days before. Zzzzzzz.