20/3/09 Stockholm

I slept-in today and got ready to leave (although not very well). But that was about all I did.

I went and printed out my tickets and got things together, and since I didn’t have any food, I walked to the magic Starbucks and got a fruit cup, blueberry muffin, and a Strawberries and Cream for free. It was good (and £7.90 for free).

I came back and took some money out to change to Swedish Korunas and caught my bus (barely) to the airport.

I didn’t have too much time to kill at the airport before my flight left. This was my first time flying Ryanair (the super cheap airline) and I had a couple of rough experiences with them, the worst being that I had to get a stamp on my boarding pass because I wasn’t from the EU (why, no idea it is completely stupid to me) but I had to get out of line (I was near the front) and go walk halfway around the airport for this stamp. The guy at the desk was nice and brought me back up to the front, but I ended up in the last row of the plane (on the aisle though, could have been worse).

The flight was fine, I read the entire time and listened to the new Peter Bjorn and John album (which I stole yesterday). It’s interesting, not very melodic and not many guitars on it, but it’s growing on me. Definitely not as good as the last album, but it’s a progression (and there is no whistling).

The Stockholm airport is super tiny. Like one room essentially. They have a general store and a coffee shop, that’s it. I bought a bag of chips, and some Swedish candy that I’d never seen before, a Bounty (like Almond Joy) and a Delight, which was really good and I don’t know what I’d compare it to, it had a crunch in it and some sort of caramel or something on the inside.

I couldn’t get wifi, but I could get on the Ryanair and WizzAir sites for free, so I tried to book some flights. I didn't end up booking anything, but it gave me a good idea of when to go. I'm looking at Barcelona the first week in April, maybe Bucarest later in April. I still want to blow my Delta and NWA money and miles on something crazy like Egypt or Dubai or Moscow, so I'll have to do some more looking at that. Ryanair has specials for £5 to places, so I was thinking I might do Oslo in 24 hours or something like that. We'll see.

I put some chairs together (there were a number of other people doing the same) and I made a little bed (I brought my polka dot pillow to sleep on - great idea.) I did a little work on some papers, including pulling together Girl Talk quotes and worked a little more on my column, so I think I should be in good shape for next week.

I got to sleep for a few hours before a guard woke me up and I moved again and slept.