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1 September 2005 

How to get to Sweden

I flew out of San Francisco International Airport on 30 September at 13:00 Pacific Standard Time (I'll put all times in PST to keep my trip in perspective). I landed in Calgary, Alberta around 15:00 and was greeted by a Korean woman in a gaudy white and red cowboy outfit, "Howrdy yowl, wewlcome to Cawrgorwe!" Much to my chagrin, Air Canada has no baggage transfer services in Calgary. I was in a hurry, my old roommate Erich Magdzik was to meet me for a birthday beer when I touched down. I had to wait around for ages at the baggage claim, thinking about Nick's smug assertion that my 'beer with Erich' plan was a pipe dream.

My pack popped out of the hole and I went charging about the airport, trying to find Erich. No dice, I had to give up. By this time I was flustered. My flight was to leave in about five minutes, but I really wanted a Canadian flag patch to replace the little pin I had on my pack. I rushed from store to store at a faster and faster pace, until I found what I was looking for. The card couldn't have cleared fast enough, no I didn't want a bag and I was off like a racehorse. A jog up to the second floor and my terminal was in sight, but here's the kicker:

So was a Tim Horton's.

Everything went into slow motion. I dashed up to the counter, feet heavy, head pounding, hearing muted. A glance down the hallway pegged the time at 16:54, but to me it looked like a count-down timer that read T-0:47... T-0:46... T-0:45... I took a deep breath. "A double-double and a honey cruller, please." The words hung in the air, she blinked slowly and turned to get my order. As she handed me the coffee, she mouthed, "I put the cream in, the sugar is on the counter," but all I could do was read her lips. The flight was boarding and I still had to make it all the way down the hall. As she handed me my cruller (O happy day!) I slapped my VISA card onto the counter. Her words were delivered as if from the mouth of an ogre: slow, deep, and ugly. "Oh... We only take Canadian dollars."

Reality snapped back into fast-motion. "What do I do? Where do I go? All I have are Euro and kronor! AhhAhhAhh!" I ran a few quick, tight circles around a spot on the floor, just to show I was serious. "Oh, you can pay with Euro at the duty-free, they'll give you Canadian change," she calmly informed, obviously unaware of the scope of this situation. I was halfway to the duty-free before the last word of her ponderous sentence was delivered.

They were just about to close the door, but I slid through like a well-trained dickhead. After the fastest round of the store ever made I settled on a Canadian flag pin and sprinted to the till. I handed the clerk ten Euro, said "Loonies and toonies, please," and thought 'gogogogo' until some large coins and a blue bill, complete with hockey and poem, were in my sweating palm. As I turned to run she snatched my bag and called after me. "You can pick it up at the gate..."

I arrived at old Timmy H's out of breath and lightheaded, flicked a toonie onto the counter and snatched my goodies. The clock down the hall read T+3:34 as I raced under it and toward the gate. As I cleared an automatic sliding door the terminal came into view. I couldn't get to it, though, as my progress was hindered by the hundreds of people crammed into the hallway, all waiting for Air Canada Flight 844 to Frankfurt, Germany. I can tell you, I had time to finish my cruller, my coffee, and six chapters of Motherless Brooklyn before they boarded my section.



The flight to Germany was long and mostly uneventful. They played bad movies and fed me decent food (portions could have been bigger, though). A key moment of the flight was the after-dinner alcohol cart visit. I asked for a gin and tonic, and the woman in front of the cart gladly obliged with a can of Schweppes and a little bottle of Tanqueray. As the cart passed me by the man pushing slyly slipped me another bottle of Tanqueray behind his back, and if I could I'd send him a thank-you card. We flew over Iceland; I know this because they had a map with our location up on the screen a few times. Much better entertainment than the movies, I'd say. Somewhere east of Iceland and north of Great Britain I saw a bunch of power-generation windmills in the sea, poking up like rows of tombstones. Very neat (at least after sitting on me sore arse for nine hours). Actually, the fact that I just told you about power-generation windmills must mean that airplanes are really boring.

At about 2:30, still PST, mind you, we dropped into Frankfurt. It was rather hot and muggy and I seem to have an uncanny ability to ask help of those who don't speak English and don't appreciate my sorry attempt at the local tongue. I wasn't in the greatest mood either, for I had not slept more than an hour on the whole flight. Anyway, I managed to find a the bus stop I needed just in time to see my bus roar off.

I waited about an hour for the next bus, which turned out to be a problem. When I got to the tiny little airport it was coming up on 5:45; my flight was to leave at 6:30. This was all fine and dandy, except that Ryan Air stops taking checked baggage an hour or so before the boarding call. I was informed that is was too late by six minutes to check my pack. This was a mild bummer, but didn't bother me that much. Remember my trip to Latin America? Nick is nodding his head. I am amazed my lap-flesh didn't grow up around my backpack on some of the more cramped collectivos, and then there were the times when I had to fit a 90-litre pack into a 30-litre overhead. "Ah, it's been worse," I mused and headed to the x-ray dealie (hey, if anyone has a better name for this area of the airport, let me know, eh?). After my small pack was searched and my iPod battery pack was deemed 'not a weapon' they put my big pack through and deemed my hockey skates 'ja, a weapon'.

The implications of this decision by the airport security personnel were grave. I had to disassemble my pack, which was something like opening a jack-in-the-box. Then I had to take out the skates, which were a major structural component of my complicated pack-job. Next I had to unpack the skates (yes, I packed things in the skates); think five pairs of thick woolen socks and a few shirts strewn about the security zone. I was told to run back and forth through the airport a few times, maybe to find out what I was to do, but I think just to embarrass me so I'd never go back to Germany. I found that the people at the information desk were privy to very little information at all. I did a few more laps for good measure and went back to the security checkpoint.

"Are you sure I can't take them on the plane?"
"Ja."
"I can't give them to the stewardess?"
"Nein."
"Or put them in the cockpit?"
"Nein."
"Pleasepleasepleasebitteplease?"
"Nein. Go get on ze plane."

So now Anita, a large German women somewhere in Northern Deutschland, has my hockey skates at her house. I am supposed to send her 50 euro and she will supposedly send me my skates. Hmm, this worries me more than a little bit... Oh, and the funny part is that we boarded the plane and then just sat there for about 30 minutes. Then the pilot came on the intercom and informed us that the electronics were malfunctioning. After another 15 minutes things were working again and we taxied out. We picked up speed to take off, then slowed down and taxied back to the terminal. The electronics were fixed, said the pilot, but they had broken again. All in all we waited on the ground for about an hour; you'd think someone could have stuck my damn skates in with the baggage.



The computers remained mercifully functional all the way to Sweden. I disembarked at 8:10, walked across the tarmac, walked into the terminal, walked through the door that said 'Nothing to Declare', and walked out of the airport. I got onto a bus to Göteborg, paid the driver, and sat down. As my thoughts settled I began to have a nagging feeling that something must have been wrong in the terminal. No one had asked me any questions, no one had looked at my passport, no one had scrutinized my baggage. As a matter of fact, no one had even said hello to me. I hopped off the bus and went back into the airport. Walking against the current through the customs-looking line-up I eventually found some sort of security officer. He assured me that my experience was normal and that I did not need to be checked, given the once-over, stamped, patted down, questioned or looked at funny. Way better than Mexico, where you have to bribe a son-of-a-bitch who stole your passport in order to leave the country. This was my first experience with the Swedish, and I'd say that the initial impression was pretty much bang-on as a representation of Swedish culture.

Back on the bus north I was able to revel in the pastoral beauty of the Swedish countryside. Brick-red barns (I wanted to say barn-red, but...) sprinkled over the recently mowed fields, rolls of hay wrapped in tight white plastic, verdant hills spilling trees into the valleys like waves, little Saab hatchbacks and Volvo station wagons zipping around the roads. I was actually just describing a postcard from Sweden I once saw, but I was excited when I found that the whole country actually does look just like that. All you have to do is walk outside, take a picture, and print it on card stock and you are in business as a postcard wholesaler. The only reason everyone hasn't jumped on this business idea is the high taxation.

I spent a few confusing hours in the train station, but eventually sorted myself out for a long but comfortable train ride. After a brief and very disoriented stumble through Stockholm Centralstationen and one more length of track I was in Uppsala at 3:00 PST. Of course, it was midnight here in Sweden, but that didn't stop my 'exchange buddy' and four of her friends from meeting me at the station with bags of groceries and a ride back to my place. I think I stood staring for a whole minute when I opened the door to my apartment; I thought the Swedes had played a joke on me. I was pretty sure that they had dropped me off at IKEA and given me a key to the 'Perfekt Sovrum' showroom. I wasn't tired, of course, so I unpacked my stuff. I wasn't really tired until my class began at 8:00, which would be 23:00 PST.

and there i was, waiting with my huge headphones and a cd for ya. i miss you a lot man, i'll be in van come this september so if you are there, i better know about it! take good care. by the way, i found this page by typing my own name into google, how conceited! haha, excellent job on spelling that last name! heh, adios!- erich

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