29 July - The Longest Day

We were up and out and breakfasted and back to the room and packed by 09:30. Our flight home was scheduled for 16:30 so we had time for one more excursion — a splendid last look at Stockholm. We parked our bags with the hotel and went off for one more trip on the T-Bana, to see the Ericsson Globe.

This attraction had not come up while David was planning the trip. It was mentioned as "SkyView" in the Stockholm Card brochure's list of discounted places, said to be a high viewing platform, like the Kaknäs tower we assumed, so we just ignored it.

However, coming back into port from the archipelago Sunday evening we had noted an odd white dome on the horizon.

At first we thought it might be the moon rising...

Curious, we looked it up. The Ericsson Globe is an arena in a hemispherical dome — the largest one in the world. It seats 13,000 for hockey, more for other events like monster truck rallies or the Eurovision song contest. Here's how it looked as we approached it Tuesday morning.

Skyview is the system of two little bubble-cars that operate as a funicular.

We paid, then had to wait 40 minutes for our turn. It's a pretty popular attraction. Each car carries 16 people, and takes about 20 minutes to load, go up, come down, and unload. So they can process about 100 people an hour. Eventually our turn came.

And up we went.

At the top the car pauses a few minutes for gazing, before starting down. We took a few pictures.

Looking NE toward the Archipelago.

A panorama of the view to the SE — central Stockholm with the main river and bridges in the center.

Click this and scroll around. It's like you were there! OK, not really.

And so back to the hotel. On the way, a text arrived from the airline: Your departure delayed until 21:30 for technical reasons; so sorry, a meal voucher will be provided. Later, another text: Departure moved to 22:30.

So now instead of sitting around the hotel lobby until 13:00 as planned, we needed to while away the time until 19:00.

OK, so we used the time to complete and publish blog posts for the two preceding days. And eat a large lunch of Swedish meatballs, potato purée and lingonberry jam — the classic Swedish meal we had somehow missed in our nine days in Sweden — it was delicious! And we still had time to kill, sigh. We sat around the Radisson lobby until 17:00, then took the Arlanda Express to Arlanda airport. This is a deluxe train that departs every 15 minutes from the central station for a 20-minute ride to the airport. It hit 230kph, which was fun. We considered it might be as fast as the TGV we rode in France or the Bullet train in Japan, but looking it up now, it seems not. Both of those go 1.5 to 2 times as fast. But it's fast for an airport connection.

At the airport we checked in our bags and idled away another hour in the courtyard of the Clarion Airport Hotel, and finally went through security and toward the gate with two hours until departure. However the gate for this flight was behind a security barrier, as it represented a point of departure from Sweden. We asked the guard if we could come back out once in. He asked, "Are you waiting for the flight to Oakland that's delayed?" Yes. "Well, there's no food or anything in there, you might want to wait out here," (i.e. among the non-secure gates with shops and such) "a while longer." So we did. Spent our generous meal vouchers: 100 krone each ($16) on two bananas and two energy bars. Found English books to read in the bookstore. Found ice-cream bars.

Finally, an hour before the re-re-scheduled departure, we entered the secure gate area and found a queue of people who looked like they were boarding a flight! Asked; yes, this was the flight to Oakland. Well, all right! It was a long queue (the flight was a full 787, so, lots of people) and Marian made David sit down and wait until it was all but finished. "We have assigned seats, there's no rush."

Indeed there was no rush, because it turned out, when we went through, that the people weren't boarding at all. They were being checked-in, but only into a separate boarding lounge. So the full passenger load of a 787, about 300 people, were in a room with seating for maybe 200, and the airport A/C wasn't handling it well. Here we waited for another 40 minutes.

Stewed passengers.

We were not feeling kindly toward Norwegian Express airline. This was quite incompetent and inhumane.

We finally boarded and settled in for a 10-hour flight which pushed back at 23:30. Ten hours, minus the 9-hour time difference, we would be arriving around 1am Wednesday.

This was our first ride in a 787 "Dreamliner"; it impressed in three ways. First, there was more than enough overhead storage for all the roll-on bags and backpacks people were carrying. Second, the seat-back screens were high-resolution touch screens, easy to operate and with lots of entertainment options. Third, there was adequate knee-room in Economy.

However, we mostly slept, getting probably 5 hours of sleep in the 10-hour flight. On arrival at Oakland, they kept the doors closed for ten minutes after the seatbelt sign had gone off. "Another plane is in customs," the announcement went, "and they'd like us to wait a little while."

Other people have commented on the stark difference between U.S. border security and the rest of the world so we won't beat on that horse. Much. But this is a picture of the line just after we entered it (and just before a guard shouted about no photos please.)

It may be a federal crime to look at this picture.

We were in the line just under an hour (and we had been seated in row 12 of the plane; the majority of the mob was behind us). Arriving at Copenhagen we waited maybe ten minutes for a quick stamp in the passport. Arriving in Norway from Denmark, the passport control window was closed, and we just walked past it. Arriving in Sweden from Norway there were no formalities whatever, except we had to change trains.

Just sayin'.

Anyway, at 2am we were into the arrival hall at Oakland airport. Things that work well? Uber works well. Two in the A.M. and you just open the Uber app, it knows exactly where you are, you tap once for a ride, it tells you exactly how many minutes until your car arrives. It shows you a map with a little car approaching your location, updated in real time. It comes, you climb in, you ride Oakland to Palo Alto for less than a shared-ride van would cost.

Home at 3am, found Marian's sister had stocked us with snacks and milk, all good. Twenty-nine hours after we'd arisen in Copenhagen, we were home.

28 July - Stockholm day 6

Well, owing to a delay in our flight home, we have excess time to cull pictures and write these final journal entries. This will be the, let's see, sixth delay or re-routing on this trip. Two boat trips were re-routed; two train trips had bus sections; there was a road closure coming back from our Flåm excursion; and now our flight is delayed 6 hours. Oops, received another text from the airline, now it's 7 hours.

So Monday morning at 8am sharp we were at the gate of the US Embassy, Marian clutching her paperwork and practicing to look charmingly pathetic.

And it all went very well. The guard called inside and told us to come back at 9am and wait in line, and they would see us (i.e. without an appointment). So to pass the time we took a walk along the shoreline in the nearby City Park.

Towers of the amusement park beyond.

We saw a gazillion Barnacle Geese (smaller, neater and more attractive than Canada Geese). This gaggle had been spooked by a passing dog,

We saw some of the damage from the high winds in yesterday's thunderstorm,

Back at the embassy we waited outside in the line for U.S. citizens for 30 minutes. During this time we observed the security procedure. The next person in line, when summoned, walked up to the very heavily-built guard house (sorry, no pictures of this, it didn't seem wise). They put their passport or other ID against the glass for a guard to read. Then the guard would, through an intercom, ask them to turn around and "show me the bottom of your shoes." Why? We don't know and didn't want to ask. But they did it for everybody, citizens and Swedes alike. They were very polite about it, though.

Anyway, once inside Marian was treated very sympathetically and politely by the clerk she talked to. She of course had all the necessary papers and the photos. (They did not check the photos for being exactly 2x2 inches or having the eyes above the center-line, and all the other exact specifications Marian had obsessed over most of Sunday evening. In fact in the final document it is obvious that they have scanned the photo, digitized it, and it is printed at about 1.5 by 2 inches causing Marian to have a thinner face. Oh well.)

By 11am, just an hour and a half after entering the building, we were out with a nice temporary passport and set to continue the trip as planned. This was a huge relief, a load of worry just evaporated. Also, we should say that every person involved, the Radisson staff, the Stockholm police, the Embassy guards and clerks, were in every way polite, sympathetic, and helpful. It was about as nice an experience as the loss of a passport can be.

With that out of the way we still had half a day, so we took the excursion boat to Drottningholm Palace, which David had expected from the start would be one of our best "stately homes". We took another of those classic old motor cruisers.

This gave us a look at the Radhus, city hall (where the Nobel Prize ceremonies are held). We'd meant to visit it but never found time.

Nearby is the Waterfront Congress Centre, a dramatic new building.

After a 40-minute boat ride we reached Drottningholm, the "Queen's Estate" (Drottning means Queen).

Here we met some disappointment. The first was a clear "no photography" sign on the door. And in fact there were numerous polite but emphatic young docents around monitoring this policy. The second was a bit of price-gouging: entry was 120skr each (about $20) and if you wanted a floor plan, that would be another 50skr. And the rooms themselves were mostly bare of original furnishings, just big rooms lined with huge portraits, or ceilings or walls painted with classical themes or battles. Only the Queen's bedchamber was original with an amazing amount of gold trim and ornate furniture; and the Library. David grabbed an illicit pic of the Library.

And a cute blond docent was on him immediately, politely explaining that pictures were not allowed. On the way out we took another illicit pic of the stairway, which was quite magnificent.

And it was hot, hot, hot, hot! That can't be blamed on the palace, in fact they were doing their best by opening many windows and having fans in some rooms. But we ended up taking an earlier boat back than originally planned.

Back at the hotel we cooled off for a while then went out for supper near the hotel, on busy Vasagaten. Finally settled on an Argentine-style barbecue place, having ribs and fajitas.

27 July - Stockholm day 5

Before the stolen purse incident we had booked for an 11-hour cruise of the Archipelago — 35,000 rocky, tree-covered islands between Stockholm and the open Baltic. So on Sunday morning we took a cab to the Nybroplan berth of the 100-year-old Waxholm III.

When everyone was aboard, it was announced that that the route had to be changed, with the most picturesque stretch eliminated, because the high-pressure system of the past few days that has caused unusually high temperatures has also lowered the water level by 21 cm (about 7 in). Passengers were advised that they could debark and reschedule for another day, but that conditions were not likely to improve.

As the boat headed out, we noted the Stockholm skyline, the variety of apartment blocks along the shore, and the Carl Milles "God on a Rainbow" sculpture.

As we got among the islands we saw that many, in fact every one large enough to support trees and water, had summer houses. Most were modest, but some were fancy.

The strongest impression was of the vast number and variety of pleasure boats that streamed past. It seemed every boat owner in Stockholm was out this Sunday.

We passed a narrow channel spanned by a nice bridge.

Soon after, the weather began to change.

There was a bit of lightning and thunder, and some rain. We learned later that the same storm back in Stockholm was causing sudden floods, and made wind gusts that broke many tree branches. We would see evidence of this next day.

At our first stop, the island of Namdö, those who got off, got wet.

We stayed put on the boat. It was now damp and felt chilly for the first time in days. The boat crew distributed blankies!

A couple of hours later at our next stop, the nature preserve of Bullerö, the rain had cleared and we trooped ashore with the rest.

In this stony environment with long harsh winters we noted a prostrate juniper and some pretty heather.

The final stop was the island of Sandhamn, which is a very popular resort village. Its harbor featured pilot boats (and we can well imagine a need for pilots to bring big ships through these channels) and a police boat. We took a picture of our ship.

That was about it; the boat sailed on back to Stockholm past many islands, all of which started to look pretty much alike. As we approached Stockholm around 20:00 hours, David saw this jet-ski rider approaching and almost got the perfect shot.

Missed a prize-winner by milliseconds...

26 July - Stockholm day 4

First expedition today, Saturday, was to the Millesgården, a museum on the estate of the late Carl Milles, a Swedish sculptor of some renown. He did mostly large public monuments. He created this one as a peace monument and to celebrate the founding of the United Nations. It was intended be placed in the garden at UN headquarters with the water cascading into the East River, but the project was cancelled, so it now stands on the Stockholm waterfront, where we saw it on a boat ride the following day:

God on a rainbow, putting stars into the sky

Today we rode the T-Bana and a bus and walked a few blocks to get to Milles' old home in the suburb of Lidingö. You enter to a terrace of statuary overlooking the water, with the cruise ship docks beyond.

Inside the main house is a room devoted to models and plans for other works.

Outside we took quite a few pics of various works. Here is a rather Buddha-like Jonah escaping a Whale,

and Milles' best-known work, or at least the one you find the most pictures of on the internet, the Hand of God.

For a lot more of these interesting works, look at our Smugmug Gallery starting around the 4th page of thumbnails.

After a pleasant lunch in the museum's open-air cafe we went back to the hotel to avoid the afternoon heat. About 5 we emerged to take a look at Gamla Stan (Old Town), the island where Stockholm began. We meant to see the cathedral, but we had misread the opening hours—it closed at 1400 hours on Saturday. So we wandered around taking pics of the crowded plaza,

Note people eating at tables on a raised platform. Remember that.

And the famously narrow alleys,

Backlit red hair, ok.

And an unexpected, cool and tranquil square.

For more shots of Gamla Stan including a cute sentry in back of the Royal Palace, see our Smugmug Gallery, starting around the 5th page of thumbnails..

So we found a table at a crowded cafe on the main square, which was now full of people listening to a band concert. We were seated at a table next to the edge of a raised platform. This picture was taken from that table.

We had shared our table with another tourist couple and were enjoying drinks, an appetizer and conversation, when Marian said, "My purse is gone!"

She had set it on the floor by her chair, next to the railing of the platform. Sometime in the preceding minutes, someone had walked past, picked up the purse, and kept walking.

This is upsetting, as you can imagine. We looked around and under the platform, we enlisted the waiters (whose only advice was, cancel the credit card right away), and finally we abandoned supper (the restaurant said "forget it" when we offered to pay for the appetizer and drinks) and headed "home" to the hotel.

The damage was not as bad as it might have been. Marian had no money in her purse, but she had lost her California driver's license, one of our two credit cards (she wasn't carrying the other, nor the ATM card), and most seriously, her passport.

The staff at the Radisson Blu were most helpful. They said we must make a police report, the embassy will want that. And dialed the police and introduced Marian on the phone to a detective who took her report.

Meanwhile David called the credit card company and cancelled the card. No unauthorized charges had been placed in the hour since it had been stolen.

In the room, Marian looked up the US Embassy web page about lost or stolen passports and found that,

• Not only did they want a police report made, they wanted a physical copy of it.
• They also want proof of ID, which can be a xerox of the lost passport. Here David earned major credit because exactly such passport xeroxes were in the back of the purple binder!
• They want passport photos, made to their very specific dimensional requirements.
• They are open 8-4 M-F only. (This was all happening on Saturday evening.)
• You must have an appointment which you can obtain online.
• But the appointment booking page offered no openings next week at all! and we are booked to fly home on Tuesday.
• However there was mention of emergency assistance when travel was imminent.

So now we set out to fulfill as many requirements as possible before 8am Monday. Took a cab to the police station to obtain a printed copy of the report. No problem, Stockholm police are calm and polite and helpful.

Back at the hotel, Marian discovered a two-year-old blog post by someone who said there was a passport photo machine somewhere in the Stockholm Central Station complex. That's next door! So we set out to find it in the complex hallways and escalators. And did! Tucked away in a corner behind a spiral staircase is a take-your-own-photo machine. All we needed was a credit card... oops. Our only card with a chip is now dead. Or, 100 Kroner in coins. OK, we have about 40, so we go to two 7-11 stores and talk the tired clerks (it is now about 11pm) out of enough change. And make the pictures!

So by midnight, 5 hours after the theft, we have the documents we need for the Embassy on Monday. Will they come through with a temporary passport in time for us to fly Tuesday? We don't know. Also, we've been using the "chip" credit card several times a day. Now our only money is cash from the ATM machine, and we can't buy anything such as a bus ticket from a vending machine. So we went to bed with a lot of uncertainty and angst. But there is still Sunday to get through before anything can be resolved.