Onion River Exploration Project: Star Alliance

Star Alliance

Day 9 (8/8/2010) Day 1 Baltic Sea Adventure

So far so good, except for the mandatory sleepless night, the night before, everything seems to be going smoothly. We got to the airport 3 hours early. We had taken off from Cedar Grove early because we really had no reason to stay home. We had everything ready and thought our time was better served stopping for breakfast and getting to the airport early in case of any unforeseen situations. It rained most of the way to Chicago but now it looks like the sun is coming out. According to the sign above the desk it looks like our flight to Stockholm is on time. The airport, at this point is quite quiet. I took a picture of the plane and noticed that the name of it is the “Star Alliance”, kind of sounds like something out Star Wars. Eileen pointed out that we have this Star theme going, our ship is the “Star Princess”.

Eileen at the Airport

We have been in the air now about an hour. Unlike our first trip to Scandinavia, everything is on schedule. The plane has a really cool interactive mapping system so you can watch where you are going. We are about to pass north of Toronto at 35000 feet. Our air speed is 624 mph and it is -54 degrees outside. You can also camera down to watch the ground or camera forward to see what the pilot must see. We are about to pass over the Madawaska Highlands. They are starting to serve food so for now I will take a break.

Dinner is served. For airplane food it was wonderful. We had the chicken which was quite tasty. Of course it came with a nice Chilean Carmenere which may have added to the overall lusciousness. There was also a nice roll, some brie and I am guessing a cheese cake which I am saving for later. We are currently following up the Hudson Bay and still have six hours to go to get to Stockholm. Then we will have to catch another flight to take us to Copenhagen. They are coming around with the coffee which smells delicious but I am going to have to pass and try to get some sleep. We still have a long trip ahead of us.

Airline Food

It is morning and we are passing over Norway. It is 11:30pm there but 6:30am here. They just passed out breakfast. After seven plus hours of sitting it was a little rough to handle. I did have some coffee though and that was good. Unfortunately as hard as I tried I couldn’t get any sleep. With our lack of sleep last night I am starting to look forward to a shower and a nice cozy bed. It will be nice to get off this plane and walk around a little even though we still have the short flight to Copenhagen and have to find our hotel. We have less than an hour left so we should be starting our descent soon.

Our first Hotel

We have landed and now sitting in Stockholm airport. Apparently they don’t believe in air conditioning because it is super hot and super humid. It is 8:30am now there time and the plane leaves at 10:00 so we will have some time to chilax.

Except for being dog tired, the next leg of the journey went well after we finally got a pilot. I am not sure what happened since most of the discussion was in Swedish, but apparently the pilot didn’t make it on time so we took off a little late. In spite of that we arrived a little early in Copenhagen. After getting our luggage and a taxi we made it to our hotel. To be honest as soon as we got in the room we cleaned up and took a nap.

It is hard to say were one day ends and the next starts when your life doesn’t stop and time is such a relative thing. I thought about starting a new day after our nap but decided I would just cram it in with day 1. Tomorrow I will try to get back on track when we indeed have days that have definition. After our nap we went for walk around Copenhagen. The first thing you notice is the bike traffic. Not only are there huge numbers of bicycles but huge varieties. There were an infinite number of baby carriers alone, everything from covered ones to haulers that could carry an entire family. Like most old European countries Copenhagen is an interesting mix of old and new architecture. There seems to be work going on everywhere. Copenhagen seems much more cosmopolitan than the cities in Norway. It has an interesting mix of cultures. Copenhagen has a amusement park right in the heart of their city center. If we had more time and money we probably would have gone mostly because of one ride that spins you in swing as raises over the city. Tomorrow it is off to the ship.