The Long Flight Over

I will cover two quick topics in my first post. The first is the trip over for Elizabeth, the boys and Chapel and the second will be public transportation.

Elizabeth arrived last Saturday afternoon at about 3:00 PM local time. The trip from Atlanta takes about 11 hours to Amsterdam. There is a 4 hour layover in the Schipol Airport and then its another 2 hours to Stockholm. That is a long day period. If you are bringing two kids (under 5) and the family dog, then its a really, really long day.

I was waiting for them to arrive at the Stockholm Arlanda airport.

Side note: I was attempting to use my new Garmin GPS system to navigate my way to the airport. Since the airport is the one place I actually know how to get to, it was really more of a test drive. Frustratingly the GPS kept telling me to get off the highway and take various exits along the way. Of course I start talking to the GPS...or yelling is more accurate: "WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME TO EXIT! THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO THE AIRPORT!! YOU CALL YOURSELF A NAVIGATION SYSTEM - YOU COULDN'T NAVIGATE YOUR WAY OUT OF A WET PAPER BAG!

Once I arrive at the airport, I park and walk into the terminal. Of course I am in the wrong terminal, which means I am parked in the wrong place. I look at my watch and realize Elizabeth and the kids are landing at any minute. Now you guys already know that having your wife fly for darn near 20 hours with two small children and a dog does not score you any points. My ONE AND ONLY job is to be anxiously awaiting their arrival at the gate and apparently I am about to screew that up.

So...I RUN back to my parking space and pull out of the area. I try to pay for parking, but the machine keeps spitting the ticket back at me and saying something in Swedish gibberish. I look at my watch again and realize that I am in serious danger of spending the next week sleeping on the couch. Finally I see a call button and mange to get some instructions from the attendant....I am now out of parking jail and back on the road.

I make it to the terminal and luckily have some time to spare. My friend Jesper shows up to help with the transportation back to our apartment and we continue to wait. First out of the terminal is of course William. He looks like he just woke up and appears perfectly fine. "How are you doing, " I asked William. "Fine!" he replies and he really does seem fine.

Chapel is also looking pretty good and other than barking at the nice airport lady that is helping us push the luggage, he seems great.

Elizabeth and Davis on the other hand are smiling, but clearly tired. Any of you that know Elizabeth understand that she rarely gets tired. Nothing like 20 hours of travel to put that to the test!