Adventures in Sweden - an almost family holiday...
Our first trip outside of Belgium since we got here was to Sweden. Probably not a country that I would have put on my "must see immediately" list. Mostly, because I had no knowledge of anything there whatsoever. But there was an international conference in Stockholm that hubby had to attend. Hence the statement that this was an "almost " holiday, or in other words, our usual type of holiday where the family accompanies hubby as he attends conferences in interesting places. We did have 3 days after the conference finished to have some real family time and this was enough to feel slightly refreshed again.
Is it just me or is there something wrong with the fact that I could dedicate a whole post just to the journey there??? Surely, travelling places should just consist of: we left, we caught the plane, it was boring, we arrived? Some day I think we will have the luxury, just not this day....
Our trip to Sweden was somewhat complicated by the specific requirements for our travel arrangements. As hubby was working on the Friday and presenting papers at the conference on the Sunday, this left one single day to travel there. And lo and behold, what do you know? There are absolutely no (reasonably) priced flights from Brussels to Stockholm on Saturdays (or at least not this particular Saturday). And the majority of the flights that did go, went off somewhere else first (like Croatia or Switzerland) resulting in a 12 hour journey. After much research, I booked flights from Amsterdam, so that we caught the bullet train from Brussels to Amsterdam and then flew direct to Stockholm from there. All up a 3 hour trip. This was all straight forward and organised 3 weeks before the departure date (I must, I must, I must learn to be more organised, last minute bookings is not the way to go for stress free holiday management). To get to the train we were taking public transport and left the apartment at the designated time. I had not checked the bus/tram schedules and they were a little less frequent than I had thought on a Saturday morning, and then the bus was 3 minutes late (a big deal in the end). We had to be at the train to get on, 2 minutes before the proposed departure. I had originally laughed at this, how ridiculous, wouldn't 5 or 10 minutes be more appropriate? Well, we hurtled at top speed, 6 of us running with the two very mobile suitcases and arrived with 1 minute (literally) to spare. This is not an experience I would wish to repeat... missing this train would have meant, missing our flight, which potentially mean hubby missing his important conference presentation.
But here we are relaxing on the train trip:
Arriving at Schipol (Amsterdam), it turns out that I have unknowingly booked business class. A few minutes of confusion (and later we realise that there is no difference between the business and economy class on this flight except free food) and then we are offered to go hang out in the business class lounge. Yee ha!
I am not quite sure they knew what they were thinking when they offered that, but here are the Ponkies enjoying business class lounge.... For once the volume levels were appropriate in this deadly quiet space.
The flight itself was short- 1.5 hours and after the initial reactions of shock and disbelief from the kids that there was no inflight entertainment (accompanied by tears, gnashing of teeth and wails of "but what are we going to dooooooooooooooooooooooooo???") we all settled in well and made full use of the free food on offer. They, surprise, surprise, did manage to find something to do and did not die of boredom in the entire 90 minutes they had to stay seated. And they had messed up our seating so I was with the 4 little ones, and hubby was 2 rows ahead by himself so I was thankful the flight was so short. Peace, more or less, reigned until the descent process started. C again had ear pain (she burst her eardrum on the flight to Belgium) and she was not a happy camper, but the real disaster came from little S (4 years old). It started off with wails that her ears hurt. Yes I can completely sympathise as it can be very painful. Possibly she might have had a bit of a cold so this would have made it worst. Unfortunately, this pain appears to have triggered a chain reaction in her brain that caused it to go into some kind of uncontrollable, inconsolable, irrational domain and the wails continued to crescendo throughout the 20 minute descent. She shortly moved on from her ears, to shrieking that she wanted daddy (inconveniently seated 2 rows in front and across an aisle). After no joy from this request, she moved on to screaming "you're hurting me" while thrashing and writhing in her seat, eventually ending up with "you're choking me" at the top of her lungs. Presumably referring to the seatbelt that was dangling somewhere around her knees by this stage. I'm quite surprised I didn't get reported to some child protection agency with the accusations that were being hurled around. Of course the grand finale as we were just touching down - "I NEED TO GO TO THE TOILETTTTTTTT!!!". Deadly silence in the plane, I expect everyone was hoping beyond hope that she could find it within herself to hold on another 5 minutes... I have had my fair share of horror flight moments with small children, but I think this one, must just take the prize.
Finally we arrive at our apartment in Stockholm after 10 hours of travelling. The arrival at the apartment has its own semi disastrous story but I won't share it here - just to say that the owner of the apartment hung around for 2 hours after we arrived.. in the end everything worked out fine.
So onto more pleasant matters- Stockholm is actually just lovely! Some sightseeing I did with just the kids (during the conference) and some we did as a family. Some things worked out well, but others (like the hopon/off bus) were not quite as good as I had expected (not because they weren't good attractions, more that I was doing it alone without another adult present to help steer the wandering children).
Our first adventure I highly recommend for anyone going to Stockholm with children. It is a kids paradise and you can spend the entire day here. It is called Junibacken - and is the home of Pippi Longstockings. Here are a few photos although my iphone camera does not do the place justice.There were 3 play areas and a story train. An absolutely fantastic place to let the imagination go wild....... And a cafe with, as we were to discover fairly quickly, the standard swedish fare- swedish meatballs (a la IKEA) and pancakes (crepes) served with jam and cream.
Of course, we purchased a pippi longstockings book which the older two have been loving since coming home. I will post the next lot of Swedish adventures in the next post.
Is it just me or is there something wrong with the fact that I could dedicate a whole post just to the journey there??? Surely, travelling places should just consist of: we left, we caught the plane, it was boring, we arrived? Some day I think we will have the luxury, just not this day....
Our trip to Sweden was somewhat complicated by the specific requirements for our travel arrangements. As hubby was working on the Friday and presenting papers at the conference on the Sunday, this left one single day to travel there. And lo and behold, what do you know? There are absolutely no (reasonably) priced flights from Brussels to Stockholm on Saturdays (or at least not this particular Saturday). And the majority of the flights that did go, went off somewhere else first (like Croatia or Switzerland) resulting in a 12 hour journey. After much research, I booked flights from Amsterdam, so that we caught the bullet train from Brussels to Amsterdam and then flew direct to Stockholm from there. All up a 3 hour trip. This was all straight forward and organised 3 weeks before the departure date (I must, I must, I must learn to be more organised, last minute bookings is not the way to go for stress free holiday management). To get to the train we were taking public transport and left the apartment at the designated time. I had not checked the bus/tram schedules and they were a little less frequent than I had thought on a Saturday morning, and then the bus was 3 minutes late (a big deal in the end). We had to be at the train to get on, 2 minutes before the proposed departure. I had originally laughed at this, how ridiculous, wouldn't 5 or 10 minutes be more appropriate? Well, we hurtled at top speed, 6 of us running with the two very mobile suitcases and arrived with 1 minute (literally) to spare. This is not an experience I would wish to repeat... missing this train would have meant, missing our flight, which potentially mean hubby missing his important conference presentation.
But here we are relaxing on the train trip:
Arriving at Schipol (Amsterdam), it turns out that I have unknowingly booked business class. A few minutes of confusion (and later we realise that there is no difference between the business and economy class on this flight except free food) and then we are offered to go hang out in the business class lounge. Yee ha!
I am not quite sure they knew what they were thinking when they offered that, but here are the Ponkies enjoying business class lounge.... For once the volume levels were appropriate in this deadly quiet space.
The flight itself was short- 1.5 hours and after the initial reactions of shock and disbelief from the kids that there was no inflight entertainment (accompanied by tears, gnashing of teeth and wails of "but what are we going to dooooooooooooooooooooooooo???") we all settled in well and made full use of the free food on offer. They, surprise, surprise, did manage to find something to do and did not die of boredom in the entire 90 minutes they had to stay seated. And they had messed up our seating so I was with the 4 little ones, and hubby was 2 rows ahead by himself so I was thankful the flight was so short. Peace, more or less, reigned until the descent process started. C again had ear pain (she burst her eardrum on the flight to Belgium) and she was not a happy camper, but the real disaster came from little S (4 years old). It started off with wails that her ears hurt. Yes I can completely sympathise as it can be very painful. Possibly she might have had a bit of a cold so this would have made it worst. Unfortunately, this pain appears to have triggered a chain reaction in her brain that caused it to go into some kind of uncontrollable, inconsolable, irrational domain and the wails continued to crescendo throughout the 20 minute descent. She shortly moved on from her ears, to shrieking that she wanted daddy (inconveniently seated 2 rows in front and across an aisle). After no joy from this request, she moved on to screaming "you're hurting me" while thrashing and writhing in her seat, eventually ending up with "you're choking me" at the top of her lungs. Presumably referring to the seatbelt that was dangling somewhere around her knees by this stage. I'm quite surprised I didn't get reported to some child protection agency with the accusations that were being hurled around. Of course the grand finale as we were just touching down - "I NEED TO GO TO THE TOILETTTTTTTT!!!". Deadly silence in the plane, I expect everyone was hoping beyond hope that she could find it within herself to hold on another 5 minutes... I have had my fair share of horror flight moments with small children, but I think this one, must just take the prize.
Finally we arrive at our apartment in Stockholm after 10 hours of travelling. The arrival at the apartment has its own semi disastrous story but I won't share it here - just to say that the owner of the apartment hung around for 2 hours after we arrived.. in the end everything worked out fine.
So onto more pleasant matters- Stockholm is actually just lovely! Some sightseeing I did with just the kids (during the conference) and some we did as a family. Some things worked out well, but others (like the hopon/off bus) were not quite as good as I had expected (not because they weren't good attractions, more that I was doing it alone without another adult present to help steer the wandering children).
Our first adventure I highly recommend for anyone going to Stockholm with children. It is a kids paradise and you can spend the entire day here. It is called Junibacken - and is the home of Pippi Longstockings. Here are a few photos although my iphone camera does not do the place justice.There were 3 play areas and a story train. An absolutely fantastic place to let the imagination go wild....... And a cafe with, as we were to discover fairly quickly, the standard swedish fare- swedish meatballs (a la IKEA) and pancakes (crepes) served with jam and cream.
Of course, we purchased a pippi longstockings book which the older two have been loving since coming home. I will post the next lot of Swedish adventures in the next post.
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