We flew from Warsaw to Stockholm on Baltic Air.
A little piece of advice - never fly Baltic Air. They are ridiculous. After rocking up at the counter to check-in we found out it is mandatory to check-in online and that it would cost us ten Euros each if we wanted them to check us in. So, we stepped away to login to the airport wi-fi and check-in. However, then we discover the wi-fi requires a code to sign you in that you get off your boarding pass which, of course, we can't get UNTIL we check-in! Back to the counter we go resigned to the fact that we're going to have to pay the ten Euros each. Then we're told they don't accept payments at the check-in counter and that they will check us in, but hold onto our boarding pass at the desk until we pay, and for that we must go to the other end of the airport where the airline admin offices are, pay the money and return to collect our boarding passes, all whilst still carrying our luggage. When we reach the admin office, we find the one and only admin lady is currently swamped trying to sort out a flight cancellation for a group of three families travelling together with about eight young children, as well as another guy off our flight waiting for the same reason as us. Before long, another eight or nine people have lined up behind us for the exact same reason. Time ticks by and pretty soon we are only an hour out of flight time, half an hour before boarding and the admin lady is still sorting out the three families with cancelled flights. Meanwhile, we still have to get back, drop our bags, pick up our boarding passes, get through passport control and security, along with about half the flight who have lined up behind us in the last hour and a half. Ben even went back and explained to the people at the check-in desk what was going on but was turned away and told to go back and wait. That was most definately a close call but we made it on the flight at the last minute, throuroughly unimpressed.
Anyway, now my rant is over, on with Sweden!
We arrived in Sweden late on Day 34. The airport is outside of Stockholm so we bought tickets on the express train into town. We lucked out when we arrived and found our hotel was right on top of the main train station.
Stockholm is a rather unique city, its built on a bunch of islands with bridges joining them all. Early on Day 35, we ran across Gamla Stan, the old town island to complete our first essential mission - sourcing somewhere for Ben to watch the rugby. We scoped out an Irish Pub and made a booking for dinner and the game that night. As we arrived back at our hotel we lucked out and found we were right next to one of the Hop-on, Hop-off bus stops, so after showers and a gourmet three course breakfast in the hotel we set out on the bus to explore.
We rode the bus around town to get our bearings then headed out to Skansen - an open air museum and zoo, for the afternoon. The museum has old fashioned stores where the bake fresh breads and pastries, blow glass and work metal etc. allowing you to go in and watch and buy samples and souvenirs of all the hand-made traditional items. The zoo has a lot of northern European animals like wolves, reindeer and moose!!
From there we headed back to explore the old alleyways of Gamla Stan. The alleys are filled with souvenir shops which I discovered had all things moose related! I picked up a few souvernirs, including a moose umbrella, then we headed into the Irish Pub for dinner and the big game - a win for the Brumbies in their semi-final!
On Day 36, we spent a few more hours exploring the city before catching the train back out to the airport for another awful Baltic Air experience as we flew on to Finland.
