Day 15: Stockholm to Hawaii

Since we had an early morning flight out of Stockholm, Viking opened the World Cafe at 5:30 AM for breakfast. This was greatly appreciated by everybody leaving the ship early like we were.

Our last breakfast with our travel buddies was really wonderful and we thanked the servers who were so kind to us every single day. It was interesting that out of 600 passengers there were only about a dozen Asian Americans and no other minorities. And out of that dozen Asian Americans, there were only six of us from Hawaii. I imagine most people from Hawaii would also NOT enjoy the long, long travel time.

We boarded the bus that would take us to Stockholm's Arlanda Airport. However, there was a moment of anxiety when our bus driver did not seem to know where departing passengers should be let off. Apparently, it was her first time driving to the airport.

Sigh.... If I hear even one comment about women drivers, I am not going to be happy.

Whatever the case, our travel buddy, Cal intuitively seemed to know what to do and directed our driver to the location where we should be dropped off. That was pretty amazing to me since he'd never been to this airport.

When we checked in, we were asked to present the PCR test (that Viking provided for us) as well as a record of all our vaccinations.

After we boarded our KLM flight to Amsterdam, the pilot informed us that there might be a half hour delay or more due to high winds. 

But... but... but... We had only an hour and a half lay-over in Amsterdam to board our flight to Vancouver. Noooo.... This couldn't be happening again like it did when the flight was cancelled in Hawaii going to San Francisco. Could it? 

Ten minutes later, the pilot notified everyone that the winds had died down and we could take off. Another section of the remaining dark hair on my head had turned white.

We ate a left over cookie from the Viking ship. Food on the KLM flight was full of carbs so I abstained from eating it. Granted if it was gelato, I might not have been so picky. 

We got to Amsterdam without further incident and caught our next 9 hour leg to Vancouver.

I watched: Spiderman: No Way Home (It was OK.), Harriet (I enjoyed this one about Harriet Tubman.), Cats (I can see why they made fun of this movie.), and West Side Story (I enjoyed this remake by Steven Spielberg).

When we got to Vancouver, we had to wait to make sure our luggage was transferred from the KLM jet to West Jet Airlines (to Hawaii). There was a monitor in Vancouver to indicate if our luggage had made the transfer from KLM to West Jet. 

Would you believe my luggage was the ONLY one that SOMEHOW didn't get transferred?!? I swear my suitcase is cursed. This is the 3rd time they almost lost it! Or is it the 4th? Whatever the case, I had to tell them what it looked like so they could find it and transfer it to West Jet. 

Before boarding the plane we had to again show results of our Viking PCR test and a list of our vaccinations.

There were no movies on the West Jet Airlines and the flight was 6 hours long. The masking rules were very strict. If you wanted to eat something, you needed to remove your mask, take a bite, put up your mask and chew. Actually, we were feeling reassured by that.

We sat next to a girl from Germany and I gave her my window seat as we neared Hawaii. She saw us at Honolulu airport and offered to take the last of our Travel Buddies photos. 

It would take most of us over a week to get our circadian sleep cycle regulated to Hawaiian time and feel normal again. Terry and Craig somehow quickly adjusted to their home sleep schedule. I'm so jealous.

We all tested ourselves a few days later and were negative for COVID. Art and I even got PCR tests from CVS just to make sure we were really, really negative. We were. Phew!

We were all together at tai chi recently and Terry said, "I'd love to go to England."