We ended up having about two and a half days to ourselves after our business was done, and I'm ridiculously glad that we had that opportunity. Being able to explore on our own time was very much worth it, and I think we would have left unfulfilled otherwise.
Rory looks busy on the pre-dawn train to Arlanda
We did finally see the sun in Sweden; we were sitting on the tarmac at Arlanda at about 9:15am, and suddenly, the cabin of the plane was filled with an unfamiliar flood of radiation. For the first time in 5 days, the sky was clear, and a quick look out the plane window confirmed that that flood was indeed the sun peeking over the horizon. I basked in it for about 30 seconds and then we took off. So thanks for the appearance, Mr. Sun!
Start of the longest sunset ever
When flying east, the transition from day to night is easy to miss; the plane is on a collision course with the oncoming veil of darkness, and sunset is a nonevent. Flying west, however...
Several false sunsets later; still going strong
On this particular day, there was enough in the way of clouds and whatnot near our cruising altitude that I got treated to about two hours of discrete sunsets. The light would turn spectacular for a couple of minutes and die out, and then it'd come back a few minutes later for another show. At least four of them were extraordinary. I was impressed, and I'm sure my sleeping rowmate was not.
Now that I've wrapped this set of serial installments up, I'll spend some time getting current. For once, I feel like I've got a sufficient backlog of material to keep you vampires entertained.
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