![\"\"](\"http:\/\/apresmidi.net\/europe2022\/log\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hallway-768x1024.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFriday, August 12<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Friday was full. \u00a0We went to a Konditori for breakfast. \u00a0I bought some post cards at a second hand shop across\u00a0the street from Motel Hell. \u00a0Our friend David and his familiar, Isabelle, got us at noon and took us downtown where we\u00a0sat for a long time at a vegan cafe. \u00a0It was not accessible at all. \u00a0No restaurant aspiring to the hip status of\u00a0veganism in the states would be so insensitive to the needs of tall people walking with a cane. \u00a0Wouldn’t be legal,\u00a0for a start. \u00a0The bathrooms were up a long flight of stairs, and the stairs came with a warning against tall\u00a0people. \u00a0The seating area had stairs all over and then a jackhammer started up. \u00a0Dave walked to a DHL to mail the\u00a0Tesla key back to Brian, and was not successful. We drove to a Mailboxes Etc. and waited in the car while he did that, with better results, then\u00a0to Isabella’s uncle’s leather workshop where I got some gay post cards, free. \u00a0Then to a park where we all wheeled\u00a0David up a hill and back down and then to our friend Tim’s house. \u00a0The roads were not as Google thought. \u00a0A large apartment\u00a0complex is being built immediately west of his house. \u00a0Cousin Hans and his wife Lena joined us there. \u00a0David left\u00a0early for a long drive to G\u00e4vle. \u00a0Isabelle stayed much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not a whole lot of genealogical talk. \u00a0Hans told the story of his job in the Grand Hotel as a young servant, asked\u00a0to bring champagne to Madonna’s room \u2014 he stepped out of the elevator just as her entourage passed, and landed\u00a0between her and her bodyguards. \u00a0They were not happy with him. \u00a0He also said the Rolling Stones partied extremely\u00a0hard even though they were in their 50’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tim made tacos, including tortillas by hand since all you get here is flour tortillas but you can buy masa. \u00a0Tim’s take on why Sweden did not make a big deal out of Covid was that they were not afraid their hospitals would\u00a0be overwhelmed. \u00a0They had enough bed space: they converted some wards to Covid, built some tent hospitals, but didn’t\u00a0end up using them. The US operates with much less margin, and if the outbreak had spread the way it threatened\u00a0to, people would have been dying in the streets. \u00a0Also, Sweden has enough social net that people don’t have to\u00a0starve if they stay home from work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We walked to the train station before it was too dark, past all the construction. There seemed to be a lot of parties happening. School begins soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saturday, August 13<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Traveling always takes the whole day. \u00a0We left the hotel before noon, got to Batroun near midnight. \u00a0Nothing went\u00a0particularly wrong, except we took the train away from Stockholm Central one stop before realizing it was the wrong\u00a0direction, and we stayed too long at the SAS+ lounge and got worried in a long, slow passport line (but one of the\u00a0other officers let us go in his EU line, when all his other customers were done).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why we were in the SAS lounge is a mystery. \u00a0It just showed up in our boarding pass, that we were SAS+ and had fast\u00a0entry to everything except leaving Schengen. \u00a0Seats 2A and 2B. \u00a0Maybe they want to get us addicted to that sort of\u00a0travel. \u00a0Premium mediocre buffet food, hold the premium. The experience is only arguably premium to the extent that\u00a0the boarding pass scanner \u2014 not even a guy at the velvet rope! \u2014 allows us into the lounge (but not the “gold”\u00a0lounge, which looked the same as “+”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cloudy weather most of the way. \u00a0Glimpses of Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. It cleared up off the coast of Antalya.\u00a0\u00a0The flight path avoided Kaliningrad and Belarus and Ukraine. \u00a0GPS failed as we descended into Beirut. \u00a0It had been\u00a0working so well \u2014 I lock it into the window using the window shade, to give it the best view of satellites \u2014 I\u00a0almost suspect the Israelis, Hezbollah, Russia, Lebanon, SAS of jamming on purpose, to prevent any GPS triggered\u00a0terrorist actions on the ground or in the air. \u00a0But GPS fails a lot on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flying over, you realize how many places you’ll never go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday, August 11 We flew to Stockholm. \u00a0Travel always takes the whole day. \u00a0At the tail end of it, we went out with my\u00a0long lost third cousin once removed Pia. \u00a0We spoke of things that happened in the 19th century and ate at a kind of\u00a0Thai street food place in S\u00f6dermalm. \u00a0(Our hotel\u00a0stood in \u00c4lvsj\u00f6, … Continue reading Unaccessible<\/span>