Sunday, July 28, 2019: Day 9; Way Home

We got up at 3:30 am this morning so that we could meet our ride to the airport at 4:45 am. It never gets really dark here in Stockholm during the summer. The light level at 3:30 am is essentially twilight.

Stockholm at 3:30 am

The trip to the airport was relaxing. We three were the only passengers.

We arrived at the Stockholm Arlanda airport at 5:45 am. It was virtually deserted. We got through checking our luggage and going through security with over an hour before our scheduled boarding time. We found the BA lounge...which was uncomfortably warm and offered little by the way of breakfast.

The flight from Stockholm to London Heathrow (LHR) was delayed slightly but arrived ahead of schedule. Thankfully, we did not have to collect our checked baggage, but when through security again and found the BA lounge (North one as there is both a North and South). This lounge is not only much cooler but is fully stocked with meals and liquor.

Our flight from LHR to IAH was supposed to depart at 14:45 hours, but according to the board, the scheduled departure has been delayed until 15:10 hours. One the bright side, the departure time has not increased since we got to the lounge a couple of hours ago. Our original ETA in Houston was 6:35 pm. We will see how this delay impacts that ETA.

We arrived around 7:00 pm local time at IAH. We had no problem with Immigration (thank you Global Entry) or Customs. We reclaimed our luggage, found the parking shuttle and drove to LC, arriving about 9:00 pm. We found no damage to the bottles of Grey Goose, Marker's Mark, or Glenmorangie that we lifted from our Seabourn suite as souvenirs.

Everyone seemed pleased with the gifts we came home with...the Hard Rock shirts from both Copenhagen and Stockholm, the Estonian chocolates, the St. Petersburg egg, and the caviar I got for Maxine in London. I will drop it off at her place on the way home Tuesday morning.

Came home with very little foreign currency. In fact, I only have a Portuguese cork pouch of Euro coins. This despite the fact that, of the eight countries visited on the trips, only Italy, Estonia and Finland use the Euro. The others were: Swiss franc, Danish Kroner, Russian ruble, Swedish krona, UK Pound sterling. While we used credit cards extensively, we found no one who was not willing to take Euros or US Dollars. We gave Maggie, our Seabourn suite stewardess, our last 100 CHF (Swiss franc) bill.