European Vacation 2016 - June 9th and 10th

Another great adventure with my son Sam begins again - this time overseas.  Going to hit several destinations by plane and train...our most extensive yet.  First however, we have to get there... 

Might as well blend in these two dates since that's what the time difference did anyhows.  LONG day of travel started with my sister and Jerry picking us up and driving us to O'Hare.  In typical me fashion I forgot something and had to drive back.  We finally got on the road and arrived at the airport - with five hours to kill.  Lovely.

The first flight took us to Stockholm on SAS, and then a connecting flight to London.  It was cheaper this way, but really taxing on the body - well at least mine (started the trip with a bit of a bad back). Our time in Stockholm was interesting.  Had to have security check for just us since we were the only ones from the flight going to London.  This grumpy Swede did the honors, and was quite through about it.  

Once past him we waited a bit more, then boarded the packed plane and waited some more, then flew out to only circle London waiting to land.  Get the theme?  Finally did, and caught a subway - or tube ride to my relative Roma's borough of West Finchley.  That took another hour plus.  When we finally arrived I tried to buy a sim card to contact her, to no avail.  Finally just used a cell phone from a shop owner nearby and then Roma's son Toby came by to whisk us away.

We finally arrived at Roma's at about 8pm London time, a good 20 plus hours after we left Crown Point.  Had a great dinner with her and meet with her friend Alison.  Afterwords settled in for the night with spotty sleep - at least the bed and view from the bedroom was nice :)