Alexandralms Travels

AIRPORT BLOG

Hello!

I woke up this morning ready to have an adventure. Russia was in the air, I could smell it. My mom wanted to take me to breakfast so I proceeded to get dressed. I went to the area where I had neatly set out my clothes for the trip and **GASP** the sweatshirt I was planning to wear on the plane was not amongst them. This is a HUGE problem, esp when it is your boyfriend’s sweatshirt and you have just finished telling him that it alone is capable of protecting you from your fear of planes and from the planes themselves.

My mom and I search the house and I am freaking out, and I know I am doomed if I do not find it. Eventually through correspondence with Emily, I found out it was in my mother’s car, which Emily had at work with her that day because my mom and her had switched cars in order to accommodate for my large suitcases. We got it from Emily and things were back to normal. First problem solved.

Leaving B/ham was really sad. I started crying a little as I was pulling out of my street and then opened the flood gates when I saw my momma was getting teary too. I am a tough chica, but it was so overwhelming knowing that I would not see these every day sights for a year, and hang out with momma. We pulled up to the airport and a really nice worker there helped me get my suitcases onto a cart. Then he told mom that it was time to leave and tears happened again. LOVE YOU MOM. But the man was really nice about it and didn’t make a big deal. He delivered me right to the check in, and passed me off to the man at the kiosk.

He was an EVIL man. He looked at my luggage and immediately decided they were over the weight limit. We weighed them and one was over 50lbs. He started checking me in on the kiosk thing an instructed me to balance the weight. Not a big deal except he did not attempt to hide the fact that he was very frustrated that it was taking so long, when it was obvious everything was packed with precision that he HAD to interrupt. Also I was pretty much half crying so that was cool. I ended up switching a pair of boots and a fuzzy purse and thought I was good to go. Then he asked me if I had my boarding passes, and I didn’t because I was looking at the suitcase fiasco. He kept saying, “I thought YOU would know to grab your boarding passes…” But they never printed because apparently I was flagged on their computer screen for not having a return flight and could be denied entry into Russia. He started talking down to me about how unsmart I was for not having a return flight and he’d see me back in the US in a few days. I was worried, but already frustrated from the earlier exchange so I told them that I had been planning this for a year and working with an agency and that my student visa had to be converted into a longer one once I was there bla bla bla… Then they printed my boarding passes with a sigh that I am sure resonated in Russia without a return flight.

Long story short, I frantically bought internet at the DET airport and got the number to contact the head of my program and she told me that they don’t know what they are talking about because there are 34254234213 types of Russian visas and only tourist visas need a return plane ticket. So I am not worried. But she also told me on the phone that she thinks we will have an apartment to go to when we get there! WEeeeee! A home!!! It is going to be fun filling out those landing forms not having an address to put down…

So now I am in the STOCKHOLM airport, the internet I bought in DET magically works here. The flight out of detroit was chill, and the flight from Chicago to here wasn’t bad either. It was funny, Liz and I were REALLY excited at first, giggling about everything and having fun looking through the plane’s exterior cameras to spy on the runway workers. Then we got bored because we sat on the runway for a while, with nothing interesting on the cameras and our own electronics on lockdown. The flight was cool though with those screens behind the seat where you can play games LIKE TETRIS for hours. There are movies too but I had no interest. The food was mediocre but Liz and I both had two glasses of wine and got a little giggly for ten minutes and then slept. Or tried to.

Stockholm airport is MODERN and the people who work here zip around on green scooters just because. They are not motorized, they are just awesome. I saw someone spill a plate full of baked goods, that was funny. I now have 4232123 hours until Russia flight.

Also I forgot to call my credit cards.

Alexandralms flies out of DETROIT

Also for some reason my name on all my documents are “ALEXANDRALMS.” I think the cheap airfare company I booked through put my middle initial and the MS. part together to create that gem. Welp, Alexandralms is on the move.