Sweden - Day 13

March 23, 2008 - EASTER SUNDAY - Goteborg, Frankfurt, Chicago, Syracuse, Gananoque!!!

This is the first Easter Sunday in 57 years that I have not been in Grace Church, Gananoque.

We got a cab to Landvetter Airport this morning after our last breakfast at Hotel Lorensburg and appeared to be the only people at the airport. We checked in our luggage and got our boarding passes for the Goteborg-Frankfurt leg of our trip. The Scandinavian agent couldn't give us boarding passes right through to Syracuse because the other two flights (Frankfurt-Chicago and Chicago-Syracuse) were with American Airlines, so we were instructed to check in at the American counter in Frankfurt. We seemed to be the only travellers on that flight that had to do so, but we dutifully went to the counter. We're all for anything that ensures that the people on our plane (including us!) are legitimately there.

Now - I realize that everybody has a 'first day on the job' at some point in their life; but the girl at the American counter in Frankfurt was decidedly incompetent. We had to present receipts for our hotel in Goteborg, answer endless questions about our whereabouts and activities for the past two weeks, recite our in-laws' shoe size, etc. etc. etc. and she still couldn't really comprehend our travel plan - to fly to Chicago, then to Syracuse and get in our car and drive home to Canada (1 1/2 hours from Syracuse). When she asked for the receipt for parking in Syracuse (don't you leave that on the dash like EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD?) we'd had about enough. It was especially stressful because they had been calling our Frankfurt-Chicago flight for quite some time. Meanwhile, to go to the American counter we had to go out of the secure area so we had to go through security again before we could go to the gate. We did make the flight, but barely and it was not without a lot of unnecessary stress and frustration.

Our assigned seats were not those we had chosen on-line long before we left Canada two weeks ago, but we didn't complain since they had seated the four of us in a block of six seats with an empty seat between each pair.

The Chicago-Syracuse flight was pretty routine - the plane seemed like a paper-towel tube after the 767 from Frankfurt. Our captain on this flight, according to the flight attendant, is one of only a few female captains.

Believe it or not, our luggage came down the chute in Syracuse just like it had in Goteborg and Chicago. I don't know whose luggage it is that they're constantly losing (oh yeah - Brent Bommentre's) but it wasn't ours this time around. The highway trip home was pretty snoozy - gas seemed quite a bargain in Watertown - and Canada Customs welcomed us back home.

Hard to believe, hitting the sack in Gananoque Sunday night, that we had breakfast in Goteborg, Sweden that same morning.

Suitcases are now unpacked but not put away. We're already looking forward to our next foray into the world of travel. Think, maybe, we'll fly out of Canada, though ....