Anxious Moments on Our Way to Stockholm

Don’t worry! The anxious moments were on the ground, not in the air! But I’ll get to those later. 

Tim and I left Loveland shortly after lunch yesterday, headed to Denver International Airport. Tim dropped me off with the luggage while he went to park the car. 

One of the first things I realized when I went to check in is that there are no special benefits on the ground for premium economy passengers. We could not get in line with the business class folks, nor could we use the airport lounge. Oh well, at least our seats on the plane would be better than those in economy. 

As we boarded the plane, I almost drooled as I walked past the lie-flat business class seats. Our seats were fine, certainly larger and more private than regular economy. Trying to sleep, however, was not much better for me. Although Tim can sleep anywhere, I simply cannot sleep sitting up. 

Because we were late leaving Denver, our arrival in London was also late. I wasn’t too worried about our connection since we had two hours. Unfortunately, the lines seemed to go on forever, especially the security line, and I began to worry that we might not make our next flight. And, of course, the gate for that flight was at the other end of the terminal. 

Tim and I ran to the gate and were so relieved that the gate agent had held the plane for us. We were the last to board, and I tried to ignore the looks we received as we tried to find a place to stash our luggage. 

What caused me just as much stress is that I had discovered a text message from Welcome Pickups cancelling our ride from the airport into Stockholm. Great! I had done very little research on other options for getting into town. I only hoped that someone at the Stockholm airport might be able to point us in the right direction. 

Luckily, that’s exactly what happened. We passed a kiosk for the Arlanda Express, and the friendly staff assured us that this option would the easiest and fastest. We took them at their word, bought tickets, and boarded the waiting train. They were right. Taking the train was easy and fast, and we arrived at Stockholm Central Station in about 18 minutes. 

Arlanda Express (Photo Courtesy of Tripadvisor.com)

Because of our luggage, we opted to take a taxi to the hotel, and we only waited a few minutes for one. The ride was fairly short, but we did see a tiny bit of Stockholm on the way. We arrived at our hotel in one piece and were very happy to settle in.