Travel Joy, Again

Mariestad is a fair distance, some 320 kilometers, from our departing airport.  Because of this, just getting to the airport was a major part of the travel.  Christer drove us to the train station where we bought our tickets.  While waiting for the train we got to take a ride on the worlds smallest ferry, moved by the operator pulling a rope and at a cost of 1 krona round trip.  (The girl "operating" it had some big arms. -Eric)  We then caught our train, which was a pleasant one our journey.  The train took us back to Orebro, where we caught our bus.  The last bus ride was crowded and hot, so I feared this would be a 3 hour variety of the same.  Thankfully, though, this was a dedicated airport shuttle, which only had about 10 people on it and was completely air conditioned.  We got to Arlanda airport in Stockholm; security wasn't an issue this time but the food selection was less than desirable.  (Actually there were 2 security checkpoints. The first was normal but then after a few stores there was another checkpoints that just checked our tickets and passports. The airport had very few interesting stores at all, and all the restaurants were basically just cafes. -Eric)  Finally around 6:30 we were taxing down the runway.  I was starving already, and the flight attendants finally came with the food.  It was tuna sandwiches, yuck.  So we starved for the rest of the 2 hour flight, landed, and met Doug at the airport.  We finally got back to the house around 9:30, and were about to settle down when we got a call about a party.  We couldn't turn down the chance to meet more people, (And get some barbecued food -Eric)  so off we went and arrived around 10.  We met about 8 people we didn't know from around the area, and were able to make plans for service later.  Finally around 11:30 we drug our weary bodies home and fell into bed.