AirSpaceMag.com

I was in Stockholm for New Year’s Day and I had never been in Sweden before. It’s still kind of cool to visit a new place, and I think Stockholm is a city I’d like to see a lot more of.

Snow covered ramp in Stockholm

Knowing that it’s located far to the north, I checked the times for local sunrise and sunset before leaving on my trip. We were only going to have about six hours of daylight, with sunset before 3 p.m. Also, the high temperature was forecast to be 25°F.

As you might expect, we found a snow-blanketed countryside when we arrived. The runway was clear, but there was snow and ice on the taxiways and ramp areas. It was just a little slower taxi to the gate, but no problem. We were all surprised to find lots of snow on the roads during our ride to the hotel. These road conditions would bring Washington D.C. to a standstill, but it didn’t seem to affect traffic flow in Sweden.

A little too cold for a long walking tour

I was told that the Vasa Museum would be an interesting place to visit, but it’s closed on New Year’s Day, so it’ll have to wait until next time. This trip I settled for a short walking tour of the immediate area, limited by how long I could stand the cold. Unfortunately it’s hard to pack heavy winter clothing, and a sweatshirt just isn’t up to the Nordic cold.

Footnote to the trip: I nearly missed our pickup time because my iPhone’s alarm didn’t go off. I’ve been using this as my sole alarm for over a year now, and I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. On the ride to the airport, I tried the alarm over and over again. It felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until the day after I got back that I found that Apple had some kind of weird New Year’s Day bug that caused the problem. I guess it’s back to setting multiple alarms from now on.