Summer on Bikes

After 3 weeks in Sweden, which was at least one week longer than originally planned, we hopped on a train from Malmo (in southeast Sweden) to Copenhagen, Denmark. We’d heard that most trains in Sweden don’t take bikes, but this wasn’t the case for us: it proved to be no problem to show up at the train station and have tickets for the next train to Copenhagen, a regional train that made a few stops along the way, but was pure high-speed amazement to people who had only been traveling by bike for almost a month.

We hadn’t been in a moving vehicle since leaving the States and being on a train threw me off: I had an intense feeling that we were leaving something behind and moving much too fast to ever get it back.

When we arrived in Copenhagen, Chris and I were overwhelmed. It was late in the day (our day started with catching a ferry off an island before we even made it to the train station) and we hadn’t been in a big city since our first week, in Stockholm.  I’ve backpacked through European cities before, in my early 20’s, but big-city train stations are more difficult to navigate with 3 children and 4 bikes in tow. I was constantly worried that the kids would get lost or stuck, leave something behind or get in the way of other travelers, all more competent-looking than us.

Once we got out of the station and onto the street, stepping right in front of the famous carnival rides at Tivoli Gardens, we realized we were crazy to think we’d just bike to the nearest campsite. We searched, instead, for the closest hostel, finding several mixed in on the same blocks as fancy, high-rise hotels.

Our discovery of The Urban House blew so many of my preconceptions out of the water. It was easily the biggest hostel I’ve ever seen, a sum of every converted multi-floor building on an entire (large) city block. We saw a sign establishing it’s rank as one of the “Top Ten Large Hostels in Europe.” The ground floor consisted of a bar and restaurant (with a stage for musical performances), a front lounge with sofas, a laundry room, a huge shared kitchen, a huge shared dining room, another lounge with pool tables, a theater room, a library, and a “hangover room,” with floor cushions and “quiet” signs.

It really was one big urban house.

My American-ness came out at the reservation counter. As I took in a sign that read “Absolutely no drugs inside” and noted the gentleman’s club across the street, the Kakadu, as well as the carefree and vibrant youth of Europe at the bar, the air thick with all things hip and sexy, I asked, “Is this place OK for kids?”

The guy at the counter laughed at my question. “Of course,” he said. One of his co-workers hid a bemused grin and another looked as though my question was endearing. I looked a little closer and realized  there were several families coming and going, as well as several solo travelers in their retirement years, carrying backpacks like everyone else, but with more sensible shoes.

It was a freeing moment. Especially during our more stressful encounters, I’ve wondered where I’m landing on the spectrum of responsible parenting. Traveling already has a way of making me feel more uninhibited than I do back home, but traveling with kids in Europe has brought about a whole new freedom, as these countries seem to be WAY less concerned with parenting–as a verb–than what I’m used to back home, when I feel I’m constantly under the radar of perceived Judgy-McJudgersons.

There are plenty of books and articles and analysis tracking the difference between American parents and our European counterparts, so I won’t go into them here, but I’ve read a lot about it and am seeing the differences play out in ways I love.

Once we got to our room, a simple, clean space consisting of a small bathroom and 3 sets of bunk beds (we paid by bed and reserved the final empty bed so that we could have the room to ourselves), we fielded questions about the Kakadu across the street (our 7-year-old has now learned, a bit prematurely in my opinion, the difference between a stripper and a prostitute) and then went downstairs for burgers, beers, and live music.

Between being behind in our schedule and the expenses of a city, we decided we’d only spend a day and another night in Copenhagen and were determined to make the most of it. Chris put together a 9-mile loop through the city for the next day, marking possible stops along the way.

It was one of the many times we’ve had to decide between what the kids want to do and what the adults want to do. The kids, predictably, wanted to spend the day at Tivoli Gardens and the neighboring toy store. Chris and I repeated to them, in vain,  the question: “Don’t you want to see and do things unique to this city? We can go on roller coasters back home.”

We made the executive decision to skip Tivoli for an art museum, which resulted in some short-lived pouting but this whole trip is an extreme practice in compromise and decision-making.

After the museum, we were on the hunt for good food. With the exception of a few stand-out meals, the food in Sweden had been quite bad. We’d been finding mostly greasy pizza, stale kebabs, fries and mayo with everything, and rounded it out with simple camp cooking–pasta and jarred sauce. Copenhagen’s made news the past few years with its efforts to reinvent Scandinavian cuisine, so we were hopeful some of the innovation in the Michelin-rated restaurants has trickled down to the sidewalk cafes. I’ll let the picture explain: we weren’t disappointed.

After lunch (which we mainly spent by commenting on how well-dressed everyone was who walked by) we headed to Christiania. Click on the link for more info, but a summary: Christiania is a huge hippie neighborhood within Copenhagen’s city limits that operates outside of Danish law. It began with squatters on a military base in the 1970’s and now has about 900 residents. Cars are not allowed. Pot is bought and sold freely. Art and graffiti cover every square inch. Residents use the food grown in gardens in their (mostly vegan) cafes. We visited on a Saturday, when people were selling beer out of tents, kids ran through barefoot, and the streets were packed. The smell of marijuana  was so thick, one of the boys was getting a headache, so we took off.

Our next stop was Nyvahn, the canal district. Right when we got to the colorful buildings, the previously sunny sky darkened and the rain began to come down in sheets. I pointed to a corner ice cream shop: “Let’s duck in there and wait it out.”

We were not the only ones with this idea:

I have never seen anything like it: dozens of people, shoulder to shoulder, happily licking ice cream that, 10 minutes prior, they’d had no intention of consuming. The rain stopped as quickly and unexpectedly as it started and the ice cream shop cleared out.

It was on the canal that I realized how much fun all theses Danes were having. There was a giddiness, a silliness in the air that reminded me of game day in a university town, only bigger. It was early afternoon, but the outdoor bars and cafes were packed. There were groups of 20-somethings on the canal, drinking and laughing in rented boats with circular seating called “Friend Ships.” Everyone not on the water was on foot or bike. We saw more than one bachelorette–type party of  women, dressed in colorful clothes and tutus, parading through the streets.

The last stop before looping back was to see The Little Mermaid statue, which was the most crowded tourist stop we’d seen that day but one of my favorites:

The food at our hostel restaurant had been so good, we decided to head back “home” for dinner and call it a night. The kids have been unnervingly comfortable wherever we’ve stayed. They make themselves at home–exploring, wondering, kicking back–whether we’re at a campsite, a city hostel, a country B-n-B, or nice hotel. When we need shelter (usually because of rain), we land at the nearest place, which has ranged from being barely tolerable to amazingly fancy…without the price range you’d expect in the states…

We left Copenhagen the next morning and I’ve never been so regretful to leave a place. Maybe we should have stayed longer, but then the timing would not have worked to experience what has come next…this bike trip is teaching us that, as with life, there are no right answers, just tiny decisions you make along the way that become your delicate reality, floating in the ether.

But we do know that we want to experience Copenhagen again.

It’s been three weeks since we left the US: almost halfway into our trip and possibly our last day in Sweden. Of course, we didn’t expect to be in Sweden for three weeks, but it’s been hard to leave.

For starters, it’s just a great country. It was a good starting spot in Europe for American cycling tourists, as it’s a foreign country, yes, with new things we have to learn to get around, but it’s really absorbed a lot of American culture. Having enough similarities has made for an easier transition, especially in the first week when we didn’t know if we were coming or going. The people are friendly, the campgrounds and facilities are plentiful (and almost too good: I think the fun of camping here has totally distracted us from our other goals!), and it’s beautiful.

It’s also a big country. Bigger than we realized. We’ve met a few other cycling tourists and they’ve all said the same thing. Each time we could have turned west to cross the country faster, we ended up going south. The last time we did this at the recommendation of some other bike tourists who were headed to the island of Oland. Of all things, the PM of Sweden happened to be taking the same ferry, which was so small, he stopped by our table to say hello!

After covering about 60 miles in two days and staying at one of the biggest resort-style campsites in Sweden, Boda Sands, today we’re taking a ferry to Kalmar, where we’ve heard from another set of touring cyclists that we can take our bikes on a train to Malmo, and possibly into Copenhagen.

I’m ready. The past few days I felt over Sweden and ready to see some new places. Being so way off in our original plans has me feeling a bit anxious, but not for any real reason. The pace we’ve gone makes sense: it took us about a week to adjust to touring, we’ve had to take the long way (roads going all over) because we’re on our bikes, and we’ve made plenty of stops along the way, usually for the kids to have some extra fun at these crazy campsites.

The past week, we’ve really settled into doing about 35 miles each day, so we’re definitely putting in the pedal time. We’ve only taken a few zero days, usually for rain, and we’ve camped every night but 5 in the past 19 days. (We’ve stayed one night in a BnB, two in a hotel, and two in camp cabins.)

In the past three weeks, we’ve had some lows. The worst for me was losing my beloved down sleeping bag to broken eggs in a pannier. I tried washing it out in a camp sink, but it took so long to dry and even then, still smelled of eggs. It was time to retire: it was getting holes in it and wasn’t as warm as when I bought it 15 years ago for my first backpacking trip. We hit a camping store and got a new sleeping bag. 

We’ve lost a shirt (Chris), a Kindle (S), and a bike computer (T.) We’ve accidentally ended up on a freeway-like road with no shoulder. Even though it lasted less than 1/2 mile, it was terrifying and a moment I felt like one of the worst parents in the world.

The highs and lows on a bike tour are extreme and short-lived. One night I’m shivering in a wet sleeping bag that smells like eggs; the next, I’m in one of the nicest hotel beds in town. One day we are lost and caught in a rainstorm after 35 miles of cycling; the next we are sitting at a table in the sun on a boat, chatting with the Prime Minister.

The weeks are going by surprisingly fast, considering how long ago the previous day feels when I wake in the morning. Denmark, Germany…what will you bring?

The first person to ask us “What will you do for midsommar?” was a waitress in Stockholm on our third day. It sounded like meed-sume-AR and I had her repeat it a few times until I realized she was saying mid-summer, as in summer solstice, one of my favorite days of the year. (I used to throw summer solstice parties back in my single days and still mention it to the kids each year, sometimes making a fun dinner or letting them stay up extra late.)

I knew we’d be in Sweden for summer solstice and expected lots of light–indeed, the sun “sets” at 10:00 pm and “rises” at 3:30 am, the sky fully dark from about 12:00-3:00 am– but I didn’t know it was a national holiday.

“What will you do?” we asked her back.

“I’ll get drunk on snaps and eat pickled herring in the small town where I’m from,” she laughed.

That was it. Right then I decided that, on midsommar, which would be exactly a week from our arrival, I too, would drink snaps (what are snaps?) and eat pickled herring.

As we heard more about midsommar with each passing day, I got a better picture of the festivities. Most people said it was the biggest holiday in Sweden after Christmas. One couple told us it was bigger than Christmas.

In addition to the food and drink (traditionally sill (pickled herring), potatoes, and snaps (a flavored shot of alcohol) ), it’s about people enjoying the outdoors together with lawn games, music, dancing, flower crowns, and the construction of the midsommar pole, which is like the summer version of a Christmas Tree, a triangle-tipped cross covered with ivy and flowers with two rings hanging on each side of the horizontal strip. (More than one Swede explained that the phallic nature of the pole is not unintentional and at least one mentioned something about fertility…)

The day before midsommar we toured a palace and the staff was preparing the lawn for their upcoming celebration. When we wondered if we would find the same kind of party at the next day’s campground, they said, “Of course. There will be midsommar celebrations wherever you are.”

Sure enough, our campground just outside the small town of Trosa had posters up listing the day’s events (this is a very rough translation based on observation rather than language):

• 11:00 construction and erection of the pole
• 11:30 making of the flower crowns
• 14:30 music and dancing around the pole
• 15:00 games on the beach
• 21:00 evening party and dance

The only things missing were food and drink. This holiday is so big that the grocery stores were closed, even if we knew what we were supposed to be buying. We went into town to find a restaurant serving a midsommar menu but of the two we found, one had just stopped serving for the day and the other was booked through the next. We ended up at a spot that served bad pasta and lousy wine. When we returned to camp and mentioned to our tent neighbors that we were looking forward to trying the traditional food, they gave us an extra can of mustard sill, which we paired with some Wasa crackers and headed to the camp bar for what we were hoping would be “strong beer.” (In Sweden, this is 5.2% rather than 2-ish%.)

 

This is when we met Yvonne and Pär, a couple from Stockholm with a camper parked at the campground that they visit on the weekends like a summer home. We couldn’t have gotten any luckier than to meet these two Swedes. They were so friendly and gracious and fun, full of life and celebration. In between jokes and laughter, they told us about their lives in Sweden, their family, their jobs, their travels. Once they heard of our disappointing search for snaps and sill, they invited our whole family to the camper to serve up the leftovers they had from the day’s celebration with their college-age children.

Even traveling with our immediate family, at times I feel we’re a little lonely and/or isolated. Perhaps this explains the instant connection I felt towards Yvonne and Pär. I felt like we were old, long friends. We sat at a table in what I describe as the Swede’s “front porch.” They all have these fabric tent rooms extending from their campers where they set up cozy, temporary living and/or dining rooms, with rugs, candles, tables, chairs, sofas.

They brought out several different kinds of sill, cream to pour on top, and Janssons frestelse, a dish of potatoes and anchovies that was one of the best combinations I’ve ever tasted. Out, too, came the “strong beer” and the snaps, shot glasses and Swedish drinking songs. The kids laid on the first couches they’ve seen since leaving the US, reading their Kindles under blankets before drifting off, as the grown-ups chatted, laughed, and sang. In campers all around us, other families were doing the same.

Since arriving in Sweden, I’d built up what I hoped for this day to be and wondered if we’d miss out on the fun. And the day of, we did run into some shortcomings and disappointments. But by the end of the day, I couldn’t have imagined a better time if I tried, all thanks to two people who took a chance with some strangers who quickly became friends.  

New things we’ve tried and liked that surprise us:

• Maria: salted licorice, sour gummies, cucumbers (on everything), sill (pickled herring, especially topped with cream), napping on benches
• Chris: muesli (“I like that muesli is more of a concept.”); cheese, ham, and really good bread for breakfast; afternoon coffee (fika), long conversations with the kids on bike ride; buying coffee vacuum packed in cubes (so it’s stackable), minigolf
• S: fast water slides, actually trying to pedal, yoggi (a yogurt drink), being outside every day
• L: inflated bouncy surfaces, lasagne, yoggi, trains
• T: camping pillow, Swedish candy, biking 30 miles every day, ferries

 

Comforts of home we miss:

• Maria: a washer and dryer, reliable internet
• Chris: not having to set up camp every night and pack up every morning
• S: the cat, our chickens, my stuffed animals
• Luke: the cat, my bed, the internet
• T: the cat, my bed, a kitchen

 

• Many Swedes don’t actively initiate conversation but are very enthusiastic about replying to a “Hej!” if you throw one out there.  
• Many have wondered why we came to Sweden of all places.
• There are flags everywhere. Most houses (especially in the countryside) have a flagpole in the yard.
• The Swedes are all about lighting and rugs: even camp cabins and public bathrooms have pendant lights, lamps, and rugs in them. There are plants or lamps in every window of every house and apartment.
• lots of large, purebred, well-behaved dogs
• ice cream and minigolf abounds
• the food is not the greatest. We thought we just hit some bad restaurants our first few days, but after three weeks, we realize that stumbling onto a good meal out is the exception. What we now avoid: hamburgers, Mexican food (or what the Swedish think is Mexican), cups of mayo on everything, dishes served on french fries. A strange and prolific combo: pizza and kebabs.
• Alcohol is surprisingly hard to come by. Only one chain store, System Bolaget, carries alcohol: for wine, beer, spirits, anything, you have to find a System Bolaget. There isn’t one in every town and they have standard business hours so that you can’t just run out for a bottle of wine if it’s Friday night and/or you are in a small town. Not every restaurant has alcohol available and when they do, it’s one choice between (usually not great) red and white wine. The beer comes with a warning of being “strong” if it’s 5.2%

• So many boats! Classic wooden boats, sailboats, motor boats, yachts.
• They keep things clean: as soon as something is used, it’s clean up. At the campgrounds, people stand in line outside the kitchen with dirty dishes as soon as a meal is over. I have cleaned up after myself in public restrooms to an extent I don’t even do at home because I want to leave it as I found it.

• The Swedes love their luxury wagons. Here’s what we’ve seen towed behind wagons: horse trailers, boats, camping trailers, cargo containers.
• They love the summer sun. They turn to it like a field of flowers.

We’ve camped six nights now in five different campgrounds and are finally getting used to how different “camping” is here. I thought we got lucky the first night when the campground we stayed at was right next to town with food for purchase, clean showers and bathrooms, and a kitchen and dining hall. Now I realize that this is most campgrounds in Sweden, where “camping” means something very different than what we’ve done in the US.

The locals would laugh at how much work we’ve put into gathering a backpacking stove, camp dishes, travel towels, and other gear. We pay an average of $30/ night for our campsite, which is really just an open soft grassy area for tents in the middle of what reminds me of summer camps I attended as a kid, with access to various buildings: a food market, a full kitchen with multi stoves and sinks, full bathrooms with private stalls and showers, sitting areas (with wifi), all near town and within walking distance to shops and restaurants. The one we stayed at last night had a restaurant and bar on location.

We’re usually the only campers with tents. The Swedes stay in RV’s, cabins, or more permanent fabric tents attached to mobile units that remain up the whole summer. We’ve met several people who live in or near Stockholm and treat their spot at the campground as a summer home, where they stay for a whole season or on weekends during the season.  

There have been mini-golf courses and playgrounds at almost every spot we’ve stayed and the kids are becoming mini-golf connoisseurs, ranking their favorites spots and challenges.

With campgrounds like this, we’ve hardly missed motels or BnB’s. We get regular showers, do laundry, and use the kitchens. The kids adjusted to the time difference within the first few days, while it took Chris and I about a week. He and I still wake a few times during the (ever light) night, but use sleep mask to block the sun and a white noise machine on his phone when it gets loud: mainly, it’s the birds that wake us up. I’ve never heard such crazy bird noises. It’s like we’re sleeping in bird sanctuaries.

I’ve always enjoyed camping and have done it since childhood, but I was nervous about how much sleep I’d get. When I think of camping, I think of not sleeping. But spending all day every day outside in natural light, riding our bikes, has me completely exhausted by the time we get camp set up. After the first week’s adjustment to jet lag and constant daylight, I’ve fallen onto my sleeping mat in the evening and snuggled in. It’s beginning to feel like home, the tent a big cozy living room where we relax at night.

 

• S woke up morning #3 after sleeping like a rock the whole night with a big smile on her face.  She said, “I think I’m over my jetlag.”
• I’m starting to figure out the navigation part, and I use 3 different apps to figure out where we want to go.  I use one app (Archies) to figure out where the nearest campsites are.  Then I use another (MapOut) to make a route to one of those campsites that roughly follows the national Swedish cycling route called Sverigeleden.  Then I use another app to transfer this route to my handlebar mounted gps device that then will show me that route as we go along without me having to pull out my phone all the time.  We still get lost along the way because I am by nature directionally challenged, and then I have to use ANOTHER app (google maps) to get us back onto the route that I origainally made.  So basically I’ve been using my phone a lot these first few days but I think I’m getting the hang of it and getting faster/better.  It’s very different from the first tour I took which was all paper maps.
• The people in Sweden have been very nice and they all speak English.
• I’m getting tan lines, my butt is sore, I’m often hungry, and I can setup camp in under an hour.  It’s starting to feel like a bike tour.
• Going through Stockholm was quite an experience.  There were nice bike lanes on all the roads, but it still felt like trying to drive a loaded semi truck trailer through downtown San Francisco at rush hour.  Exciting but exhausting which is why we called it short today.
• The Swedish seem to like things nicer, but smaller and tidier.  The bathrooms have all been exquisitely clean, with a full door for the toilet.  The sinks, toilest, mirrors, showers though are all smaller.  It takes a little getting used to, but it is nice.
• People who see us tend to fall into one of three categories:
  1. Make a confused face, slow down a bit, look around in bewilderment, look back at all the bikes, then move on.
  2. Look at the bikes with confusion, but then smile as they get it and come up and talk to us about it.  These are people who wouldn’t do a tour like this but they are interested and want to know what we are doing.  They get it.
  3. Make a joyous look and head right to the bikes to find us and start talking.  This is because they have done a bike tour like this (maybe not as long!) and they want to know all about it.  We’ve met about 2-3 of these folks a day!
• Everyone seems to think Frankfurt is a long way away.  Maybe it is.  We’ll see!

As we get into a rhythm, we find it easier to quickly update our Facebook page more often with longer blog posts published less frequently. If you’d like to get less thorough, but more timely updates, “like” or “follow” our Facebook page using the button on this page. 

*the following information may be incomplete/ untrue/ falsifiable, as we spent the 48 hours described below in haze of jet-lag and sleep deprivation:

After spending 4-ish hours putting bikes together in the airport following a 9-hour flight, it was time to ride our bikes 4.7 miles to Malsta, where we had rooms booked at a hostel. We pushed our bikes through the revolving doors of an airport exit and stepped outside into the country of Sweden. It was between 6-7pm and the sun was shining high in the sky, the air fresh and crisp, the perfect temperature where you don’t think about whether you’re hot or cold. 

 

But how do you ride your bikes out of a major international airport where you can’t read any of the signs? Within minutes, a Swedish police car found us huddled in a parking area not far from the terminal. Chris explained to him that we needed to ride to Malsta, preferably on a bike path, and we began our adventure with a police escort through the maze of airport traffic to the bike path that ran parallel to the highway the entire 4.7 miles there.

We realized two things right away:

• there are bike paths with signage, marked with city names and distance in kilometers, running next to every major road
• the sky is indescribable, but I’ll try: we’ve said it’s “wide,” “oval,”  “stretched-out,” “like being in a snow globe without the snow,” “like being Alice in Wonderland.” It stretches further than seems possible in all directions, brilliant blue sprinkled with clouds (which S described as “always perfect”) from one horizon to the other.

Somehow, we all made the ride to the hostel without a problem. I was half-expecting someone (maybe me) to just fall over or stop and not be able to keep going. I felt like I must be in some kind of survival mode, because by the time we got to our hostel, I hadn’t slept in two days. This is where things get fuzzy for me. We arrived at 8:00pm and reception staff was gone for the evening. Chris was on his phone, trying all kinds of numbers left on the door, but he was having trouble reaching anyone. He was using his phone internationally for the first time and wasn’t sure what kind of country code to use to dial out and in. He ended up finding a working number on our reservation email, which was different from any numbers left at the door.

They gave him the code for a key box to our room. Although the place generally consisted of hostel rooms with a shared kitchen, our reservation turned out to be more like a little apartment in the basement with a tiny kitchen and sitting room and bedrooms that were more like cabins on a boat, big enough for single beds. Two rooms had one single bed each, which the boys took, and one room had three single beds, which was perfect for Chris, S, and me. Five single crisp-white beds. Everything was tiny, simple, and clean.

The apartment was perfectly Swedish. It was like spending real time in one of those showrooms in IKEA, where they demonstrate how to make the most of a small space. I was glad it was in the basement, as the sun was still shining bright at 9pm and our windowless rooms were cool and dark.

At this point, all I remember is collapsing on a bed, my mind on the bandages covering the weeping poison oak spots on my neck and shoulders. I’d accidentally left my roll of medical tape on the plane, the one thing I needed to make sure I could cover my skin, which was oozing oils and yellow, sticky pus. If it wasn’t covered, it globbed onto my shirt and bra and anything else I was touching. I needed to remove the old bandages, clean the rashes, and figure out how to cover it without medical tape.

But I was. so. tired. I fell asleep to the sound of Chris leaving for the store to get food, bandages, and tape. The kids, having slept on the plane, were reinvigorated by the excitement of the new place and were rummaging through the apartment.

When I woke again, it was the middle of the night, but twilight out and Chris and the kids were sleeping. I stumbled into the kitchen, found a bowl of half-eaten leftover pasta and sauce in the sink, ate some of the noodles with my hands, and went back to bed. The last thing I remember before nodding off again was thinking about how much I would pay someone to take my poison oak away. I came up with $350.

We all woke the next morning at 10:30am, which felt like 1:30am to our bodies. Check-out was 11 and the original plan had us leaving town and riding 20-ish miles to a campsite. The thought of it made me want to cry.

There was no way this was happening. Chris checked with reception, who had booked our same apartment for the night but had two different hostel rooms we could split into. We took the rooms, transferred our stuff, and spent the day exploring the small town of Marsta and the neighboring town of Sigtuna at the recommendation of several locals. It’s one of the oldest towns in Sweden and except for the ruins of a castle and the language, we could have sworn we were in Northern Michigan, complete with mini golf and ice cream.

Our ride out and back to Sigtuna, which was about 12 miles, without our gear, was a great way to work off some jet lag and general kinks from traveling. We made it back to our hostel rooms, which were nothing like the apartment we’d had the night before. While the apartment had been dark, cool, and private, the rooms were facing the street with big windows. The sun “sets” here around midnight and “rises” around 3:00, but even then I’ve never seen it get actually dark, just twilight. Between the light, the heat of the small room, the sounds of all-night traffic and the neighbors coming and going, Chris and I hardly slept. It was miserable, but also good, as we were ready to hit the road and ride south towards Stockholm to get the touring properly started.

(by Maria)

Anyone who’s traveled with me one of the many times I’ve had to run through the terminal as my name is being paged over the loud speaker knows that arriving at the airport three hours early is not my style. But this is what we decided on, a bit of a compromise, as Chris wanted to arrive four hours early. Even though Norwegian Air allows you to pay to check a bike, and we paid for four, Chris was nervous that they might not make it on the plane unless we were the first ones there.

And it’s true, when we showed up at the check-in counter with four bike boxes, the gate agents looked a little startled. “That’s a lot of bikes,” one of them said.

Our neighbor drove us to the airport in our minivan. I got a text from the airline the morning of, saying the flight was delayed, but we left according to plan, as being in the house was just making us more nervous. We’re renting it out this summer and I could endlessly find more to work on if I’m in it.

We left on time and had over an hour to kill because of the delay, so we ended up at our neighbor’s husband’s annual company picnic for lunch. It was a totally random, strange, perfect way to leave the country. In typical Silicon Valley style, this company party was over the top, with carnival rides, live music, food vendors, and a beer garden. The kids played, Chris and I had a beer, and we all ate and hung out. Our neighbors have become good friends, so it was great to spend our last hour with them before we left.

Our neighbor dropped us at the curb with our boxes and a few of us hung with our things at one spot while Chris moved them, one by one, to the check-in line, where someone else waited at that end. After we got checked in and watched the bike boxes get searched and loaded, we made our way to the gate with several bright panniers as carry-ons, our bike helmets clipped on to our bags. Chris and I had debated for months over whether to let the kids brings their iPad minis on the trip and when the delay went on to for over two hours, I was already glad that we did.

It was during the first delay of the trip that I slipped into what will become a necessary mode to not go crazy, here: hang-out-mode. Since we had nothing waiting for us on the other side, it didn’t matter when we got there. “Late” isn’t really even a thing when you have no plans, so we didn’t pay attention to how long the delay was or when we finally ended up leaving. It was a couple hours, anyway. I really just didn’t pay attention or care.

Other than the delay, the flight was seriously great, one of the best I’ve had. It was on a new plane, with technology I hadn’t seen before, like windows that dimmed with the push of a button. The kids loved it. They settled into their spaces, fiddled with the knobs and buttons (accidentally calling a flight attendant, of course), and ate the meal. S said “It’s like we’re having dinner with a ton of strangers.”

It was a 9-hour flight (not 12, as I had been saying) and everyone but me slept on cue. I used to be a flight attendant and had Boston-Amsterdam as a regular route, but the sky outside for this route, Oakland-Stockholm, was like nothing I’ve ever seen. We flew into the sunset and it was dark for maybe two hours, but as we went through Canada and over Greenland, the sky lightened and cycled through colors that reminded me of dye for Easter Eggs. Everyone sleeping missed it, but for a while it was blood-red outside. Then it changed so that, on one side of the plane, it was a teal blue and the other side was violet purple. As we got closer to Sweden, it changed to the orange and yellow of sunrise and after flying through a night where it hardly got dark, it was day.

We arrived around 2:00 pm in Sweden (it’s a nine hour time difference, so we basically lost a night of sleep) and found our bikes waiting on a cart for us right near the baggage carousel. It took Chris much longer to put the bikes together than we thought it would: he worked slowly and carefully, on jet-lag and a few hours sleep. The kids were total champs. We’d talked to them about the time-change and jet-lag and they seemed prepared for how loopy they would feel. They all got sleep on the plane, the youngest getting the most, so this helped.

While Chris put the bikes together, the kids played on their iPads and I repacked the panniers. It took somewhere around four hours before we were rolling out of the airport. It was 6:00 pm in Sweden and I had been awake since 4:30 am the day before: well over 24 hours. Thank God the placed we’d booked to stay our first night was only 4.7 miles away. We pushed our bikes right out of the revolving doors of the airport and rode to Malsta, Sweden.

Let the peddling begin.