I actually arrived at the Stockholm airport before our plane coming in from the States. I went through a fairly strict security check and settled into a waiting area near the passenger lounge. I made a quick trip to the duty free shop for a last minute souvenir binge, had my last over-priced Coke, and settled in to watch my plane arrive and go through its turn around. It's an amazing process if you've never seen it from beginning to end. Put to music it would make a great ballet. Just before 1000 they started letting us on board. It was a full flight, mostly of Scandinavians off to America for a holiday. There were no Americans seated near me, as far as I could tell. One of the stewardesses spotted the Cup (it was pretty hard to hide, even wrapped in a pillow case) and wanted to know what it was for. I explained, briefly, and looked for a spot to stash it during the flight; since the seat next to me was going to be occupied. In fact, it looked like they all would be. I finally found a spot in a storage bin and wrapped the Cup in my overcoat and pinned it in the bin with my briefcase and a poster tube. I hoped it would be OK and I hoped no one would open that bin with me underneath it. Sure enough, somebody tried. I said, rather curtly, "It's full," and they moved away. Later on during the captain's remarks I heard some reference to the word Diplomacy and a Cup, but I have no idea what he said. People starting looking around for the Cup, and guy next to me said, rather loudly, "It's him!" and pointed to me. I wasn't about to fish it out of the bin and take a victory lap around the cabin, so I just played it cool, or maybe dumb. knew it was going to be an interesting flight as soon as the liquor cart starting making its rounds. Every Swede asked for two beers and by the time the cart had made its first round, they were lined up at the back asking for more beer! The guy next to me had a total of eight and they didn't seem to bother him. However, eight beers equalled eight trips to the toilet and a full cattle class cabin with only four toilets and a lot of beer-drinking Swedes made reservations for a toilet almost mandatory. The guy ahead of me also had his eight beers, but I never saw him leave his seat. He must have had a bladder made of polyurethane. The stewardess came by me on her first trip and asked if I was the one with the Cup. I said yes. She smiled when she discovered I was an Ami. She asked if I had gotten a bottle of Champagne to go with the Cup and I allowed as I had not. She dropped two splits into my lap as she passed by. Next trip two more splits. By the end of the flight I had a total of eight of them, the entire compartment's ration I expect. The meal was as forgettable as all airline meals are. The movie, however, was the last Star Trek flick; which I had not seen. I enjoyed it.
We landed in Chitown on schedule and walked what seemed half-way back to Stockholm to get our luggage and go through passport control and Customs. I had one real scare at the luggage carousel when I went to grab my suitcase. Without even thinking when I was packing at the hotel in Stockholm I had put the half-full bottle of Jack Daniels back in its box and in my suitcase. I was pretty sure I had checked to make sure the cap was tight. But when I grabbed my suitcase off the luggage carousel, the outside was covered with moisture. I was sure the whisky bottle had broken or leaked and all my paper goods were ruined. Still, it didn't smell of booze when I touched it to my nose. Since customs was more interested in the Cup (No, Pascal and Bruno, they did not take it apart looking for drugs!) than my luggage I would have to wait until I got home to find out what was going on inside my suitcase. I soon caught my connecting flight to San Diego, after discovering that Cokes cost just as much at the Chicago airport as they do in Stockholm. Chitown to San Diego is about one-third the distance from Stockholm to San Diego, so it took about three hours flying time to get to San Diego. I did note that it was actually colder in Chicago when we passed through than it was in Stockholm when I left. The second leg of the trip was routine and we landed in San Diego only four minutes behind schedule.
I reclaimed my luggage, still damp but not dripping, and found Mike and the car right on target. A half hour later I was home, suitcase opened, and Jack Daniels intact in hand. Another travel adventure had ended, my sixth international Diplomacy junket in ten years, but this time I had something to show for it, a new form of Peeriblah --- Pratkvarnarna!.
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Larry Peery ([email protected]) |
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