As I write this we are somewhere over the Arctic. We’ve been underway for a little under five hours with close to another three hours left before landing in Stockholm. As I was setting up the computer, one of the flight attendants asked over the PA system if there was a doctor on board. I sincerely hope this isn’t serious! The last time that happened to us, Nina and I were on a flight to Japan. The airplane turned back and landed in Anchorage, Alaska and transferred someone to an ambulance. I’ve no idea what’s out in this part of the world if there was a serious medical problem.

Sleeping is impossible, unfortunately. It’s only 8:30 p.m. in my body’s timezone of Pocatello, Idaho. I think we are the only two people awake in Business Class. Everyone else seems to be sound asleep. The fellow across the aisle from me has been sawing a lot of wood! It’s not loud or annoying, just a steady snore very reminiscent of a saw blade ¦ in and out and in and out.

The sun has come up, so Nina had to put the blind down. It was too bright for inside the cabin which otherwise is quite dark. It’s about 4:30 a.m. in Stockholm. It never got dark, but the sun did go down below the horizon for about 45 minutes. The Business Class cabin is very nice as SAS has configured it. However, the seats do NOT recline flat. So far the only airline I’ve found that does that is Singapore Airlines. It isn’t that hard to have the seat recline flat, I just don’t know why the others don’t do it. It is hard to get comfortable on a slant. The dinner was very good (I had halibut and Nina had stuffed chicken) and wine and cheese play a very important part of the meal service. Even now there’s a kind of a buffet set up at the back of the Business Class cabin with several varieties of wine, fruit, and cheeses available for snacking. The lavatories are quite large and have big windows! There is a kind of a shade that can be pulled up while on the ground. I guess in the air no one can see in anyway.

Getting this far has been somewhat of an adventure. The check-in process in Salt Lake was very fast and efficient. The plane boarded on time and was full. However, seat 16E wouldn’t stay in the upright and locked position. So, they took a standby passenger off and moved the woman in 16E into his seat. Then it turned out we couldn’t fly anyway until the seat was locked upright. So back into the gate we went and a mechanic came on the airplane to lock the seat upright. The passenger who had to get off didn’t get back on, though. I’d think the seat would have been useable locked upright. That put us more than a half-hour late leaving Salt Lake City. The First Officer came on the loudspeaker shortly after we left and said the computer showed that we would be about twenty minutes late, but that they would make up some of that time as we’re flying this bird as fast as she’ll go! This was a United flight, so the Air Traffic Control transmissions are available on channel 9. As we got near Chicago, I listened to that channel and learned that ATC was putting all of the airplanes coming in from the west into a holding pattern about a hundred miles north of Chicago. However, as we made the first turn in the holding pattern, we were released to fly direct to Chicago. We were at the gate fifteen minutes late.

I had checked in online to both the United flight to Chicago and to the SAS flight to Stockholm last night at Heather’s house. When we checked the bags in Salt Lake, the agent said we could go directly to the SAS gate in Chicago. Unfortunately, he had that wrong! The SAS flight to Stockholm left out of the International Terminal which can only be reached by taking the inter-terminal train. We got there to find a huge line of people going into the security area. We got into line and shuffled our way up to where the TSA person checks the boarding pass and ID. The one printed online was not acceptable to her. We had to have boarding passes printed by the agent at the SAS counter and there was no changing her mind. Fortunately, there was no line at the SAS checkin counter (everyone had already checked in! The flight was due to depart in less than 20 minutes). We got the boarding passes and cut to the front of the still-very-long-line. We went through security and found we had about a third-of-a-mile walk to the gate! Further, the few moving walkways were all not working. We got onto the airplane as the last people boarding in Business Class. There were still some people boarding for Economy. We had made it this far. The next stop is Stockholm!

Our hotel in Copenhagen has high-speed internet in the room (at no extra charge), so I expect that I can post this to the blog when we get there. If the rest of this flight goes as scheduled and the flight from Stockholm to Copenhagen is on time, we should be at the hotel about noon Copenhagen time. That would be about 4 a.m. by my Pocatello body clock. Just right for taking a short nap and then going out to find out what’s around the hotel. Our friends from Colorado Springs are taking the same flights tomorrow from Chicago to Stockholm to Copenhagen. However, I’m sure their experience in Chicago will be completely uneventful because they have a five hour layover! Things happen only when the connections are close and the gates are far apart.