Nordic Championships U18/U20 – GD -1
Youth Nordic Championships somewhere else than Kisakallio?? First one for me – and this one in sunny (we’ll get back to that later!!) Södertälje in Sweden. Actually, I came here last week for one game of the WU18 tournament.. so I almost live here.
Anyways – travel day to begin with, with the presumably short/quick/easy travel from Ekenäs, Finland to Södertälje, Sweden .. and the funny thing is, the language that is spoken in both of these places is the same. One difference is that Ekenäs is in Finland, where they speak Swedish, and Södertälje apparently is one of the most Finnish places in Sweden.. so guess I should hear plenty of Finnish around here?
Things never go quite as you planned or assumed, drive from home to the airport is painless enough – no traffic and get my bags dropped at the Norwegian bag drop in Helsinki.. through the security and to wait for my flight to depart in 80 minutes….. or so I thought!! You know where this is going???
While waiting for the flight – I check that Brother Mansoor is departing Slovenia after Women’s EuroBasket… two ex-BBL photographers doing rounds on the continent.
Stockholm flights seem to be delayed… mine is on time.. but not for long. Kind Norwegian send me a sms (who uses those anymore??) to inform me my flight is delayed by 20 minutes.. and they apologise for the delay. OK .. 20min.. no biggie!
At the gate – clock ticks to 15.00.. flights new scheduled departure is at 15.40, but there is no sign of movement, so we wait… and wait some more. Then maybe around 15.30 we get to check-in and move a step closer to the plane… and we then wait for a bus to take us to the plane.. and we wait…and wait. The air in the terminal is pretty stuffy and I almost start to feel lightheaded in the crowd. Then maybe around 16.20 the bus comes (by now I SHOULD have been at Arlanda airport!!) and we all get to the bus.. nice this one has decent air-con (back to THIS also later) and we wait on the bus.. and we wait some more.. and more. With nothing else to do, I check flight arrivals to Arlanda .. it says our flight is expected to land at 17.06 (so meaning 17.06 departure from Helsinki). Maybe around 16.40 the bus FINALLY moves to the plane.. relatively quick with people getting their seats and we are airborne.
We finally land to Arlanda around 17.04 .. grab my luggage .. off to Arlanda Express.. change trains at Stockholm Central to Stockholm City.. and on the train 40 to Södertälje. Finally at the hotel around 19.45 …
Quick trip to ICA to grab a salad for dinner – settle to the room.. do some work and try to get some sleep. Unfortunately the boys (my guess Sweden Men U18??) are right above me and decide that it is very nice to play loud music and keep screaming at 22.00.. and also stomp on their balcony (not sure what that was about??) The do eventually get quiet and I get to sleep.. but sleep in a room without aircon .. yep.. story for another post 😉
Post note – checked that also Brother Mansoor had delayed flight in Ljubljana… where he treated himself to BizNiz Lounge for some Nando’s style dinner … 😉 Seemed like ex-BBL photographers both had some delays on their travels yesterday.. but I got the hotel at 19.45… Mansoor at around 2am???!!
Tuesday will be first game day… let’s get this show going!!
