Europe and Beyond
Wednesday, May 11, 2005, Bromma Airport, Stockholm
I arrived in Stockholm at 7:30 after a smooth, untroubled flight, and took a taxi from the main International Airport, Arlanda, to the older secondary airport, Bromma, where I will take a Malmo Aviation flight to Umeå. Everything went totally smoothly, as one would expect in Sweden. One has an immediate sense of a well ordered, calm, sensible place. Friendly people, lots of birch trees, clean roads and pleasant buildings.
My taxi driver told me that he was Greek: he was born in Sweden, then went to Athens until he was thirteen and has now been back in Sweden for 17 years. Do you think of yourself as Greek or Swedish, I asked. “Oh, 100% Greek, he replied. But I love Sweden. It is so calm and safe. I love Sweden.”
I have had several hours here in the airport, but fortunately there was wireless internet available at a reasonable charge, so I managed to do my email, send a report to the sociology department on senior hiring, and catch up on various odds and ends. Some people find it a burden; I find that it makes travel easier – less to worry about, easier to smooth out rough edges…
