Patrick's Diary - 7/4/2015

4th of July, we missed fireworks and celebrations. Happy 4th from Sweden! Boarding KLM flight to Stockholm, I did see a young couple who stood in front of me holding Swedish passports and wearing sports pants with US National Flag printed on them. So, even Swedes showed their respects to our Independence Day. 

Crew of Delta 144 flew a perfect flight from Seattle, we arrived in Amsterdam around midday. Toward the end of this journey, I caught a conversation between the lady sitting in front of me and a young dude sitting in the same row of hers in the middle of the plane. She asked him where he is going to school, he responded that he is still in community college but plans to transfer to UW. Given his response, I bet he didn't know the purpose why the lady asked her the question. He played safe because UW is an apparent logical option for Seattleties: Good Quality, Reasonable Cost and Homestand. The lady said her daughter went to WSU. 

As soon as the airplane stopped, the lady stood up and turned to us to make the comment of my son's football cap: "You wear the wrong hat!" She said that without smile, it was apparently not a joke. 

I responded immediately:"Because your daughter goes to WSU." My son did say it was just a hat. 

I remembered that she looked very unhappy at the moment we passed her to sit into our row when we boarded the flight back in Seattle, I realized why. I also noticed another UW student wearing a T-Shirt with Foster Business School's name on it, which probably irritated some of the passengers too. Sorry, guys, I am not related to UW in any sense but promote its brand wherever I can, just for my son's sake. Frankly speaking, before my son was admitted, I didn't like UW either because of its ridiculous domination in Northwest. However, I changed heart and position as soon as my son got the letter in 2014. Now, I am a proud father of Husky. 

At the airport in Amsterdam, we saw each other again waving hands and greeting. In the following conversations with her husband on board earlier, I learned they would be on vacation to hang around Amsterdam a couple of days then get onto a Viking cruise. It will be fun.

I was so excited as soon as sitting onto my seat on board KLM. Stockholm was only less than 2 hours away. Actually, the last moment I left Sweden back in 1996 was at Arlanda Airport, so my memory of last spot of Sweden had been always it.

Oh, I forgot to mention when we passed border control in Amsterdam, the officer seemed an asian and asked us why we would go to Stockholm and wished we had a good trip. Since our passports had been stamped, we didn't need to go through the border control in Stockholm again. After picking up the bags on conveyor, we just simply walked out of the airport. 

Reading the board in shuttle waiting area, I couldn't find Hertz's name on it. Asking a girl closeby, I figured No.4 is the station. I had read "Rental Car" on the board listed under No.4 but was confused by my own memory: I thought all other rental cars desk were located in terminal but only Hertz's was away from the airport. I first saw "Sixt" on it listed under another number, so naturally was looking for "Hertz" particularly. It was a misperception in my mind. 

It was very odd that the renters had to wait for a long time to get their cars at Hertz but almost no customers were at others' counters. I hadn't realized that I needed to grab a ticket number until a girl reminded me. My number was 383 and at that moment, only 375 was called. I stood at the back when an asian woman with her family coming in asked me if I was in the line. I shared the knowledge I just acquired to them and they had to grab a number. 

My son had been sitting on the ground outside earlier and couldn't wait any longer, so came in to find out why it took so long. Since we talked in Mandarin, the asian man from the same family of the woman who had talked to me in English earlier came over to chat with me. They came from Sichuan in China and just transferred from Paris. 

I could see all the renters before me were Europeans but they talked with the guy at service counter in English. Some of them sounded Germans. Both German and Swedish are Germanic languages but they might not be communicated very well. It was my turn and the guy who was very polite and nice apologized to me that I had to wait for such a long time. I was fine because we were on vacation, though I did plan a tight schedule, I should take it easy. After I said that they looked like having a very good business, the guy said he was short of staff. 

Before finishing the process, he asked me if I drank coffee and brought me a canned Starbucks coffee. I told him I am from Seattle, it is homemade to me, of course I like it and appreciate the gift. When I talked to my son in Mandarin, the guy thought I was trying to talk to him and was wondering what I was saying, I joked that I was talking to my son in Swedish. After learning I practiced Swedish at home, he asked me what I could speak. I said probably it should be said at the end of the process: "Tack Sa Mycket." 

We finally got our rental car - Volvo XC60. It looked big and I hadn't driven Volvo for 2 decades, didn't know its modern features at all. Recalling the guy's advice earlier - Next time to try XC90, I was thinking that it may be even more too sophisticated to handle. 

Getting onto E-4 to Uppsala, I was so excited. Riding on such a wonderful creature and appreciating the wild landscapings beside the freeway, I almost couldn't help screaming. 

At the moment I was trying to upload my clip, my cell phone rang. A lady from the hotel I booked in Uppsala called to confirm if we were coming. Definitely, I told her we were heading to her, probably it would take us half an hour. It ended up to take us much more longer because I made a stupid mistake: GPS had  brought us to the hotel but I drove away because GPS on my cell lost the signal in the last second and I wasn't sure if it was the right place. However, we drove around for quite a while and eventually stopped car to ask a mom with her kid and mom or mom-in-law. She pointed to the right direction just across the street. 

Checking in with the lady who called me earlier, we got our parking and room. Later on, I learned her name was Molly who actually taught me a lot of new features of my rental Volvo XC60 the next morning after I encountered a series of problems and asked her for help.

After taking a rest, my son and I walked out to take pictures on a bridge above the river where we could view Uppsala Cathedral, which was one of the significant architectures in this city. It was closed, so we decided to come back the day after. It is so magnificent, we must visit it inside. 

A thunderstorm might mess up many outdoor parties on Saturday night, but it helped lower the temperature during the summer. When we walked back to the area the hotel was located, the rain stopped and we saw a choir singing at the corner of a street and a group of musicians performing together at an entrance of a big store. Unfortunately, I forgot to videotape them. 

The bar adjacent to our hotel looked very popular but we had to wait for 40 minutes for being seated, so we went across to a BBQ restaurant but the waiters and waitresses sitting outside told us it was about to close in a minute. 

The only option left was Burger King on the left hand side of our hotel - Uppsala Uplandia. We walked into it and ordered Whoppers. 161 Krona, my son thought it was Euro, he doesn't have much sense about money, especially foreign currency. I might be too tired, so only gave the girl at the counter 120 Krona because I was thinking about 116. After adding another 50 Krona, I asked 20 back first. What was I thinking as a finance professional? The girl smiled but kept correcting me. 

The first day back in Sweden was a good start, nothing was extraordinary but I had already been so excited. No matter what are the colors of their hairs and how tall are they, Swedish girls are still as sweet as and Swedish boys are still as polite as they were 20 years ago.