Europe 25: We Return Home

All good things must come to an end, and eventually it was time for me and Kim to return to our regularly scheduled lives, already in progress. Lauren, however, was just beginning her adventures, though she would be leaving Sweden more or less at the same time we did so she came with us to the airport.

Our flight left very early that morning – long before we were accustomed even to waking up on this trip – and the Airport Math (“let’s see … flight leaves at … and we have to get there how much earlier? … and it’s how long of a ride? … so we have to wake up … oh … oh, my…”) meant that we weren’t going to be getting much sleep that night.

This is us at 3:30am, getting ready to leave Mats and Sara’s home.

Yes, it really is that bright out at 3:30am in June in Sweden. Yes, the sun set sometime not long before midnight as well. Sweden is pretty far north, and that matters when it comes to this sort of thing. Sara did get up to see us off, which was lovely, though Frieda took care of that the night before so she could avoid getting up at that hour with a clear conscience. This is called forethought, and it is to be encouraged.

Mats generously drove us to the airport, which was about an hour away. His job is out in that same general direction so at least he wasn’t going too far out of his way, and it was lovely to have the time with him. There’s not much traffic on the roads at that hour and we made good time, and soon enough we were at Arlanda.

We said goodbye to Mats and went in to find our gate. Lauren’s flight left about an hour and a half after ours from a different gate, so we said our goodbyes there and wished her well in her travels. It would be more than two months before we saw her again! She has graciously allowed me to tell my side of that story here in a future post, so watch this space. 

Getting through security is the same pretty much everywhere these days – intrusive, time consuming, and vaguely funny if you’re in the right mood, which very few people going through security are. Kim ended up in a line with a trainee screener who spent a fair amount of time searching her bag for playing cards, we think, though in the end all she found was gum. Not sure why either of these things is worth an extra search – perhaps playing poker is forbidden above a certain altitude now? it certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest or least useful restriction that has been placed on air travelers these days – but there you have it.

Secured, we headed into the terminal proper where we found pastries and beverages at the only open restaurant, after which Kim went hunting for Pikman Blooms in the terminal while I spent some time just watching the people go by.

Our flight to Munich left right on time and we got there without incident and then – as those of you who have ever flown through Munich already know – the Long Trek started. We had to get from the G gates to the L gates for our next flight – a process that involved stairs, escalators, long hallways, security checks, and a tram and never actually left the terminal. It took about 20 minutes. The last time we did this I ended up stymied by the automatic passport readers in the security line, but for some reason they worked just fine for me this time. I’ll take it.

There was some down time at the gate, which I used to get a proper lunch from the little food truck by the gate. The next flight would be long and tiring and I know they do their best but there is just something about food on planes that makes you wish you’d eaten beforehand, so when the opportunity arises you should take it.

From there it was on to Chicago, which for some reason always feels like it is about twice as long of a flight as it actually is. You can see the clock on your phone slow down to a crawl. The sun freezes in the sky. Children are born, grow up, marry, and fade off into old age. Pinkerton does not return.

One of the most infuriating things about living in 2025 as an American is that I now have to protect myself from my own government. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves have made it policy now that you can be harassed, denied entry, or even jailed simply for having opinions that they find objectionable, and speaking as a goddamned American patriot who is proud of having opinions that Fascists find objectionable I find it unforgiveable that I need to think about things like locking down my phone at the border in order to avoid having some jackbooted ICE thug keep me from going back into my own country and sleeping in my own bed.

But you do what you have to do to secure your phone from illegal search and seizure and – at least in my case – trust in the fact that as a straight white man I have Privilege Armor that is thick enough to protect me from much of the Fascism so far. That, by the way, seems to be thinning rapidly here in September so watch your back, but I’m already here so I’ve got that going for me.

“Land of the free” my ass.

If I suddenly stop blogging for an extended period, you’ll know why.

On the plus side, US Customs now has a little app that – as much as I hate apps in general and on principle – does actually make getting through border control a lot faster and easier. You get it up and running – or, in this case, Kim gets it up and running because I cannot be trusted with such technological tasks – and answer a few questions (“Do I have anything to declare? Oh, son, yes, yes, a thousand times yes – so, so much, in fact – but no contraband so we can just skip that step”) and you’re on your way.

Our original plan was to have Oliver pick us up at O’Hare, but with his foot in a boot there would be no driving for him for some time, so we had to resort to our backup plan of taking the bus back to Our Little Town. They’ve moved the bus station out to the rental car area now, and to get there you get on a tram and ride on out while large men in uniforms stand by the doors and shout directions at you. I was just happy that they were doing so in a language I understood, for the first time in weeks.

It's actually a nice station since they’ve redone it.

The next task was to buy tickets and here we ran into the same fact that I learned in 2004 when Kim and I took our first trip overseas together, which is that the US is always about five years behind Europe when it comes to payment methods. I remember being surprised by the idea of chips in credit cards, for example, and now they’re here too. In the weeks since the Florentine jackals had stolen my wallet I’d gotten used to paying for things with my phone – something I’d previously resisted but which I now stand corrected and feel okay with. But we couldn’t pay for the bus tickets that way, and the online payment system took quite a few tries before it would accept Apple Pay and for a while we were wondering whether we’d have to walk home but eventually it worked out fine and we got on the bus.

Kim’s mom had been staying with Oliver since he broke his foot so she came out to pick us up at the bus station in Our Little Town and we walked into our home about 20 hours after we’d woken up in Sweden. Modern travel is astonishingly fast by historical standards, which is something I try to impress on my students when we talk about distances and explorations and migrations. But that’s still quite a day.

For dinner we went to Culver’s for cheeseburgers because MURCA, and it was good.

We had a lovely time on this trip. We saw fantastic places and shared meals and experiences with good people. There are a lot of stories to remember and treasure.

It was good to go away. It was good to come back. It will be good to go away again.