I woke up around 5.30 am yesterday, and got in time to the airport to catch my flight to London Heathrow for another, connecting, flight to Arlanda, Stockholm. Â The shuttle flight down to Heathrow didn’t take long, and as I had expected, we ended up in the hold for 10 minutes before landing. Â At Heathrow, I had a couple of hours to spare, so I passed my time browsing through the shops and met up with a friend of mine a short while later that was also on the type rating course and traveling with me on the same flight.
The flight to Stockholm passed quickly since I had company and our first impression of Sweden as we were coming into land was that it was full of trees!  Trees, everywhere!  We collected our luggage and met up with another couple of our friends there and made our way to meet a hotel staff member that had come to transport us to the hotel.  After being shown our rooms, we checked in and were given some useful information on the local public transport, amenities and sights of interest.  We were also given a tour of the hotel itself including its kitchens and washing/drying facilities.  The hotel we’re staying at is the BoKloster VillaHotell which is situated in Märsta, which is a suburb just on the outskirts of Stockholm and conveniently located near Arlanda airport.  The hotel itself is located in a quiet corner surrounded by greenery and with the rain I could sense the fresh smell of the greenery around us – very refreshing.
After meeting up with the rest of the course members, we decided to head into the city to explore. Â We walked around and absorbed the sights and managed to find an Italian place (by recommendation of an Italian that is on the course) for pizza. Â We continued to explore, and found the city unusually quiet for a weekend. Â There weren’t many cars on the road or people walking around in the city, as you would expect in the Capital, such as for example, London. Â We were, however, told that this was due to the Midsummer’s eve celebrations, so many people that lived in the city go up North to celebrate it.
It was good to walk around and explore and take the chance to do so whilst we have some free time before we started the type rating here. Â One thing we’ve all found fascinating here is that the sky is light 24 hours, this time of the year!