Finally some vacation

A couple of days before Christmas, we realized that the family really could use a vacation. After browsing through our alternatives, we discovered that the we would get the best "work/vacation combo" (research/visiting friends/doing stuff we haven't done in a while/getting some sun) by going New York, and then drive/fly down the east coast over Philadelphia/Washington, and then finally Florida.

Since we had our second boy, Adam, we've been wondering how we'll manage traveling with two small kids (Max 3 yrs, and Adam 6 mos). I guess this will be the ultimate test.

The flight from Arlanda to Newark was not so bad (about eight hours), but then Murphy's law started coming into effect:

- After waiting for an hour for our oversized luggage, we were told that it was still in Stockholm. Not a good start since that means our strollers and child safety seats were gone.
- After finally being able to move the family to Avis (without strollers) we were able to rent child safety seats (good), but also switch cars three times (!) since they managed to screw up.
- When we, rather tired, managed to get to the hotel and check in, we thought we were home free. Until I started to load the remains of our luggage into one of the hotel elevators, that is. Because the elevator decided to disappear. Without us in it. (Ten minutes later we managed to get all the luggage back. It turned out that that particular elevator was broken, and had transformed itself into a monster that occasionally opened up and swallowed people's stuff. Glad we weren't in it.)

To be continued...

Christmas came early this year

I'm coming out of the closet. I am an amazon.com-o-holic. Even though this is a bit easier to combine with "living in Sweden" since the depreciation of the US dollar, I sometimes place a bit too may orders with Amazon for my own good. It's probably not good for the environment either.

Anyway: Nowadays, you've got to give it to them. I ordered my stuff (too much to fit in one box) this Monday at dinner, CET. I got the packed-and-has-left-the-building-mail at night (22.42 hrs CET or something ;) After leaving their place at Kentucky, it got airborne in OH Tuesday morning, arrived at East Midlands in the UK last night, Arlanda this morning, and to my house in Vaxholm just after 9 am. That is like 33 hours door-to-door from Amazon and my house in the archipelago! Two different boxes!

"Sure", you might say, "that's not a big deal". But it IS. The prices for express shipping has dropped ($53 for 15 items), and the speed has increased significantly. It used to be 2-4 days with standard express from the US (most likely meaning 3-4 days). This time it was less than 1,5 days!

Christmas came early this year, and now I can spend the holidays wrapping up the last season of West Wing, browsing through the new edition of WoW Master guide, and also get started on Carnivale.

Merry Christmas!