BaroqueW

Airports…

It’s amazing how much Stockholm’s Arlanda airport has grown over the years. It was a baby airport with grandious plans 10 years ago, when I moved to Sweden. I miss the simplicity of just walking past a security desk manned by one bored looking fellow – even though I was invariably singled out for inspection. Apparently I look suspiciously innocent.

The vacation has barely begun and I have already spent 2000sek. I didn’t have headphones that are viable for use on an airplane (thanks in part to Dexter chewing on wires and in part to my astounding ability to lose and misplace objects.) 

So I am now the proud owner of a set of Philips SHN9500 active noise canceling headphones  and I shutter at the idea of checking how much

 I was gouged for on pricerunner. They work wonderfully well though!

 They’re also much more comfortable than the alien ear invasion technology Max favours. Depeche Mode, Kidney thieves, Christophe Willem and the sountrack of Serenity melt my brain in a gentle padded embrace and tune out the migraine inducing hum of the airplane engines. Aaaah. 

Of course the headphones also have a “mute” feature, so  you can allow sound in (and it cuts off your music as well) and hear announcements. Thus I was able to find out that the plane that had been scheduled for our flight was found to have “too many” problems, and thus we now had a completely different plane last minute (hence the delay in boarding) and that this plane was “perfectly good”. Thank you so much for putting me at ease by telling me about problems I knew nothing about, so that I can now obsessively wonder if I’ll be on the next French plane to vanish into nothing. 

On a somewhat happier note, I’ve started my “summer school” French lessons by working in my excercise book. With Max’s helpful supervision I have learned many useful things. For instance, I can now inform you that la grêle means “When the sky is pooping ice-cubes.”