Today is my birthday!  And we are leaving Sweden.  :-(

We headed to the airport with our favorite SAS flight attendant, the Viking Princess.

We were hoping to get on Christine's flight since she would be working the flight to Amsterdam later today, and that's where we were going to get out flight home.  Fortunately, she was able to find a friend at one of the ticket desks and quickly got us onto the flight and we didn't even have to wait in the line.

Since Christine took care of getting us on the flight, and we got to the airport early and had time to kill, we thought we'd get rid of some Kroner and have some lunch.  We managed to find some smoked Reindeer meat, some Swedish native pita-like bread, some Pepsi Max for Caroline, and some chocolate.  You can be so creative in a foreign airport when you are looking to get rid of left over currency. 

Then, at the gate, we found out she had us switched to business class.  A very nice improvement in our situation.  Christine made sure we had every comfort possible on the flight.  It was like having a little Viking Princess Angel looking over your shoulder, and visiting every once in a while with more goodies.

After a fine meal and lots of drinks, Christine showed up with a birthday cake.  I had never had a birthday at 33,000 feet before.  This was something new and very special.  Caroline and I enjoyed the cake and then sent it up to the crew so they could enjoy it too.

After our meal Christine got us a tour of the cockpit.  I was a lot more interested in the cockpit than Caroline was.  There is a one hell of a lot of gear up there.  And a lot of it is moving automatically as the plane flies itself.  It was a very cool touch to a very nice flight.

After all the goodies we got on the plane, Christine decided that we would need a care package.  We didn't unpack it until we got to our hotel in Amsterdam.  And it turned to be quite a load of goodies.  We will thoroughly enjoy all of it as we think fondly of Christine and Sweden, and our wonderful times there.