Time for us to go separate ways...
...for the next 9 days. That is, if no Icelandic volcano has other ideas and Hans gets stuck in Stockholm again like he did in 2010.
Hans is going to Stockholm to renew his Swedish passport and to say hi to his brother Mike and friends. Di is going back to London to be close to a family friend whose health is not good and to see her mum Audrey and her husband Al when they arrive later next week.
Hence, a new experiment in blogging as Hans kept the iPad and the camera and Di has the iPhone and somehow we will try to coordinate a single blogging effort for until 20 October. We will see how we go.
Onto today's events...
We were pretty much packed up and ready to go at breakfast time 7.30am. A last English Breakfast for Hans at the Green Gables Guest House in Oxford while Di opted for a cut down version.
We were soon onto one of the many local buses going into Oxford's City Centre and then walked to Gloucester Green where both our buses departed but in slightly different directions.
First, a cuppa next to the bus station and Di took a final photo of Hans...
Sign inside the coffee shop...
Hans events:
The Airline bus took off from Gloucester Green in Oxford on time at 9.30am and traveled without any hiccups to London meaning Hans arrived at Heathrow's terminal 5 at 10.50am. Plenty of time before the scheduled 1.30pm.
Well, that was the end of smooth traveling for a while.
Going through security, Hans' backpack was singled out as being suspicious... Together with many others, meaning that Hans' backpack was the 5th piece of luggage to be thoroughly examined. Sigh... Wait, and wait, and wait, and then it was Hans turn. Everything, and I mean everything, inside the backpack was brought out and checked and rechecked...
Of course, nothing was found and then finally told Hans that he had been singled out because of many electrical items... Well, it was the iPad and the camera and the Apple charger together with an English powerplug and... No, that was it.
Hans left in disgust and so did many of the other travelers as well... Not impressed.
Then, the gate was supposed to be closing at 1.10pm for a 1.30pm departure. Well, those timeslots came and went, boarding was now from 2.15pm, no, now delayed to 2.30pm...
Well, it was raining but Hans thought that Heathrow airport and the British were very used to that.
Vic drank beer too...
And at 9pm, there was a football game on TV, a World Cup qualifier between Sweden and Austria.
Sweden was down 1-0 in halftime, but managed to turn the game around in the second half, 2-1 to Sweden over Austria was the final result which meant that the last game in that qualifying group against has no impact. Germany will win the group, Sweden will come second and both will play in the World Cup in Brazil next year.
OK, in the intermission, with Mike and beer, it was inevitable that the guitars will come out.
Hans just had to take a photo of Mike's sofa, upholstered with... duct tape, also a Traveller's friend. Hans suggested that perhaps an investment in new seating arrangements may not be out of place. Apparently, Päivi, Mike's girlfriend had made some similar suggestions...
So, in summary lots of beers, laughs, music and football and in bed around midnight.
Meanwhile, Di took a separate bus from Oxford to London and it looked like she may have been just behind Hans at some stage because this looked like the bus Hans travelled in. Obviously, the buses go the same route towards London for some time.
Di was staying with a couple named Dario and Cate through AirBnB and she thought that they were a lovely couple, had a lovely apartment in a great location.
And a pic of Di's lunch, which she probably took to make Hans jealous as he had nothing as nice as Laksa.
All good and good night from London and from Stockholm.
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