Initial hours in Stockholm

Initially had plans of writing about my first flight journey but then had second thoughts and felt writing abou this would be much better first.

I landed at Arlanda airport (stockholm) on 10th May at something around 9.10a.m local time. The weather was real cold. Had to scamper for my sweater that had got settled somewhere deep in my hand luggage. Got my cabin baggage and was among the early ones to depart from the airport. Enquired with the information desk as to where i could get a taxi and came out of the airport.

Boy..i felt the scene at the airport entrance really fascinating. There were actually a lot of taxis as the informant had told. But there was just this problem. All of the taxis were MERCs. My god, being in India for all this time and seeing one of my real favourite car as a taxi was just different. A taxi driver signalled for me and asked if we could leave. Though i had got some cash in swedish kronors (thanks to my teammate who had just reached India on the day when i was leaving), i was not sure if that would be sufficient for my journey. So, started enquiring with him about the price that it would cost to take me to the hotel that another teamamate of mine had booked for my first few days. He started explaining that his was a fixed price one and he will not charge more. I started explaining him that i had limited swedish currency and finally managed him to check out the prices before i got into the taxi. Was really happy when he told me the amount as I was told earlier about the amount that it might cost.

That was the first time i had a ride on a MERC and really understood the difference of that and the rest of the cars. Also had the pleasure of watching a lot of other cars om road of which I had either read about in magazines or seen on TVs. All in all the initial few hours were really good.