Never having pulled a 24-hourish stint of travel with hair this short (chin length) before, I did not anticipate that it would look quite so bad getting off the first plane, let alone the bus between airports and the next plane. I’m writing this sitting on yet another bus, waiting to depart Skavsta airport for Stockholm, and at long last, a hotel where I can wash my hair – and the rest of me – free of the sticky film of travel.

It’s been nearly two years since I last used my passport, which – well, I would say that’s peculiar, but I didn’t leave Australia for two years, so that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. It is a bit strange to have spent such a long stretch of unbroken time in the States, though. Now I get a week out, in two European cities I’ve never been to before, and while I’m pleased, I do find myself wishing they weren’t northern European cities in November. I can only hope I’ve packed warmly enough.

The trip out to Stockholm has been a bit grueling – while it’s a professional trip, it’s on a pretty limited budget, so instead of flying reasonably directly from DC to Stockholm, I ended up leaving DC for London last night, arriving at Heathrow this morning, transferring to Stanstead airport, well outside the city, this afternoon, to fly Ryanair to “Stockholm” – and now I’ve got another hour+ bus ride ahead of me. Not to mention a conference that starts at 8:30 tomorrow that I have to figure out how to get to. And all I want to do is shower and sleep. Sleep, like I did briefly just now, and came to myself to find six rows of “mmmmmmmmmmmm” marching across my screen.

The bus ride from Heathrow to Stansted might have been a good way to see a bit of the English landscape, but I’ll never know, because I have vague recollections of pulling out of the station, and then I was out like a light, with only a couple brief “huh . . . wha . . . should wake u. . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” moments before we got to the airport. I almost never sleep well on planes, but the hum and sway of a vehicle on the road rock me off to sleep almost against my will. I’m struggling now, but I really don’t want to doze off because I’m afraid I’ll wreck my chances of getting to sleep tonight. And I dearly want to sleep, and hopefully lessen the jet lag.

I can't believe how easily the trip out has gone. Both flights actually came in a bit early, there was next to no wait at immigration, practically no customs, and impressively little delay in securing my checked luggage.  I am not accustomed to this state of affairs. Tiny little Skavsta airport though, with it’s formerly blond finishes greyed and dimmed by time and hardly shown off to their advantage under greasy florescent lights, that felt vaguely familiar from my days schlepping around Eastern Europe.

I am losing the battle to the rocking of the bus. I keep yanking myself awake, trying to focus on the screen, to force my brain to string thoughts together while the landscape rolls by in anonymous darkness, and I wonder whether Sweden would look familiar under sunlight or not. I may never know – my return flight to London is a late one, and I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be dark when I reverse this trip on Friday.