The flight was quite an experience for most of the boys. As if Monticello Bus Company’s Prevost motor coach wasn’t modern enough with its air suspension, 47 reclining seats and eight television monitors; the Airbus 330 was over the top! First, it had two ‘hallways’ with two seats on the outside rows and four seats down the middle for a total of 261 seats. In addition to the eight overhead plasmas, every passenger had a personal touch screen monitor in the back of the seat cushion in front of them, with a pillow, blanket, bottle of water and headphones in each seating area. 
As we boarded the plane all of the monitors had the world map displaying the shadow line showing day and night across the longitudes. No more were the players seated with their seat belts on, then the retractable controllers started coming out of the armrests. Some were seeking one of the 30 channels of music, others exploring the 26 movie options, yet others, the dozen or so games…all at no cost and rated PG13 or younger. Although on most planes only the pilots have the forward view, as we taxied to the runway for our timely 4:30pm departure, the favorite view on everyone’s monitor was the 'forward camera'. The 'down camera' view provided a wonderful view after takeoff as we headed North over Chicago, Lake Michigan and Canada.
The first several minutes were truly exhilarating and culminated at about 3 hours of the 8 hour flight with the chicken dinner. The time passed quickly as we flew 550 mph and a 37,000 feet cruising altitude. Clocks were adjusted 7 hours ahead for Scandinavian time, but at this latitude and altitude we never saw darkness outside the plane, only a dimmed cabin with all of the window shades pulled.
The most uncomfortable part of the flight was about the time we were crossing the International Date Line through Great Britain. At this point the air on the plane had become very dry. A few were snoring, but most were coughing. And those still awake were coming to the realization that they had not gone to sleep yet with the 7:30am arrival only a few hours away. It was the classic oxymoron of the body telling the brain it wasn’t tired, but the brain telling the body it needed to sleep. At 7:00am the cabin started coming to life with the flight attendants serving breakfast in a bag, the window shades revealing a bright sun and the view from the 'down camera' starting to make out streets and fields. 
All in all, a wonderful first trip for everyone…those who had never been on a flight and as well as the frequent flier. After navigating the terminal at Stockholm, we made it through security again, to Gate 40 and on to the second leg of our flight from Stockholm to Gotenburg via a Boeing 737. This was a much quicker flight and most spent the hour or so sleeping. We arrived on time in Gotenburg, Sweden, our baggage made it all the way through and Sven Erich met us at the baggage claim just as planned. We loaded up on the baggage and are off to our hotel and school.
TEK
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