Sicily to Sweden via Istanbul

Monday 10/3 - Well, neither of us slept much last night. We had arranged for a taxi to the airport (early! 6:45 out front, 18€ flat rate) via our hostel. We were early, and so was he, so we were lineless at checkin (a short while later, the line was beyond the barriers!). We had coffee and croissants along with our bits of picnic food, saw this nice view of Etna

then through security to our gate  - or nearly. Because our flight was through Turkey, we had to go through passport control before our gate. I was a little nervous about navigating the Istanbul airport, but it was extremely clear - anyone transiting the airport on another international flight followed the signs and showed a boarding pass for the next leg - boom! you're in the departure area! And you get a teensy view of Istanbul. Speaking of views, this trip gave me my first ever sight of Africa AND Asia! That was an exciting thing to realize :-)

And my first glimpse of the Black Sea

and, finally! Stockholm from the air (again)

It was quite nice to come into an airport that we had been to already, and so recently. We knew how things worked, and where the info counter was. WHICH we made use of! My research said to take a train then bus to our hotel, but the lovely young lady persuaded us to take the airport bus then walk. Oh what a wonderful sight! Stockholm at sunset! (No pictures for you, so sorry) :-)

Airport internet: I have had the worst luck with accessing European airport Wi-Fi! The trend seems to be this: at the welcome page, enter a European phone number. That is sent an SMS with an access code. Then you enter that code on the welcome page, and voilà! Hah! We either didn't yet have a phone number, or never got the message, or... pick a problem :-\

~~~
Update: read the post abot our first encounter with the Stockholm airport - http://slowtravelin.blogspot.com/2016/09/stockholm-airport.html