Finally time to escape the November darkness. The taxi was booked for 6.45. I had been up since 5.45, eaten breakfast, and checked the contents of my bag twice. No forgotten items this time.
Check-in was painless. My main bag came in at 6 kg, the daypack at 1.5 kg with the iPad inside, which put me technically over the 7 kg carry-on limit. Nobody weighed anything. Several passengers ahead of me were carrying noticeably more.
My seat was 28A on the Norse Atlantic Dreamliner, window seat on the left side. Legroom was acceptable, nothing beyond that. What was not acceptable was the service: during eleven hours in the air, Norse offered water once. That was the extent of it. I had downloaded several things to watch on Apple TV before leaving, which turned out to be essential preparation. I got up twice during the flight to stretch and stand at the back of the cabin for a few minutes.
We left Stockholm at 9.25 and landed in Bangkok on time. Immigration moved quickly. I found an ATM outside arrivals and withdrew 10,000 baht, about 300 dollars. My driver was waiting with a sign. Traffic was light at that hour and I was at the hotel by 4.30 in the morning.
Eleven hours on a budget airline, a new timezone, a city I had never been to. I set an alarm, turned off the light, and went to sleep.