We just woke up in our 'junior suite' as Jon called it, in Turku, Finland. I've got a coffee beside me and I am ready to tell you of the ups and downs of travel days within our travel year and highlight the lessons learned.

September the 4th was our first travel day of our trip, and it provided a LOT of learning opportunities for us. Firstly, we flew out of Chicago, a full 3 hours drive away from where we lived. Factor in a long overnight flight, little to no sleep and then roll immediately to a rental car pick up in a country where they drive on the opposite side of the road and you've got a recipe for disaster. Our disaster included vomit, exhaustion and short tempers. Rough first travel day.

Our second major travel day was spread over September 19th - 21st which brought us from London to Stockholm to Turku. I'm rolling this all into a very large travel day because of the length of stay and the general feel of movement. Some more life lessons were learned, in the form of packing. We each have a pack and a half (a smaller day bag). Jon was tasked with packing both his and Harrison's large bags. Jon has a rolling technique that really helps. I, sadly, have not developed or even attempted to learn that yet. My method is a general mushing of things and squashing of items until they fit. I did, however, pick up a trick from somewhere and have started cramming socks and underwear into my spare shoes - what a smarty pants! So, anyway, Jon devoted a lot of time to packing bags the morning of our travel and he was pretty worn out by it. Lesson to learn - pre-pack as much as possible the night before.

We were all suited up, packs on the back and little bags on the front, smugly walking to Paddington Station thinking we were saving some pounds by not taking the Edgeware Station tube until we saw the price tags for Heathrow Express, 25 pounds per adult, ugh! Devastated, we bought the tickets and I mentally charged the amount to the 'overage' line in our expense report. Another lesson to learn - do your research on how to get to the airport and know how much it will cost you to avoid pricey surprises. This lesson took a while to learn, as we did the exact same thing upon landing at Arlanda airport in Stockholm. Instead of accepting the $36 per adult ticket, we paused and grabbed an Uber instead, saving at least $30 by doing so. Small miracles.

The bonus of the pricey Uber was that he delivered us (with much speed!) to our hotel directly. Harry did not vomit in the back seat, although I nervously whispered to Jon that I should have remembered to take a bag from the airplane. Mercifully Harry chose to snooze. We checked into our tiny room and dashed out for a dinner sans large bags on our backs. The room was nothing to write home about, simply beds and access to shared showers and toilets. But for $82 a night, it was a steal. Also, an enormous bonus of letting us leave our packs there the entire next day which allowed us to roam the city freely for the 11 hours we had there. As a side note, I've been to Stockholm several times, mostly as a stopover and generally not appreciating it as much as I should have - it really is very lovely and I now regret not having stayed there for at least 2 days.

After collecting our bags we called an uber instead of hoofing it down to the docks, we had walked the ENTIRE day. We checked in to our ferry and battled through some cultural norms as we attempted to get to our cabin. I reminded Harrison that we might find ourselves squished, overheated and pushed past on other occasions this year and that the best thing you can do is breathe deeply and try to stay calm. He is actually, a very amazing 9-year-old traveler in this regard. Well, we made it, threw down our packs and explored the ship. We went to the roof deck and said goodbye to Sweden. We'd lose another hour once we landed in Finland, so we tried to get as much sleep as possible.

Wake up calls came early onboard, 6:30 am, which felt like 4:30 having just recently been 2 hours behind in London. Having learned our lesson, the majority of our bags were already packed and we just squished in our sleep clothes before hustling to the deck to depart bright and early into a gray and drizzly Turku. We caught our breath, sat down at the terminal and planned our next leg. We couldn't get into our Airbnb until 2 pm, we had 6 hours to kill. We decided to store our bags at the terminal for 5 💶 and walk into the city. We walked mostly to stretch our legs and to stretch the time a little. It's a 3km journey, but we've really been walking a LOT these days so it didn't feel that bad. We finally found a cafe in the mall and just SAT and drank our very large coffees. Harry read some of his new Harry Potter book while munching on a kanelipulla (cinnamon bun). It's amazing how a sit and a coffee can revive someone. We filled the remaining hours with the library, market square, a step into the church and a lunch at Hesburger. We were there promptly at 2 pm. Ahhhhhh.

Then we had to go get our bags and get to a grocery.....