Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport has created a “Climate Portal” to give passengers a preview of the weather at their destination – or at a destination they might want to book for a future trip.
The portal has three rooms – titled HOT, COLD and BIG – that use sound and image technology plus wind and temperature simulations to somehow transform online weather data into the physical experiences of being in various cities.
Here’s a short video the Arlanda Airport put together to explain:
Why create a weather portal at the airport when passengers are about to board planes which are already portals to new places?
It’s fun, of course, but as airport representatives point out, a weather preview is also a good reminder that you may need to do a bit of last minute shopping for sunscreen for that warm weather destination.
Look for Arlanda’s Climate Portal in Terminal 5, near Gate F26, through August 31.
Filing this under “Best Airport Amenity of the Week:”
Stockholm Arlanda Airport is celebrating Swedish Midsummer this week by inviting travelers to dance around a maypole and sample Swedish foods.
At a long table set up in Terminal 5, passengers will be able to sample herring, salmon, fish roe, Västerbotten cheese and elderflower juice.
A variety of Swedish products, including a book of Swedish drinking songs, will be for sale and there will be Swedish music.
Billed as a “crash course in Swedish Midsummer Traditions, the five “subjects” will be:
Dancing around the maypole – which is likely fun, but also insures good luck in marriage and childbirth;
Wearing a Midsummer wreath with flowers on one’s head;
Singing Swedish drinking songs;
Dreaming: Seven kinds of flowers placed under one’s pillow insure a dream of one’s true love;
and Eating – that’s where the herring, new potatoes, salmon, Västerbotten cheese and strawberries and cream come in.
A collaboration between a local children’s museum (Junibacken) and the airport, the play area invites kids to ride on a field mouse, pick giant blueberries, slide down a giant mushroom and interact with a wide variety of characters and scenes from the books. There’s also a corner for watching movies, reading and playing games.
Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with Beskow’s stories. You can get an idea of her magic by just skimming the titles, which include Hat Cottage (1930), Children of the Forest (1910), Peter in Blueberry Land (1901), Olle’s Ski Trip (1907) and The Sun Egg (1932), or sitting down and reading one of her books, which will be stocked at the play area in a variety of languages.
Here’s more on Elsa:
Elsa Beskow was a master at depicting Swedish nature, which comprises a key element in all her work. Her books are widely published in other languages, and she is considered the author who introduced Swedish children’s books to the rest of the world. Peter in Blueberry Land was the first book to be translated, into German in 1903, into Danish in 1912, and into English in 1931. Today Elsa Beskow’s books have been translated into 19 languages.
On Monday, December 6th, weddings for one gay couple from Germany – Aleksandar Mijatovic and Shantu Bhattacherjee – and one lesbian couple from Poland, – Ewa Tomaszewicz and Gosia Rawińska – took place on SAS Airlines flight SK903 traveling from Stockholm to New York.
The couples were winners in a wedding and honeymoon-package contest hosted by SAS and a variety of partners in the travel industry. I was honored to be on the history-making wedding flight on assignment to write an article about the event that will appear on msnbc.com. In the meantime, here are some photos from the day.
SAS crew performs wedding rap for in-flight, same-sex wedding couples
Wedding cake for SAS same-sex wedding flight December 6, 2010
Congratulations to everyone involved with this very special in-flight wedding.
Throughout the year, Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport is a pretty lovey-dovey place.
Last Thursday morning, I stopped by the airport chapel just as chaplain Anders Berglund was finishing up a short marriage ceremony for Melitza and Frank Kortman (below). After chit-chat and champagne, the couple set off for their honeymoon in Bali and Berglund explained that this was the second of three weddings he’d be presiding over that day and just a few of the more than 200 weddings that take place at the airport chapel each year.
More than 200 Swedish marriages begin with ceremonies at the airport’s VIP lounge as well.
The folks at Guinness World Records may not be keeping tabs, but I’m pretty sure more wedding ceremonies take place at Stockholm’s Arlanda than at any other airport.
That’s all very romantic. But on Monday, Arlanda is going to be the starting point for what is certainly a world first in weddings.
On Monday morning, December 6, 2010, one of the business class cabins on SAS fligh SK903 from Stockholm to New York will be transformed into a wedding chapel in preparation for the world’s first in-flight, same-sex weddings.
One gay couple and one lesbian couple – winners of a spirited, record-breaking, on-line contest that took place over the last few months – will be married when the plane takes off and while it is still in Swedish airspace. Once the legal business is completed, there will be an in-flight reception, complete with wedding dinner, wedding cake, first dances and other traditional, and no doubt some non-traditional, wedding celebrations.
I’ll be attending the in-flight weddings as a media guest and will share more details once the flight arrives in New York.
In the meantime, you can read more about the contest and winning couples on the SAS website, where there’s also information about the flowers, the wedding bands and the wedding outfits.
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