Yesterday, after an extremely long and frustrating travel day, we arrived in Norway. We have traded skirts and sandals and sunscreen for layers and raincoats and umbrellas. It's a whole new vacation here in the land of the midnight sun.
Things seemed to be going fine as we departed Barcelona yesterday morning. We happily reunited with Jonah at the airport, had plenty of time to transfer terminals, eat some lunch and make it to our gate. We got on the plane and prepared for our transition to Norway. And then we sat. And sat. And sat. For two hours, in fact. It seems that they were waiting for luggage from some of the passengers who were making tight connections, and then they had to wait an hour or more for the little tiny truck to push the giant airplane back from the gate. Couldn't they just put a reverse in those things?? Finally, two hours after our scheduled departure time, we took off. The flight was smooth and easy, but we knew we'd now have a very tight connection in Oslo, as our two and 1/2 hour layover had been seriously abbreviated by the delay in Barcelona. We got to Oslo at 5:00 and our flight to Bodo was scheduled to depart at 5:50. No problem, you say? Well, first, we had to deplane by stairs and then sit in a shuttle that drove us the 100 yards or so to the building. When we got out of the shuttle, we made a mad dash past all the people we could and headed for the check in to our next flight (somehow we had managed to leave Barcelona without any boarding passes for our second flight). When we saw the line snaking through the terminal, we knew it did not look good. We tried every avenue to get some assistance, but that didn't go so well. Ultimately, we trusted in the guy at the Norwegian airlines counter who told us we could just take our printed itinerary and use that to get through security. We were skeptical, but we thought, "maybe they do things differently in Norway." Well, guess what? They do not do things differently in Norway. We waited in the security line and when we got to the front, the kind and lovely agent did all she could to try to work with us, but eventually, she said she just couldn't let us through. By that point, all our other options (none of which were very promising in the first place), were depleted. We returned to the counter, only to learn that the only other flight to Bodo last night was booked, and we'd have to wait until 1:30 today to go. Tom wanted us to try the standby option they offered us for the 10:30 p.m. flight, but I was really worried about the unlikelihood of 4 people not showing up for the completely booked flight. The idea of spending 5 hours in the airport and then still having to go to a hotel for the night and fly the next day just wasn't appealing at that point. But, we gave it a shot and were the happiest people in the world when they let us on the flight (unlike the people already settled on to the plane who watched every moment of our arrival onto the plane and efforts to stow our four carry-on bags into the overhead compartments).
We made it to Bodo around 11:30 and were awed by the views on landing. I wish I had photos from the plane to share. It was a relatively warm evening and the sky was magnificent when we arrived at our hotel around midnight.
Today, we awoke to rain and wind. Our plan was to go see the maelstrom, which is the world's largest tidal current, and then hike 1000 meters to the top of a hill with amazing views of the entire area. We made it to the maelstrom, wet and freezing, but we had to skip the hike as the downpours continued. It's hard to believe that just two days ago we were walking around Barcelona sweating and looking for ice cream.
Tomorrow we head over to the Lofoton Islands, where we will stay for three nights. The forecast is for some sun, so we are hopeful that we can find a happy climate medium between the extremes of the last few days.
Things seemed to be going fine as we departed Barcelona yesterday morning. We happily reunited with Jonah at the airport, had plenty of time to transfer terminals, eat some lunch and make it to our gate. We got on the plane and prepared for our transition to Norway. And then we sat. And sat. And sat. For two hours, in fact. It seems that they were waiting for luggage from some of the passengers who were making tight connections, and then they had to wait an hour or more for the little tiny truck to push the giant airplane back from the gate. Couldn't they just put a reverse in those things?? Finally, two hours after our scheduled departure time, we took off. The flight was smooth and easy, but we knew we'd now have a very tight connection in Oslo, as our two and 1/2 hour layover had been seriously abbreviated by the delay in Barcelona. We got to Oslo at 5:00 and our flight to Bodo was scheduled to depart at 5:50. No problem, you say? Well, first, we had to deplane by stairs and then sit in a shuttle that drove us the 100 yards or so to the building. When we got out of the shuttle, we made a mad dash past all the people we could and headed for the check in to our next flight (somehow we had managed to leave Barcelona without any boarding passes for our second flight). When we saw the line snaking through the terminal, we knew it did not look good. We tried every avenue to get some assistance, but that didn't go so well. Ultimately, we trusted in the guy at the Norwegian airlines counter who told us we could just take our printed itinerary and use that to get through security. We were skeptical, but we thought, "maybe they do things differently in Norway." Well, guess what? They do not do things differently in Norway. We waited in the security line and when we got to the front, the kind and lovely agent did all she could to try to work with us, but eventually, she said she just couldn't let us through. By that point, all our other options (none of which were very promising in the first place), were depleted. We returned to the counter, only to learn that the only other flight to Bodo last night was booked, and we'd have to wait until 1:30 today to go. Tom wanted us to try the standby option they offered us for the 10:30 p.m. flight, but I was really worried about the unlikelihood of 4 people not showing up for the completely booked flight. The idea of spending 5 hours in the airport and then still having to go to a hotel for the night and fly the next day just wasn't appealing at that point. But, we gave it a shot and were the happiest people in the world when they let us on the flight (unlike the people already settled on to the plane who watched every moment of our arrival onto the plane and efforts to stow our four carry-on bags into the overhead compartments).
We made it to Bodo around 11:30 and were awed by the views on landing. I wish I had photos from the plane to share. It was a relatively warm evening and the sky was magnificent when we arrived at our hotel around midnight.
Today, we awoke to rain and wind. Our plan was to go see the maelstrom, which is the world's largest tidal current, and then hike 1000 meters to the top of a hill with amazing views of the entire area. We made it to the maelstrom, wet and freezing, but we had to skip the hike as the downpours continued. It's hard to believe that just two days ago we were walking around Barcelona sweating and looking for ice cream.
Tomorrow we head over to the Lofoton Islands, where we will stay for three nights. The forecast is for some sun, so we are hopeful that we can find a happy climate medium between the extremes of the last few days.
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