If France seemed surprisingly affordable, Norway is not. The exchange rate to Norwegian Kroner (for golfers, the 1 Kroner coin is equalled only by the Cook Islands $2 coin as a ball marker) is still 5:1, almost identical to when I was here in 2001. It is often better not to do the conversion in your head, just let it be an ill-defined largish figure that you plan to work out later, and leave it at that. By way of setting a scale, if you think about the normal price range for a product in Australia, and think about what would be the very top end of that range, and then double it, you are approximately at a ballpark figure.
That takes a bit of getting used to, but the quality is very good and you have no choice anyway, so I'll get back to you later when I work out how much we spent! Not!
Driving around Oslo, Nesøya, and the various other towns we went to and through, the whole place presents very very well. As Lauren said ''everything is pretty in the whole wide world...LOOK, I saw a BUS SIGN!!!!". Aidan thought the bits of Paris that we saw were the most graffiti-ridden messes he had ever seen, and he was probably right. In driving around Paris I saw nothing that would make me want to visit there, it is only all the things I have seen and heard before that will one day draw me there. Oslo, taking similar through-city major routes presents totally differently. It looks clean and interesting, and if that was all you saw, you'd be wanting to come back some time and have a look. Don't forget to save up before you come!
For all that Norwegian is a totally inaccessible language to me, whereas I can figure out the key words in a fair bit of French, Norway felt far less foreign than France. Maybe it is the way that, despite the traditional building materials in use in some places, it looks more contemporary, or at least less stereotypically 'Tour de France quaint'. Many signs and information are in both Norwegian and English, so even though you are confronted with some pretty impenetrable linguistics (generally including vowels that I don't even know the name of let alone how to pronounce - things like ø and æ), often there are subtitles to help you muddle through, and the majority of people in the cities and bigger towns seem to be able to switch from Norwegian to English with a disarming smile and a classic Scandinavian accent at the drop of a hat.
We had a thoroughly good time here. Good friends, new and interesting experiences, variable weather, alien landscapes, excellent food. Some things that stick in my mind about Norway include the largely courteous and patient driving, the ubiquity of what we would call hot dogs, the neatness, the fact that pine forests are natural features here, lakes off to the right, boats, boats on lakes just off to the right, not daring to do the currency conversion, how green it is, spires (which Mum had Lauren and Aidan dedicated to spotting, sometimes from as far away as 3-4 feet), wood cabins with grass roofs, and - for my own particular reasons - a display cabinet in the souvenir shop at the Ski Jump facility with a bare rock wall back and glass front. If I have my way, we'll have one of those at home one day.
A theme you might have picked up in this is how well Norway is organised, and you might be wondering why the title of this dissertation is only '99% organisation'. That is because it all runs out just before you leave the country. Parking at the airport is clearly signed and easy. Hire car return? 10 seconds. Check in? Easy enough. Security? Quick and clear. Exiting customs area? An automatic door. Walking to the gate? A big corridor with sequentially numbered illuminated signs. Surprise huge last minute queue of desperate travellers trying to clear passport control to get to boarding / closing flights right at the very end of the terminal? Check.
Actually, make that a big red X. For a place that was so well organised up to that point, this was an almighty mess. We'd been at the airport two hours early for our flight, done all the logistics, lingered over an $8 coffee, shopped a bit, and were heading for our gate past a thousand shops, toilets, seating areas etc when we came across a seemingly disorganised mob of people at the end of a travelator. It was only by trying to get around them it becomes clear that it is a line you have to be in. Given there is nothing at all on the other side, there is no obvious motivation to try to get through that queue other than panically discovering it at the point in time when you want to walk up to the gate and get on the plane. In hindsight, it is obvious that this function should be SOMEwhere, but you are so far into the system that you forget you haven't seen it.
I have no idea how long it would take to go through that queue. We cut into the line half way along, pushed further ahead at one stage, then just pushed up to the counter and told the guy to stamp, and stamp quickly. Then we sprinted to the gate, the first time I have ever run in an airport. Mum, who had pushed to the front of the EU passport holder's queue and got through was making them hold the plane for us, and we were literally last aboard. I sincerely hope that this will be the biggest - and preferably only - serious panic for the trip.
I also have no idea how many people miss flights there, but judging by how many surprised and panicky people were in the lines with us, I imagine it would have to be a lot. Quite literally, the only reason we made our flight was that we just pushed in, unashamedly cut lines, and were totally rude. I hope we didn't make anyone else just miss a flight - but not as much as I am glad we made ours. It just seems a system which must fail many people every day, and it could be avoided simply by telling people who were on affected flights that they need to leave enough time to clear that bottleneck. One last act of gratuitous systematic organisation to get us poor tourists out the door would be much appreciated!
Anyway, somehow we made it. Would have been very frustrating if we had hung out in the airport for two hours and still missed our flight over something as seemingly ridiculous as that. Maybe we missed a sign that we should have seen - it wouldn't surprise me, but for the moment I am blaming someone else. I guess the lesson here is always send out forward scouts and check that the isn't anything unexpected in the way.
Maybe whoever was supposed to be sitting next to me on this flight is still back in that queue?
Location:Oslo Airport, and onwards
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