Thursday, December 2

What a day, well I guess it is dec 3 now.

Everything seemed to go fine, really. The cab came a little early, but we managed to get all the gear and ourselves in it. To Logan, fast, no traffic. No line at Iceland air’s check in. not particularily friendly service there, but I guess latino ladies shouldn’t work for Scandanavian airlines. To the lounge. 10 minutes in security check, not too bad. No one got searched. The worst thing was Sean not getting his bagel sandwich from ABP in a timely manner. Mine was fine. I asked for something with bacon on it. Bought a tiny red sox t-shirt for jay bogey, made last minute calls to P & M, and L. The gate was in the middle of a hall. It was something out of being john malkovich, or spinal tap.

I must say, I don’t think I would choose to fly Iceland air again. The novelty of stopping in Iceland was cool, but man was it a crowded plane. NO room between seats and dire if the guy in front of you puts his seat back, like mine did, of course. Just not comfortable. Food, eh, ok. Entertainment? Some crappy B aussie flick with the chick who was aeowyn in LOTR and the weirdo british cast away from shipping news. Sean and I occupied much of our time with a game of computer chess. I ended up winning, but it was quite a hard fought battle. We each had a king and 2 rooks at the end. Not enough room to pull out the laptop and watch ren & stimpy.

Landing in Iceland was a bit scary, it felt like the plane slid sideways at first. Not as much snow there as I thought, but it was hard to tell because it was dark. Inside we went through customs and prepared to reboard for Oslo. I bought 4 postcards w/ stamps, 3 iceland (spelled island there) stickers, and a great iceland patch featuring an erupting volcano, replete with lava and pluming smoke. $27! Oh well. Vacation. I didn’t even check the exchange cause we were sorta in a rush. Then I had to walk about 500 meters each way to post the cards.

Back on the plane. Short flight less than 2 hours to oslo. Scrambled eggs, potatoes, and ham for breakfast. Talked about the new versions of Reason and DP with The Duke. Listened to iPod. Wished I were sleeping.

Touch down in Oslo with no great event. LOTS of snow here. Flying over the countryside I couldn’t help but think of Maine. Kinda Maine meets Lancaster county, PA, meets VT with out the mountains. We collected the gear and bags. Customs without a hitch, didn’t even get stamped, which is a bummer... 7-11 right in the terminal. Sean loved that. Rented the car, but had to wait cause there had been some problem with the locks. We got snacks. Expensive here, too. 6 Norwegian Kroner = $1. So a 24 NK bottle of water is $4. my coke and candy bar was 27 NK. And the smallest amount you can get out of the ATM was 1000 NK. I don’t think I need $166 in Norwegian currency. For 3 days...

Ok, so I am the driver. PERFECT rental car. VW Caravaner. TDI, so we save on petrol. Tons of space in the cargo area. Lots of room for us. CD, heated seat for me, heh heh. So we had decide that the first thing we would listen to in Norway was A-ha, of course, but no cassette player to use the adapter I brought. Solution? Mobile computing. Sean whips out the iBook, pulls a nice A-ha playlist off his iPod into the CPU, then burns a CD. Viola. A-ha on the stereo.

Headed south on Norge E6 towards Oslo, destination Fredrikstad. Roads are fine, considering the amount of snow. Looks just like I said earlier. Weird how it is 7000 miles from home and it still looks the same. A couple tolls, nothing major. The lane where you pay with cash was called Manuel, so we joked that that was the attendant's name. We got a little lost when we got to Fredrikstad. We made an emergency restroom stop, too. Finally stumbled upon the hotel. Extremely nice people and only minutes form the club. Thank god, I had to pee SOOOO bad. Now? Nap time.