Thursday, June 18, 2015
We were up early at the Freys in Stockholm. It seemed
unnecessarily early and I guess we got to the airport earlier than need be. But
better early than late. We enjoyed a fairly comprehensive breakfast buffet at
6:30am. We went up to the room to brush our teeth and finish packing up and
checked out. We walked down the block to the Arlanda Express train and walked
right on to the one waiting 7 minutes to depart at 7:50am train. We traveled
over 206 kph (128 mph) between Stockholm and Arlanda Airport. It took 20
minutes to South Station. A few minutes at normal speed and we were at the last
stop of North Station. We were leaving from Gate 8 in Terminal 5. During the
train ride an attendant came around and swiped Clay’s credit card that he used
to purchase our return tickets online. That was our ticket check. He paid 980SEK
for this.
We got in some long SAS self-checkin lines to get our
luggage tags. These line were ¼ the length of the full service lines! But, of
course after that we had to get in another line to actually bag drop. It all
went smoothly though and we got our bags back at the other end. We went through
security without much of a wait though it was a long line, it kept moving. We
boarded at the time and place expected and arrived on time. The most amazing
thing was that at no point did anyone check our identification. They checked
our tickets, boarding passes, etc. But no one ever checked that we were in fact
the ticketed passengers. Weird.
We booked this whole first Norway segment up to Tromso
through an outfit called Kensington Tours. It seemed really complicated to try
to do on our own and the price seemed reasonable. Now that we are here, I am
even gladder that I made the decision not to do this on our own. It seems from the
paperwork we collected on checkin at the Saga Hotel Oslo that the actual local
tour operator/organizer is Try Norway! Anyway, when we walked out of baggage
claim in Oslo, there was a man standing with a sign with our name on it. He took
my luggage and lead us right outside to where his car was parked right in front
of the door. You wouldn’t see that in the USA either. The airport is over 40 km
from Centrum Oslo. It took a while to drive through countryside that as our
retired police car driver said, reminds you of Wisconsin. It had been raining
here and it rained on and off all day. It was cool with a high about 60F.
Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and a high about 67F. We’ll see. The day we
were here on the cruise the weather prediction was totally wrong and I was wet
and cold all day. Tomorrow we have breakfast at the Saga and then a shared
coach tour of Oslo for 5 hours. We have to walk down to City Hall to meet the
tour at 10:30am. It includes Vigeland Sculpture Park, a photo stop at the ski
jump, and visits to the Viking Ship Museum, the Fram Museum and the Kon-Tiki
Museum. All things we did not do the first time we were here! I don’t know what
will be left to do when we come back here though. The tour ends at 3:15pm. That
seems to be an uncomfortable pattern. We set out to find lunch from the Saga
Hotel about 2pm and were eating around 3pm. That is too late for lunch and too
early for dinner! The place that the guy at the hotel suggested though, Olivia’s,
was packed at 3pm. It appeared to be a lot of people who had a work break so
that was weird. It was kind of Italian food and very good and very expensive.
It was a big meal and we didn’t want to have to go out and find another meal
before bedtime, but figured we’d be hungry again by then. We bought some food
at a 7-Eleven to eat in the room. It looks like we’ll have to do something like
this again tomorrow. We walked all the way down to the National Theater to get
our bearings from here. We walked through the Slottsparken and past the Royal
Palace to get there, so that was all new territory. Our Saga Hotel is I think
one of more than one in Oslo and it is kind of out in a more residential
neighborhood. We’re about 5 blocks uphill from the Royal Palace. It is maybe
10-12 blocks from the City Hall. So, we would probably have chosen to be more
centrally located, but it is included in our tour so it is what it is. We paid
$6340 for the both of us for this Kensington Tour. It started with the driver
meeting us at the airport today and will end with a drive to the airport in
Tromso on June 29th.
I am going to close now. It has seemed like a long hard day.
I guess any day with even a short flight involved is a stressful day. We are
here for 2 nights, so we’ll hope for at least one good sleep.
