Oslo to home - Day18
Good morning! Well, I’m at the airport in Oslo and wasn’t going to type up anything today, but just wanted to make a note to ourselves or for those who might be traveling from the Oslo train station to the airport. The Thon Hotel by the train station is just a short walk and easy to do, even with bags. When at the train station there is a fast train to the airport that is super easy to catch. Just look for the signs that say airport. To purchase a ticket all you had to do is swipe your credit card (a different machine for each person if using the same credit card) and then hop on the train. No physical ticket. It is a fast train, getting to the airport in under 30 minutes. Once you exit, you swipe your credit card again to get out of the gate. I went through a different gate with Guy’s credit card just in case it again needed to be on a separate kiosk/machine. Super easy.
We had 3 different areas of passport control since we are going nonstop to the US. At the passport control going to our gate, a nice looking Politi (Norwegian police) started asking us how long we had been here, where we had been, etc. The usual questions at passport control. We gave him a brief overview and he asked about Iceland compared to Norway. He asked if we had been to Geiranger and of course we said yes. I told him I went fishing there and he asked if I caught any. I said Yes! So he promptly asked to see a photo. Not sure if he really wanted to see it, or if it was just a way to show proof of our visit. I’m thinking he was just being nice because no one was behind us. So I whipped out my phone and showed him my Pollock. He said “That’s a nice size one, too!”. Well, of course it was! He gave us tips on what to see if we came back, but I was still glowing about my fish picture and didn’t hear much else of the conversation he was having with Guy.
This is our first time flying SAS, the Scandinavian airline that is a sister company to United. We are in row 32, so I figured we would be in the back of the bus, but Guy says there are 52 rows, so that’s not bad. It’s a 2-3-2, so at least we’ll get two seats by ourselves, so that’s a bonus on an 8 hour flight. Once on the plane it was nice and a newer plane. Our Air Canada flight to Iceland was an old bugger that didn’t even have monitors, let alone individual ones like this plane. One thing to note was the food was really pretty darn tasty. I usually miss the food because I’m taking a Xanax nap, but today I took only one and later on in the flight. We had a lovely salad with olive oil and balsamic dressing, little piece of BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes (that were light brown and I skipped those) with broccoli (TV dinner style of course...but not bad!). Also served was a warm hard roll which was very good and you could put either butter on it, or they served a little wedge of Brie cheese (one of my favorites!). They also had little crackers as well. To finish off the lovely meal was a some kind of cherry crumb mousse/cheesecake type of dessert that was amazing (and Guy gave me some of his). On my tray was a tiny little milk for my coffee and a sugar. What a nice treat. Later we were served something that I’d call a cheese sandwich, but it was rolled up in a type of flatbread and had a piece of white cheese and some kind of white spreadable cheese. Nothing special, but I thought it was good. Also, the organic juice served with the little cheese sammie was nice touch! And very good! I also the service on the flight was better than any carrier we’ve used before. If they didn’t think you were happy they were trying to make it better.
Now what was’t so great about SAS was when we were in Oslo checking in, there seemed to be a problem. Usually you get your boarding passes all the way to your final destination. All they gave us was to NY and the young guy at the counter kept talking to the girl next to him asking questions (In Norwegian) and you knew something was up, but you didn’t know what. So Guy asked about the second boarding passes and he said when we got our luggage in NY to just get them there. So in NY we got our luggage and when we went to take them back through security the guy scanned them and said there was an issue and they were not tagged correctly. So we had to go to the counter. Well it’s hard to exactly explain the counter except it was packed with people and a family at the counter with kids everywhere and there bags open. We had no idea what was happening except the line was NOT moving and we had about 1 hour before boarding. So Guy talked to the bag guy again who sent us upstairs to basically just check in like we were flying from NY. Well, that was chaos as well. Plus we’d been running through the airport with bags. So, Guy, on the verge of explosion, was rescued by a United gal who scooted us in front of some other people at the kiosk to print our boarding passes and guess what, we aren’t even showing up in their system as having a reservation. But we do and Guy even has seat assignments. So from there she scooted us to another lady and she said the 3pm was full, even tho we show our reservation and seat assignments. So she booked us on the 4:25. *Inhale...*Exhale... We can now stop running through the airport as the 3pm is no longer an option, but 4:25 wasn’t too bad. Frustrating thing is we are pretty sure that SAS saw some kind of problem with our connection and just pushed us off to handle it when we got to NY. But with our tight connection, that wasn’t possible and in the mean time they booked our seats. Erf. Let me just say this, Guy is a meticulous planner and he always prefers to handle everything himself, but he let the Viking Cruise gal book our flight home. If he had done it, this probably wouldn’t have happened. There is something to be said for being in control of all aspects of a trip, even though more work. Live and learn and at least we didn’t have to spend the night in NYC.
With a few weather delays, we finally boarded after 5pm and arrived in STL at 6:45. Our chauffeur, Rosalie, was there to pick us up and having been awake for nearly 24 hours we were not the most jovial people, but got some good hugs and headed home. I’m finishing up this post at 5am because Mr. Meow is being a bit vocal and my body is still on Norway time anyway. With all this said...it’s good to be home safe and sound.
We had 3 different areas of passport control since we are going nonstop to the US. At the passport control going to our gate, a nice looking Politi (Norwegian police) started asking us how long we had been here, where we had been, etc. The usual questions at passport control. We gave him a brief overview and he asked about Iceland compared to Norway. He asked if we had been to Geiranger and of course we said yes. I told him I went fishing there and he asked if I caught any. I said Yes! So he promptly asked to see a photo. Not sure if he really wanted to see it, or if it was just a way to show proof of our visit. I’m thinking he was just being nice because no one was behind us. So I whipped out my phone and showed him my Pollock. He said “That’s a nice size one, too!”. Well, of course it was! He gave us tips on what to see if we came back, but I was still glowing about my fish picture and didn’t hear much else of the conversation he was having with Guy.
This is our first time flying SAS, the Scandinavian airline that is a sister company to United. We are in row 32, so I figured we would be in the back of the bus, but Guy says there are 52 rows, so that’s not bad. It’s a 2-3-2, so at least we’ll get two seats by ourselves, so that’s a bonus on an 8 hour flight. Once on the plane it was nice and a newer plane. Our Air Canada flight to Iceland was an old bugger that didn’t even have monitors, let alone individual ones like this plane. One thing to note was the food was really pretty darn tasty. I usually miss the food because I’m taking a Xanax nap, but today I took only one and later on in the flight. We had a lovely salad with olive oil and balsamic dressing, little piece of BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes (that were light brown and I skipped those) with broccoli (TV dinner style of course...but not bad!). Also served was a warm hard roll which was very good and you could put either butter on it, or they served a little wedge of Brie cheese (one of my favorites!). They also had little crackers as well. To finish off the lovely meal was a some kind of cherry crumb mousse/cheesecake type of dessert that was amazing (and Guy gave me some of his). On my tray was a tiny little milk for my coffee and a sugar. What a nice treat. Later we were served something that I’d call a cheese sandwich, but it was rolled up in a type of flatbread and had a piece of white cheese and some kind of white spreadable cheese. Nothing special, but I thought it was good. Also, the organic juice served with the little cheese sammie was nice touch! And very good! I also the service on the flight was better than any carrier we’ve used before. If they didn’t think you were happy they were trying to make it better.
Now what was’t so great about SAS was when we were in Oslo checking in, there seemed to be a problem. Usually you get your boarding passes all the way to your final destination. All they gave us was to NY and the young guy at the counter kept talking to the girl next to him asking questions (In Norwegian) and you knew something was up, but you didn’t know what. So Guy asked about the second boarding passes and he said when we got our luggage in NY to just get them there. So in NY we got our luggage and when we went to take them back through security the guy scanned them and said there was an issue and they were not tagged correctly. So we had to go to the counter. Well it’s hard to exactly explain the counter except it was packed with people and a family at the counter with kids everywhere and there bags open. We had no idea what was happening except the line was NOT moving and we had about 1 hour before boarding. So Guy talked to the bag guy again who sent us upstairs to basically just check in like we were flying from NY. Well, that was chaos as well. Plus we’d been running through the airport with bags. So, Guy, on the verge of explosion, was rescued by a United gal who scooted us in front of some other people at the kiosk to print our boarding passes and guess what, we aren’t even showing up in their system as having a reservation. But we do and Guy even has seat assignments. So from there she scooted us to another lady and she said the 3pm was full, even tho we show our reservation and seat assignments. So she booked us on the 4:25. *Inhale...*Exhale... We can now stop running through the airport as the 3pm is no longer an option, but 4:25 wasn’t too bad. Frustrating thing is we are pretty sure that SAS saw some kind of problem with our connection and just pushed us off to handle it when we got to NY. But with our tight connection, that wasn’t possible and in the mean time they booked our seats. Erf. Let me just say this, Guy is a meticulous planner and he always prefers to handle everything himself, but he let the Viking Cruise gal book our flight home. If he had done it, this probably wouldn’t have happened. There is something to be said for being in control of all aspects of a trip, even though more work. Live and learn and at least we didn’t have to spend the night in NYC.
With a few weather delays, we finally boarded after 5pm and arrived in STL at 6:45. Our chauffeur, Rosalie, was there to pick us up and having been awake for nearly 24 hours we were not the most jovial people, but got some good hugs and headed home. I’m finishing up this post at 5am because Mr. Meow is being a bit vocal and my body is still on Norway time anyway. With all this said...it’s good to be home safe and sound.
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