Arriving in Hamar

Well i'm here finally and exhausted! (this is kind of boring but some lessons were learned)

It all started on thrusday when we found out our plane was delayed 2 hours, it would be taking off at 8:40 instead of 6:45, which in some ways was alright, i got to spend a little more time with Collin and my parents, but we also had to worry about our connection flight in Copenhagen.

We took off around 9pm, Seattle time (there is a 9 hour time difference) without much incident. Makara and I were able to change seats so we were next to each other for the 9.5 hour flight. We were at the complete rear of the plane in the middle 4 seats. There was a older woman next to me who was not sitting with her traveling partners so being the nice person I am when i said hello and we made pleasantries about the flight being late and so on, she decided that I was going to be one for the rest of the flight that she would talk to or ask how to work the little tv on the seat back in front of us.

It was a pretty nice flight once the woman next to me settled down, I watched most of definitely maybe and had dinner, then i went to sleep. When i woke up we only had about 2 hours left of the flight so they served us breakfast and we go ready land and catch our next flight.

We hoped to make a 4:10 connecting flight but it was sold out so we waited in the Copenhagen airport (which is pretty much amazing by the way, with some of the strangest bathrooms ever! seriously the stalls are completely enclosed, it was a little claustrophobic lol) for a little over an hour. We had a little difficulty getting on the plane to Oslo, they said that Makara didn't have a ticket, but we got that figured out and we were finally on our way to Oslo. It took a little over an hour but we landed and we were finaly in Norway. I think Oslo is my second favorite airport to fly into, second only to Seattle. It was so pretty!

We collected our bags (Makara's was seriously one of the last to get there it was taking forever!!!) We walked out in to the main lobby area and were throughly confused about what to do, we didn't realize that we went through customs in Copenhagen since it took all of 2 seconds to stamp our passport and ask 1 question to the both of us. Anyway I've learned that Norwegians are some of the nicest and most understanding people anywhere. We bought our train ticket and realized we would be able to make to 7:05 train instead of 8 train, which we though we would, the problem was we didn't see an elevator and the train would be there in 5 minutes. We each had two fairly heaving bags i was about half way down and makara was just about to start when someone pointed out the elevator. I couldn't go back up so she took that and a couple of very nice men helped me carry my giant bag down the rest of the stairs.

We made sure that the train was going to Hamar and since we didn't know how the trains really operated we assumed they were something like subways were you only have a couple of minutes to get in and with our huge bags we were kind of frantic, i think some people were annoyed but for the most part they just helped us get the bags in, we also didn't realize there is a luggage car we could have put our stuff in so we stayed in the little area between cars for the hour train ride with out 4-5 pieces of luggage each.

The train ride was gorgeous, I wasn't fond of the many bridges we went over were as far as i could tell (since i could see the tracks) we were just going through the air! There was so much water that all we saw, that and trees. Next time i take that train ride i'll get about 2 dozen pictures.

We finally get to Hamar and again people were very kind and helped us get our bags off the train. We realized that since we had told the people picking us up we would be there about 9pm last night and its was 8:20 we would have to wait or call them. We tried to figure out the pay phone but n our state of exhaustion and lack of Norwegian language skills we couldn't figure it out. We stood there looking bewildered for awhile until a Norwegian military personal (no exactly sure what they are called) passed us and could tell we needed some help so he stopped asked us what he could do we told him what was going on and he let us use his cell phone.

We were finally picked up and taken to our apartment. We are in a building very close to school, the main shopping street :D and the grocery store. We are on the top floor, that was fun too getting all our bags up three flights of stairs. It is just Makara and I in a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment with a little kitchenette. We unpacked and went to bed around midnight.

Unable to sleep much i got up at 4 dozed until about 6 when i got up and did some more upacking. The rest of today and most of tomorrow is devoted to sleep and settling in. We'll go for a walk tomorrow afternoon so we can get to know the town.

So for the some 15 hours I've been in Norway and a little longer if including Copenhagen i've learned how terrifying it is to not understand 99.8% of what is going on. its totally isolating and if i had been traveling alone under the same conditions i probably would have started to cry. This is definitely going to be a very growing experience for me, and these next 4 months are beginning to seem like the longest stretch of my life.