JOURNEY TO NORWAY: CURSE OF THE BUSSES

Rättvik • Karlstad • Oslo

Our most avid readers will remember that in Sunne we spent hours on the phone with the rental company to change our drop off location to Karlstad since we expected our flight to be cancelled due to the ongoing pilot strike. After much negotiation and a small fee, we got our car return location changed and bought cheap bus tickets from Karlstad to Oslo. Now the pilot strike is over and we still have plane tickets from Stockholm to Oslo, but we are going to stick with our Plan B. We don’t need to spend anymore time on the phone with our car rental company (we would still advise against renting from the Budget/Avis at Stockholm-Arlanda).

Drive to Karlstad

--- Map Point 1 ---

A sad goodbye with Lake Siljan gets us back on the road for our 3 hour drive to Karlstad. Hannah is behind the wheel so I can blog, but I fell asleep pretty quickly. Oops. We have finally figured out cruise control, which is great considering that speed cameras line the road, but Hannah is really bored. The only thing getting her through it? Our favorite restaurant in Karlstad (okay, it’s also the only one we’ve tried) closes at 5:00 PM. Our expected arrival time: 4:53 PM. As we get closer to the city center Hannah preps me to run in and order our treats as efficiently as possible. When we get to the street with the restaurant Hannah stops in the middle of the (empty) road and I sprint out, running straight to the counter. The two people working at the restaurant didn’t seem too excited I came in, but when they realized I already had my order rehearsed and it didn’t include anything from the kitchen they didn’t seem to mind. I leave with four chocolate bars (rations for our 10 days in Norway), two vegan dessert truffles, and two minutes to spare.

Dinner and Desert in the Park

--- Map Point 2 ---

While I was inside, Hannah parked the car (definitely legally this time) and after my dessert run we got picnic supplies from the car. We walked to the town park to eat an underwhelming and unrefrigerated sandwich/wrap dinner with disproportionately amazing desserts.

Rental Car Return

--- Map Point 2 ---

Bellies full, it is time to figure out how we return our rental car after hours. We had a little panic moment when Hannah asked what time the car rental place closed at 5:02 (answer: 5:00). A mix of doom and “I’m sure there is a key drop” swirled in my head, so I called the number listed on Google Maps to find answers. Answer: we are okay, there is an obvious key drop to the right of the office door. Perfect (or so we think).

We find the rental car office just outside the town’s train station and with surprising ease (at least Hannah was surprised) locate the rental parking lot two blocks away. Unloading the car, we are feeling great: lots of time to spare before our bus is scheduled to come, lots of snacks to keep us going on our bus ride, and a seamless rental car drop off. If there is one thing we have learned on this trip it is that you should never be lured into a false sense of security by logistics going well.

Oh No #1: The Attack of the Peanut Butter

Our pleasure at the ease of our transition out of Sweden abruptly dims when we open our snack bag and find every single item plus the bag’s whole insides covered in gooey, oily Peanut Butter. This is not the first time our peanut butter jar has chosen to make us victims to its slimy innards. In Iceland my food bag was taken out of commission when we discovered a similar nutty mess the night before boarding our flight to Denmark. This spill, however, has released far more inconvenient spread. I don’t even eat Peanut Butter (I’m not allergic but it makes it hard to breathe) so this is starting to feel personal. I try to clean out the bag using wet wipes while Hannah cleans the containers of food inside. She is successful but the bag is hopeless. I consider washing out the bag in the bathroom at the train station, but you have to pay to use it and there is only one in the station, so it seems like that would be an inconsiderate move.

Oh No #2: The Mystery of the Car Rental Return Key Drop

Now at the base of the train station’s steps, I watch over our luggage while Hannah runs across the street to drop off our rental car keys in the “obvious” key drop. The scene from my place on the other side of the street is one of lost confusion. Hannah looks above, below, and on all sides of the office door and building to no avail. She calls me hoping I can help, but what do I know? It was supposed to be obvious. I call the number on Google Maps again to get more detailed instructions and am again met with “it is just to the right side of the door. It is very clear.” I try to communicate his limited instructions to Hannah across three lanes of traffic, but only manage to achieve communication when I signal for us to switch places. As it turns out, the key drop was really *not* obvious. It is so well concealed (probably to prevent theft) that even staring straight at it, it takes two minutes of conversation to get the key in the right spot.

Oh No #3: The Case of the Missing Bus

Having haphazardly managed our Peanut Butter Crisis and completed the key-return marathon, we are feeling good. Our 6:53 PM bus should be arriving any minute and we will be on our way. 6:51. 6:52. It should be driving down the street now. 6:53. Any second now. 6:54. Still no bus. 7:00. Hmmm this seems ominous. 7:15. Okay, really it should be here.

Having waited for a while, the small crowd at the base of the train station steps has begun to chatter. There is nothing like a missing bus to bring a crowd of strangers together. Among our numbers we have a thirteen wary travelers, and only one who speaks Swedish. She becomes our informal leader, asking every bus driver who comes through where our bus is. We probably watched at least four busses to Oslo come and go, torturing us with the knowledge that had we only booked with a different company we would be a quarter of the way, half way, three fifths of the way to Oslo. We get vague snippets of information translated by our anguished leader from even vaguer bits of information from bus drivers. It seems there is some sort of delay due to a late train. “Wait until 8:30. Then maybe your bus could come. I don’t know.” Thanks, helpful!

Oh No #4: The Case of the Missing Bus Vol. II, All Seems Doomed

Each passing minute drains a bit of hope from our luggage-laden party. We can’t help but laugh at our position: sitting on the curb of the road with a collection of travelers from at least four countries, all in a state of disarray, hopefully perking up at the sound of every passing bus. Four Germans, a Norwegian, four Americans, and a group five travelers of unknown origins. It sounds like the start of a joke, and it was starting to feel like a joke too as our bus valiantly persisted in making our lives difficult.

Our clock steadily ticks by the minutes, a reminder that all hope may be lost at 8:30 if our bus doesn’t come. I look at the Omio app to see what other options there are. At this point we may need to just buy new tickets from another company. We will get to Norway tonight. We aren’t quite ready to lose all hope and buy other tickets yet knowing that there are still a fair number of other busses we could resort to tonight. Every time I check the app however, we see our options narrow until we are eventually left with only two: an 8:35 PM bus and a bus at 3 AM that would get us to Oslo by 6 AM. We look up hotel rooms nearby and one just across the street has two rooms available. We could also book through another site and take a bus at 10 PM to another city in Sweden, wait almost 3 hours, then take a 3 hour bus to Oslo and get there early tomorrow. The first option is the only one that is even somewhat appealing. With all our information filled out I ask Hannah “Should we just do it?” It’s 8:31, our bus should be here by now if the bus drivers were right and we only have four minutes before our last good option disappears. “Hmmmmmm…. I mean…… Yeah, just do it. We have to get there tonight and we need to sleep. I press buy. “Oh no. Somebody swooped in and got your tickets.” The words were teasing. It would be a fun message if we weren’t so desperate. We watched the 8:35 bus come and go longingly. We were in this for the long haul now.

We still aren’t quite ready to book a hotel and a bus ticket for early tomorrow, especially since we are already paying for a hotel tonight in Oslo, so we give it a bit longer until… FINALLY, a bus from our company! It doesn’t say Oslo on it like all the other busses coming through have. Is it too good to be true? Our pack leader approaches the bus driver. I have no idea what was exchanged, but I recognized the words “Oslo” and “Nej” repeated many times. “Nej” is “no” in Swedish so I wasn’t feeling too optimistic, until I recognize the final word of the conversation “Ja” (yes). Our leader turns to us and shouts one word, one beautiful word: “Oslo!”

Of course, this was the moment in our over two hour wait when Hannah went to the bathroom. As passengers form two just-arrived busses begin filling the sidewalk I juggle two suitcases and two backpacks, walking backwards as I fight toward the bus. I know Hannah will be quick so I don’t text her, but as the crowd of jostling passengers grows she still hasn’t come (it was only like 30 seconds but it felt a lot longer). “COME” I text her. It is almost 9 PM.

Once Hannah finds me through the thick throng of people (she sprints after getting my text and then is met with confusion by the masses of people) and our luggage is on board, I tell Hannah about the exchange between our leader and the bus driver. Hannah and I will never know what words were exchanged, but we are convinced that the bus was not going to Oslo and our leader said “Yes, this bus will take us to Oslo” with enough conviction that it did. She sits in the front row for the whole drive to make sure the driver went exactly where we needed him to. Apparently is isn’t a route the driver is super familiar with.

Oh No #5: The Sorrow of the Recovered Memory

Sitting on a bus has never been sweeter. A two hour wait may not seem as dramatic to the average reader as I make it out to be here, but a two our wait when you don’t know if what you are waiting for will ever materialize feels eternal. We watch our little blue dot on Google Maps for awhile just to make sure it is going west. We don’t need any more surprises. Despite our night being fraught with “Oh no’s” the mood on the bus is one of relief and camaraderie. There is so much camaraderie in the air that I ask the couple sitting a few seats from us where they are from. We recognized their accents as exactly like ours and when you’ve been traveling for as long as we have, anyone who speaks English with the exact intonations we hear at home sticks out. They are originally from Colorado, but live in Arizona now and are on month five of a seven-ish month trip around the world.

We rest on the bus, exhausted from out long day, stressful obstacles, and the late time. About an hour in, Hannah, who was blogging, shoots up, ramrod straight with panic in her eyes. “Joelle, we didn’t fill the gas tank.” Oh no. The one universal rule of car rental and we forgot. Well, nothing we can do about it now. I respond with nothing more than “We are on a bus to Oslo.” That is probably going to be a painful hit but what are we going to do now?

Oslo at Last

--- Map Point 3 ---

We pull into Oslo at 11:52 PM. The city is buzzing and the streets are packed. Thankfully our hotel is only a three minute walk away with no turns so we make it without any complications. Once we check in we are both ready to fall into bed (the comforters are SO FLUFFY) but alas we are traveling so there is no rest for the weary. We spend the next 45 minutes cleaning the peanut butter coated bag, narrowing down what food we will bring with us for our Norway travels, and repacking and planning for the morning so we can catch our 8:03 AM train without any of the drama of tonight spilling into tomorrow. It’s 1 AM when we finally close our eyes and snuggle in for a short, not-at-all-taken-for-granted sleep in Norway.

Yummy desert from Zest

Will the bus ever come?

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Our texts. Spot the timestamps

Victory picture in Oslo