Homeward Bound

Our final day of the Norway tour dawned sunny and clear.  This was a nice change from the intermittent rain clouds that had chased us the previous few days.  Today was a travel day, much like the last two days had been.  Martha had an early bus to Rauland, in Telemark, and the kids and I were headed to the airport around noon. 

Martha says goodbye
(Itsani's photo)

The kids had decided they wanted to see Martha off in the morning the wake up call was earlier than has been the norm for breakfast.  We went down to the buffet breakfast which had a decent gluten-free section and lots of other yummy food.  Breakfast finished, the kids said goodbye to Martha at the curb and I drove her to the bus station.  It was hard to part ways. We had been a team for 21 days and it was strange to have her heading off to a totally different adventure. 

I returned to the hotel expecting to be able to scoop up the kids and have a few hours of walking time around Bergen.  Well, no.  When I entered the girls' room, it looked like a bomb had exploded in each of the suitcases.  That was interesting because the night before Martha and I had seen each bag carefully packed and neatly closed…..  So, the kids got down to packing again, for the last time, and I read a book for a while.  I was not going out of the hotel until we had packed bags and were ready to just scoop them up and check out. 

Lilah in a locker.
(Itsani's photo)

In the hotel lobby were some luggage lockers. Martha had said the day before that she wondered if Lilah could fit in one. Now, with Martha gone, of course this idea had to be tested. And the verdict was...YES! Lilah fit in a luggage locker.

Pavillion
(Lilah's photo)

Eventually, the girls were ready and we left the hotel looking for interesting Bergen sights. The Scandic Torget Bergen is right on the harbor across from Bryggen, the UNESCO site.  In fact, the kids' room had a great view of the houses.  Martha and my room had a great view of a modern alley.  (How is that fair? 😂 And this wasn't the first time. It had happened in Valdres too.) Anyway, we left the hotel and went away from the harbor.  There was a park in walking distance from the hotel and we found a gazebo that the kids explored.  It was the Musikkpaviljongen, often used for concerts.  It was originally built from a kit in 1888. I stood there imagining a brass band playing from the spot at that time.  Cool! Now, it is used in about 600 weddings a year and is available for rent through the city of Bergen. Nifty.

Near the pavilion, we also located the famous fountain with the statue of Ole Bull. Who was he? He was a virtuoso violinist and composer, a native son of Bergen. He was close friends with Edvard Grieg, who made sure that Bull's talent was recognized and developed. Ole Bull toured quite extensively in the US and had a plan to stay there, but that didn't work out. He was both colorful and charismatic and was said to be an incredible performer. The Ole Bull Academy in Voss, where we had our lessons, is named after him.

The kids saw a 7-Eleven and wanted to go inside and check out the differences.  What was discovered? A frozen yogurt machine!  We got two cups, one vanilla, and the other vanilla and strawberry and continued our stroll.  This also continued our tradition of ice cream before lunch!

Manhole cover
(Sue's photo)

I found a manhole cover that had an interesting representation of Bryggen.  You can see the Hanseatic houses, and the ship representing trade perhaps?

Second hand!
(Lilah's photo)

Lilah spotted a second-hand store with a pretty incredible front window "display."

Moomin Shop.
(Maren's photo)

Maren found the Moomin shop! 

Crosswalk button.
(Sue's photo)

As we walked we struggled with traffic signals and activating the crosswalk.  We had not seen any traffic signals in days.  Most of Norway outside of the big cities does not have any traffic signals. Voss only had them in one intersection. There were none in Fagernes or Gol. Røros had just one set that I can recall.

But in Bergen, the crosswalk button was part of a large blue and yellow box, and the button had raised graphics that indicated what type of intersection you were crossing. 

But, the button was not obvious in any way to our American eyes.

Finally it was time to go back to the hotel and head to the airport.  I was a bit stressed about this as we had flown into Oslo and we were leaving from Bergen.  I needed to gas the car on the way and return the rental car.  I asked the kids to look up the phrase “rental car return” so that we could look for the signs.  The gas station was a surprise.  It was under a building, but not underground. It had vacuums for cars, which we could have used to clean the back seat, but the entry was tiny and I was not willing to try to squish our large van in there. 

Bergen airport doesn’t have a car rental return area.  I have never encountered this before.  You park the car in a numbered space for your car rental company and then take the keys upstairs to the terminal where the offices are.  The kids did a great job asking questions of the Hertz guy in the parking garage because none of this was obvious at all. Rental car off our hands, we then tackled the self-check-in kiosks. 

These kiosks were for bag tags and boarding passes. It printed baggage tags for everyone, but it only printed 3 boarding passes.  I was confused.  There were 4 people traveling.  I tried again and it gave me an error message, something about needing to go to the counter.  We got our luggage on its way with some help from the amazing people in fluorescent vests and asked them about the boarding pass issue. They pointed us to counter 3 (we were at 21) where Icelandair had its sole person (!) working on issues.  We got in line and thankfully it was short and we were moving quickly forward. 

When we got to the front, the representative asked to see paperwork that proved I was allowed to take Itsani out of the country.  Only Itsani, mind you.  I was traveling with 3 minors, but only Itsani was flagged.  I have no idea why.  I pulled out my notarized forms that listed me and the flights and we had our final boarding pass.  I asked about my wheelchair assistance to the gate and was told to go to the meeting point. (Huge white column in the middle of this space) and to wait.  We waited about 20 minutes and then I was fed up with waiting.  We had only 1.5 hours till boarding and we wanted time to explore the airport.  I needed to find the tax-free kiosk and the kids needed a bathroom. 

We entered the security area, where we needed to take off our bracelets, necklaces, and belts.  This was annoying, and then my crutches were whisked away for a more in-depth check in a different room.  (Highly suspicious, those walking aids...) We followed the signs for international gates and were dumped straight into the duty-free store.  You couldn’t avoid it.  The kids and I laughed at the huge size candy and perfume and made our escape. 

By this time we were hungry.  We had packed sandwiches for the flight but had not eaten lunch yet.  We found some yogurt for the girls and I had a burger.  It was not the best burger I have ever had but it was tasty.  The kids scouted out the bathrooms, water refill station, and our gate and found us decent seating. Bonus! It was near an outlet.  Out came Duolingo so that our streaks would continue.  Before we knew it, it was time to board.

Our instrument luck continued to hold as no one blinked an eye at the kids' fiddle cases.  We successfully got them into one overhead bin and closed the hatch.  Next stop Iceland! We arrived in Iceland and miracle of miracles, there was wheelchair assistance at the plane door.  (You'll understand this comment if you've read the tale of our outbound journey.) Our helpful guide navigated us through the airport.  Passport control asked about the paperwork that allowed me to travel with 3 minors and I had to pull it out and show them the notarized forms again.  We arrived at our gate with about 10 minutes to spare before boarding. 

Our helpful guide got on the radio and asked for an “ambo”.  It turns out our plane was at a bus gate.  This is not unusual in Iceland. Tourism has grown exponentially and airport construction cannot keep up. That said, a bus gate and crutches are not a good mix! Our support was calling for a special vehicle that would take us to the plane instead.  This vehicle is kind of like a box on wheels. The whole seating area lifts up with a scissor lift. Two other passengers with wheelchairs appeared and asked for help and we all were escorted to the ambo when it arrived.  I was getting a bit stressed as the first bus had arrived and they were starting to load passengers into it.  It turned out fine, as we drove away while it was still loading. But how did they get us in the plane? We were scissored up.  Maren wasn’t looking out the windows and was very surprised when she realized we had gone from ground level to plane door level with no warning.  There was a moment of laughter when our driver knocked on the plane door and... no one answered. It took a few minutes for the crew to open the door and then suddenly we were on the plane!  The buses (it turns out that it took 3 buses to bring all the passengers to the plane) had not arrived yet. It was easy to get our fiddles tucked away, and my crutches compacted and in a bin before other passengers started to arrive.  The loading was so slow, that I had time to go to the bathroom with no one in the aisles.  The flight was uneventful.

Home in Seattle!  Due to the time change, it was only two hours after we had left Bergen.  Of course, that's not really true, but that is what the clock said.  Lo and behold, our second miracle happened - wheelchair assistance was at the door of the plane again.  Our support person was wonderful, stopping at a bathroom for everyone, and waiting while our luggage took forever (almost an hour) to arrive on the baggage carousel.  Passport / Customs was quick.  We were questioned about gifts, but after I said what the spending allowance was we got waved through. Hello parents! Most of the parents were waiting at the international arrivals area. The kids got connected to family and our tour was over. It was a little anti-climatic.

In the end, this was a great experience, and I'm really glad that I got to go. Keep in mind that there is one more post coming, and really, you don't want to miss that. 😜

- Sue

PS from Martha:

Tours are always hard work, and in my experience, all three have been worth the effort. Of course, there are always difficulties, but they get sorted, and you move on. I owe a huge thank you to Sue, who handled many tasks that are outside of my wheelhouse and was an extraordinary travel companion, sounding board, problem solver, and friend. I also owe a huge thanks to the kids, who were flexible, hilarious, tired, helpful, considerate, curious, and a solid team. Then there is a thank you to all the people who contributed to our being able to go, from Anne at Viking Travel in Petersburg, Alaska to donors who gave financial support, friends who listened to me in the harder times, to the Sons of Norway Foundation who gave a grant. The list of thank yous in Norway is long, but especially huge thanks to Arne Anderdal in Voss, and to Mari Eggen in Røros. Both went far and beyond to organize and to help when there were issues.

Last, but certainly not least, a huge thank you to the Lilla families for believing the dream, watching it grow, picking up loose ends, raising money, giving time, supporting practicing and all the other small things you contributed for the whole. Your kids are a joy!