A Singlander in Scandinavia
Here's to new beginnings, for a new year. Just thought that perhaps I should start a new blog to document my travels more specifically, instead of simply random muses that come along from time to time, and which are depressing in nature most of the time.
First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who turned up to send me off, for those who didn't, thanks for all your well wishes. I was thinking if I should have asked you to come, but looks like I needn't after all =)
Amsterdam is my first stop, where I'm typing this now waiting for my transit to Oslo. It's really been a while since I've seen a place without tall buildings blocking the view of the horizon, though it's mostly dreary and not much to look at here.
Just getting to Trondheim proves to be the first hurdle of this journey, as I need to do 2 transits just to get there. And as we know, we travelers love transits like cats love water.. and the first hiccup occurs on the 2nd flight, from Amsterdam to Oslo. a 10-minute delay sounds innocuous enough, until you find out that your next transit is only 40 minutes.. including having to grab your luggage, run out, check-in again, run to the boarding gate again, and trying to grab a lost handphone on the way, all because of some security measures that require re-inspection on the point of entry... argh. Airports should get their security procedures in order, and not subject travelers to so many checks whenever possible..
The Amsterdam-Oslo flight was so delayed, they had to schedule a later flight for the Oslo-Trondheim part. Quite a bit of hassle getting everywhere with 2 almost-20-kg luggage pieces.
Now Amsterdam was cold, but not quite below 0 C cold. It was raining (or snow melted, I don't know), so everything was wet, and only got brighter towards 8-9am.
When I got to the Oslo airport, what greeted me was lots and lots and lots of snow! My, i never thought I'd be so happy to see snow again. The norwegians would probably think I must be crazy, though. But who cares, I'm not the one who sees snow everyday.
I got a bit of a disappointment though, when I landed at Trondheim and found no snow...
Lugging around 2 big pieces of luggage is not funny: part 2 takes place at the TRD airport where I found no easy way to get to Trondheim besides.. taxi, or train. I didn't dare take the taxi there, although it would have been direct, but it'd probably have been equivalent to maybe a flight to London or something. Oh, and the reason why there I have to get off and go through customs at Oslo? No such thing at TRD... for domestic flights, anyway. We Singaporeans are so alien to the idea of domestic flights, since we're too small to have flights operating between airports within the country.
Maybe it's just me, but the train station is awfully quiet... just one middle-aged lady and myself sitting here. Maybe I -should- have followed the bunch of girls who looked like they just came back as some varsity sports team..
Arrival
The train ride wasn’t too bad. At least there were like, people around on the train.
I took a cab to the place where my keys were supposed to be held by this person who offered to collect it for me. When I got there, what greeted me was basically silence… she wasn’t there, even though she said she’d be there after 1530…
Well, so here I am in the kitchen, still wearing the same things as when I took off from Changi Airport… not exactly the perfect start that I hoped it to be…
I’m sleepy..
