Up North

February 5th, 2008 Posted in General

The thing with public transport is that you’re never sure whether you will get at your destination or not. Going to the airport by car is a wise choice when the alternative is the NS (Dutch railways, always a source of delay…). At the airport, however, the choice of alternatives becomes very limited. At 20:00 nothing’s wrong, we’ll leave as planned at 21:45. Sure?

First delay

So far, the only real problem is that we’re stuck in some cheap low-budget gate-lounge, where all shops (2 in total) close at 10. Oh well.

Second delay

Free shopping for 15 euros! Hurray! We are allowed back into the nice and comfortable public part of the airport. Some drinks later, and it’s time to get to our (new, not-so-low-budget) gate. Again through security, this time the machine beeps, although I carry exactly the same stuff with me. So that’s where the extra money goes!? Oh well.

Third delay

Fortunately our current lounge is equipped with a coffee place (I call it place, not shop, to prevent confusion…it’s still Amsterdam, after all). Unfortunately, we don’t have much free money left. It’s a nice experience however, to see how various people react to a situation like this. We don’t care much, really, since we would have to wait at some point anyway. Still we are very happy to finally be able to board somewhere around 03:00, and we happily arrive at Oslo Gardemoen at 5. But the story doesn’t end there! Considering the early time of our arrival, it’s not that strange that all personnel are sleeping, and there’s nobody there to carry our luggage from the plane to the airport, is it? After an hour or so they have managed to wake some people up, and we’re finally off! Norway! Yeah!The first thing we encounter is a very drunk and crazy German (no offence). It takes some of my best German (you would be surprised!) to get rid of him. Oh well.

One very comfortable and expensive train later, we are in the center of Oslo! And one less expensive but still not cheap T-Bane later the adventure can finally start!

  1. 4 Responses to “Up North”

  2. By Jeroen on Feb 5, 2008

    Wow, and I thought the Dutch rail roads were bad… A whopping delay of more than five hours. I don’t know what would have been worse though. Having your plane depart on time and spending most of the night on a foreign airport or waiting in your own country for the plane to finally take off. At least the latter gave you some material to blog about ;)

  3. By Simón on Feb 5, 2008

    Hi!
    Let me have the honour of being the second person that writes in this distinguished blog :D.
    Well, that’s a good starting for your adventure, hehehe. I have also had some experiences with delays in airports, and sometimes it can be infuriating… The best thing is to take it with a sense of humour :D. At least, I guess it was still dark when you got to Oslo, wasn’t it? so could still sleep, hehe.

  4. By Sander on Feb 6, 2008

    De laatste keer dat ik vloog had ik 6 uur vertraging :) Maar misschien lagen er wel blaadjes in de lucht. Ik ben net klaar met carnaval vieren, groot succes. De volgende keer dat je naar Oslo gaat zou ik niet tegelijk met carnaval gaan.
    Maar je bent aangekomen en dat telt natuurlijk. Succes met je eerste schooldagen en ik zal een oogje houden op de log en hier en daar de site op fleuren met leuk commentaar

  5. By Daan on Feb 9, 2008

    Thanks for your comments :) And yes, every ‘problem’ is welcome since it gives me something to write about! Cheers to that!

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