We just got back from Norway. It was a great trip and I realized how great it was to be alive and experience God’s creation. I will share photos and our experiences in future blogs. However, today I want to share some of our interesting experiences to show you our human side and maybe to get e few chuckles.
This trip has always been Marty’s dream trip. I decided to surprise her with it. I planned it and made reservations without telling her about it. The kids were in on it. I called my son first and made sure they could fit it into his plans. When we asked him later if I had to twist his arm,he said, “Hmm, lets see, I get a call to see if I want to go on an all expense paid trip to Norway. I don ‘t know, I could be setting in my apartment and stare at the walls instead.”
I didn’t realize my daughter started school at that time. So after I bought the tickets, I found out she had school. I had to call the school and work with them. They were great about it and worked it out.
We were to leave on a Monday. So Sunday morning, I left a note for my wife. She was a little surprised, but she still didn’t know where we were going or who was going.
Monday morning we left for Chicago. I stopped by my son’s apartment and we ate with them. Then we left and I told my wife we could see them when we got back. We drove to the airport and I had no idea which parking lot to park in. We looked at F and that didn’t look right, so we went to G and I left my wife and daughter at the bus hut. I looked down the aisles and didn’t see a single empty parking spot.
I unloaded the luggage and knew we had to hurry a little. I prayed that God would help us make it. I went to park the car and there was an empty parking spot just two cars from the bus hut. On the bus ride to the airport, the bus driver said that G lot was one of the few lots that had a pickup schedule at the terminal we would be using.
My son and his wife had some friends take them to the airport and actually beat us to the tickets. We met them there and that was when my wife realized they were going too. It was also at the airport that my wife learned where we were going.
Our plane was delayed an hour and a half and we had to change planes in Iceland. We were concerned about that, but they had a lady meet us at the gate in Iceland with a wheelchair and took us directly to our next plane. They held our next plane till everyone was aboard.
We arrived in Oslo, and I wanted to get some Kroner, which is the local currency. I went to a place that had an Exchange sign. I wanted to use my credit card to get money. She showed me an ATM machine. My cards wouldn’t work there, so I went back and talked to a guy at the booth. He tried to get money from my cards, but couldn’t get them to work.
He said, “We sometimes have trouble with foriegn cards here, but don’t worry, you probably won’t need cash, you can just use your cards.” Huh? Did he just hear what he said? You just told me I wouldn’t need cash because I can use my card, but in the same breath you said you have trouble using foriegn cards. I exchanged a hundred dollar bill for local currency. I found out that no one in the airport sold a sim card for my phone so I didn’t have a local phone.
After that, we went to pick up the car I had reserved with Hertz. I got to the desk and she looked up my reservation. I had reserved a car from the 8th through the 18th. She informed me this was the 9th and since I didn’t pick up the car on the 8th, they had no car for us and nothing else available. She said I should call priceline and cancel before I got anothere car. Well,my phone didn’t work, so I couldn’t call anyone. She didn’t seem too concerned and said to check with someone else.
I went down the line of car rental places and no one had one to rent. Finally, I got to the National booth and he really tried to help me. He called a car rental place and said they had one available. He told me the address, but it didn’t register with me. He wrote it down and told us where to go to get a cab and show them the address.
The car rental place was called Rent a Wreck, but they were very nice. She said they had to take payment over the internet because of regulations. I didn’t have a working phone so my daughter used their WIFI to use her email for the transaction.
I gave her my card, but it didn’t work. We used the ladies phone to call the card company and after about a half an hour, they said it would work. It didn’t, so we called them back. This time a lady said the only thing she could do was mail me a form to verify and then we could make the charge. This even after I explained our situation. Obviously, that wouldn’t work.
I tried a different card. It didn’t work. We called them. She said there was no hold on it and it should work. We tried it again and it still didn’t work. We called my bank and told them we were in Norway and could they clear a charge on my debit card? My debit card finally worked. This took several hours, but the lady was really nice and stayed past closing time.
That evening after we got to the hotel and ate supper, I went to find a place to buy a sim card. I found a place to buy one and she had two options. The one she recommended took 24 hours before it would be activated. I asked how I could get one then, and she said another place could sell me the other plan and activate it immediately, but I would have a bill every month.
I chose the first option and had to fill out a form and she had to call it in for me. She assured me that in 24 hours, my phone would be working. I put the sim card in, but for the next two days, I never got any service. I did notice my battery drained really fast and we had trouble charging it. Finally, I put my old sim card back in and solved the battery problem.
We found out that my daughter in laws phone could make calls there, and my son downloaded google maps when we had Wifi, so we could get around.
We left Oslo and had a seven hour drive to our next hotel. We drove about four hours and were driving on mountain roads when we smelled something hot. My son was driving so I asked him to pull over. We were following a slow vehicle down the mountain and my son had to ride the brakes too much. They were smoking.
After about a half an hour, we took off again, went through a small town and started up the next mountain. After a few hairpin curves, we started smelling something again. My son stopped and I asked him to shift to D2. He tried that and said it wouldn’t go. He tried drive again and it still wouldn’t go. I got out and looked under the car. There was oil dripping from it.
An angel of a lady stopped and asked if we needed help. She called a car rescue place and they said to call the car rental place. They were 4 hours away, but they had another car and they would bring it to us. The angel lady offered to take us to a gas station in town to wait where they had tables and food. It took her two trips and then she came in and said we might need her phone to call the guy coming and tell him where we would be.
Around 10:00 at night, we got the new car, which was a stick shift, so only I could drive the rest of the trip. The GPS said we had a four hour drive to our next place. A little after two in the morning, we were almost there when we came to a ferry. The next ferry didn’t run till 6:00.
We found a way around, but it was another hour and 20 minutes of driving. We finally got to our destination and the rest of the trip went smoother except for a few times we couldn’t use my card to get gas and we had very little cash. I hope you enjoyed this saga and maybe learned a little or got a chuckle out of it.
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