Not so amazing
We had a hard lesson on our recent vacation: we wouldn't last very long on The Amazing Race. I mean, we've had nagging suspicions that we might have trouble, but now it's confirmed.
I should preface this by saying that it took us many weeks to figure out how we were going to get around Norway (if we didn't say this already, let me do it now: Norway is BIG. And the fjords and mountains that make it so scenic also make it really slow to get anywhere.) Anyway, we finally decided on the following plan: Fly from Oslo to Sogndal, rent a car, drive an hour or so to our hotel, use the car to explore for a few days, drive back to Sogndal to return the car, then take the ferry from Sogndal to Bergen. No problem!
But then we got to the Oslo Airport and everything fell to pieces when our flight from Oslo to Sogndal was cancelled. (Actually, the scene really merited a blog post of its own. We were waiting in a tiny little gate area for the tiny little plane to fly us to tiny little Sogndal. The gate attendant--who couldn't have been much older than 25--told us he would help us in a minute, then called everyone over and very calmly explained...something in Norwegian. A few people politely asked questions, which he patiently answered until everyone was satisfied. Only when he was finished did he tell us that the flight was cancelled because of bad weather. Having experienced the mayhem of cancelled flights in the States, we were genuinely stunned at how downright civil everyone was about it. People actually RAISED THEIR HANDS to ask questions of the gate attendant.)
So this is where The Amazing Race part comes in. Just like the competitors on the show, we had to make a quick decision--do we wait four hours for the next flight and risk continued bad weather? Do we stay another night in Oslo and take the train instead the next day? Do we fly to another city entirely with no car, no clue how to get to our destination, and no access to the ferry even if we found a car? It was a situation that called for decisive action...and we did anything but. It probably took us 20 minutes just to gnash our teeth and whine and process the information. We called the airline. We called the car rental company. We called the hotel. We talked to the gate attendant. We talked to some nice people who spoke English and who happened to be going to the same hotel. We talked with each other. We gnashed our teeth some more.
After much angst, we finally decided to fly to the town of Førde and share a two-hour taxi ride with the nice English-speaking couple. Well, it was supposed to be a two-hour ride. Because the other couple was supposed to be speaking at a conference at the hotel, the driver got us there in just over an hour (we must have averaged at least 50mph/80kph, all on narrow, windy roads in a torrential downpour...I don't usually get motion sickness, but I would have killed for a Dramamine at that point.)
In the end, despite the indecisiveness that would have had us in last place on The Amazing Race, it worked out for the best--especially when we found out that the airport where we would have had to return the car in Sogndal was about 20 miles from the ferry terminal, and we would have had to be on the ferry by 7:00am...
I should preface this by saying that it took us many weeks to figure out how we were going to get around Norway (if we didn't say this already, let me do it now: Norway is BIG. And the fjords and mountains that make it so scenic also make it really slow to get anywhere.) Anyway, we finally decided on the following plan: Fly from Oslo to Sogndal, rent a car, drive an hour or so to our hotel, use the car to explore for a few days, drive back to Sogndal to return the car, then take the ferry from Sogndal to Bergen. No problem!
But then we got to the Oslo Airport and everything fell to pieces when our flight from Oslo to Sogndal was cancelled. (Actually, the scene really merited a blog post of its own. We were waiting in a tiny little gate area for the tiny little plane to fly us to tiny little Sogndal. The gate attendant--who couldn't have been much older than 25--told us he would help us in a minute, then called everyone over and very calmly explained...something in Norwegian. A few people politely asked questions, which he patiently answered until everyone was satisfied. Only when he was finished did he tell us that the flight was cancelled because of bad weather. Having experienced the mayhem of cancelled flights in the States, we were genuinely stunned at how downright civil everyone was about it. People actually RAISED THEIR HANDS to ask questions of the gate attendant.)
So this is where The Amazing Race part comes in. Just like the competitors on the show, we had to make a quick decision--do we wait four hours for the next flight and risk continued bad weather? Do we stay another night in Oslo and take the train instead the next day? Do we fly to another city entirely with no car, no clue how to get to our destination, and no access to the ferry even if we found a car? It was a situation that called for decisive action...and we did anything but. It probably took us 20 minutes just to gnash our teeth and whine and process the information. We called the airline. We called the car rental company. We called the hotel. We talked to the gate attendant. We talked to some nice people who spoke English and who happened to be going to the same hotel. We talked with each other. We gnashed our teeth some more.
After much angst, we finally decided to fly to the town of Førde and share a two-hour taxi ride with the nice English-speaking couple. Well, it was supposed to be a two-hour ride. Because the other couple was supposed to be speaking at a conference at the hotel, the driver got us there in just over an hour (we must have averaged at least 50mph/80kph, all on narrow, windy roads in a torrential downpour...I don't usually get motion sickness, but I would have killed for a Dramamine at that point.)
In the end, despite the indecisiveness that would have had us in last place on The Amazing Race, it worked out for the best--especially when we found out that the airport where we would have had to return the car in Sogndal was about 20 miles from the ferry terminal, and we would have had to be on the ferry by 7:00am...
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