Nov. 1: I made it to Oslo!

I've been very stressed coming up on this rather random trip to Europe, and so I was really worried about the long haul between L.A. and Oslo, but it actually went really well.  They gave me one of the only seats that had a free spot next to it, and I slept off and on throughout the whole flight.  

When I got to Oslo, I was as refreshed as one can be after a nine hour flight, and I moved through passport control and found my luggage slowly, but smoothly.  I was quite amused to see a Volvo parked inside the Oslo airport and fascinated to learn that Norway doesn't do customs.  That's right: they just don't do it.  

While waiting for the slow non E.U. countries line to move beyond passport control, I had nothing better to do than to observe the process for those with E.U. passports in the lanes to my right.  Mostly, folks just flashed their easy pass (E.U. passport), a digital camera scanned their face, and they were off -- easy as pie.  One gentleman, though, met a speed bump.  The machine wouldn't read his passport, and after three failed attempts, he tried to make his way to the window where a real live person was sitting doing absolutely nothing.  That person, by chance, was not paying attention to the situation at hand, and the security guard who seemed to have the job of supervising the line was suddenly nowhere to be found so the man found his own way out of the nylon maze.  Suddenly, he was on the other side of a glass wall, walked through a door that I'm fairly certain said "employees only" in Norwegian, and then voila, he was back with all the other E.U. passport holders who had just finished being scanned.  He clearly had no intention of slipping through, but since no one was helping, he looked around and decided to move on.  I watched a man enter the country via airplane without anyone documenting it -- I didn't know that was possible anymore, but Norway does not seem too concerned about security.  

I found my friend Lina-lotta quite easily in the central train station after a very smooth express train ride from the airport.  It's a good thing we both look the same since we saw each other last, ten years ago in Bellingham, Washington :-) 

Me and my friend Lina-lotta outside Oslo's Central Station, in front of the hilarious "Cameltoe" mural.