I've had to fly to Norway today to do some bits and bobs to move them to Exchange instead of Lotus Notes.
Left yesterday at 1600hrs. Pleasant taxi ride, I figured that it was going to be a good trip. How wrong I was. I stopped at the duty free and bought some smokes for me and my housemate. I checked with the woman in the duty free shop and she looked on her computer and said 400 would be fine for me to bring into Norway and I wouldn't have to declare them. Great. Then I found my flight had been delayed by an hour. Ah well couldn't be helped. The flight was one of the roughest I've ever had, constant turbulence that was so bad they couldn't bring the trolley round and even the cabin crew spent the entire flight strapped in. Still, alls well that ends well and we made it to the ground without exploding, so that's a positive thing... Pretty much the last positive thing to do with that journey however!
It took nearly an hour for our bags to be offloaded, and of course they were soaked through along with all the clothes inside them. Fortunately the laptop survived (I took my work and home one you see... and the home one was in my suitcase). I hit customs and went through the green gate as the woman at the duty free had said would be fine, got pulled into the side area for a random check and was still convinced I had nothing to worry about at that point. Then the, admittedly very polite customs officer informed me I was only allowed 200 cigarettes. Never mind I thought, I told her to take one of the packs as the price I'd got them for was still less than one pack of 200 at normal UK prices so it's not the end of the world. Sadly she informed me I also had to pay a 300 Kr fine (about £20) as I hadn't used the right aisle. I was starting to despair a bit at this point...
Significantly lightened, I made my way to the hotel only to find out our Norway office had booked my room, but not paid for it which they were supposed to do as my company credit card still hasn't came through yet. Ah well, I dug into the cash I still had and relieved myself of another 1250 Kr (I took 2200 with me from the petty cash at work). Got to my room which, admittedly, was pretty nice and started to relax, thinking this was the end of my troubles... I popped back downstairs to reception to check on the ferry time to Rosendal - 1025 and the bus goes from just round the corner so I could look forward to my nice lie-in in the morning. Went back to my room and unpacked my suitcase, to find my shower gel had detonated over everything and the carrier bag I'd wrapped it in failed to contain it. Never mind, these things happen. So I got my razor out to have a shave. And discovered the shaving foam I'd bought was in fact a can of deodourant. So I had to dry shave.
Deciding to call it a day, I eventually went to bed at 0230. Then had a brainwave based on my experiences of the day and decided I'd set my alarm an hour and a half earlier than I needed to to make the 1025 ferry just in case as my trust has been seriously eroded by now... Just as well - I got to the pier at 0910 just as the ferry which in fact leaves at 0915 was pulling in. The next ferry after that one is 1655. I made it to the office without any further ado, only to discover that the server I'm supposed to be working on blew a power supply last night and so it won't be up and running until tomorrow morning.
I also have had to spend another 300 Kr on the ferry, will have to spend 300 for the return journey, and need to buy my own food with the cash I have left for 9 days.
<--- Doesn't even come close right now!
The only place you can pick up the timetable is from down on the pier, and the only way to get to the pier is to take the bus which leaves the airport 15 minutes before the ferry arrives. I'm not THAT useless :p
