We were meant to arrive in Oslo
Central Station at 1.58 pm and then have some 19 minutes to catch the train to
Trondheim. Well, we arrived 5 minutes late. Trouble was looming as we had
14 minutes to catch the next train. Add to this the fact that we had a lot of luggage
with us and we had no idea where to get the next train. I got tense and lost.
My team mate, thank God for her, urged me to go to the information desk and ask
for directions. 4 minutes remaining now! We took our heavy bags and tried to make
our way to track 11 from track 9. We got there just in time to…….not even see
the train leaving! This is Norway I tell you. I missed home where I could have caught
the next bus there and where I knew what to do in such situations. I also
missed the fact that someone would have offered (at a small fee at the very
least) to help me with our many, heavy bags. Either way, here we were, in a
foreign country, far away from familiar Kenya, trying to make our way home.
Well, we composed ourselves and
were able to figure out what to do. The choice was between train, bus and
Plane. The earliest to leave was the plane so we picked it. Our contact person,
Lars Olav Gjora (quite a difficult last name there), enabled us to get the air
tickets but still the next flight was to be at 10.30pm so we still had quite
some time to wait. We rested a while at the central station but we could not
manage a nap as we had a train to catch to the airport. While there, we saw a
woman see the train leave while she was running to catch it. I really felt
sorry for her.
 |
| How I missed the train! |
We took the train to the Oslo
airport and unknowingly we sat in the comfort zone, a first class area. The
tickets we had purchased were for the common area. The Train conductor seeing
the dejected and worn out looks on our faces having dragged our heavy bags up
and down allowed us to sit in this area. We alighted at the airport and more
was awaiting us. At the check-in place, we realized that my bags were both
overweight by far. Luckily for Grace, one of her bags was underweight and the
other was overweight so a little balancing did the trick. We therefore had to
cancel my flight and had to book a train ticket instead. My contact Person Lars
Olav helped a lot here.
Grace was able to catch the flight
to Trondheim and was received by Lars Olav. I was very very keen this time round
and did not miss my train which was due to pass passing by the Oslo airport at 11.46pm
(note the precision of the time) on its way to Trondheim. I was almost the
first to hop in and was soon fast asleep. The train conductor even had to wake
me up for me to show him my tickets. I only woke up the following morning to
the beautiful scenery of Trondheim. That was the craziest 24 hours!
 |
| Happy to be in Trondheim Finally! |
