Hei Sweet Friends!

Today’s post recalls the morning of Friday, February 13 (ooooooh, Friday the 13th!) and mine and Tam’s long journey from the lodge to Tromso airport for our flight to Copenhagen. Alert readers will recall that our incoming journey to the lodge took 3 hours and required a van and a ferry crossing to get to the small island of Uloya. Because of the weather and all the snow and ice, our hosts recommended that we leave around 8 AM in order to make our 1:30 PM flight. We were told that Tromso is a small airport so no need to get there two hours early, one hour would suffice, so they booked our 8:30 AM boat crossing to where our driver’s car would be waiting to take us the rest of the way.

As we ate breakfast that morning and prepared our luggage, I kept thinking, I wish we had one more day/night here so we might see the lights. It was the only disappointment of the trip – not seeing the Northern Lights. It was, after all, the reason we chose to come this far north and walk, trek, sled through all this ice and snow! We laughed because it seemed we had been on every mode of transportation available – sleds, trains, buses, cars, airplanes, ferries and even snow shoes! But we were wrong.

Aud’s daughter was our designated driver from the ferry to Tromso and her car was waiting across the fjord for us, so she was accompanying us on the ferry crossing. As we prepared to leave she remarked that we should make it fine assuming the avalanche had been cleared. HUH? Avalanche? WTF??? Svein handed us our thermal jumpsuits, hats and gloves for the crossing. I was bewildered because we hadn’t needed anything on the incoming ferry. We all sat inside in the warmth; but I didn’t say anything. He commented that the jetty might be a little cold. Jetty? Turns out, the ferry wasn’t running that early so we were taking a SPEED BOAT across the fjord! Yes friends, a small, uncovered speed boat at 8:30 AM with a temperature of  about 10 degrees!!! I was not prepared for this nor an avalanche! I made sure I had my hand warmers ready and snacks in my purse. This could be a long trip.

We pulled into the dock where the boat awaited us. Sure enough, it was a small, tiny really, boat that looked like it would hold four people max. We walked slowly across the icy dock and were assisted into the boat by the driver. There were four of us including the driver plus our large suitcases and carry-on’s. We barely fit. Before I could cover my head properly, we were speeding across the fjord at about 40 MPH. I don’t know what the wind chill was exactly, but I know I was freezing even with my fur coat and the thermal jumpsuit! The ice hitting my eyes was not pleasant, so I kept my head down for most of the 20 minute crossing. Now, 20 minutes may not seem a long time, but at that speed and with that wind chill, it seemed like an eternity to me! Thank goodness Svein sent the jumpsuits and other gear with us!!

Once we crossed, the driver assisted us with getting our luggage to the car and we began the second half of our journey across the mountains and hopefully bypassing the avalanche. The time now was about 9:45 AM, which seemed like plenty of time to me, but we still had a 3-3.5 hour drive ahead of us. Through several phone calls to her husband, we found out that the avalanche had not been cleared so we had to take the long way around to Tromso and with the weather and icy roads, we would barely make it there by 1 PM. We stopped only once for a toilet break but thanks to our tireless and careful driver, we made it to the airport at 12:45. We raced into the airport to drop our bags. Thankfully we had already checked in so we only had to drop our bags. Turns out there was no need to run, the flight was of course delayed due to weather. In fact SAS flights were delayed due to weather. We finally left Tromso about an hour and a half late so of course we missed our connection in Oslo. We were rerouted on another SAS flight to Stockholm (change planes) and then to Copenhagen.

We finally arrived in Copenhagen about 9:30 PM that evening. We were tired and hungry since we had not eaten anything except snacks all day. I had been very grouchy at the airport (s) cos I get grouchy when my blood sugar drops but then I saw a couple with a baby and small child of about 5 years. They were carting the kids and their luggage around the airports and were on the same long flights as us with little or no food, but they seemed perfectly content and happy. It was a wonderful reminder that my journey had been long but it certainly had not be terrible. We made it that same day and were only 3 hours late, so I really had nothing to complain about.

We checked into our hotel overlooking the river and I was grateful for a warm soft bed, a good book and my dear friend Tam Tam who uplifts me even in the most not-so-great circumstances. We collapsed in the beds laughing. It had been a long day but valuable in lessons learned and humor.

I hope you have a beautiful day filled with valuable lessons and humor and a good friend to share it with!! Be sure to check out my next post on our adventures in Copenhagen and Freetown Christiania!