Velkommen til Norge!
With our stopover in Iceland complete, we had a full day of travel on the itinerary in order to get to our next destination of Alta, Norway. Unfortunately, there was no flight that would take us directly into the small city but fortunately, the day was anything but uninteresting.
We woke bright and early to sneak out of our Reykjavik hostel room (an experience in and of itself that we don't necessarily care to elaborate on) with only 1-2 hours of sleep under our belt. Our flight out of Iceland was at 8am and we had to drive the 45 minutes to Keflavik and return our rental car beforehand. Even with plenty of time scheduled out, we arrived with just enough time to grab a coffee at Joe and the Juice (we weren't very impressed) and hop in line to board.
The flight to Oslo was about 3 hours but went by rather quickly. Though not as empty as our flight from the States, we had our own row and were able to grab a smidgen of sleep. We were taking a different airline out of Oslo so we had to recheck our bags upon arrival and it was then that we made the tragic decision to put the peanut butter we'd purchased in Iceland in a carry-on bag and had it snatched away at security. I'm not sure if we were (correction, are) more upset about not even getting to taste the PB or our rookie mistake. Either way, it seemed to be par for the course throughout this trip that one or both of us would have our bag pulled at security for further inspection. Sometimes we wouldn't pull out an iPad because the last airport yelled at us for taking it out (okay, yelled is dramatic) or our hand sanitizer looked suspicious or a bag of gummy bears was thought to be explosives. The typical stuff.
We spent our nine-hour layover in Oslo Airport reading and eating (what else would you expect from us?). At one time we had discussed spending the layover in Oslo, but with the approximate 30-minute train ride to the city center, we didn't want to risk it and ended up staying put. After a flight to Tromsø with a quick layover on the tarmac to allow some passengers to get off and new ones to get on, we were finally on our way to Alta and in for the worst flight of both our lives. I don't think I've ever sweat so badly on an airplane from the stress of turbulence, but there's a first time for everything! The airport's runway sits in Altafjord and there was some terrible weather that night which made for an experience that I don't think either of us will soon forget. We compared it to Tower of Terror afterward---not something you really want to be able to compare a flight to.
Once we'd both got our heart rates back to normals paces, collected our baggage, and hailed a taxi to the hotel, it was midnight. We thought this was our opportunity to get some good sleep after our rough night in the hostel, but our room was right above the bar. On a Friday night. With karaoke. And a live band. All of which did not close down until 3am. Alta parties hard.
(We also kind of thought our room was haunted so that didn't help.)
But alas, we survived through the night, got our money's worth at the *free* breakfast buffet the next morning, and bundled up to head into the city for a few hours. Being in the Arctic Circle in the winter, there's even less sunlight to work with than we had in Iceland. In fact, just two weeks before, they'd seen their first day of sunlight since November for a whopping 30 minutes! By 3:00, it looked like bedtime.
This one is a quick video since we only spent a few hours walking around the small city, sat by the fireplace with coffees at the cozy Du Verden Matbar, and spent some time journaling about our experiences thus far. But the reason we traveled to the northern edge of Norway was not to see the city of Alta. It’s what’s coming next...
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