Norway Day 1: In Which a Bunch of Weird and Familiar Things Happen.

 After what feels like about 62 years of being in my house listening to covid statistics, what a relief it was to get on a plane and leave the damn country. If you can do this, in any way, I encourage you to do it asap. As it turns out, the rest of the world still exists and is carrying on as they were, without too much bother. Indeed, the following things are still happening in airports and on planes:

1. I would like to start by thanking June and Tony for once again being at the same departure gate as me at the airport on our flight to London. They are SO reliable - I love them so much with their sensible shoes and war-time teeth. Bless them- here they are:

 2. Thanks again to Air Canada for providing a dinner comforting in its familiarity, if nothing else: Pasta  Dots in a Red Sauce with Mystery Meat with a salad of mostly indistinguishable vegetables, one of  which I suspect was an Air Canada special that friends of the blog will be familiar with: ironed lettuce.

3.  Why do businessmen (yes, men, you know who you are) in suits, ranging from ill-fitting to James Bond, think that everyone else at the airport wants to listen to their conversations about 'sending things up the food chain' and 'moving the needle' and, my favourite, 'groundtruthing' which sounds like an archaic way to find water, or maybe your lost cell phone. Anyway, news flash: we don't care that Allan annoyed you at this morning's meeting because he wouldn't share his data with you. Please stop talking now. Thanks.

4. What are the chances of seeing another Clare St resident as we were boarding the flight to Heathrow? And then what are the chances that his seat was right beside mine? They were, it seems, very good as both of those things happened! Of course, he talked the entire time and no one could get any sleep. And also, my neighbour Rajesh was on the same flight and in the seat on the other side of me. 

5. I knew I had made it out into the world once again when a man passed out in front of me on the plane just before we were about to begin our descent into Heathrow. This sort of thing seems to be a regular occurrence for me (people passing out in front of me, not me passing out on planes). I did feel bad for him, and also glad that a doctor and nurse both jumped into action. He did not look well and passed out twice after falling out of the bathroom (the man, not the doctor). The flight crew brought out a useless blood pressure monitor that looked like it was last used in 1973, which they tried in vain to use, and meanwhile I kept thinking, 'he's gonna puke, people, that's what always happens' as I quickly demanded everyone's puke bags from my row and the row behind me and handed them to the dazed and confused flight attendant. And sure enough, he did puke, (the man, not the flight attendant) and so that was fun. It was also fun that we had to wait on the tarmac while the paramedics came on board and fussed around for forever and a day. Again, I felt bad for the guy but I also wanted to leave the plane, which no one was allowed to do, mainly because the paramedics were in the way... ANYWAY. I wish him well.

6. SAS  (Such awful Service) airlines, possibly the worst airline ever, outdid themselves this time (which I thought was going to be hard after the last time I flew with them when they offered small glasses of lukewarm water as their complimentary beverage,) by sitting us all down, telling us we were leaving early, then not leaving early, then insisting that something had gone wrong with the weight ratio on the plane and that they were 'doing some calculations', then asking two rows of people to get up and move to the back of the (mostly empty) plane. So reassuring. Also, they don't have TVs. Or Snacks. Just. Saying.

7. Arriving in a large European city at night in the rain is another of my specialities and this time was no dfferent. Apart from Kent receiving a short but stern warning from the Norwegian customs agent about his quite badly ripped passport ("you should order a new one today" she said, obviously having never had to do so in Canada before), and another agent bursting into laughter when we said we were from Canada, it was a very smooth arrival process. But the best part was being met by Zoe, whom we haven't seen in three months. She's here on an exchange from Mcgill to the University of Oslo and is having an amazing time here. I can see why - such a fabulous city.

It's very hygge here.

More tomorrow...