That seems to be the new term for ‘designed in the Scandinavian style’, like furniture and so on. Makes me twitch. But I, for the moment, am back in my father’s father’s homeland.

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After some last minute score prep kerfuffle – Act 2 printed pages never arrived from Staples, and I had to print them surreptitiously at the office, not that anyone cared, I managed to get myself up, up and away. I had to work on Thursday (from home), but that mainly meant attending a few meetings and saying “I’ll get to that when I get back”, and finishing packing and closing up the apartment. Right on time, I called an Uber at 4:30 to take me to JFK. That traffic is always insane, didn’t matter that it was a Thursday. But got there in plenty of time.
I was flying Virgin Atlantic, but booked through Delta. They had not made it clear where I should check in, and of course I did it wrong – and the Delta agent took about 3 times as long as she should have to go, ‘oh, you’re on Virgin Atlantic, go check in over there’. So I did. I wasn’t sure whether my ticket got me lounge access, but I wasn’t hungry or anything, so I just sat by the (not very crowded) gate until they boarded, alternately reading and knitting.
For international flights, we’d gotten in the habit of flying business class or the equivalent – the next step up from coach, but not first class. This, I am finding, can vary wildly. On VA, it’s called Premium Economy and, while it did get me free drinks and a couple of perfectly adequate meals, the seats were still pretty scrunched. I was in a section of two, and the other seat was taken as well, so I had to hold my elbows in while I hauled my backpack in and out from under the seat in front to get out knitting or whatever.
The flight featured two fussy babies in my section (one of whom had a noticeable need for a diaper change at one point), one passenger in my row, but in the middle section, coughing incessantly, and my seatmate falling asleep on my shoulder – and would wake up, move a little, and land right back . Anyway, it wasn’t what I would call a pleasant flight, but got the job done and it wasn’t awful, just mildly annoying, and we got in on time (it’s short, 6 hours. Takes an hour longer the other way).
On previous trips to the UK for the festival, music directors and others involved in our production have gotten pushback from custom agents because they think we’re there to do a paid job, and that’s a problem for some reason. Of course we’re not, it’s amateur, but still it’s a big hairy deal and sounds like one to those not in the know. You can just fudge it and say you’re on vacation (which you are), but … when you’r hauling around a tote bag of orchestral scores and parts… anyway, so that was a point of worry, but it turns out the process now is simply to scan your passport into a machine while you look at a camera, and it automatically passes you through, so that was cool. No problem fetching luggage.
Next issue was that, after exploring several not-good options, I’d decided to fly through Manchester to get to Oslo, even though the only reason to do it that way was so I could create two easy round trips: NYC-Man, Man-Oslo. So on paper, the 2nd leg of the trip had nothing to do with the 1st leg, so I had to exit the security part of Terminal 2, then schlep over to Terminal 1 and check in for the other flight. It’s now only like 8:45 am and my flight isn’t until 1:00, but I don’t particularly feel like hauling two suitcases around, so I go to SAS.

SAS guy: you’re too early, check in 3 hours before.

Boss: go ahead and check him in.

Me: thanks!

SAS guy (grumpily slaps on the luggage tags haphazardly on the boarding pass):
Your duffle bag is oversized, you’ll have to take it around the corner to be scanned.

Bah, he was just grumpy, and my duffle was not oversized, just pleasantly plump. So I did the other thing with the luggage and now I was all set… to kill a lot of time. Went through security – which I have to remember to be not surprised when it’s different from US security – the things they worry about and don’t worry about are different enough that you have to listen carefully to what they’re asking. Luckly, I was ‘fast tracked’, although I don’t know whether that was my ticket or my TSA Precheck that got me there.
And ended up in the Terminal 1 lounge, which I remembered from one of my last trips. Stopped and had a nice iced Starbucks thing and a bottle of water and did some paper journaling. Then went through to the gates – they force you to go through this maze of duty-free shopping, but I had no interest. And then I sat there in the main section, again reading and knitting – and trying not to fall asleep – until they announced our gate.
The gate thing was weird – it was gate 24, and when you got to 24, there was a sign saying ‘gate 22-24 down these stairs’ – and it was a very steep narrow scary set of stairs, especially problematic for a couple of elderly people in front of me. So down, and then across a little hallway, and then up an identically horrifying staircase to a little no-frills lounge. I was like, what, are we flying on a prop plane in a 3rd world country here?
The plane was a little late, but when they came on to announce that, apologize, and say boarding would be soon, people started lining up – like all the people. And then another announcement was ‘we’ll be boarding by zone, A and B first, and we’ll call that’ (with a subtext of ‘sit down, you dumbasses’). No one did.
We got on the plane. Another case of ‘I bought business class, but it seemed kinda skrimpy’. At least this ticket was far cheaper than the transatlantic one. Squished-up seats, but not horrible, and a boxed lunch that was kind of interesting – various ‘salads’ and meat, all flavored unusually enough to remind you you were in a different country now.
Two hour flight to Oslo (yeah, it was a jet plane), fairly painless. My third time there, so I knew the drill well enough. No problems with custom or luggage pickup. But! My phone, which has Spectrum Mobile -which had promised roaming in other countries with no problem – had connected just fine in Manchester, but now in Oslo, although it clearly was talking to the local phone service, wasn’t actually supplying data. (or was in dribs and drabs – I got a text from Spectrum, saying ‘welcome to Oslo, here’s how much the extra charges will be’, but couldn’t actually update mail, or most importantly send texts.)
Bunthorne Boy and The Viking were to pick me up in Lillestrom, the first train stop on the way from the airport into Oslo, but I was supposed to text them to say which train I was on – and I couldn’t text – or not until I connected to the airport’s wifi, and then I could send FB messages. So I told them what was happening with the phone, and that once I told them the train I’d be on, I’d be out of touch.
So – buy ticket, get on train, get off at Lillestrom. Then we had a nightmarish thing where (and I could see this was a problem right away) I was waiting for them at the entrance with the taxis (and other cars picking people up) and they were on the other side, but we couldn’t communicate because of my phone problem. Eventually I went to the hotel across the street, begged to use their wifi, and we sorted it all out. Brad and Trond picked me up at the new designated spot, heading out to the Swedish country house maybe an hour late.

(and then once we got into Sweden, my phone connected to the Swedish phone service and data was fine. Go figure. I’ll be interested to see what happens once we’re back in Oslo. Complaints will be made, regardless.)

Anyway, Brad and Trond’s Swedish country place is on the Ånnebol peninsula and is called “Ånnebol Haga”. It’s the headmaster’s house of a former school (the old school is now a B&B next door) and it’s old and wooden and wonderful! They’ve done extensive renovations and it’s gorgeous inside and out. There are grounds aplenty and various outbuildings, including the ‘cocktail cottage’, which is just one little square room that Brad has done up all frou-frou as a charming place to drink or have tea in. (It’s really ‘peak Brad’, for those who know him.) They can see not one but two lakes from their property, it’s just gorgeous. In some ways it reminds me of their old Catskills house, but is several levels up in all directions. I heartily approve, will be coming back if allowed.

We chilled out and Trond made salmon for dinner, and all went to bed early.

This morning, we all got up when we felt like it and had coffee and foraged for our own breakfasts (I had toast) and I did some score-and-parts work, and then we went out to Arvika (local town) for errands and to have lunch. Brad had found a nifty little cafe on an earlier visit, and we had soups and salads and I had the more substantial entree, which was not unlike what I’d had on the SAS flight. And cakes/cookies for dessert! Very nice. Now more chillout time.
Tomorrow we go back to Oslo (Brad has a church service to play) and stay there… so I get a day of sightseeing there on Monday and fly back to Manchester on Tuesday.
More as it develops…