And we here!

Oh what a trip!  But we made it! 

We almost didn't make it on the plane leaving Montreal, because of one little word: work.  Long story short, Air Canada wasn't allowing us to board the plane because Husband said work rather than business for more than 90 days and for that he needed a work Visa.  After trying to reach Expedia to change our return date, and spending over two hours on the phone to be told in the end, there was nothing that could be done because we were within two hours of departure and no changes could be made at that point, Hubby decided to give the auto-check in machine another try.  When the purpose of the trip came up, he chose business and got our boarding passes.  We checked our luggage and made our way through custom.

We got on a plane direction Heathrow, London.  That flight was the long leg of the journey.  The number of runny noses, sniffling and coughing heard on that flight is enough to make the germophobe in me cringe a few times.  I'm not even going to talk about how bad I felt, with the runny nose, itchy eyes and headache.  Neither of us managed to catch a wink at all.  We had a few hours in Heathrow - beautiful and big airport - and had to wait even to take off for a good 35 to 45 min.  That delay messed up our connection to Oslo.  When we arrived in Oslo, we had to pick up our luggage, make our way through custom and then go back up to departures.  By that time, we had missed our connection.  We had to go see a few people, to be told in the end that there was no other fight for Bodo, and had to spend the night in Oslo.  Thanks to SAS we spent the night at the Radisson Blu, walking distance from the airport, a cute and fairly new hotel.  We checked in, I showered and went straight to bed.  I was done!  After being up for more than 24 hours, awake, I needed to rest.  And I did.

First Norwegian Beer: Ringnes Pilsner - Oslo Airport

This morning, Husband had decided we were getting up at about 6:30 am to catch our flight at 10:45 am.  We woke up, took a quick shower, made our way to breakfast , tidied our luggage and made our way back to the airport.  It was snowing in Oslo, and it was quite fresh. When we arrived there were so many people at the airport, a this humongus queue - the SAS ticketing machines/printers weren't working.  It was a bit nuts, to say the least.  Let's just say the computer geek Husband was REALLY not impressed.  We finally managed to get our luggage tags printed and spot a drop-off kiosque.  There was now a problem with the conveyer belt and the system only recorded three suit cases when there was four.  I think by then, we both had reach a poitn we we hoped for the best and walked away.  Good thing Hubby wanted to get there early!  We passed security (and each friggin' country has its own rules and requirements - made me realized we've been to the States often!) and make our way to our gate thinking we'll go somewhere for a coffee, when I noticed the flight crew checking in at our gate.  Something made Hubby doubt himself so after verification, turns out that they sprang forward yesterday! So we barely had time to stand in line and to board.

It was a full flight - seems like the Nordland is a popular destination - yeah right!

First thing we saw as we're about to land in Bodo...

Yesterday when we landed in Oslo, I commented on how everything was frozen and white.  It looked like winterland, really.  I was expecting the same if not worst coming to Bodo.  To my surprise there wasn't snow all over, but on top of the few mountains we could see, and the ground was snow less - yay Bodo!!

We met up Hubby's co-worker who's been here for a few weeks already and leaving now that Hubby is here to replace him.  We walked around town for a while, then went to his hotel room until we could get the keys to our place.  His room gives out on the fjord and little marina in town... quite the view and this despite the grey sky...

View from hotel room, 11th floor

We did get the keys to our flat, which is small but clean - it will be plenty for the three months we will be here, I'm sure.  Tomorrow I will be going to get some food, and some cleaning products to clean this place to my liking or standard.  It's one thing to sanitize the remote and a few other things, but there's nothing like making it your own (if only temporarily) but either farting on it and/or cleaning it. 

On that note, time to call it quit for the day.  'night!