| Travelling to Norway By Sm Fishman 7/00 (This is first in my series of adventures in Norway!) I arrived at the Grand Rapids airport about 2 hours early because my tickets suggested I do this. I am not sure exactly why they say this. Perhaps when Im sitting on my ass I will have a revelation to get my shoes shined or purchase an overpriced bottle of tap water. Im sure this is some sort of airport marketing conspiracy designed for us to purchase products while we suffer from absolute boredom. This is just a conspiracy theory which later is challenged during my travels. After leaving late from GR (which is rare) I arrive in Detroit, home of the rush hour airport. Since my plane was late I had to go straight to my next connecting flight. When I arrived the plane had been boarded for the most part. I asked the cute chicky at the gate if I had 5 minutes to go drain the main vein. Denied! She did fall victim to my usual “I don’t know what I am doing because Im a travelling virgin” routine. “F-her.” After I get on the plane I find out that we were going to sit on the run way for 45 minutes. I was ok with this since that assured me that my luggage would probably now make the plane rather than have it sit in the rain while Tyrone the human luggage tosser accidently opens my luggage and pilfers my bottle of vodka. From D-town I was flying to Amsterdam. This was to be about a 7 hour venture. As I boarded the biggest plane I have ever been subjected to (I got lost trying to find my freakin seat) I realized that this was gonna be a long-ass trip. Glad I brought an arsenal of magazines. I took a window seat figuring I would be able to see Europe as we flew over. Yeah, right- like that happened at 32,000 feet. My neighbor was this Swedish guy. I forget his name so for all intensive purposes we will give him a stereotypical naming. Lets call him Sven. After an hour on the flight Sven had already put down a small bottle of wine and was working on his vodka tonic. I watched him put down another bottle of wine in the hour. I was wondering why he was getting so much and why he wasn’t paying the stewardess. I assumed he was running a tab. After watching Sven guzzle down another drink before dinner I got up to venture toward the airplane lavatory (my first time!) while in my lusty dreams I was bagging a stewardess in the jon, I will admit to all of you that I never made the Mile High club (well in my dreams I was making the Mile High Marathon). Ok, back to the story, anyways! So I was sizing up the thoughts of how you could get freaky in the bathroom….oh wait, back to the story. Ok, sorry. So I am wondering where “it all goes” after you flush. Im convinced it gets jettisoned and lands somewhere. I can’t prove this really but this would explain mysterious floaters in peoples pools- at least in Florida. So I ask the only real hotty stewardess if I could run a tab for drinks. She about laughed and asked why. I said because (Sven) was putting down drinks like a sailor and wasn’t paying anyone. She thought this funny and informed me that drinks are free on international flights! “Let the games begin.” Despite my cute naiveté she didn’t want to join me for a drink. “F- her.” Dinner had me swilling a bottle of Chateau de Airporto (actually it really was Kendall Jackson) and eating a fine dinner (it was really good to my surprise) while engaging in some alcohol induced conversation. Jamming to my fave travelling music (techno of course, special trance mixes and remixes and drink mixes) time slowly passed on by. It was dark outside and there was a 6 hour time difference. We arrived at Amsterdam at 6:10AM. Amsterdam was the International House of Pancakes. I had never seen so many people in their native country’s attire and fashions. I was pretty awestruck (Mencher you would loved it). I spent an hour people watching. Back to the bathrooms- so to tell you briefly how serious soccer is out there- the toilets had little soccer goals in them as deodorizers!! I felt like screaming “Gooooooooooal!” I went through another security check and finally got to whip out my passport. We left a few minutes late as usual. I was now on KLM airlines and lemme tell ya about the stewardesses. All had the “natural look” (ie- were not painted ladies) and were attractive. I was like “hey bebe.” Immediately they served food on the plane. I had a cheese sandwich arrive first and then some sort of muffin with what turned out to be a cherry surprise in the middle. I thought of what Ian told me in terms of advice “Fishman, be flexible.” (This would be a recurring theme). So I ate pretty much what was put in front of me. My OJ arrived in this cannister that resembled a large paper towel roll. I knew things would be interesting after that. By now everything was spoken in Norwegian and Dutch by the pilots with some occasional English thrown in to humor me Im sure. I arrived at Oslo close to on time. Now I didn’t really know what to do from here. Ian had said to pretty much follow the crowds so I pinpointed people that looked like they knew what they were doing and followed them. I had to get my passport checked and this took longer because, as usual, I was in the “I’m a moron line.” After this, I played the luggage lotto and mine eventually rolled out. It was still locked so at least I know Tyrone won’t be wearing my stylin threads while he is Big Pimpin in Detroit. Now for the best part of all- Customs. Ian had said that I should go through the “I have nothing to declare line.” Of course I did- I had some extra booze, but hey, that never hurt anybody. So I entered this door thinking on the other side Olaf would be there for my body cavity inspection. I see 3 of them sitting in a side room shooting the shit. I keep on walking because that’s what the guy in front of me did. I was still walking slow waiting for Per to stop me. I walked into a wrong door that wouldn’t open. Then the 3 looked over and I thought, “Here comes the rendition of “You’ve got a mighty pretty mouth, son” They went back to whatever they were doing and I walked right through. I could have had 20 kilos of crack and nobody would have stopped me! I purchased a train ticket into Oslo. The lady there seemed to be thinking the whole time “Another crazy tourist.” When she said the ticket was $240 Kronars (about 30 bucks) I was taken back. Well the good thing was it was for a round trip so it wasn’t too bad. After asking several people to confirm I was on the right train, I got on this brand spanking new train to head into town. On the train I sat next to this guy from Argentina who sat there and bashed Norway for 20 minutes. “Fuckin everything is so fuckin expensive! Ay!” and “Fuckin Norwegians paid an extra 3 billion to finish this railroad because it goes in some tunnel under a lake and the lake is leaking through” Despite his affinity for Norway he was helpful in making sure I got off at the right place and some things to expect. SO I got off the train 40 minutes later and was told to catch a taxi to Ians apartment. Im standing outside the taxi area seeing all these Mercedes Benz’s. Now Im thinking to myself , “Well damn, I bet those are expensive” so I decide to wait for the piece of shit American car hoopties to arrive. This does not happen so I went for the big dog Benz. I later find out that pretty much all taxi’s in Norway are Benzs!! Shortly there after I arrive at Ian’s Norwegian pimp daddy apartment. And with this, I will start the next story soon! http://www.oocities.org/sethmatthew |