In this time of writing, it`s exactly one month since the last update. Yes, it is too long, but it has been quite a hectic time for us lately. Anyway, here we are with all the latest news!
The plan was to enter the big world 10th of October. On the morning on the 10th, I left Hell. I had visited my family in Stjørdal for 10 days, and drove to the airport Værnes, which lays next to place called Hell. (Want to go to hell? Copy this link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=nn&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=hell,+norway&ie=UTF8&ll=63.444792,10.904102&spn=0.018572,0.079823&z=14&iwloc=addr&om=1)
I was surprisingly calm, and thought I had everything under control - looking very much forward to meet Bjørn Christian at Gardermoen.
Early in the morning I met Bjørn Christian and we both were calm, but excited. Finally our "Tour The World" should start!
As we entered the check-in desk giving the SAS-employee our passports, I remember I thought "It`s at least nothing wrong with my passport" since I checked the valid date the night before. But I was soo wrong.
It turned out that I couldn`t use my passport when travelling to the US. Two years ago, the passports got an additional, socalled biometrical code. Bjørn Christian had this newer passport-version, I didn`t. My passport was valid, but not for entering the US. The SAS-employee told us that we had two choices: 1) Get a visa for the US (could take approximately one week), or 2) Get a new passport (could take about the same time). The SAS-employee concluded that the best thing for us do, was to get a new passport. He thought it could be a chance that getting a new passport would take a few days less than applying for a visa...
We were totally shocked! Neither of us had ever heard of this biometric passport!
And both of us had been visiting all the Internet-sites concerning visas, and we had never seen any information on biometric passports to the US.
I couldn`t believe this was happening! Both of us looked at each other and didn`t know what to say or do. But it didn`t take long until Bjørn Christian got an idea – as always. In situations like this he`s incredible! We went down to the local passport-office at Gardermoen and told them our situation. They told us that a parliamentary member some years ago had managed to get a new passport the same day, but you had to know someone “high up in the system”. So Bjørn Chr. said: “well, then at least it is not impossible!”
Long story short, the happy ending was that I managed to receive my new biometric passport after one and an half hour! Could you have imagined?? A big thanks to helpful police (“jakten på passet Snorre”, the husband of “jakten på kjærligheten” Katrine Moholt), and print agent “Jutta” from Finland!!
As Bjørn Christian didn`t feel like flying alone to New York that day, we had to get a new flight the day after. We went to Oslo, got my passport, and stayed the night at Bjørn and Natascha`s apartment! Thank you B and N for your generous hospitality!
The same evening VG came to us to write an article about what may be the "quickest-made passport" in Norway ever! You could read about this story in VG last Monday.
Next day, Thursday 11th, we finally took off from Gardermoen to Paris - one hour after schedule. We had a flight corresponding to New York, and should depart an hour after our arrival. The flight was about an hour late because of bad weather. It turned out it was lots of delays that day from Paris, but our flight to New York was of course on time. We had to take another flight, 3 hours later. And of course this flight was also delayed. Finally, we departed from Charles de Gaulle in Paris late that afternoon. The flight over to New York was nice though. The food was tasteful and the service was unquestionable. We even got an invitation from the waiter to come visit her in Orlando! People onboard were so open, kind and also very interested in our trip :)
As we landed at JFK, Bjørn Christian pointed at some black, heavy skies from the flight window. He said to me that they looked just as tornado-skies. I laughed and told him not to worry. Afterwards we were told that a tornado had hit the airport half an hour after we had landed! The weather was horrible! The lucky passengers who got their luggage, received wet, dripping bags. Bjørn Christian and I were just standing there waiting for our wet luggage to come, but no wet luggage to see. After 2 hours the last bag dropped down on the belt - but it wasn`t ours. No luggage at all for us....
We got a reference-number to call the day after, to track the luggage. It didn`t show up until 3 days after. Bjørn Christian had then worked hard to email and phone Delta to get any information of when to expect the luggage, but it wasn`t too easy as they talked to us like robots and kept us on hold for hours (or at least that is how it felt)with horrible waiting-music.
In spite of the unhappy luggage-situation, we had a fantastic time in New York! We were lucky to be able to borrow Laila`s apartment while she was travelling for some days. Thank you again SOO much for your help Laila! Her apartment is located in the middle of Manhattan, in a tasteful building on the 21st floor – with an unbelievable view of lower Manhattan! Even from the shower:)So despite long working days, we had a great time!
We used our days in New York to go shopping all equipment we need for this trip (two video cameras, one digital camera, and a new lab top) , eating nice Chinese dumplings in China town with Marthe Reienes, and enjoying the “big apple” feeling with Magnus Nilssen.
Sunday October 14th, we headed for Miami. We landed in Fort Lauderdale, jumped in a limousine-cab with taxi driver Hugo, who promised we would meet famous people in South Beach, and soon realized the season was changed. SUMMERTIME;-)
In Miami we spent time getting our project organized, and meeting Marc and Megan, and their 3 months old lovely daughter Emma. Marc and Bjørn Christian went to the European Business School together in London, and hadn’t met for 5 years. After three days of fantastic Sushi, Art Deco, coconut palm trees, the best Pina Colada we ever tasted, and tropical weather (sun-rain-sun-rain – and lots of rainbows), we got a Volvo rent a car and decided to drop hurricanes in the Caribbean, and rather explore Florida with all its tropical PARADISE.
To be continued…
Love from Oddbjørg & Bjørn Christian
