We had a long journey back to Norway. Some bits were fine, even enjoyable, and other bits were pure agony. First we took the SB Airbus from Goleta to LAX. This was a good part. We took over the last 2 rows of the bus and everyone slept a little bit. Here we are at the start of our journey.
At LAX, we checked all 4 suitcases + 1 bicycle in for our flight and spent some time in the British Airways lounge. It's nice being able to hang out in the lounges, but we sure got some dirty looks from people (presumably for bringing small children in). This is stressful for me. I don't like people frowning at me or my family. And while I can understand Business travelers not finding it appropriate for wee ones to be reading and snacking alongside their elite selves, today there is no rule against it. I find it is a good opportunity for us to practice good manners, and it is a good opportunity for said elitists to see that there are some well-behaved children out there. Anyway, we still employ the strategy of "quitting while we are ahead", and thus our stay in the lounge was not as long as it could have been. But we were okay with that. It's good fun riding escalators up and down a hundred times!The flight from LA to London had some terrible moments. Eventually the kids slept for about 4.5 hrs, which was almost half the 9.5 hr flight, so we had that going for us. The 'juice' we gave them seemed to take forever to kick in. They were just wired and giddy and fussy (even Rhiannon was this way), and it was painful. But eventually they fell asleep and we had to wake them up to get off the flight. Here they are en route to 'Flight Connections' at LHR.
Terminal 5 at LHR airport has an awful security zone. Usually we can zoom through the Fast Track because of our tickets, but this time the whole place was clogged and grouchy. After about 45 minutes we were through security and made a beeline for the BA lounge, which has a sound-proof children's play area. This part was good, and then the flight to Oslo was good except that Rhiannon slept the whole time and woke up reallllly grouchy. She refused to get out of her seat and didn't want me to touch her or her backpack, and we were holding up the whole line to get off the aircraft.In the tizzied state I was in, I left my purse on the floor and didn't realize it until we had gone through Immigration. Of course, by this stage there is no way back to the aircraft and so I had to go to Baggage Claim, ask someone at the service desk for help. After a few minutes, someone had found the purse and I was told to go pick it up at Lost and Found in ~20 minutes. Well, 20 minutes came and went so we went to said place and were informed that lost items were delivered only twice a day, and the next time would be at 10:30pm (it was then ~4:30pm). Our three options were 1) wait until 1030pm, 2) go home and return at 10:30pm, or 3) go home and send someone else to return at 10:30pm. Ummm, no to all of the above. By this time I was in tears and so went to Information and begged for help. Fortunately the lady working there had herself one time traveled from California to Oslo with small children in tow and she understood our plight. She made some phonecalls and was able to deliver the bag to us 20 minutes later, even though she was off duty by that time. Thank you, nice lady at the airport! And note to future visitors to Oslo airport, don't make the mistake I did :-(
So anyway, once we reunited with my purse, we ran to catch the train to Asker. It was packed and our family got split up with Rh & Rh at one end with the larger luggage and Tryfs & I at the other end. But we made it to Asker 49 minutes later, picked up our car which friend Ravi had left for us, and finally got home in pouring rain.
Adjusting to the 9 hour time difference is ongoing. Fortunately Thursday was a public holiday here, and we had to take Friday off since barnehage was closed, so by Monday we should be all set and ready to enjoy the tail end of May.
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