My travel plan was to fly from
Columbus, OH to Newark, NJ, meet my daughter Wendy who was to travel there from
the Washington DC area where she lives, and then fly together to Oslo, Norway.
My travel agent had scheduled me for a 55 minute time between flights in Newark.
The problem was that my flight from Columbus was one hour late leaving due to
`VIP movement' which I guess meant that the President was flying somewhere in
the area. Also, there was only one flight per day from Newark to Oslo.
After getting under way, I asked the
flight attendant if she had any suggestions for me. She promised that an
electric cart would be at the gate to whisk me off to the Olso flight. The Oslo
flight was scheduled to leave at 8 AM. I arrived at 7:55, jumped on the cart,
beeped through the terminal to find Wendy waiting for me and we rushed on to the
plane. A while later, there was an announcement that because 50 passengers
connecting from a California flight were delayed, we would have to wait a half
an hour before leaving. So, I had wasted a couple of hours of worrying and
gnashing teeth. Eventually we were flying toward Oslo.
Oslo is only about 150 miles from Göteborg, Sweden, where we were scheduled to meet with our first Swedish connection. Wendy and I made our way by train from the airport to downtown Oslo, found the Swebus terminal, got a bit of Norwegian money from an ATM, and bought our bus tickets. We then grabbed lunch and wandered around Oslo until it was time to board the bus. You no longer have to worry much about purchasing travelers checks or exchanging currency in advance, at least in the Scandinavian countries. There are ATM machines nearly everywhere, bank cards work the same there as they do in the USA. The only difference is an initial display that asks you to select a language.
The Swebus was an express bus with no stops between Oslo and Göteberg. The ride is a little less than four hours and provided us with a good feel for the landscape. Lots of nice looking farms and wooded hills. Just north of the Swedish border there was a long traffic jam. The only cause seemed to be a couple of small village traffic lights. Based on the construction visible where a big new bridge is being built and the highway is being expanded to four lanes, I suspect that these traffic jams will soon disappear in this area.
Passing through customs at the Norway/Sweden border was about the same as passing from Dublin to Hilliard, Ohio. The bus driver didn't even slow down or wave at any customs officials as we rode on by the border crossing. If you want to get a Swedish stamp on your passport, you won't get it on the Oslo-Göteberg bus.
