Friday, September 25, 2026

Excuse Me, Miss, You Booked a One Way Ticket to the Wrong Airport

 May 20, 2026

We had breakfast at our hotel and it was a really great deal- there were hot items like eggs, waffles, crepes, sausages and bacon, as well as yogurt and granola, deli meat and cheese, hardboiled eggs, avocado, fruit, pastries, cereals, coffees, teas and juices. After, we had a quick walk to the airport train. We made it to the airport in about 40 minutes and when we arrived there was 1 security check for everyone. While the line was long it moved quickly. When we got through security and looked at the board for our gate I noticed that there were gates that said Oslo, while ours said Sandefjord. Hmmm... that was odd. We were going to Oslo, weren't we? I looked at the ticket and it said Oslo Sandefjord. Maybe there are two airports in Oslo, kind of like Ohare and Midway? Evan googled it. Nope. Oslo and Sandefjord were two separate places, about a 2 hour train ride between the two. I couldn't believe I had booked a flight to the wrong airport 🙈🤦‍♀️ I felt so dumb. After traveling for 15 hours from Oslo to Bergen, the trip back was supposed to be a quick 1 hour flight. Now we had to fly to Sandefjord, take a 4 minute bus to the train station, wait at the train station for 1 hour and then take a 2 hour train ride back to Oslo. There was a flight leaving for Oslo so we asked the gate agent if there were any open seats. She told us that the airport moved away from paper ticket sales to online only so even if there were seats she couldn't sell them to me. I asked if I could check online but she says the tickets stop being sold 1 hour prior to the flight 🙃 So... we sat at our gate and waited for the journey ahead. I heard not 1, not 2 but 3 other people talking about how they had made the same mistake I did. One of the locals was saying she wasn't sure why they added the Oslo in front of Sandefjord but that it got people all the time. I felt validated. Slightly.


After landing in Sandefjord we got on bus that dropped us at a train platform. Not a station, just a platform, in the middle of nowhere, with 3 seats under an overhang. We sat outside for an hour waiting for our train and once it arrived we started our journey back to Oslo. 

I slept 😴  while Evan read. We arrived in Oslo at 220 and grabbed sandwiches from Oslo Central Station to take back to our hotel. We checked in, ate a quick lunch and put on our suits for the sauna.

Evan loves the sauna/cold plunge back home and he always asks me to do it with him. I am very afraid of saunas (since childhood I've had an irrational fear of getting locked inside and melting to death) and I'm not a fan of being cold. However, since we were on vacation and this was a Norwegian cultural activity I acquiesced and told him I would do it with him. He booked a sauna on the water in Oslo. We walked over and immediately saw tons of tiny sauna huts clustered together with docks on the water. We were able to choose any of them and after sitting in the heat we could step out onto the deck and jump straight into the lake. The sauna was very hot and the lake was very cold, but I did both multiple times. I don't think I ever felt the relaxation that Evan did (I was constantly planning how I might escape if the door sealed shut) but I am glad I tried it. I will say returning to the sauna after jumping in the lake is much easier than sitting in the sauna for the first time. Evan's sell is that he gets the best sleep of his life after sauna-ing and while I write this he is currently passed out. I on the other hand am wide awake. We will see if tonight I sleep well and then maybe, just maybe I will think about going to the sauna again.





After Evan's nap we took showers and walked 20 minutes across town to Mathallen, a food hall with cuisines from all over, including Italy, Budapest, China, France, Norway and Greece, to name a few. We decided to stick to Norwrgian cuisine since it's our last night here. We shared the traditional fish soup which was LOADED with fish--it even came with fish roe on top! We really loved it. I had Norwegian oysters because I really loved the ones from the other day and Evan had mussels (because he's been wanting to get some while here). We both agreed that Norway's food scene was better than expected and that the local dishes should receive more hype. One of the most famous sweets in Norway is a cinnamon bun so after dinner I bought the last one from a stall in Mathallen while Evan enjoyed a scoop of Gelato. 



We walked to the opera house that's on the water so that we could sit on the roof and look out at the city (it's a very common thing to do here) and we saw lots of people coming and going while we were up there. We didn't quite make sunset (it's 10pm and the sun still hasn't set) but we did enjoy a late evening view before heading back to pack for our early flight to London.



After packing I treated Evan and I to the cinnamon bun I had bought earlier- it was very tasty 😋

No comments:

Post a Comment