Trains, buses and boats

Through some fine deductive reasoning, I have determined it is Thursday.   (Looked at my iPhone.  Not much good as a net surfer due to enormous expense, but great as a time keeper and calendar.   And now “I’m sittin’ in a railway station; got a ticket for my destination, hmmm.”  Yes, of course, all four of us are.

We got up and had a nice breakfast again. (Bergen was better, so far, by a hair in the butter.)  Got ourselves packed, checked out of the Astoria (Thon, not Waldorf) and headed for the train station by 9:45 for our 11:15 transport.  In the train station we inquired where to collect the tax rebate we were due for, for having bought goods in Norway.  Back outside at the tourist center, of course.  Not that far, just back-tracking a bit is all.  We left a guard dog with the luggage and went back to get the ca$h.  I got mine.  C&J got half of theirs.  “That must be collected in the train station.”  Yeah, but the computers were down.

So we decided to walk to the bus terminal.  When we got our train tickets, there was a proviso.  There is track construction from Oslo to Goteborg, so you will be taking the bus.  (Gothenburg and various other spellings – I hope they are all referring to the same urban area!  When I hear the natives say it, to me it sounds like "Yo'-tuh-bo-ree.   I do not know where the letter 'g' went. Sing it a little bit and you have it.)  People were very cooperative about telling us where to go.  Upstairs, follow the signs and you will cross a bridge to the train depot.  (About a mile, it seemed, not validated by my previously complimentary step counter.)  We pulled our suitcases to the bus terminal.  Jill checked to see if we needed to get our vouchers converted to tickets and find out where we would catch the bus.  “Oh, that’s platform 19 – in the train station.”  Platform 19 is the most distant platform from where we were standing at that moment.  And immediately in front of our original guard dog station.  We hiked back. We trudged out to the platform.  We don’t read Norwegian of course, but something besides diesel didn’t smell right.  Our security team stayed with the bags.  The intelligence team went to scout.

I can only imagine the conversation went something like this with the uniformed information person.  He says, “Tell me that again.”  Birdie and Jill repeat the tale, with gesticulation and embellishment.  “Oh,” he says, “there is no such bus.”  Our schedule said there were four options.  “There’s only one option.  And it is a train, not a bus, to Goteborg at 1 PM.

“Oh!  Now you will be able to get your rebate back,” Birdie said with some satisfaction.  She can always see the bright side.  The team switched to Olson-Jacobson and C&J went off to get their cash.  Success – of sorts!  Computers still misbehaving, they returned with a nice envelope to mail in for the money.  Chuck opined that he suspected half the foreigners never bothered to collect their tax rebate.  Due to the minimum purchase requirement, as it turns out, C&J will need to send some cash back to Norway.  Not to mention the postage and the extra fees.  Chuck might be right about the tax rebate redemption!

“I’m sittin’ in a railway station; got a ticket for my destination, hmmm.”

Ken