Well, I (we) finally made it to Norway. At the end of last year around Christmas we started talking about the possibility of the entire family making a trip over to see the country and some family heritage sites. Planning out the trip for several people was an undertaking, but we pulled it off and the entire trip went very well except for only a few minor travel issues.
We decided to head over there (to Stavanger) about a week before everyone else and Grandpa and Grandma decided to stay a week after everyone else and take a cruise back to the UK. All in all, it was about three weeks total of traveling and being in Norway for us. I wasn't sure when we would be able to return, and if you're making the long and expensive trip over, it only made sense to stay as long as we possible could.
Our overnight flights from Denver to London, and then London to Stavanger went well. We had a several hour layover in London, so that wasn't ideal, and it put us into the small Stavanger airport very late at night. So late (near midnight) that everything was closed, including the rental car desk. Imagine landing in a new country and no one being there and the automatic rental car machine not working.
I was thinking we were going to have to sleep in the airport, but eventually we got in touch with someone on the phone and got our rental car keys. Then I had to figure out how to get into the actual rental car parking garage that was under construction. It involved hopping over a few gates and fences and hoping that I wasn't going to be arrested after being in Norway for only a few hours.
In the end we got everything sorted and made it to our Air BnB in Stavanger. Very early in the morning. The host, Emre, was fantastic and actually came outside to meet us from the basement where he was staying at something like 2 a.m. when we arrived. I can't imagine trying to figure this out prior to having Google Maps on my phone. In the end, we eventually made it to our very nice Air Bnb where we would be staying for the next several days.
