07 The night “tag”

I had another practical lesson in the difference between theory and practice. You may have thought I would have learned this lesson and moved on, but you would be wrong. The theory was sound. I wanted to maximize our tourist days so we would travel between Cities at night. This worked, in retrospect, fairly well as we cruised from Helsinki to Stockholm. While there were some night time interruptions we did get some sleep and we were clean and ready to go when we hit Stockholm.

The same theory was in play for our trip from Stockholm to Oslo: take the night train, sleep on the train, and be ready to go when we arrive at 9:30. This is not how the theory worked. After Amar found another place to sleep we were able to spread our bags on the minute floor and prepare for bed. We got into bed. I took the middle bed (I thought about the upper bed so that the middle one could be folded out of the way and give Penny more head room). But when I tried to climb up I could not figure out how to get into the bed from the ladder. We gave up and managed not to bang our heads on the low ceilings.

A night on a train is full of sounds which at first appears to have a rhythm but the sounds and rhythm changes as you pass under bridges and go through stations and take corners. The movements are unpredictable and sometimes violent throwing me into floor twice (I made that part up). When I finally did get to sleep, the train stopped somewhere, perhaps to wait as an oncoming train made its way by on the pass by line or perhaps they stopped to ask directions. But whatever the reason, the resulting stillness and silence woke me up and I lay there trying to figure out why we stopped.

We got up about 7:00 and got dressed and brushed teeth and such. We put up the beds so that we have a bench seat on the bottom. The beds were not very comfortable as beds and they were torturous as a couch.

We made our way down to the Bistro “car 34 where are you” across treacherous between cars passage ways where the doors opened in diverse ways and the plates of metal floor slid over each other under your feet as the train swayed and turned. We reached the snack area but they did not take credit cards and we had planned our Swedish money a bit too closely. We had only about 40 SEK left and it was back in the suitcase. I had asked at the station if they accepted CC and they had assured me they did.

Breakfast will be in Oslo and will be delayed.

This is the best part of the train experience. We have been sitting and watching as the Norwegian country side rolls by the windows. One of which is very dirty and cannot been seen out of well. The land is pretty. The grain in the farm fields has either been gathered in or lay drying in neat rows of yellow plants punctuated with lighter colored stripes where the grain had formally been growing.

The houses in the villages and farms have mostly been wooden with rust red tile roofs. The houses are painted in bright (but subdued brightness) reds, yellows, greens and blues. Very nice indeed.

Ray