The decision to travel to Norway was made in the early summer. It’s a country I had never visited, and knew very little about (Sue Townsend’s famed anti-hero Adrian Mole had once done a school project on the Norwegian leather industry so I was reasonably well versed on that facet of the country. I was also aware of legendary Norwegian pop and A-Ha). My friend R had previously visited, loved it and so we decided that to celebrate the possibility that life might be going back to normal, we booked a trip.

Our early October travel dates were deliberate. The days were still long and the bitter cold that Scandinavian winters are known for hadn’t arrived yet. The SAS flights cost only 120euro for a return trip.

Oslo airport was as clean and neat as you’d expect. What was not so expected was the chaos in the off-license at the duty-free. Norway is one of the world’s most expensive countries when it comes to booze, so the natives purchase as much as they can in the duty free upon arrival back in the homeland. We weren’t there for the duty free. We made our way to the station and the half hour trek to Oslo central station.

We were staying in different hotels both within a three minute stroll to the station – which became our meeting point.

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