Flight to Oslo

As I write this it's actually 4:30 AM tomorrow in Oslo, 10:30 PM where we took off from in Newark and only 9:30 PM back in Nashville. 7 hours. I'll have to get used to that I suppose. We flew over Halifax a little while ago (around 600 miles out from Newark) and then they served dinner. Cara is snuggled up next to me in blankets and I'm enjoying my usual evening scotch. Not sure why I order scotch on evening plane rides - I don't often drink scotch - but it's become something of a norm on evening planerides.

This morning we kissed the kids goodbye and they headed off to school with Nanny. My parents have come up for this week and Ray will be up for the next. We are going to be gone for 2 weeks in Eurpoe and certainly couldn't have done it without their help. Then my dad drove us to the airport. He's never been to Norway and super jealous of our trip.

Nashville checkin was a breeze (I don't know why I was worried, it usually is, but I haven't flown internationally since 1998). We still have Norwegian customs to get through, but it looks like the Schengen zone has a pretty easy relationship with US citizens.

There aren't flights from Nashville to Oslo, so we had a layover in Newark which was supposed to be 6 hours but ended up just being 5 because we sat on the tarmac in Nashville for an extra hour before departing. Most of our time in Newark was spent sitting at one of those charging station bars with a pokestop to one side and a poke gym to the other. I used a lucky egg and powered through all my evolutions; Cara used a lure and we caught several new pokemon. We also left in control of the gym. Yes, at this point in history pokemon is kind of a big thing for me and Cara. She bought me a new phone for my birthday because my old one was too outdated to install the app.

Takeoff from Newark low over Manhattan after dark has been the highlight of the trip so far though. Cara and I came here the same final week in August back in 2001 and have both been back since, just not together. I came with Alora & Brittan in 2005 on our way to the Bay of Fundy and Cara came to interview at Mount Sinai in 2011.

Current Cara status: somewhat annoyed that I am still typing and she can't sprawl out on top of me. We lucked out and our two seats have a third next to hers that is empty leaving us everything on this side of the aisle.

When we land in a few hours in Olso Kanutte is picking us up at the airport and then she & Cara are heading into lab. Best way to beat the massive jet lag it to stay up all day apparently. The longest either of us has done before is across the Us from one coast to the other or out from San Francisco to Hawai'i. So this will be a new experience. The girls are turning me loose downtown on their way so I can explore some Oslo. Kanutte gave me a list of things to see, but if I don't manage to sleep on this flight the first order of business will likely be finding a coffee shop!!!

Side note: as my library is currently in storage I don't have any of my old Norwegian books to practice with. Ergo I've been using Duolingo on my phone to refresh my skills (which were, to be honest, never very good beyond the written language anyways). I would highly recommend this app for anyone traveling abroad to get a basic handle on the lingua franca of the land to which they're traveling.