Thursday 27 August 2015

Flying to Santa Claus Town

Hi, its Daniel here!

I volunteered for the dubious task of writing the first post for the blog, so here goes and I promise the posts will improve with time.
It is therefore my honour to tell you about our journey too and arrival in Longyearbyen a.k.a. Santa Claus Town.
Personally I had to get up at 0430 to get across country to meet Jamie at Aberdeen Airport. Got there with loads of time to spare but as I was checking my bags in (yes BAGS, I had two unlike Jamie wearing what he couldn’t cram into his luggage) a well timed Jamie appeared behind me with his family, lovely people, I can see where he got it from! (Shhh, I have no idea what I’m doing just go with it). So we made our way through departures after making our good byes, you know, suitably tearful, etc!

Then it was just a case of waiting for our ever so fancy plane, propellers and all, to arrive. At which point we had to go out onto the runway in the rain in order to board, Jamie looked plenty cheerful about it though, as I felt.

So, once aboard we flew from Dyce to Stavanger Airport in Norway. I’m sure Jamie would attest to how excited I was at going to Norway for the first time. As we came in over an unknown beach we came uncomfortably low over the road at the end of the runway above the passing lorries and cars.
Such a sunny place Stavanger and the heat to go with it. We made straight for the baggage area upon arrival after being informed in Dyce that we’d need to take our bags through customs but we did not find Jamie’s bag or my first bag. Anxiously speaking to a very cheerful official we were informed that they thought it would be alright to just push them straight through to transfers and onto our next plane! Such an unexpected service. We stopped to get a bite to eat and Jamie was surprised by a mannequin that looked like a real child we went to check in again. I honestly love the automated baggage check in that they had (although I was initially nervous as I’m sure Jamie will remind me).
Just like our first flight, the second flight arrived early and so we were in Oslo! Just as sunny as and even hotter than Stavanger. We spent a few hours traipsing around the airport first looking for our baggage (which had transferred without any problems), then for Kendal. Giving up on finding Kendal for a while we stopped to have some food at a handily placed Pizza Hut stall. After that we decided that Kendal must already be in the waiting area and so we went there. Where we found Kendal quite tired from her flight from Dublin and subsequent walk around Oslo in her high heels. Then we boarded our final flight to Longyearbyen and the view was unparalleled!
The sun did not set between leaving Oslo and arriving in the Arctic for our taste of 24 hours light!





























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