Travel

Tromsø New Year’s Eve 2022/2023

The departure

On the sixth and final day, we knew it could be a bit stressful because, unlike the outward journey, we wouldn’t be staying overnight in Berlin, but would be flying back from Tromsø and then traveling back to Weimar from Berlin. If something went wrong with the flights or train journeys, a forced hotel stay would be inevitable. That’s why we packed everything up and planned everything well in the morning. Mark stayed in the AirBnB accommodation because his flight was only a few hours later. He also didn’t fly directly back to Ireland but extended his vacation in London.

Our departure from Tromsø was scheduled shortly after 1 pm, so we left around 10 am by bus. Unfortunately, we got on a bus that made a whole city tour again, despite many buses running in Tromsø, until we could get off at the airport. However, we arrived early enough and were wondering where we could check in our luggage. After asking an employee, we learned that for our airline, this had to be done digitally. So we printed the luggage label from the designated machines, placed our suitcase on the baggage belt, and checked it in ourselves. In Norway, digitization is certainly much more advanced than in Germany.

The landing in Oslo was particularly noteworthy as it was not only significantly colder than in Tromsø, but also a dense fog had formed over the airport, causing the pilot to land practically blind. To avoid interference, all electronic devices, such as smartphones, had to be completely turned off, which was conscientiously checked by the flight attendants.
Nevertheless, we landed in Oslo on time and had several hours until our next flight to Berlin. Here we wanted to catch up on lunch. There was even ramen, but since we were still in Norway, prices were naturally very expensive. We agreed on a stand where Nathalie could get a wrap and I took advantage of a special offer where you could get four baguettes at a significantly cheaper price. So I had two of the four baguettes heated up and ate them immediately at the airport, and saved the other two for dinner. They also fit nicely in the umbrella/bottle holder of my backpack. (Nathalie: And so Kevin walked around the airport with two baguettes attached to his backpack. I wonder what the French travelers thought about that?).

Fortunately, despite the bad weather conditions in Oslo, we arrived in Berlin on time (even a bit earlier) and also received our luggage quite quickly. We even had some time, so we went to the Mini-Rewe, which we already knew, and all the trains were on time as well. If we had missed the train, it would have been the last one of the evening back to Weimar or Erfurt. In the train, I ate my last two baguettes. The next day, as usual, we picked up our cats from Greiz.

The Tromsø trip was really nice. It differed from our previous trips in that we had only one accommodation and didn’t have to move around every few days. This allowed us to travel with just one suitcase and gave us more freedom with cooking. It was also great to see Mark again, and we were able to do some amazing things together, such as seeing the Northern Lights and going dog sledding. It’s questionable whether we really saw the true “winter” Tromsø. Normally, it should be much colder in Tromsø at this time of year, with temperatures around -20°C, but for us, it was much more pleasant that it was only around 0°C. We had a few really nice days, and who knows, maybe it wasn’t our last visit to Tromsø…

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