Destination: Seattle! Getting There

David had driven the suitcases down to school and then returned with the car. I was madly trying to get the dishes done, so we didn't have to come back to them. We washed and hung up our sheets and blankets, we turned down the heat, we gave our landlords the poinsettia and the car key, we locked the door and hurried to the school.

We arrived at school in plenty of time (at least 10 minutes before the bus) and dragged all of our stuff out to the side of the road where the bus comes. Everything went smoothly from there. We piled into the first bus, transferred to the second in Åmot, and arrived with everything in the Oslo bus station five hours later. After a quick meal at a rather good (especially for mall food) Italian restaurant, we trudged down to the subway and headed out toward Alix Cordray's.

Alix met us at the subway station and we filled her car with what we considered to be packing light. She showed us around her cool old house and whipped up a little apple cobbler. We helped her finish off one of those pesky boxes of ice cream that seem to keep cropping up. After dessert, we tried playing some tunes together. Whether it was due to exhaustion or unfamiliarity, we didn't manage to come up with a very large common repertoire. By then it was late enough for us to go to sleep and Alix to get back to work. In the morning, she very kindly drove us to the bus stop where we boarded the airport bus and successfully arrived at Gardermoen with plenty of time to spare.

We checked in our luggage and went through security. David bought a few books for the trip. We found our gate and set up camp (fiddles, backpacks, and coats). As it was lunchtime, we treated ourselves to hot dogs and soda. I also purchased a couple of sandwiches for the flight. Finally, we got to board the plane.

Flying IcelandAir was a very pleasant experience. The seats were hard and we had to buy our own meals, but the in-flight entertainment included plenty of watchable movies and I had packed some serious snack food (the aforementioned sandwiches were supplemented with bread and roastbeef, boiled eggs, plus chips and a small meal we purchased in the air). The layover in Iceland was pleasant and short. There was some drama when the guy boarding the plane right before us fell on the escalator, but fortunately that was the most drama we had on the whole flight.

I have to say, I highly recommend IcelandAir. They fly direct to Seattle from Iceland. They cost less than pretty much any other carrier, at least the single stop carriers. Best of all, the total travel time is the shortest! Of course, they offer the possibility to spend a few days in Iceland at no extra ticket cost, which seems like an excellent deal and something to do in the future.