surviving another country part one

i survived my first trip overseas... it was AMAZING!!!! my sister, R, and i went to norway for one of my high school buddy's (T) wedding. here are some of the high lights:

as R and i were sitting in the airport waiting for our first flight, i looked over and saw E, one of T's good friends. it was lovely to travel with someone who had been over sees before. we took the first picture of the trip together,




while waiting even longer and beginning to feel somewhat restless, this happened:


our flight took use to our one layover in ICELAND!!! we didn't see any volvanoes, or ash. generally, i don't say i was in a place if i was just in the airport. but when we landed in iceland, we had to walk outside to get from the airplane to the airport. so i'm going to say that i was in iceland. while in the airport we had to go through another security check... not fun after being up for many hours and sitting on a plane for 6 hours. we got our passport stamped and boarded the plane. we arrived safely in oslo, found the train to the city center, and got almost lost trying to find our hotel. after our 2 hour nap, we got advise from maria, the very friendly and helpful lady at the reception desk of the hotel. she gave us a map and showed us how to get to the water. here is what we discovered:






after a lovely but cold (air temperature) meal at a restaurant by the water we went back to the hotel and slept for 12hours. thank goodness that T told us to bring our eye masks because this is as dark as it ever got: the picture was taken at 11:30pm




to be continued...