Hello – I’m happy to report that I’ve made it to Stavanger, Norway, stop number one on my trip! However, I’m going to admit it’s been a bit of a stressful start.

I left Helena on Friday at 2:30am to catch my flight in Bozeman and am just now finally getting ready to settle in for a much-needed night of sleep. While I slept on and off, both on my flights and in obscure places in airports, I really haven’t had enough decent sleep, and by am I noticing the effects! Things that don’t normally bother me are stressing me out to the max, I’m not thinking clearly, not making decisions well. Honestly, I’m not even sure what time my body things it’s supposed to be right now. I’m on my 5th time zone in 2 days. Right now, I’m 8 hours ahead of those of you back home in Montana.

Now, as if all the travel wasn’t bad enough (the fun art helped pass the time!), while sitting in Reykjavik, Iceland waiting to board my flight to Norway, I got a notice saying my hotel for tonight had been canceled!! What the hell?! As soon as I saw that, I started to panic. I immediately called the hotel, and they said they still had a room for me regardless of the cancellation. Whew. Well, a few minutes went by and I still didn’t have a good feeling about it, so I called back, talked to the same person, and asked them to send me an email confirmation for peace of mind, which he did. At this point, between being exhausted and stressed, all I wanted to do was cry. It just wasn’t sitting right that my room had been cancelled, but there was nothing I could do about it until I got to Stavanger. It also didn’t help that I spilled my coffee everywhere during all of this, too. So, I had to let it go until I arrived in Stavanger. Then, there I was trying to check in to the hotel that had assured me they still had my room, but there was no room. Nothing like the feeling of being in a foreign country without a hotel room. I explained my situation, and oddly enough, this had happened to another person earlier in the day. I guess I was glad I wasn’t the only one this happened to, but it didn’t solve the fact that I didn’t have a room, and they technically didn’t have a room similar to what I had booked for the entire duration of my stay. I was ready to just give in, book the room for the nights I could, and start looking for a different hotel for a single night, but then the front desk clerk worked some magic, moved rooms around, and got me exactly what I had booked, and for the same price. It was such a huge relief!

Once I get checked in, I wandered around the area close to my hotel just to see what was around, but it seemed most shops had already closed for the day. I then ended up eating at a restaurant called Egon. It was pretty interesting as you get seated at a table (normal), you’re given a menu (normal), but then you have to walk back to the bar (in my case back downstairs) to order your food and drinks to have delivered to your table. There were literally no wait staff involved in this restaurant! If you wanted something, you had to go order it yourself. Even though that was strange, I had the best meal! I ordered cod from northern Norway with garlic butter, pesto, and bacon, and served with veggies and a grilled lime. It was so good!

And, on that note, I’m back in my room (thank god!) writing this up and totally going to bed! I’ll be more adventurous tomorrow with a mostly full day to do what I want! Stay tuned, and enjoy a few pictures I took today from the planes!