Next stop Norway

I got up at 3 AM this morning to catch the bus from German sea-side city to the regional airport in order to catch an early morning flight to Oslo, Norway. I am here for two days before leaving again for the next leg of this odyssey-like journey.

I was hoping I could sleep on the bus, but no such luck, as the driver thought that German folk/pop music was just what we all needed between 4.00 and 5.30 AM. A brief 30 minutes nap on the plane was all I managed before I arrived here and had to be serious and take care of stuff, talk to people, go to meetings and generally be awake. The day in itself was not too bad. It was fantastic to be in the city (compared to where I live now Oslo is a true metropolis..... though, it's really not), fantastic to walk around in the sun and i met with a colleague I didn't know very well, and he turned out to be fun and easy to talk to.

I spent three hours in the morning sorting out visa trouble at the Russian embassy, and managed (after a lot of anxiety, nailbiting, phonecalls to Russia and four incomplete faxes) to get the visa placed nicely in my passport five minutes before closing time. This afternoon I (and abovementioned colleague) had a meeting with the jounalism department at the local professional college, about a collaborative research - public outreach project we are starting up. The meeting left me with a feeling that we did not understand each other, and it gave me a lot to think about. Like how far we are from succeeding in creating a good connection between scientists and journalists. I am going to compose a separate post on this topic, but I am not sure I will get around to that today.

Because I am extremely tired now and the only thing I want to do is sleep. I also wanted to take a shower and use deliciously smelling new cocnut hair conditioner and curl up in white and crisp hotel bed linen with the laptop, but I have already done that for a couple of hours. I have not had any dinner, so I should probably go to sleep before I get too hungry. I couldn't muster up the energy to get dressed and go downstairs and buy some proper food, so I have been eating chocolate and peanuts out of the hotel minibar (something that will cost me at least the same as a decent meal in the hotel cafe due to the exorbitant minibar prices). Right now I am about to get up and get another soda in the fridge after eating a bag of very salty peanuts. Why on earth does a hotel of this standard not have room service. Very strange.