Travel is part of tourism and sometimes the purpose of the tour. Other times, it can be a necessity, more or less agreeable. During October,I have had rather extraordinary travel experiences during my visits to two conferences, one in Alta in Northern Norway and one in Esbjerg a bit north of the German border. The distance between the two places is about 3 000 km. Almost exactly between them is my Swedish residence, Hammerdal. I expected to visit my home both on my way up and my way down.

The conferences were very informative and interesting. The one in Alta dealt with how to counteract out-migration from coastal peripheries in the North Atlantic region. The one in Esbjerg was an annual meeting-point for tourism researchers from the Nordic countries. Next year, it will take place in Akureyri.

The start of the tour was a bit troublesome since the bus from Akureyri did not appear in Hvammstangi on Friday the 9th of October. It had obviously blown away. I had to wait til next day when the bus came in due time and I could reach my flight to Copenhagen. Due to change of tickets, my perfect arrangement to reach Hammerdal by train was ruined and my wife Lena, who still was in Sweden, had to cancel her visits to relatives and meet me in Malmö at noon the 11th. After that, we drove 1100 km to Hammerdal and were there at 2 o’clock at night.

The trip to Alta by car was wonderful through a spectacular landscape and the return was also enjoyable. From Hammerdal, we took the night train to Esbjerg without any problems.

The travel back to Iceland started at our hotel room in Esbjerg. The train was scheduled to leave Esbjerg 05.45 and our flight at 11.55 from Kastrup. We expected a wake-up call at 4.45. Everything started, however, already at 03.45 when I had to pay a visit to the toilet and had forgotten that Lena had piled up our two bags and two trunks on the trouser-press and I tried to walk straight through the arrangement which ended up with a terrible noise and since I put my hand on the lighting button twice in order not to hit the floor to heavily, the light came and went which made Lena convinced that thunder and lightning had struck the hotel. I was slightly injured and we could go to sleep again for the resting hour to 4.45.

The transport to the railway station went well but on the train, there were about twenty youngsters who thought that the night had just begun and were drinking and making noise. For us, it just meant that we were photographed by mobile for deliver to U-tube.

The train had problems with leaves on the tracks so it drove at a speed of 20 km/hour which caused a delay in Fredricia where we changed train. The delay became worse since a speaker voice told us that we could not depart because they could not find the train which should draw the wagons. However, after a while we could start.

Due to the delay, I was sure that we would be too late to Kastrup for our flight and I was right. When we had 25 km back to Kastrup, we were offered a bus and stepped off the train. We were told to embark a bus a bit away and we had to pass a ”swing door lock” and since we were 48 persons with a lot of luggage, the sight of the passing through the lock was fabulous and well in class with Tivoli in Copenhagen. After having managed through, we were told that this was the wrong place and we hade to go back through the lock again and pass another one before we came to the bus which of course was too small for all luggage we had. After severe pressure, the luggage was forced into the bus and we could head for Kastrup.

The trip to Kastrup went well, remarkably enough, and the bus stopped at Terminal 2 at a quarter past eleven. We walked with a high pace to Terminal 3 since I knew that SAS is checking in for Iceland Express. When we came to the desk, we were told that Iceland Express now has check-in at Terminal 2. We hurried back to Terminal 2 and after passing all the desks, I could not see any desk with Iceland Express sign on so I asked at the last desk and they said that Iceland Express has its desk at the beginning of the terminal. We turned back but at the other end of the terminal, there was just Iran Air. I became desperate and left my trunk, certain that Lena was behind me and rushed to the Iran Air desk and asked for Iceland Express. That is Terminal 3, they said, but when they saw my frustration they checked with others and found out that it was five desks ahead and I rushed to that desk and it was the right one. Lena was also coming there and we started to check in when I noticed that one trunk was missing. Lena run back and found it. It stood totally alone with a ring of people around it waiting for the security people to come and empty Kastrup and shoot the trunk in pieces. Lena succeeded, however, to be ahead of them and took the trunk and we managed to check in exactly by closing time for the in-checking.

After passing the security control, Lena misinterpreted the departure time and said that there was a delay and we had plenty of time so we visited the tax free and then we walked in slow pace towards the gate when we heared the loud-speaker announce the absolutely last call for Iceland Express flight to Reykjavik. We rushed and embarked the plane as the very last passengers.

When we came to Reykjavik, we missed the bus to Hvammstangi with fifteen minutes and went to Iceland Air Hotel for a hotel room. It was of course fully booked but they had a mini-suite free so we stayed at the hotel and had a wonderful evening and night.

Next day we arrived to Hvammstangi in good order.

That’s all folks :)

Per Åke

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