Day 14: Buncrana to Oslo

Nope, This Is Not Norway!😬

A very long day that began at 5:00AM!

We got all our laundry done and completed a whole bunch of domestic chores yesterday in preparation to first drop the car off at the Dublin airport and then pick up our flight to Oslo.

Paul’s parents kindly invited us up for a barbeque at their house last night and we visited for quite a time. After saying our goodbyes to our Irish family and the girls we turned in relatively early.

I must say that the drive was entertaining. Pitch black, driving at speed on mixed up Irish roads, with flog heavy on the land. It took a bit of concentration🙂

We eventually made it to the drop off point at the airport, and the car was cleared as in marvellous condition. We went into the airport and passed through security really smoothly. That is until we were walking away and Annemarie said, “I’ve left my passport behind”. She ran back to look for it, realizing she had left it in one of the many grey plastic bins that go through the security x-ray machines. It seems that when she took her pack out of the bin she didn’t remove her passport. A hue and a cry went up with the security folks and they duly looked everywhere for it. They checked the CCTV and confirmed that AM had put her passport into the bin, but that she had neglected to take it out. In the meantime, I walked down to our SAS check in gate to find out if they would let Annemarie on the plane with just a photocopy of her passport and her drivers license. The answer was a firm no, so we reluctantly missed our flight (non-refundable tickets). We managed to eventually find our way to passport control explained our situation. The young lady in the booth was uncharacteristically super sympathetic and actually set up a temporary visa for AM on a piece of paper and stamped it just in case we needed it at the Canadian embassy.

We took an Uber into the middle of town and were dropped off close to the Canadian embassy. This was shaping up to become a bit of a marathon!

We had to hoof it because of all the road construction.

We entered the Canadian embassy building and spoke with the receptionist who told us that everybody at the embassy was out for lunch. She agreed to phone me when they had returned and would also explain a little bit of our problem to them. Really helpful.

We went looking for a quick lunch and found a nice Italian place.

While relaxing for the first time today, I received a call from the receptionist at the embassy, So we walked back over and were escorted up and into the heart of the embassy where we were warmly received. And we again told our story for probably the 10th time.

At the end of our interview, it was decided that I would write up all the passport application forms, there were many, and AM would find a place to get passport pictures taken.

About the time that I was 2/3 finished the paperwork, one of the embassy staff came in and said that the passport had been turned in to the airport police. Well that was a relief, not to mention the $460 it would have cost us to get a replacement and temporary passport for AM. I can’t say enough about the embassy staff. They were really kind and very very helpful. The embassy staffer who looked after us has been in living in Ireland for 26 years, and is originally from Ottawa.

We stayed at the embassy until just after 4 trying to sort out a travel plan. We were able to cancel our Oslo hotel that we would’ve stayed in tonight as well as some train and ferry tickets that we had already pre-purchased at home. However, there will be a net loss on the Oslo portion of the trip, but overall not too bad. The worst of it was that the hotel prices went up by 60% from when we booked it some months ago.

We did manage to book a room at a backpackers hostel in central Dublin. A simple room cost us about $185! The best part is that the above ground transit runs by just below our window. Oh joy.!😵‍💫

Even though we were carrying rather heavy packs, we had a nice walk to our hostel after sitting and running around all day. 

We sat in our room for about an hour strategizing and purchased air tickets to Oslo for tomorrow at 6 PM. This means we will arrive into Oslo at about 9 o’clock local time and finally arrive at our hotel by around 10 o’clock. We also cancelled our hotel at Bergen on the West Coast and the train and the ferry as well. This made both of us a little bit sad because we were really looking forward to those three days. Oh well, perhaps another time. All part of travel.

We also cancelled the two other nights we had booked in Oslo and rebooked three nights at a different place at a much inflated price. This confirms that it does pay to book accommodations early. We then added another day to our Gothenburg visit making our stop there 3 nights which is perfect because it’s apparently a beautiful city to explore. Paul said that it’s a great city to rent bikes in and explore. We will be looking into that.

Finally, it was time for a late dinner, While we were on our way to an Italian restaurant, we walked past an Irish pub that was clearly a little touristy, but the menu looked good and the place looked like fun. So we went in.

I was even able to watch a little bit of champions league football, but it had been a long day and it was all too soon time to return to our hostel.

And this is how we came to be in Dublin and not Oslo. We plan to wander the city tomorrow and we will pick up Annemarie’s passport when we arrive at the airport later tomorrow afternoon. This saves us a trip out and back, which would’ve used up more time than it was worth today. I sure hope that it’s Annemarie’s passport that they’re actually holding on to!😂

And that’s about it from here today. An unexpected twist in our travel plan, but it is what it is. I wonder what time the transit trains stop running tonight?😅

Geoff🇮🇪🇳🇴🍻