Morning, 20 May, 2025. We gathered, went to the local airport in the city of Kristiansand, for the morning local flight at 8.30. The flight to Oslo — 1 hour. I like our local airport. Calm, without fuss, and on the airfield you can see only a couple of planes.
I was surprised by one airport employee — a grandma, years toward 80, she came up to us, asked if help was needed with checking in baggage through the machine (we at that time were standing in the queue). And so quickly she helped us check in. I, of course, was very impressed by her age! I think I am the only such «observant» one. Well that is how in Norway they do not use the word «old». Instead of old there is the word «of age».
To Oslo we flew about 50 minutes, normally. From Oslo to New York 7.5 hours in economy class. Hard. Anxious. for me. I am not used to planes. Although I am a coffee lover, in flight the coffee is not tasty, I drank only water. When they served food, I ate only the hot dish, and the salad of lettuce leaves I decided not to eat and offered the muffin to my husband. One could not be bored in flight, but watch the screen. Follow the flight trajectory and the time; also shown on the screen were altitude, temperature outside and the location of the plane. You could choose a film to watch; they handed out disposable headphones to everyone. Since we flew in the daytime, I did not want to sleep.
My seat was by the window, the husband sat in the middle (with his height and long legs sitting in the middle is inconvenient, but he is very patient and even-tempered, in a word a Viking — Nordic character), and at the edge sat a little old, greeting-smiling grandma American. She was flying with her grandpa husband; his seat was «across the aisle», also at the edge.
I recall my flights when I flew alone independently and it so happened that next to me turned out people who communicated with me during the flight and time flew faster and merrier. Now everything is otherwise. Each is on their own — they bury themselves in screens and that is all. No communication — only disconnection. The flight to New York lasted 7.5 hours. Of course tiring. By local time we landed at 13.30.
The first impression … how to put it more decently — «bazaar–station» — long queues for passport control and women–traffic controllers in black work overalls–coveralls, strict. They directed us to a free window for control; ahead stood 3 people, but for some reason they closed the window and the policeman left, possibly for a lunch break; we had to wait, and this traffic controller did not propose that we stand at another working window (possibly they had an instruction on how to distribute people). At last a policeman came; Ivan asked if the two of us could approach the window. Yes, they allowed. The policeman asked Ivan questions; I pretended that English is «a little», he took fingerprints from me and Ivan and let us go.
Ivan at once calmed me that next time, when we fly here, they will no longer take fingerprints, we are already in their system. To which I asked: «are you planning to fly here in the future too?» — «Yes! It would be good to fly to Los Angeles!» But for now we hold course for Las Vegas.
We got to the gates for local flights. Now I cannot even remember how many hours we sat waiting (I think 3 hours) for the next local flight to Las Vegas. When I went into the plane, I understood that possibly we alone had checked in our suitcase. Everyone came in with hand luggage, which was not at all like hand luggage in our European standard. Passengers had not-small bags and suitcases. Passengers of European appearance were few; the main mass were Eastern and Mexican and dark-skinned.
I took a seat and the husband also sat across the aisle at the edge. Next to me two seats remained free. And above my head free shelves for bags remained. A guy with a mama and two suitcases comes, stops next to me and starts placing his suitcases on these free shelves and they go further to their seats. Then a Chinese family comes with a girl about 5. Each has bags; the Chinese woman stands next to me in the aisle and looks for where to stick her bag. I ask in English: «are these your seats next to me?» She nodded that only one in the middle. I smile at the girl, her daughter, and show the seat next to me, to sit her down. Oh God! The child got frightened of me, started crying, shouting. Next to them stands her papa with a bag and also in the aisle. Behind them stands a huge dark-skinned man also with a bag and waits until this family settles and frees the aisle. And the family is in a stupor. This big dark-skinned man loses patience and starts stepping over the Chinese (and somehow he manages not to touch them). In the end they agree with an American woman and she moves to the seat next to me, and the Chinese family sits down safely.
The American woman asks if I speak English. Yes, I say. Well then we will watch together and she names some American film–series. I said no, I do not watch series; she sat by the window and 4.5 hours of flight to Las Vegas she sat eating — crunching chips, or maybe something else (I do not know these modern crunchies, I do not eat such, I spare my liver — little liver). The stewardess also handed out some unknown-to-me «crunchies» and all the passengers in chorus crunched, crunched all 4.5 hours.
Since in a short time we changed 2 time zones, I was in some strange state, as if I were in space. We arrived in Las Vegas at one in the morning. We started getting out of the plane and in the aisle already stood a brigade of women cleaners (all of Eastern appearance, possibly Filipinas). They left a lot of rubbish, if they ate from packets the whole way, and also bottles.
We went out, started looking for the «carousel» with our suitcase. The carousel number was marked, but we cannot find the carousel with that number. We cannot connect the internet (I do not know why). Music thunders and everywhere slot machines. Well of course — Las Vegas! Then a staff member who came our way said that we needed to go down the escalator and ride the Shuttle (that is a train that runs there and back one stop). We rode, found the «carousel», which was motionless and without our suitcase. Ivan went to find out, and I sat on a bench and started looking not only at our carousel, but at the nearby ones. I look, our suitcase on another «carousel» all alone is turning; I ran up, took it off. And I cannot send Ivan an SMS from my cool smartphone. I sat again on the bench already with the suitcase, I think I will wait until he comes back. He came back.
Further we had to find a taxi and ride to the booked hotel 5 km beyond the city line (I myself am to blame, I did not want to book in the centre; true, the last three days of the stay were booked in the centre).