81 Hours In Europe: Getting To Oslo

Previous posts:

81 Hours In Europe: A Ride On The New 777-300ER From JFK To LHR

81 Hours In Europe: A Running Start At Oslo And Copenhagen

81 Hours In Europe:  My First Spin Through T5 At London Heathrow

The flight to Oslo was a short two hours. This would actually be my first British Airways flight. Even with a decent amount of international travel over the years I had yet to end up on a BA plane.

One of the two previous MegaDOers on the flight with me had taken a buy-up of 59 pounds to be in business class for the flight.  Now, Business Class on short haul European flights carries a bit of a different meaning than what some of us US-based fliers might think. Essentially, a lot of the planes are configured with all coach seating. Business class is a blocked middle seat in between two coach seats. Some planes have a fold down section of the middle seat that turns into a big cup holder.

The Europeans do a pretty efficient job with meal service, much faster than anything I’ve ever seen in the US. Last year on a short flight from Frankfurt to Zurich the crew managed to serve a breakfast and 2 drink services in about 40 mins of flying.

I decided I didn’t need to spend $100 to upgrade to business class which turned out to be a smart idea. We were on an Airbus 319 which only holds about 120 passengers, but only 63 passengers were loaded. So, I ended up with a blocked middle seat anyways. I wasn’t as lucky with my seating assignment as one of my fellow travelers Alex was.  The last time I hung out with Alex was when he was one of the victims running through airports with me trying to catch up to the oneworld MegaDO.  He had chosen the row of seats directly behind business class specifically for the configuration of the seats, but I’m not sure he expected what resulted.

With him accommodated  in one of the many empty seats onboard we were on our way to Oslo.  I caught a quick 20-minute nap (knowing I’d need it for later) and caught up a bit on work before landing.  In Oslo, the customs process was very quick and I joined my two fellow NordicDO participants downstairs at baggage claim.  There’s a high-speed train at Oslo that takes you right down to the city center.  It’s well marked and extremely efficient.  You swipe your credit card at the turnstile, select your stop and you’re on your way.  20 minutes later we were downtown.

The train was clean and quiet and easily the best trip to a downtown area I can recall since my trip to Tokyo last year.  It was shortly after 3pm local time when we got to downtown Oslo, which marked roughly 21 hours into the trip.  There are definitely quicker ways to get to Oslo but I was able to cross a couple things off my travel bucket list on the way there.