Vestby bus santa

The place:  The bus stop at the gas station near Vestby Norway, in the middle of nowhere really!
The day:  One lovely chilly fall day in 2010
The time:  About 2 hours before our Ryan Air flight left for the Vatry Paris airport
Money in my pocket:  About $30US worth of Norwegian Kronos, however much that is!


After one week in Scandinavia, we felt poor after having blown twice our allotted budget we'd planned per week for Europe!  Everything in Norway is expensive, down to the $5 candy bar at the 7-11, and to be honest, we couldn't wait to get away!  As beautiful as it was, we were running on stale cookies and stale undies and tired of walking everywhere (we'd even walked 5 miles with paks on the day before because we couldn't afford a BMW taxi from the bus station to the train station!)

So, it all came down to one final bus ride to the airport.  I'd carefully set aside the exact amount it would take for us to board the bus, but when I reached into my pocket at the bus stop, I discovered I was about $1 short!

Where we then both FREAKED THE $%^& OUT!  There was yelling....accusations, insinuations....some stomping, sighing, eye rolling and general flailing of limbs and finger pointings in all directions!

At this point, R man and I had been traveling together 24/7 for just about a year, the one thing we'd really gotten good at was letting the other person know when they'd messed up BIG TIME!, the thing we'd gotten even better at was letting out our true feelings when something went wrong!  And they ALWAYS DID!

With 5 minutes before the bus arrived and the nearest ATM being 2 miles away requiring a minimum to be taken out in Kronos that was guaranteed to bankrupt the rest of our travels thru Europe... we had no choice but to wing it!  ('winging it' is not something people 'do' in Norway!)

Something people might not realize...R man being the 3rd world big city representative and me being the middle class red neck white girl from U.S. suburbia, just guess at which of us has the higher ethical and moral standards?!?

My plan?  Grovel and beg.  Full force!  I've been known to cut corners when necessary every once in a while.  This time, R man couldn't argue.

With Rodolfo boarding first walking directly to his seat arms folded in anger and frustration, ready not to budge or make eye contact with another living soul during his remaining hours spent in Norway, I could sense the completeness of his disgruntlement at the immorality of what was about to 'go down' from 10 feet away, where then, to his great dismay and disapproval, the groveling commenced!

Thank god it was an older gentleman driver with a heart of gold!

Eyes pouty looking down at the floor.  check.
Lips pursed.  check.
Sad puppy face. check.
bowed head.  check.

I say nothing (because I don't speak Norwegian, this actually helps things a bit) and hold out all the money I have in my open hands....

He counts the bills and coins.

"Not enough!"...or it must be something like that, because he speaks only Norwegian and it sounds like a deep bull dog bark from the gut...

I smile with a look of desperation and a plea on my face with my hands out filled with our random crumpled bills, as if it were some great offering from the towns people, to his great eminence, lord of the buses.

Silence....

There's a great pause....a look of impatience, and a bit of that face my dad used to give me when I was being a pain, and then a sigh...

(HOPE!)

"Student?"  The bus driver asks.
"What?  Umm...uh...."
I'm a bit slow sometimes when I'm nervous and an airport is involved.
"STUDENT?!?" He states again with some impatience and a small almost invisible wink from the corner of his eye.
"OH!  WHY...UH.  YES!!!!  STUDENT!"

He picks thru the bills I have laid out in my palms, and takes about half of them, leaving us enough for a yogurt and a bottle of water at the airport...really!  Did I mention how pricey it is there?!?

Then...he grunts a little, nods his head, and starts up the bus, leaving me with a look of wonder and a state of awww as I grab on to a railing not to fall down the stairs as he speeds off!  Everything in Norway runs correctly and ON TIME!

As I sit down next to R man, he looks at me with disapproval, but he's secretly grateful, I know it!

This is the closest I'll ever get to meeting Santa Clause.