Travel Letter 4: New Roads

There's a restless energy humming through my body. I'm excited and nervous, while at the same time a little tired, although I don't know whether I'll actually manage to sleep yet. I do know that I need to rest, though, so after packing my backpack I retreat for a while and spend some time on my own, before everyone else returns from the city—or wherever they've wandered off to.

There's something rotten about flights, airport security and airlines constantly deciding whether they can squeeze a little more money out of you every single time you travel.

It's simply unfair when getting to the airport on time is already stressful enough.

I've checked my boarding pass fourteen times.

It says exactly the same thing every single time.

But will the flight leave on time?

Will I make my connection?

And isn't there some kind of fuel crisis at the moment?

Is the flight even going at all?

It's exhausting worrying about all these things.

I buy myself a beer and spend a couple of hours thinking about them.

Thankfully, everyone else is in the lounge watching daft cartoons.

I decide to enjoy a few more hours with everyone until I eventually start feeling tired.

When the television quickly loses its appeal, I agree to a game of chess.

It's been a few years since I last played.

It's only a friendly game.

Eventually I lose.

I don't feel particularly strongly about it.

There are a few more final conversations as people gradually head off to bed.

It's only Sunday evening.

Tomorrow a new week begins.

I can't sleep, though.

Instead, I sit quietly, taking life as it comes until it's finally time to get moving.

By then it's quarter past five.

I leave the key where we'd agreed, and the door to Vagabond clicks shut behind me.

It's raining.

An unwelcome complication, and one I certainly hadn't planned for.

A steady drizzle of tiny droplets settles over absolutely everything, but there's nothing to be done about it now.

It's just a shame I have a two-hour walk ahead of me to reach the airport.

I make my way down through the city centre, across one of the bridges and past the southern edge of the enormous harbour.

About an hour later, I arrive at Victoria Park, where I walk along the embankments surrounding the park and enjoy the daylight and a life that's almost free from rain.

The final stretch to the airport is by far the most awkward.

It certainly hasn't been designed with pedestrians in mind.

You have to trudge much farther than seems reasonable along a narrow pavement with metal fences on both sides.

There's no opportunity to leave the route, and the route itself is anything but direct.

Still, I'm in good spirits after spending a quarter of an hour as the sole audience member for a snail attempting to cross the path in Victoria Park.

It didn't get very far.

Eventually I carried on after being loudly told off by an angry duck that had apparently taken exception to my humming.

Security is pleasantly straightforward.

It does take a little getting used to the fact that electronic gadgets are now supposed to stay inside your bag or jacket instead of being taken out and placed in their own tray, the way we used to do it.

Apparently you're now allowed to carry as much as two litres of liquid as well.

Something to remember for next time.

Otherwise, George Best Belfast City Airport is pleasantly small.

Which suits me just fine.

Fewer gates to get wrong.

The atmosphere is calm, and I haven't become too wet.

Apart from my shoes.

They should have plenty of time to dry, though.

I've arrived three hours early.

I really can't be bothered with another long rant.

So here's the short version.

I change planes.

Get packed into an airport shuttle like a sardine.

Spend what feels like half an hour being driven around the entire airport before finally being allowed into... the airport.

And this is after a domestic flight.

Eventually I'm dropped off at a completely different terminal.

Which means the airport sprinter once again gets the opportunity to show the world what he's made of, setting off at full speed towards Terminal Three.

According to the man in the yellow high-vis jacket, it's a walk that normally takes twenty to thirty minutes.

He seems noticeably pleased that it isn't his little adventure.

At security, I'm selected for every additional check they have at their disposal.

I carry on running.

Slightly stressed by this point.

Eventually I make it into the terminal itself, where there are finally information screens.

And do you know what appears next to my flight?

Not "Go to Gate."

Not "Boarding."

It says...

"RELAX."

In enormous letters.

I'm annoyed.

Slightly offended.

Hungry.

And my legs are completely worn out.

Then I notice the next line.

The flight is delayed by more than an hour.

I'm in seat 23B, between two British men, both wearing glasses and sporting beards.

They're friendly enough.

We exchange a few words about luggage and the general nonsense that comes with travelling before all three of us disappear into our own screens.

The flight is an hour late, but I don't actually have anything I need to catch.

In fact, I have no real idea where I'm going once we land.

I assume the airport is somewhere out on the outskirts, which probably means some form of public transport into another city centre that's far too large.

It's a bit of a shame.

I'm already thoroughly fed up with travelling.

And people.

I'll do a quick search once we've landed.

We'll be back inside the EU, so I'm expecting nothing more dramatic than a quick passport check or something along those lines.

As we taxi down the runway—rolling along for what feels like forever before finally taking off—it occurs to me that I should probably just be grateful to be sitting on this plane at all.

Only a few hours earlier things had looked considerably less certain.

Several emergency plans had been drawn up at remarkable speed, all depending on which city I eventually ended up stranded in.

The main strategy had been simple.

Find the cheapest ticket available.

Preferably to somewhere reasonably sensible.

But this time everything worked out after all.

The tiredness really begins to hit after we land in Belgium.

The airport is, as expected, located somewhere on the outer edge of absolutely everything.

An irritable toilet attendant marches the entire queue along so efficiently that my bladder reaches breaking point before I finally surrender and pay one euro for the privilege of using the toilet before catching the bus into central Brussels.

By now I'm so tired that I'm probably a minor danger to myself.

I find a café and book a bed at a hostel.

It turns out to be two kilometres away.

As though I haven't walked enough already today.

Still...

Seeing a new place is always worth it.

And although I can feel that I could quite happily sleep for twenty-four hours straight, I point myself towards the city centre instead.

We'll see what happens.

After checking into the hostel and taking a quick shower, I'm hungry.

With a capital H.

Besides...

I'm in Belgium.

Which means I require beer.

Fortunately, I find exactly what I need on the ground floor of the hostel.

I make happy hour with four minutes to spare and order a pint along with two dishes from the menu: Flemish duck stew and cauliflower prepared three different ways.

It's the first proper meal I've eaten since the discounted pack of meat I bought because it was close to its expiry date and fried at two o'clock in the morning before saying my final goodbye to Vagabond.

I almost don't care what it costs.

Almost.

By the time I've finished eating, I'm full.

The only sensible decision left is to go to bed before making any others.

When I wake up, I've slept for twelve hours.

And I've made a decision.

I'm going to let this journey come to an end while it's still at its best.

Before breakfast, I've already booked my tickets back to Norway.

That doesn't mean the trip ends abruptly.

The journey home will take just over thirty-three hours, and my departure isn't until this evening, so I still have the whole day to explore the Belgian capital.

Besides, I'm a quarter Belgian.

So, in a way, it's partly my city too.

I'd happily have carried on travelling for another couple of weeks.

But I'm simply not equipped for it.

Not financially.

And not with the gear I'm carrying.

I could probably have afforded to improve my situation on the road.

But it wouldn't really have solved anything.

I'd have ended up sleeping in a tent, wandering the countryside as a vagabond.

All while I'm in the process of becoming homeless back in Norway.

So perhaps it's time to deal with the problems I'm already thoroughly tired of waiting for me at home.

But first...

A day in Brussels.

And I begin it with a local IPA.

Brussels strikes me as a rather pleasant little big city.

At least that's the impression I come away with.

A little big city, admittedly, and unlike everywhere else I've visited on this trip, English isn't the main language.

That rarely causes any problems, though.

It's also compact enough that I can explore a fair amount of it before leaving this evening.

It feels as though the contrasts are sharper here.

A well-dressed businessman passes someone sleeping rough.

Yet the streets still feel safe to wander.

I find myself a pleasant—

Well...

A perfectly decent café.

There I map out the next seventy-two hours of my journey.

That way I know all my tickets are booked, and exactly how much money I have left.

Then I head out into the streets with two simple objectives.

See the city.

Buy provisions for the journey north.

Spontaneity is still steering the trip.

Perhaps it's just as well I don't have much money, because I end up buying a few chocolate bars, something to drink...

...and then I walk past a barber's.

Truth be told, I don't think I've visited a barber once during this entire decade.

By now it feels less like a luxury and more like an obligation.

Besides...

I'm starting to look like a tramp.

The temptation proves too strong.

Despite the fact that every song I've heard in Belgium—including the ones playing in the barbershop—is in English, the man holding the scissors doesn't understand a single word I say.

Somehow we manage to communicate that my hair ought to be a bit shorter, and that's another pleasant half hour taken care of.

I even get a free can of soft drink while he's cutting my hair.

I shift uneasily in the chair whenever the clippers buzz into life.

My anxiety quietly grows.

Then again, nothing takes a beating quite like a man's hairline.

When it's over, we're both pleased with the result.

In theory, I can now face the summer without carrying another winter's worth of fur around on my head.

Twenty euros.

That's really not bad at all.

Not that there's suddenly money to burn after paying for all those tickets.

Lunch is still a necessity, though.

Further up the street there's a Burger King.

If nothing else, they have a cheap burger and something to drink for a perfectly reasonable price.

Unfortunately, it doesn't last very long.

Before I know it, my blood sugar has dropped so low that I barely have the energy to keep walking, and I reluctantly send a message home to Mum.

That solves the problem.

As soon as I find somewhere to sit down, I order a mango smoothie.

It's brought over to my table, made with proper ingredients, and it's worth every penny.

Suddenly, I feel alive again.

I drink it as though it's the first thing I've eaten in days.

Solid food is next on the agenda.

Right now, though, I need something that works immediately.

To save myself unnecessary stress later, I track down the coach stop for the budget service heading north.

Naturally, it isn't at the main bus station itself.

It's a couple of streets away.

Fortunately, it's easy enough to find.

The next task is putting together a proper food supply.

Thirty-three hours of travelling with relatively few stops calls for provisions, and by pure chance I walk straight past a supermarket moments later.

Everyone deserves a little luck now and then.

I also decide that one last proper meal is in order.

Not far away, I find exactly what I'm looking for once again.

A pancake house.

I've ended up in a quieter part of the city.

I'm on the northern side of the North Station, where the neighbourhood is dominated by tall housing developments, and the air smells of shisha and interesting dinners.

I get a little lost.

There's time for that.

In front of many of the courtyards are enormous metal gates that can be locked, effectively keeping people both out and in.

I find myself wondering when they're needed most.

Eventually I find a bar.

It isn't easy.

There are plenty of men standing around here and there, drinking beer from cans, but if I'm going to have one last beer before boarding the coach, it really ought to be somewhere with a toilet.

Fortunately, such a place exists.

I order my final Belgian beer from a woman with purple hair.

As usual, I'm a little stressed before travelling.

But this time the logistics are all sorted.

All I have to do now is board on time and find my seat.

A man is checking tickets while the driver appears to be mentally preparing himself for the long journey ahead.

There's a long queue of people.

One man who is quite clearly an authorised queue-jumper.

Families saying tearful goodbyes.

The man with the ticket scanner points at one woman's handbag.

"This, small baggage."

Then he turns to one of her three large suitcases.

"This, big luggage."

Panic is just beginning to break out.

Then another woman walks over and hands the ticket man a ten-euro note.

He holds it up to the light, slips it into his inside pocket, and suddenly everything is fine.

Fortunately, I don't run into any problems with my own luggage.

I find my seat—11D—without any difficulty.

To my delight, it's one of the accessible seats with extra legroom and plenty of space for my backpack, which, if I'm honest, is probably right on the limit for hand luggage if that woman's tiny handbag outside was anything to go by.

We pull out of Brussels, and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get more time in the city.

It will have to remain on my list of places left unexplored.

Next time, I'll make sure I arrive with a better plan.

And a slightly healthier wallet.

Accommodation is perfectly affordable, but I think I would almost have preferred a bit of company if I'd spent more time exploring cities on this trip.

It's probably a little too easy to fall into familiar routines.

For now, though, I lean back and absorb whatever I can through the window.

By the time we reach Antwerp, it's dark outside.

By the time we reach Eindhoven, I'm getting restless.

And in Arnhem I have to get out and stretch my legs.

And that's more or less how the night continues until we finally arrive in Berlin at nine o'clock the following morning.

By then, everything hurts.

Every position I've tried has eventually become uncomfortable.

I'm probably not the only one.

Every passenger climbs off the coach looking as though we've just returned from a retirement-home conference.

The journey itself has gone perfectly well.

But I have to admit I'm a little sceptical about the next one.

It's no short trip either.

We're talking eighteen hours, with stops of no more than five minutes at a time.

I can only hope I'm so exhausted from this first journey that my body simply gives up and lets me sleep until we arrive.

Fortunately, I have a three-hour break in Berlin before the next departure.

Appropriately enough, it's raining.

So there's nothing for it but to get a cup of coffee, visit the toilet, and change my socks.

The entire ground floor of the coach station is absolutely packed with people.

Most of them seem to be afraid of the stairs leading up to the first floor.

Their loss.

Up there it's just me and four or five others.

We lie stretched out across the wonderfully comfortable benches on our stomachs, idly kicking our legs in the air.

We smile at one another from our scattered positions.

And we know we've won.

The coach to Oslo leaves at noon.

It's a double-decker, and my seat is on the lower deck.

As it turns out, there are plenty of empty seats, so I have the row to myself and fall asleep within ten minutes.

I have a feeling I'm going to spend the next couple of days wandering around in a zombie-like state.

I wake up a few hours later, and not long afterwards we roll into the harbour at Rostock.

Another little city where I could easily have spent a day.

Instead, the coach drives straight onto the ferry, skipping the queues and all the other fuss.

The crossing takes about two hours, and I use the opportunity to get myself a cup of coffee.

We've left the rain behind and are heading towards sunny Denmark.

By the time we arrive there, we're a third of the way home.

Only twelve hours left until Oslo.

Sometimes I wish I had a few more barriers when it comes to spending money.

But no.

I save as little as possible on food for the rest of the journey and buy three beers in the duty-free shop instead.

Completely forgetting that I also have to survive the ten days after I get home.

And home...

It doesn't really feel as though I have a home to go back to.

The only thing waiting for me there is packing up everything I own and finding somewhere new to move it all.

If it weren't for all the random things I own, I could just as well live in a lean-to shelter.

Though I'd probably have to move out of that eventually as well.

I quietly congratulate myself for buying the beer in the duty-free shop instead of at one of the ferry's many restaurants.

Money saved.

I spend the rest of the crossing watching people.

I recognise a couple of faces from the coach.

The emo lad with the chain that rattles whenever he moves.

And the Danish family sitting in front of me.

Two children and, I assume, their mother and grandmother.

I overhear them saying they won't be staying on the coach for very long after the ferry crossing.

Probably for the best.

During the last hour before we boarded, there had been very little conversation that wasn't about the terrible Wi-Fi.

For some reason, we barely drive for fifteen minutes before the coach stops for a half-hour break.

After two hours on the ferry, it feels oddly timed.

I'm convinced there are other points on this journey where a break like this would have made far more sense.

Still...

Half an hour means a little office time.

And it turns out I've received several messages.

An email from Bob at Vagabond, thanking me for staying there and passing on Harry's contact details. Harry had left before we had a chance to say goodbye. He'd gone back to London, and I was told to get in touch if I was ever in the area.

That's nice.

There's also a message from Sanaa, a guest and volunteer at the same hostel.

She tells me about her day.

There's no doubt that wonderful people exist wherever you happen to be.

But relationships take time to build.

That's one of the main reasons I prefer to travel slowly.

Not too slowly, though.

Otherwise the sense of adventure disappears.

I reply to Bob.

I tell him he's doing a remarkable job of creating the conditions for genuine human connection.

And now I'm glad I bought those beers on the ferry.

The flat Danish countryside slips past outside the window while the sun shines and we make our way towards the Danish capital.

I dare sacrifice a little of my phone battery in exchange for music in my ears.

Interrupted only by adverts every ten minutes.

In Copenhagen we change drivers, and the coach is driven through a wash.

I suppose you save money wherever you can.

The smell of urine, however, is unmistakable while it's happening.

I've acquired a new seatmate.

She's travelling all the way to Oslo as well, so we're both hoping the coach won't be completely full for the rest of the journey.

I'm not quite sure what it means that crossing the Øresund Bridge already feels like getting close to home.

There's still another ten hours to Oslo.

And then I still have more travelling to do.

I could probably have flown to Australia in the same amount of time and still had time to browse the duty-free shop.

But at least the final stretch by coach is now underway.

I doubt there'll be much sleep.

That can always be caught up on later.

In Malmö, the bloke with the chain gets off.

It looks as though I'll have a row of seats to myself for at least one more stop.

Then, gradually, most people settle down.

Midnight is approaching.

Even though it's practically impossible to get more than an hour's sleep before something inevitably drags everyone back out of dreamland, there are always a few people who are worse than others at reading the room.

The ones who never seem to notice anyone except themselves—and whoever they're travelling with.

Ideally, they should be eating loudly crunching crisps and holding long conversations on the phone.

Then staring at the poor sleep-deprived souls who make the mistake of looking up to see what all the noise is about.

I've more or less given up on getting any sleep myself.

This is simply going to be one of those endless two-night travel days.

I wake with a start.

I'm in Norway.

As it turned out, my fear of being stripped naked by Norwegian customs was completely unfounded.

Or perhaps it happened and I simply didn't notice.

Twenty minutes later, we roll into Oslo Bus Terminal, and I finally get to stretch my legs.

Thirty-three hours and five minutes of my life had been devoted to travelling across Europe by coach.

I wander over to Oslo Central Station with grand plans of finding myself some breakfast.

It turns out someone has been clever enough to help themselves to the money I'd set aside.

In fact, there is so little left that I'm not entirely sure I'll even make it to Lillehammer.

Oslo S is its usual self.

A man from Bergen rolls up on a bicycle and politely asks if I can spare him fifteen kroner.

When I say no, he wishes me a nice weekend.

Another man wanders around conducting a loud therapy session with himself, stopping every now and then beside people he apparently believes ought to hear parts of it.

A young bloke rushes around carrying a plastic shopping bag whose contents have leaked all over the inside.

He swings it around, spraying beer in every direction.

There are security guards everywhere as well.

They don't seem to notice any of that.

What they do notice are backpackers foolish enough to have fallen asleep on the waiting-room chairs while they're waiting for their trains.

I've managed to get myself a ticket to Hamar.

That's almost home.

After that, we'll see how things work out.

With a bit of luck, it won't be raining there the way it is in the capital.

Maybe I'll be able to hitchhike the last stretch.

Or perhaps some other solution will present itself.

The journey isn't over until it's over.

Either way, it won't make much difference.

I'll get there somehow.

Besides, I've been invited to frønsj in Lillehammer.

So I'll just have to find a way.