Day 22 Trollstigen to Oslo

Today was a long and relatively boring 5+ hour drive back to Oslo from Trollstigen.  We left at about 8am and headed up the valley next to Trollstigen, so we got to see yesterdays mountains from the other side.  

Lots of sheer rock faces, lots of waterfalls, but eventually the land flattened out, and we drove alongside wide rivers and lakes and farmlands.  It also included about 45k worth of road works, which was very tedious, and we were glad that no-one heeded the 70kph limit through them else it would have taken forever.

We arrived in Oslo at about 2pm and check-in wasn’t until 3, so we had time to visit the Norwegian Armed Forces aircraft collection, which is housed near Gardermoen airport.  Or should I say J visited it, while I filled the car with petrol and tidied up the car ready for returning it to Avis and schlepping all our stuff up to our room.  

We are staying at the Radison Park Inn, it is just a few minutes walk from the airport, as we are catching a 10:45am flight tomorrow.

After the previous nights disappointment in missing dinner, we decided to avail ourselves of the restaurant at the hotel.  Initially this felt like a mistake, as there were 3 families with wailing bratty children I could cheerfully have slapped.  Thankfully they emptied out pretty early on, and a group of 3 Americans arrived to provide some entertainment.  The waiter was a bit of a character, with a heavy accent that I mistook for Italian (we asked, he was originally from Macedonia).  Well of course, the women wanted their meal how they liked it.  Woman #1 wanted the chicken burger without red onions, and without coleslaw, and the woman #2 wanted the chicken burger, but proceeded to tell him what she wanted with it, rather than what she didn’t want.  Well this caused all sorts of consternation, and repetition, and he  eventually had to find a pen and pad to write it down.  When he came out to bring their meals, he handed the burger to he woman #2, announcing in a heavy Italian sounding accent “chicken burger, wizzout, wizzout, wizzout” and to the woman #1 “chicken burger, wizzout, wizzout”.  Then woman #2 inspected the burger, and found, gasp, it did NOT have tomaaayto, nor mayo, which she had specifically asked for.  It also had “something brown” which she proceeded to scrap off with her knife.  Polite and patient waiter offered to take it away and remove the “something brown” but she said it was fine, but could she get a side of tomaayto and white mayo.  To his credit, the Macedonian waiter obliged, with only a few twitches of his head as he walked back to the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later, producing a plate of sliced tomaayto and a bowl of white mayo with a flourish!  This earned him much praise from woman #1 and woman #2.  It’s worth noting at this point that bloke #1 who was with them had ordered the fish and chips, and as he made his order after the women faffing with details, he said “fish and chips please but hold the fish” as a bit of a humerous dig at the picky women.  
Thus entertained for the evening, we went back to our room and watched BBC news on telly I fell asleep