The next day we woke up and had breakfast on our own. I went jogging out by the cemetery again and ordered some room service while I organized my luggage. I was enjoying a last few minutes alone before we started the journey. We met for lunch and then were set to depart for the airport right after that.
Lunch seemed to last forever – I was so excited to just get going! Finally, we boarded a couple shuttle buses and went to the airport. Brita and Ane helped us get all our luggage checked. Brandon’s bag was a little too heavy so he gave some of his stuff to different people to carry. I ended up bringing one of his shoes and a couple books for him.
We made it to Norway after a 7.5 hour flight. Breyanne and I sat in the same row with a Norwegian fellow between us. He seemed to be very interested in Breyanne and drank a lot – which was only annoying because I kept having to get up for him to go to the bathroom. Over and over and over. It was a long flight and I didn’t sleep at all but as the light began to fill the sky I was so excited to nearing Norway.
We finally landed in Oslo and went through customs. Then, we retrieved our bags and immediately went to the hotel and had lunch. The food was wonderful – an excellent buffet. I sat by Brandon and we talked quite a bit. I loved his personality and his warmth.
As soon as lunch was over we were told that we had the afternoon to ourselves except that we would each take turns getting outfitted for the next weeks. I was one of the first to be brought to a room where there were piles of bags and clothes and we had to try on quite a bit of clothes – mostly outdoor gear – to make sure they had the right sizes of everything. Then, after we had all the coats, pants, gloves, boots, etc. that we needed, we put all of it into a Helly Hanson bag with our name on it and were told that would be ours now. I had no idea we would get to keep so much cool stuff! Not that I can wear a lot of it in Texas, but still! Free clothes are awesome clothes – and everything they gave us was beautiful, high quality stuff.
I spent the next hours going for a walk, sitting and talking with some others from the group in the hotel lobby, and trying to stay awake. We had been told to not fall asleep until nighttime and that would help a lot with the jet lag. It had been a long time since I had been up more than 24 hours in a row. We were all looking forward to going to sleep that night.
We met for supper and then afterward we began our nightly ritual of meeting with “the mamas” (Brita, Ane, and Ragnild) to tell us what to pack, prepare for the next day. They reminded us what we needed to wear and bring with us and then I immediately went up to my hotel room to try to get to sleep. The next day we would be having a photo shoot at TV Norge! I was SO excited and looking forward to it.