Friday, July 28:
In bed about 2:30am and up at 6am…..feel more and more like Judy every trip! Had a 2 hour drive to the airport, got checked in, and had plenty of time before our flight departed. I slept the entire flight (2 hrs) to Oslo, didn’t even know that we ever took off. Had a 3 ½ hour drive to Seljord, arrived about 7:30pm. The drive to Seljord is so beautiful, the mountains and the lakes – beautiful scenery!! We all got settled in our rooms and met for dinner at the hotel restaurant. The hotel does not have a/c so I got the only fan the hotel had for Chely. It’s very warm here, not like home, but warm compared to what it normally is in Norway. Had a great dinner and met up with Bobby Bare’s guys. Bobby Bare is performing on the festival, too, thanks to JSI. J Went to bed about 12:30am and got to sleep in. I slept with the sliding glass door partly open, now I have to fight with about 20 moths to get them out!
Saturday, July 29:
Got up and went down for breakfast. Don’t leave until 2:30pm for load in and sound check. Chely stayed back at the hotel as she is busy writing songs. Had Clay take her back some baked salmon and salad for an early dinner. I stayed with Bare while they did sound check and we all went back to the hotel. Got back about 6:30pm, had dinner, freshened up for the show and headed back to the venue with Bare about 9:30pm. Bare had an amazing show. The people in Norway LOVE him and he signed autographs for about 1 ½ hours after his show.
Chely was a few minutes late going, something happened with the power and they had to reboot the console. She also got to meet her “only” fan club member in Norway, Heidi, just before the show. It was so neat to watch Heidi get to meet Chely. She was so excited and Chely took the time to really talk with her. I have personally worked with Chely on one other event and one thing I have learned is, you can’t rush her when she is with the fans. Chely really takes her time when she is talking to them and asks about them, their lives, their family, where they’re from, etc. She has a special way with people.
Sunday, July 30:
Got to bed about 3:30am, glad we moved our departure to 11:30am. Had our 3 ½ hour drive back to the airport. Bare and his group are departing at 1:00pm. Got everyone checked in, got Bare’s keys ready for them and left a packet at the front desk for when they arrived. Chely’s group and I all took the train to downtown Oslo. We walked around down by the docks, had a great dinner and headed back to the hotel. Had a little problem with our train on the return. We “accidentally” got on the Express train rather than the local and had to end up paying for both! We had to pay for the Express ride before we could leave the station and was told the other company would reimburse us for the unused portion of the local train ticket. NOT!! We went and had a 10 minute conversation with the guy at the ticket booth, but it was totally useless. The lady that sold us the tickets told us the trains returned to the airport every hour, on the hour. Well, we got on the 9pm train thinking it was the right train, as we knew it was the correct destination. What the lady failed to tell us was what she meant was the train arrived at the airport every hour, on the hour, not departed from the city.
Got to bed about 11:30pm. Heading home tomorrow and I can’t wait. I love to travel, meet new people and see different parts of the world, but more than anything I miss Andrew. 🙂
Monday, July 31:
Flying home by myself today. Bare and Chely are on Continental together, and I flew over on Delta. I had a connection in Manchester, UK. I could not get my boarding pass in Oslo so I had to hurry to the transfer station to get my boarding pass. I got there and there was not a Delta agent working. Another gentleman said the Delta agent was on his way. About 45 minutes later, he finally shows up. Good thing my flight was delayed, otherwise I would have missed it because “dude” is busy doing who knows what! There was 5 of us on Delta and they had a driver come and get us to take us to our gate area. We drove around the back alleys of the airport and went up the private staff elevators.
Judy would LOVE this airport. Not sure if she has been here before or not, but there is tons of shopping!!!
Flight is 2 ½ hours late departing because they are waiting on luggage. I have never known of a flight to wait on luggage. Any other time it would just be too bad if your luggage didn’t make it. Missed my connection in Atlanta, but they put me on the next flight home. Got home about 8:45pm and was met by Andrew with a big bouquet of flowers and the biggest hug ever!! Boy, did I ever miss him!!
Home for a week and head back out to Denmark to meet BR549 for a show. Love those guys!!!