Christmas bus journey thing.

Whenever I walk past the bus station I get the same eerie feeling, the feeling that the next step is a long bus ride packed into a stinkin' tube of freaks. This time was no different, I caught it for 9 hours all the way to Oslo, and I say it's the last time I do that. For one it cost more than the plane, take a million times longer, and is full of the dregs of humanity. Most of the people on board were foreigners, I dunno why they take the bus, maybe they're not allowed to take the plane, or maybe they've been warned not to by some all knowing authority. The others were various freaks that obviously didn't know what a plane was, and then there was me. The best bit is that the plane is cheaper than the bus, yet the bus is more environmentally friendly, so as a good friend of the planet I should always take the bus, but in times like this I say fuck the planet. If i had been smart and booked ahead, which i never do, I could've gotten a plane ticket at a good price, but since I waited until the last minute, and it was the weekend before Christmas the last tickets were 7 or so times more than I was willing to pay. So I got to the bus, I had my snowboard and my bag which contained 3 bottles of wine, a slab of beer, and a bottle of rum, heavy as fuck. But the outrageous taxes on alcohol in Norway (300%) mean smuggling should be mandatory. I don't know if I was over the limit, but I assume i was. I put my stuff in the compartment and got on board, such a depressing sight to step on board and look down the aisle at all these mutants you'll be spending the next day with. I found a spot next to a woman who was travelling with a younger couple, guess they were related, of course they spoke a language no one else understood, and this gave them the privilege of yelling the conversation to each other, even though they were 1 metre apart. Strangely in between they had bouts of German thrown in, dunno what that was about. the guy behind me had his earphones on full ball, not to be a complaining old cow, but he must've been deaf by now. Then the bus starts rolling, it's only 600km to Oslo, but the bus wants to stop at every random bus stop in the middle of nowhere to deliver people there, which means constantly taking these little deviations off the highway, which in the end adds a few thousand kilometres to the trip. Of course every time it stops all the retarded smokers have to jump off to get their fix, I sat there in the bus looking at the arch dork with the royal blue terry toweling shirt on wondering where the fuck he managed to buy such a fiendish shirt, and what drugs he had been taking when he acquired it, then what made him decide to match it with his black beegee's slacks and potato head hair style. While observing this I heard the first sounds from the bus beast, some old guy a few seats ahead decided it was pissing him off that the bus had stopped for 3 minutes and wanted to let everyone know by yelling out some slurred sentence that sounded like Danish. This was to be his reaction to every stop we made. At the next stop he called out again, then decided himself that a cigarette would be nice, so I saw him stumble out of the bus without his shoes on, and fall towards the first person smoking while requesting a lighter, after his first denial he went to the next group who also refused to lend him a lighter. This was amusing because they were all smoking and it was blatantly obvious they hadn't lit the cigarettes by rubbing 2 sticks together. Then the engine started again and the beast got back on the bus with his unlit cigarette still hanging out of his mouth. A few hours later we made it to Gothenburg where they changed driver and we had a while to wait around. I got off and went to investigate my stash, everything was ok, but I thought I should organise it a bit better, while leaning over and moving my bag around I felt some liquid running over my hand, I jumped up and saw 2 taps with droplets of bright green stuff on them, then I saw that it had dribbled out onto my back and bag. This had to be cleaned, I went back to get on board, but in front of me going up the stairs was the beast, with each step he became slower and slower, finally he got to the top of the stairs and turned to take the last step to his seat, but it was too much, he keeled over in slow motion, as I stood behind him waiting to pass, until he was curled up in a fetal position on the floor in front of me. At this point the driver appeared and started asking what was wrong with my friend, I said I had no idea, and the driver started nudging him and telling him he had to get off the bus. I helped the driver lift him, he had now become a crying little baby, into his seat as he proclaimed that he would behave from now on. Then the driver grabbed his half drunken bottle of vodka and the whole picture became clear to me. Finally I got to the toilet at the back so I could wash my hands, the toilet had blue lights, the kind they use to stop junkies shooting up, I never understand the effectiveness of these, is it really that hard to see a vein just coz the light's blue, and if it is so hard why don't they draw an X with a pen or something before they go in, guess that's why they are junkies. Of course in the toilet there was no water, just some kind of spray on glass cleaner, so I had to try to wash my hands with that, but it didn't work so well, then I had nothing to wash that stuff off with. The rest of the journey I just tried to keep my hands as far way from me as possible. After a couple of hours we crossed the Norwegian border, and there was no sign of Customs officers, so I was in the clear. The drunken beast's Danish slowly became Norwegian as he sobered up without his trusty bottle, then it occurred to me that he was just another Norwegian abroad who lost all self control in the absence of state imposed alcohol restrictions. Finally the bus pulled into the bus station in Oslo, and I grabbed my shit, tried to wash my hand in the snow, and started heading towards the place where Tore was kind enough to pick me up. Suddenly some bald dude appeared and flashed some badge that said "TOLL", which is Norwegian for customs, and told me who he was, I guess I was kind of surprised, as well as confused, coz I never expected one of these guys in the bus stop in the city. He asked me in Norwegian if I spoke Norwegian "Snakker du Norsk?". I began to say yes, then answered "No", how the fuck did I know what he was asking then? Still dumbfounded, he began asking me a bunch of questions, where was I from, why was I here. I was the dumb English speaking tourist from Australia. Then of course, "Do you have any alcohol or anything else to declare?" I said no, even though I did, the question is kind of vague, I had alcohol, but I didn't want to declare it. Luckily the bottles of rum and wine were in my snowboard boots, so a quick inspection would only show the beer and one bottle of wine, still don't know if I was over the limit anyway. I was expecting further investigation, but he was content with my tesimony, guess it's not a lie if you believe it. Then he told me to have a nice stay, and I got out of there fast in case he changed his mind, and flew back to Copenhagen with the plane a few days later.

Before flying back we had to celebrate Jesus' birthday, which was why I came, if he didn't have a birthday I'd be content to sit around and do nothing, but you feel kind of left out when everyone else is having a feast and you are sitting there alone in a dark room. Makes more sense to have this thing in the middle of winter when depression is at it's peak, than in summer when it's just a sweat extravaganza. The Johnsen brother were kind enough to invite me to join in the festivities, and somehow I was chosen to play Santa for Elias, the seven year old cousin. I was cool with that, the suit was in a sack, and I just had to sneak down to the basement and put it on while the others distracted the boy. Somehow in Norway a twisted form of Santa has emerged in in which he has a hard plastic face and a smile like V for Vendetta. I was expecting a fake beard and a hat, so I was kind of shocked by this mask, even more so that I couldn't see a thing through the eyeholes, let alone breathe. I was instructed to go down to the street, and then come up the driveway before turning around at the top and pretending to leave. So I went out the back door, the temperature was just above 0°C, I knew this from all the water that dribbled onto me from the roof as I climbed the slippery staircase from the cellar door. Then I made my way around the back of the house and through the neighbour's yard towards the street. The suit didn't have real boots, just these kind of plastic shoe covers that made it look like I was wearing long black boots. They looked alright though, it was the rest of me that was dodgy, and as I got to the street I came across another neighbour who was out walking her dog late on Christmas eve, guess she had a close family. The dog knew I was a fraud and started snarling at me, as she was looking at me I could tell she was thinking, "What the fuck is that?", so I said " God jul" (Merry Christmas), and she replied "Julenisse......?" (Santa), in a kind of half scared, half confused voice. Up the drive way I went, it was a slight incline, covered in a thick layer of ice, which was now lubricated with a thin layer of water, so I walked close to the edge. Luckily my shoes were Doc's, which have soles that freeze and harden at low temperatures, making the extra gripless. I got to the top, and walked backwards and forwards a bit, pretending to be unsure of the address, as Elias inside was ecstatically excited waiting for his Lego set which was in the sack on my back. Then the smooth ice got the best of me and I broke into an uncontrolled limbs flailing jig of madness. Looking through the eye slits I caught glimpses of the ground and the house and was sure I was about to die, the Lego set would be crushed beneath me, and Christmas would be ruined. My back was bent 90° backwards like I was doing a limbo, then miraculously my feet gained a hold and I managed to finish the dance and pull myself together. After fixing up my mask I turned to see everyone had come out of the house, and I tried to put on my best Santa voice, which came out as Danish instead of Norwegian. I said that I had just come from Denmark and hadn't adapted to the language difference, yet where was my sled? So feeling kind of ridiculous I gave out the presents as Elias remarked that below the mask Santa had the same beard as Brett, and the shoes were similar too, even though Santa's had cool black covers on them. His dad said that it's cold riding the sled and Santa's face freezes to a solid plastic form while he's on the job. Still he bought it, guess it wasn't that important who the Lego came from, I probably could've been dressed as Freddy Krueger and he still would've been stoked. Back down the driveway and through the neighbour's yard I went, making my way back to the cellar to change clothes, then I went back to the party to try to act like I'd been upstairs taking a nap. Yet I don't think Elias had even been aware of my absence, just boring adults to him. In a perverted way I enjoy these discomfort and dangerous experiences, every time it happens I think "Yes, something to write about". I had a nice time there, many thanks to the Johnsens for inviting me.