#i wasn't doing fandom stuff necessarily

[folerdetdufoler]

like my first trip to oslo, this one started with an impulse purchase of tickets: a performance of snøfall on november 30th. i didn’t have a flight or a place to stay or any kind of plan really, just the fact that i had to be at the theatre with haidee & nadège at 18:00 on friday. i knew they would be in oslo then because they were planning on going to the fan convention, so i guess there was that. i had also chatted with jenn and knew she was going too, and for a few days there were a flurry of messages and excitement. and then i stopped thinking about it.

which is how i, an adult, deal with things that stress me out. at some point i bought a plane ticket, and booked a hotel room, and bought a concert ticket for saturday, and talked to some more people about it, but i still managed to be wildly unprepared by the time wednesday rolled around. i managed to find my passport that morning and pull my suitcase down from the attic, but i was still in my pajamas trying to finish the last chapter of my fic by the time it hit 15, when i was supposed to leave for the airport. i threw a vague number of outfits into that suitcase and got out of the house before my ride (my brother) got too pissed off, but i was super stressed out and disappointed in myself before we hit the highway.

i had left so much behind: my fic on my computer, my gifts for haidee and nadege, the glucose tablets i bought specifically for the trip, half of my toiletries...and on top of that i was about to head into airport security with a new pump and cgm attached to me. i honestly was not sure if i was going to actually get on a plane that evening. i stood in line, sweating through my pajamas, dying to anxiety-tweet through the whole thing except i didn’t want anyone to know i was at the airport in case i didn’t make it out. on top of everything i’d managed to forget/give up on before leaving the house, i didn’t want to fail yet another thing.

i didn’t, obviously. it was stressful as hell, because i had to send my bag, phone, passport, everything through the x-ray scanner and wait for someone to escort me through for a physical exam. i stood in the middle of the room for what felt like hours (it was not hours) watching as people swirled around my entire identity at the end of a conveyor belt, out of reach, knowing that even if i saw someone lift my shit i couldn’t yell or run to intervene because i was surrounded by tsa agents just waiting to body slam the girl with a small black box attached to her to the ground. i felt like a threat even though i wasn’t. i had foolishly sent my only glucose tablets through the machine with my bag so if i happened to go low while waiting, turning into a sweating, shaking, suspicious mess, i wouldn’t be able to save myself or prove my medical needs because, lol, my medical ID was in my bag too. ugh. scratch that, i was a threat to myself.

i made it through. an agent finally helped me through and did my exam. my pump was deemed not an explosive device and no one stole my passport. i even had enough time to change my sensor in the bathroom before boarding. this, of course, should have been done at home in a sanitary environment and not immediately before ascending 30,000 feet above the earth but i think we’ve established how shit i am at planning so...moving on.

the flight was great. i had an empty seat next to me. we were delayed about an hour taking off, but that just gave me time to text with lizzie, who was also at the airport then but on a different flight to oslo. i had missed her in my tsa daze but it was a fun realization that right then there was a tiny migration happening to oslo, a bunch of fans starting their journeys all around the world and getting excited. my sensor warmed up and functioned like a dream the whole flight, and i finally felt like i could breathe again by the time we’d landed at gardermoen.

at the airport i bought most of the things i had forgotten (a bitch needs tweezers, okay?) and zipped over to the hotel. they were super busy so i couldn’t check in, but i dropped off my suitcase and went to meet up with jasmine and silvia. god it was so nice to see jasmine again, that amazing norwegian ambassador. it’s so wonderful, just in general, being able to hug a person who is part of your life every day. i wouldn’t say we talk directly, but a day doesn’t go by where i don’t read her tweets and like, have this awareness of her life in my own, so on the one hand it’s like oh my god i haven’t seen you since the beginning of the summer and on the other hand i was just talking to you so uh, has anything new happened in the last hour? anyway, we hugged, i screamed, the usual, and then we found silvia, and after that hugging mission was complete it was on to the lunch mission!

the first photo i took on norwegian soil was the bar was passed: angst. this was where the book release party was held just the week before and i took a photo to capture my missed opportunity. i forget where we actually ended up for lunch but we ate and jasmine handed off the elle magazine i’d asked her to pick up for me and we talked about the fandom and the show and just...life in norway in general. as i spend more time there and talk to more people who live there, i’m convincing myself that i would like to try finding a job and staying for a while. i understand that all of my experiences thus far have been terribly positive because they’ve basically been vacations, with no basis for a regular lifestyle, but it still feels like the day-to-day reality wouldn’t be so scary either. check back in 2025 to see if i’ve made any progress on that.

after lunch we walked around with no real purpose. i wanted to go to the new h&m that had just opened that morning to see what the fuss was about with the collection that henrik & lea had modeled for. the store was pretty big but there was zero fuss. we stayed on karl johans, visiting the bookstore and wandering through the christmas market. then silvia had to leave so we said goodbye. in the spirit of a 220-lb. woman who barely has any social skills, i managed to hug silvia and lift her off the ground without realizing, so Io chiedo sinceramente scusa. it was a weird note to end on but up until that point it was just so nice being able to hang out with someone you’ve never met but instantly get. girl, you’re fabulous. vi ses snart.

the only other thing i had on my agenda was to visit the publisher to pick up my script books. it was a mini-nightmare getting into their office, which i wouldn’t have been able to do without jasmine’s help, but we managed to figure out how doors work and got to chat with someone. it turns out my books were still at the bar, so they promised to send them over to the hotel once they could get them back. they also told us about the book signing at tanum the following weekend, which was nice. i was bummed that i had managed to miss both the release party and the book signing but at least we had the information and could share it with the fandom.

then it was back to the hotel, where i could properly check in. i was greeted with a bathrobe with my name embroidered on it, which made me laugh. jasmine and i didn’t have any further plans so we decided to go find dinner and walk around some more. we took the elevator down (duh) and walked to johnny rockets for some milkshakes, which was fun. despite it being an american restaurant, i’ve never been, so it felt like i was being a tourist in my hometown. when i couldn’t give our waiter a fun fact about new jersey for him to entertain us with, he just gave up and drew a snowman in ketchup. not for his lack of trying though, it’s just that i live in the armpit of the united states and i don’t think that’s easy to illustrate in condiments. after dinner we went to find akrobaten bridge, which was on my list of sights to see even though it was only in the show for exactly six seconds in a couple of transition shots. no moment from season three is too small in my mind.

after that i think it was still pretty early but a bitch was done. i didn’t sleep much on the flight or the night before, so i was running on empty and literally fell asleep in front of jasmine at the hotel. i sent her off on her train after a more appropriate hug and the general idea that i’ll see her again. it didn’t happen that weekend but that was okay, because earlier that month i impulse-bought another ticket, so i knew i’d be back next year.

it’s just never enough, is it?