Onwards

The 2005 reunion has come & gone. Kathy & I went back in 2007 to watch the ski jumping competition at Holmenkollen again. 2008 will be the last year of competition before the landmark ski jump is torn down and replaced.

We (and about 20 other Oslo alumni & family members) also participated in in the Overseas Brats Homecoming 2007 in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX. The next OSB Homecoming will be in 2010 at the Dulles (D.C.) Hyatt.

Presently we have no plans on the table OAS-specific reunions, either in Norway or here.

To keep tabs on any developments, please visit our web sites:

http://www.oasalumni.org Oslo American School (OAS) Alumni

http://www.overseasbrats.net Overseas Brats On-Line Community

http://www.overseasbrats.net/oslo-american-school OAS-specific forum within the Overseas Brats On-Line Community

Finding Cheap Flights and Good Airplane Seats

This site has a really good interface for finding the cheapest flights between two cities:

http://www.itn.net

Although it is run by American Express, the site accepts other credit cards, too. Just click on the "Search all dates for best prices" button and you can enter a range of months to be searched.

Once you have an itinerary, this site will help you pick your seats:

http://www.seatguru.com/

If you place your cursor over a particular seat, it will tell you any special characteristics of that seat (extra legroom, limited recline, evacuation slide takes up legroom, etc.). Also pay attention to any notes at the top of their pages.

Street Entertainment: Oslo vs. Rome

On our trips to Oslo we've always been amused by the street entertainers, especially this guy (photo by John Recher):



He remains perfectly still and then -- when you least expect it -- he moves abruptly, usually making a sharp noise and startling any onlookers. There's another one in Oslo who paints himself & his clothing a bright blue.
When my wife tried to sneak up on one of them, he really scared the you-know-what out of her.

Here's his counterpart in Rome





We ran across him in the Piazza del Navona when we were walking from the Vatican/St. Peters/Castel San Angelo to the Pantheon & the Fountain of Trevi. Considering the abundance of booze in Rome, it's fitting that he's painted all gray and depicts a drunk, passed-out wino. Unlike his Oslo opposite, he makes no noise and hardly moves at all. If you drop a coin in his cup, he hiccups and flinches slightly. If you try to sneak up on him, it's as though he never notices:

Air Fares: Expedia vs. Hotwire

More fun and games with air fares to Oslo, comparing prices on Expedia vs. Hotwire. All examples assume a 7/15/05 departure & 7/31/05 return:

Departing Minneapolis (MSP):

• Expedia -- $984.92 (Iceland Air)
• Hotwire -- $914.00 (brand X)
• Savings -- $71

Departing Los Angeles:

• Expedia -- $1162 (Lufthansa, departs LAX)
• Hotwire -- $1080 (brand X, departs SNA)
• Savings -- $82

Departing Seattle (SEA):

• Expedia -- $1102 (Northwest)
• Hotwire -- $993 (brand X)
• Savings -- $109

Departing Chicago (ORD):

• Expedia -- $1,074.52 (US Airways/Iceland Air/Northwest)
• Hotwire -- $859 (brand X)
• Savings -- $216

Departing Atlanta (ATL):

• Expedia -- $1156 (United)
• Hotwire -- $876 (brand X)
• Savings -- $280

Departing Newark (NEW):

• Expedia -- $941.72 (Continental)
• Hotwire -- $770 (brand X)
• Savings -- $172

Hotwire is Expedia's business partner. You can do your search on Expedia's web site and then, while you're looking at the results, Expedia offers a link that opens an identical Hotwire search in a different window. The catch? With Hotwire you don't know the exact itinerary until after you have purchased the tickets.

However, in the examples above, you could save up to $280 per ticket by purchasing through Hotwire instead of Expedia. That's enough kroner to buy a lot of varme pølser.

Remember that air fares can change daily (or faster). There is no guarantee that what I'm posting here will be available tomorrow.

Which Rainbow Hotel? Rainbow Hotel Terminus!

Previous emails indicated that we would be staying at the Rainbow Hotel Astoria at Dronningens Gate 21, about 3 blocks west of Oslo S.

It turns out that the Rainbow Astoria is going to be closed much of next July (one of its night clerks is an OAS alumna who clued me in), so we have moved our reservations to the Rainbow Hotel Terminus. The Rainbow Terminus is a slightly better hotel (3 stars vs. 2.5 stars for the Rainbow Astoria) and slightly more expensive.

For prepaid reservations through http://www.nwa.com (click on Reservations Center/Hotels), the current rate is $130 per night for doubles, $104 for singles, plus a tax & service fee that runs about 5.5%. Full breakfast is included.

The Rainbow Terminus is somewhat better situated at Stenersgata 10 -- only half a block off the route that those in the Anker Hostel will be taking to Jernbanetorget or Oslo S. to start each day's activities.

I will place maps showing the locations of Anker Hostel & the Rainbow Hotel Terminus in a separate posting.

Maps for Anker Hostel & Rainbow Hotel Terminus

This map shows the location of the Anker Hostel. The Anker Hostel is part of a complex of buildings. The hostel itself is about half a block straight east of the green dart on the map:

This map shows (green dart) the location of the Rainbow Hotel Terminus:

Both maps are from http://hvor.no.

Finding the lowest air fares

How do you know that Joe Schmuck's Travel Service or your favorite on-line ticket site (e.g. Nwa.Com, Orbitz, Expedia) is providing the best deal you can get? This site provides a utility which seems to be really good at figuring out all possible combinations at getting from airport A to airport B, and which combinations are the cheapest, provided that you have a general idea as to what airlines serve your city:

http://beta.itasoftware.com/ or

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/

You tell it how many connections and (optionally) exactly what airline you want to fly each leg on, and it does the searching. It also warns you about things that might go unnoticed when you book your flight: long layovers, short connection times & airport switches (e.g. arriving at TRF -- Sandefjord -- but leaving from OSL -- Gardermoen).

The examples below are contructed for an imaginary OAS alumna who lives near Boise, Idaho, and participates in Alaskan Airlines' frequent flyer program.

Alaskan relies primary on Northwest/KLM for most European flights, for which she must first fly to Minneapolis. Alternatively, she can fly Alaskan to Seattle or other western cities and then continue on Northwest. All Northwest flights to Oslo have connections in Europe (usually Amsterdam), so she must plan total of 3 connections each way.

All of the examples below assume 1 adult, departure 7/15/05, return 7/31/05.

To search for fares via Minneapolis (Northwest all the way), she would enter the origin and destination as:

From BOI::NW NW NW
To OSL::NW NW NW

It returns 500 possible routing combinations with fares starting at $1,031.

To check out the possibilities using Alaskan for the leg in & out of Boise, enter the origin and destination as:

From BOI::AS NW NW
To OSL::NW NW AS

It returns 500 possible routing combinations with fares starting at $1,269.

If you don't care what airline(s) you fly on, use X's instead of the two letter codes:

From BOI::X X X
To OSL::X X X

It gets dumber and returns 500 combinations with fares starting at $1,385.

There's a lot of other stuff you can do with this utility, just click on its Help option at the top right of its display for more info.

What it can't do, unfortunately, is sell you the ticket. For that, you still need your travel agent or on-line ticket site.

Anti-Americanism in Europe & Norway

Good article on European Anti-American with special attention to Norway -- cites differences between the U.S. & Norwegian press and discusses a couple recent book by Norwegians about the U.S.:

Hating America by Bruce Bawer, reposted from The Hudson Review

The article is in 4 parts, if you need access them separately:

Part 1

Parts 2 & 3

Part 4

Yo Maryl!

Wouldn't this be an easy place to accumulate reunion stuff?

Registration is a lot easier than with Tudor's MSN community. I don't want to undermine Tudor's more general effort but I think this would be more useful for the 2005 reunion.

I can control who's allowed to make base posts, but anyone who wants to register can comment & respond.

Mike