“Are you traveling alone?” the taxi driver asked.
I met his eyes in the rear view mirror, immediately on high alert. That was the sort of question asked by a man who was either oblivious or suspicious. I did a quick mental map of who might know where I was. The hotel concierge arranged the pickup. They knew my name and the taxi company. The taxi company knew which driver they sent. It was a small consolation that the police had a chance of catching him if I came to any harm.
“I’m with my husband and son. Actually, it’s my 27th wedding anniversary today.”
“Oh!” He sounded genuinely joyful. He was an older man, late middle age, clean-shaven, with short black and gray hair, and a friendly, open demeanor. “Is your husband taking you somewhere special tonight?”
Nope.
I was on my way to an apartment where I’d spend the night alone, and the two nights after that as well. “They went to hike Trolltunga. I decided to stay in the city because there’s more to do here.” No need to mention that I was injured. If he were a weirdo, I didn’t want him to know that I couldn’t run away.
“You’re from the US?”
“Yes,” I said. And then to head off the usual follow-up question, “Near New York.” I wasn’t opposed to conversation exactly. I was tired from a long day of sightseeing in Bergen, a city on the west coast of Norway. My ankle throbbed, and I felt a little down that I was missing the Trolltunga adventure with the boys, the whole point of the trip.
I had trained for Trolltunga, the troll’s tongue, all summer. The trail to it is rated Expert simply by virtue of its length. It’s a sixteen mile out-and-back with three very steep sections and an overall elevation gain of nearly 2,400 feet. Depending on where you start to hike, it can take between 7-12 hours.
My husband, Tim, is a marathon runner. He does half-marathons once or twice per week for fun. Disgusting, I know. Our son, Aidan, seventeen, has the power of surging testosterone. I, despite a healthy mustache and plethora of chin hairs, do not have a testosterone advantage. Neither do I run. My idea of elevation gain is having to walk up the stairs twice.
So while the boys could just show up and hike this thing, I needed training. Even then, I feared I wouldn’t have the stamina. I got a lucky break when I found a service that guides small groups to the top, puts them up overnight in a geodesic dome, and hikes them out the next day. Two days of eight miles each was more doable than a straight sixteen. I had two months to whip myself into shape.
My regular three-mile walk lengthened to five. After a month, I added a backpack and worked up to a twenty pound weight inside. It was good practice not only for the hike, but for hefting the stacks of Amazon packages arriving on the front porch.
Extensive research into the technical gear we would require to hike Trolltunga (what’s got 5 stars on Amazon?) told us we needed layers of breathable shirts, wool socks, and waterproof jackets, pants, and boots. I happen to have feet that are wider than some rivers. Finding waterproof hiking shoes that wouldn’t require sacrificing a toe or two was difficult. Boot boxes continued to arrive until the day before the trip. The sock choice was easier. The boys chose practical, bulky wool socks that extended almost to their knees. I chose slimmer, cuter, wool socks with flamingos on them.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
As the taxi driver eased us onto the highway that left Bergen for the suburbs, he asked. “Why didn’t you go with your family?”
That was the crux of the matter. I still felt wary of giving away too much information to a stranger, but I had begun to feel more at ease. He drove responsibly, going easy around the turns and not reacting when he got cut off. His posture was relaxed, and amusement touched his eyes. He felt like someone’s Dad.
“I twisted my ankle a few days ago. It’s fine now,” I hurried to point out, “but I didn’t want to take the chance on a sixteen mile hike so soon after.”
A few days before Trolltunga, I thought we’d warm up on a shorter hike to Trollkyrkja, the troll’s church. It was only three hours, and there were caves to explore at the top. We could trial run our suitcase full of gear and replace anything that wasn’t working for us at a local store before the big day.
The path was muddy and slick. It had been raining for days, but I was well protected in long johns, rain pants, waterproof shoes, a wool T-shirt and rainproof jacket. In case the trail got steep, there were poles in my backpack.
The trail wound past local farmers’ fields, then dipped downward toward a brook that had overflowed its banks. A helpful soul had felled five or six birch saplings, each two or three inches in diameter, and laid them side-by-side to form a makeshift bridge.
I went first, eager to show the boys just how much my hiking skills had improved over the summer. I took a tentative step. The bridge was about eighteen inches wide and six feet long. The saplings shifted under my weight. They didn’t appear to be lashed together. There were half a dozen people already on the opposite bank, though, so I was confident that they were solid enough.
I stepped once, twice, three times to get to the halfway mark. The water rushed one inch beneath the birches in a cacophony of sound and vertigo-inducing movement. The outside sapling rolled underfoot. My leg plunged into the river up to the thigh, and my bottom crashed down onto the bridge like I sat astride a horse.
Water shot up my pant legs and filled my shoes. It turns out they’re waterproof unless you fill them from the top.
I sat for a second and wondered, what are my options here?
Now that my shoes felt like full goldfish bowls on my feet, was I really going to hike for three hours? I spun around and returned the way I had come.
The boys were ready to abandon the hike, but I assured them that I would be fine on my own for a few hours. I’d change clothes, find a coffee shop to drown my sorrows in cream and sugar…and maybe a chocolate croissant, and come back to pick them up. They set off, bouncing gracefully over the bridge, and I slogged back to the car on my own, noting with growing dismay that my ankle hurt.
Perhaps thirty minutes had elapsed since leaving the rental car. Despite not having passed anyone on the trail, now that I had to strip naked, the parking lot was teeming with people. My mood darkened.
The open car door provided some protection from the waist down as I peeled off my pants and long johns. Draping them over the window provided some waist-up privacy. I shimmied onto the seat and took off the rest. Then I set about trying to pull dry clothes over wet skin. I unrolled my new flamingo socks and found that they came with an encouraging message embroidered across the toes. A little positive reinforcement, if you will.
My socks mocked me.
“Oh, that’s terrible luck,” the taxi driver said. We turned off the highway and pulled into a residential area with stores on the ground floors and apartments above. I needed to collect the key before we could drive to my place.
“I don’t see a lockbox, do you?” I said.
“Do you want me to go and ask?” I felt absurdly grateful for the offer. He hopped out of the car and went inside a gym. A moment later, he popped his head into the car and said the lockbox was around the corner, mounted to the outside of the building.
I found what looked like a set of post-office boxes. Each little square door had a keypad that required a code to access it. A code that I didn’t have.
I opened my email and noted that, after a full day of taking photos and videos, the phone had a robust 17% power remaining. It was also getting dark. The sun had slipped behind the mountains. Despite the people exercising in the gym, the street was empty. I presumed that everyone who lived in the area was already home from work cooking dinner.
The booking confirmation from Expedia noted that I would be sent a code from the company that managed the apartment I had rented. I scrolled through my email again, but it wasn’t there. A thrum of fear wiggled in my stomach. Without the code, I had no place to stay that night.
I rang the help line printed on a sticker stuck to the side of the lockbox. They only helped lockbox problems, if the doors stuck, for example. They did not distribute codes, and suggested that I contact the people through whom I had made the reservation. I called Expedia. As the waiting music played, I felt the minutes ticking away—on my phone’s power, on the cab’s meter, on the sunlight, on my chances of resolving the situation in my favor.
An Expedia rep gave me the name of the apartment’s management company, but didn’t have their phone number or access to the code. I Googled the company and rang the listed number. A voicemail message answered. The office hours were 9 AM to 9 PM, Monday through Friday.
It was 9:10 PM. On Friday. There would be no help for three whole nights, the entire length of the reservation.
I hung up and stared at the last vestiges of light between the hulking buildings. My mind supplied a helpful image of me dozing against one of them overnight with my suitcase as a mattress. I shook it off and walked back to the taxi.
“Ready?” the driver said.
I blew out some air. “I’m not really sure what to do.” I explained the situation.
“Aaah, well. Can you find another place?”
“There aren’t any,” I said. I wasn’t being dramatic. The Clarion Hotel Admiral, where we’d stayed in downtown Bergen, had no vacancy. I’d had to check out when the boys left that morning. A search of hotels.com and booking.com yielded no result. Every room in the city was sold out.
Airbnb had no available listings. Vrbo’s inventory was down to one apartment about twenty minutes outside the city. The location was inconvenient, and expensive, but there weren’t any other choices. I had booked it. And now, I couldn’t get into it.
“It must be the concerts this weekend,” the driver said. The entire population of western Norway had turned out to see them.
“I really don’t know what to do,” I repeated. “My phone’s dead. I don’t know where to go. I can’t hold you up here all night.” I gestured toward the meter as it clicked up another few kroner. I hoped he accepted credit cards. The price had blown past the amount of cash I had while I was calling all over the world.
The taxi driver’s face had grown steadily more concerned as I spoke. He held up his hand in a gesture that said, Hold on, we’ll work this out. He reached into the taxi and switched off the meter. I found the gesture oddly touching.
He took out his phone to look for shelter on my behalf, searching for several minutes. “You’re right,” he said. “There’s nothing.”
I wasn’t prone to panic when I traveled but his confirmation made the situation very real. I was, temporarily at least, homeless and alone in a foreign country.
It was ironic since there weren’t any homeless people in Bergen that I had seen. No one sat on the streets with cups, begging. The city was clean and safe. There were worse places for me to be stranded, but I still felt the prick of tears.
“I guess…bring me to the train station. I’ll spend the night there,” I said. Maybe by the next day I would have gotten the code for the key to the apartment, if I could find a place to power my phone. If not, maybe I could catch a train to another city that did have rooms available.
The driver looked horrified. “No.” He searched his phone for a few more minutes. “There’s a room available at the airport. Come.” We had driven twenty minutes north of the city. That meant we had a forty minute drive south ahead of us.
We both got into the taxi. I didn’t ask how much the ride would cost, or the room. If I got to the hotel and they told me the room cost a thousand dollars for the night, I’d go to the airport and sleep there. It was a better choice than the train station.
The driver must have read my face. “The room is less than $200 for the night, and I won’t charge you the extra fare. We’ll pretend you were going to the airport all along. That’s a flat $50.”
I felt a warm surge of affection for this stranger. He could have shrugged his shoulders and left me outside the gym to fend for myself. Instead, he’d treated the situation as though it were our problem.
“What’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking,” I said.
“Olaf,” he replied, shrugging. “It’s a very common name.” There was something apologetic in his tone, like he thought I might be disappointed that he wasn’t named something more Viking, like Thor or Odin.
I knew that Saint Olaf was the patron saint of Norway, the Faroe Islands, carvers, and difficult marriages from our visit to the cathedral in Trondheim where his shrine was. Though he had been neither very holy nor very well liked during his lifetime, his name continued to be a popular choice.
“Well, you’re the first Olaf I’ve ever met. You’re not common to me,” I said.
Then, the whole tale of the trip spilled out of me, and we laughed at the mess of it. When we reached the hotel, I folded the last of my kroner into a tidy log. “I’d like to give you something for all your help.” I reached into the front seat to slip it into his hand.
He waved it away. “That’s not necessary. We don’t have tip culture in Norway.”
“Your kindness made a huge difference in my day today. It isn’t nearly enough for what you’ve done, but I’d like you to have it.”
He looked embarrassed, but finally accepted. He pulled my suitcase out of the trunk. I hugged him. He grinned and embraced me back. I waved goodbye to the stranger who was, as it turned out, neither oblivious nor suspicious, just curious and kind. “I’m going to write an essay about you someday, Olaf,” I called as the hotel doors slid open.
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