Kate got a ticket to Norway for a birthday gift and I decided to invite myself. Because if not an over enthusiastic and overbearing mother, what am I? How glad I was in the serendipitous decision. Purchasing tickets was almost as difficult as finding the right time to travel. But definitely not harder than acquiring passports. You guys, this was the pre-adventure.
It takes months in Napa to wait for an appointment at the post office, so it is recommended one goes to another post office to get passports. To receive passports, one must also obtain passport photos.
Because I am a cheapskate (strike that: frugal), we chose to go to Walmart for photos. Dude, mistake. We waited approximately 3 hours (1 in line, 2 in a corner by the passport photo backdrop). The two hours were abysmal. We had Vivy. Enough said, right? When we were nearing the end of our wait time, I ignored Vivy's antics hoping that the clerk would want us out so bad that they would speed up our service. That was a no go. All it did was make my passport photo sweaty.
After getting photos taken, we went to the passport office in a dinky little post office up valley. Jimmy had to take the time off work and we had all the paperwork necessary. Because we were so well prepared, our family was abke to pop to the front of the line. Whilst in the office, the post master asked for our IDs. I smugly pulled out my wallet ready to deliver. Those unprepared people we cut in line had nothing on me! Except that maybe they remembered to take their ID out of the copier when preparing their needed documents. Because that is something I did not do... Gah!
Round two: we run up valley again. Jimmy has to take a day off work again. This time we have Vivy. This time we had all documents. This day, the post office had a sign on the door saying that no passports would be given because the postmaster was sick. Are you freaking kidding me?! Darn quaint little post office with two employees.
So, we drove an hour to another neighboring town's post office. With my documents, with my license, with Vivy. We got to the post office right before closing and stood at the end of a veerrrry long line. But, stars aligned, folks. Because we were entirely prepared, again we got to cut to the front of the line. This time I was humble. Because we know what smug got me last time. The woman processing our paperwork talked so fast that I couldn't keep up. The first thing she did was discard of the photos we so painstakingly took at Walmart because they were done wrong. Niiiice.... but that was the only hiccup. After taking new photos, we were out of the post office in 15 minutes!!!
That post office worker is hero status, people.
We received our passports less than two weeks later and were ready to rumble.
Our first flight into Oslo was uneventful. But late. So late that we ended up missing our connecting flight to Trondheim. We had to buy new tickets and board on a very small plane to make it to our final destination. A rainbow welcomed us to Trondheim as we disembarked off the back of the plane. It was magical. And that was the last day I called Atlas Peak my home.
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