Cash is king??

I did not take a lot of luggage with me for just one night and a day in Oslo, but I still had a small cabin bag on wheels with me. The venue for the meeting was close to the train station so I planned to walk there. At first I also planned to take my bag with me, but then I thought that there might be some time after the meeting when I could go for a walk and some window shopping (there is really no need for a Swede to do some real shopping in Norway as they have the same stuff as we, but more expensive) so I decided to leave my bag in a locker at the station. Then of course I had a problem; That far I had paid everything with my credit card and I did not have any Norwegian kronas for the locker, for that I needed a 20 kroner coin. So what to do? Go to the exchange office and change 50 SEK?? Start begging for someone to give me 20 NOK?? Take some money from the ATM and have them changed in the automat?? I went for the latter alternative. I knew it was stupid as I will have to pay a fee for that to my Swedish bank and I really did not need more Norwegian money, but thought I could just take 100 NOK and maybe spend ther rest on some snack. Then it turned out the minimum amount you could take from the ATM was 200 NOK (yet another sign that the Norwegians are wealthier than the Swedes, in Sweden the minimum amount is 100 SEK). Ok, but then I was beyond point of no return, I had made my decision not to carry my bag around, so I took the 200 NOK, put the note into the exchange machine and got 200 back in coins, spent 20 NOK on the locker and walked away with 180 NOK in my wallet.

After the meeting I had a whole hour to walk around so I was happy not having my bag with me, but now I had another problem. A problem I very rarely have. I had money that I wanted to get rid of and did not know how to spend it. There is actually not that many nice things that you can get for only 180 NOK and I did not feel like just bying anything and I was not hungry so I did not want to buy snacks. Very strange feeling, not knowing how to spend money. I did not even see the beggers I saw earlier in the morning!! And walking around in the shops and down at the harbour time went and in the end I did not have that much time to look in the shops. In the end I was almost desperate to get rid of the money. Yeah, I know it is stupid. I could just give it away or keep it, I will most probably come back sometime, but as I just realised it was almost twenty years since I last was in Oslo, who knows when that will be....

In the end I just bought a tunic that I saw in a shop for 149 NOK and I took it without trying it on. At home I put it on and realised I will most certainly never use it. I don't even like it!! How stupid is that?!?
Viva the cash less society!!!

Visiting the neighbours

Right now I am in Oslo. For being a close neighbour I must say I have hardly been here. I was here just once, a long time ago. And I wont see much this time either. I am only here for a meeting tomorrow, but as it starts early I had to go this afternoon. Unfortunatly this came up quite sudden and I was late to reserve a room and then there were almost no available hotel rooms in the town, which resulted in that I am staying at an hotel at the airport. That might of course be very convienient sometimes, if you travel by air. But this time I arrived by train, right in the city centre, very close to the site of the meeting tomorrow, but still had to take the airport express train for 20 minutes. Very unconvinient! Very irritating and very bad planning!

Will leave right after the meeting tomorrow as well, so I will not see much of Oslo then either. What a pity. Will have to come back!

From Skara to Pisco

It really is a small world!!

When I was in Pisco, walking back from having done the last amendments to the donation document and feeling relaxed about having finished our mission I walked past a lot of lorries transporting humanitarian material from the air base out to the surrounding towns and villages. There were of course organisations from all over the world, but the lorries were predominantly Peruvian of course. But then all of a sudden I discovered something!




This lorry once came from Skara!! Which is a small town very close to where I grew up!! From B. Knutsson Bil AB in Skara, Sweden. Funny isn't it?!

Pictures from Pisco

Finally I took some time to post some pictures from my trip to Peru. Not the most touristy ones I guess!!


This is the very beautiful AN12 I travelled with. To be sure, it looks much better from the outside...


This is one of my views I could enjoy for 30 hours. I glimpse of the cockpit.


Yes! I know, I do look tired. And I was! This is how I sat for the whole trip from Sweden to Peru.


We landed at the Pisco air base at 2.30 at night. In the morning we could see the rest of the humanitarian community gathering outside the gates.


We were taken for a car ride through what was once the town Pisco. A very depressing sight!



It was sometimes hard to remember this used to be the homes of people and a quite normal little town.


"Our" firs tent erected!


When our mission was completed, we could relax a bit and smile! Here together with Major Sanchez, who helped us a lot on the site.