Kasim Sulton in Oslo - Saturday 13th June 2009

I had an absolutely brilliant weekend in Norway and came home feeling very relaxed!

It wasn’t easy to start with though as I had to get up at 3am for my flight. I’d got to bed by 10.30pm and managed to drop off by 11pm so I didn’t feel too tired. I left the house at 3.45am and, not surprisingly, there wasn’t much traffic on the way up to Stanstead Airport.

As I was flying Ryan Air, I didn’t have any luggage to go into the hold so, as I just had hand luggage, I could go straight through to security when I got there. There was hardly any queue but I learnt that I can’t wear old comfortable trousers, not matter how comfortable they are for travelling in, because, since I’ve lost over 30lbs in weight, they are embarrassingly loose once I take my belt off and they constantly tried to fall down so I was struggling with my bag in one hand and holding up my trousers with the other!

I had time for some breakfast and then we boarded the plane at about 6am. Somehow I ended up near the front of the queue so I could choose my seat with ease once I got onto the plane (Ryan Air have a “race for a good seat” policy!) and nobody came and sat next to me.

The plane took off on time at 6.25am and we actually landed 30 minutes early at 9am Norwegian time (an hour in front of UK time). Ryan Air had such a bad reputation for being late so now they play a trumpet fanfare when the plane lands early or on time!

Of course Immigration was easy and I didn’t have to wait for any luggage so I was at my Car Hire by 9.15am. Unfortunately there was nobody there so I rang the number and was told that there’s one guy on site and a car had been returned with a flat tyre so he was away getting that fixed and would be back until 10am! He arrived on time so I picked by my black Toyota Aurius. It was a nice enough car but I’m not used to driving a manual left-hand drive car so it took a bit of getting used to at first. Before that though I couldn’t even start the car so I had to go back to the desk to ask for help! It turned out that you have to depress both the clutch and brake when you turn the engine on (I’d been trying both of them separately!).

Sandefjord Airport is 70 miles north of Oslo and I’d booked a hotel at the main Oslo Airport which is 40 miles south of Oslo so I had a 110 mile drive to get to my hotel. (I choose a hotel at the airport as I knew there’d be parking there rather than trying to find parking in a street in the city.) Thankfully it was a really lovely sunny day and the roads weren’t busy. It was actually a lovely drive down as the countryside was so green (they don’t have fields divided up with fences or hedges like we do in UK) and there were several tunnels of varying lengths that I had to drive through. In Norway, as in most Scandinavian countries, you have to drive with your headlights on all day even in brilliant sun. I managed to find a radio station that only played music in English so that was good.

At one point I had to pay a toll and it totally confused me! I didn’t have enough change (only notes which it didn’t seem to accept), so I tried putting my Visa card in but it didn’t seem to accept that. I then tried pushing the ringing bell but nobody answered! I then panicked and just pressed every button I could see and the light turned green! I don’t know how that happened!

However when I drove through Oslo there was a sign that there was another toll to pay (my blood pressure went up at that point!) but I saw a sign in the car that it was fitted with an AV Access Pass and it seemed to allow me to go through okay so I think that may have been what happened the other time too. I’ll find out when I get my credit card statement!

Oslo was beautiful. Again there were lots of tunnels under the city but the road took me past the luxury cruise liner and yacht area so that was really pretty. There was one massive 12 storey high liner in port too.

I arrived at my hotel at about 1pm. It’s an amazing place as there were 14 "hanger" shaped buildings (7 at the front and 7 at the back) which housed all the bedrooms. The fact that struck me was how quiet it was! The room was typically Scandinavian (single beds!) but the best part was that the bathroom had a heated floor. There was only a shower (no bath) as they tend to have over here but the worst part is that there was no tea-making facilities! Thankfully there was a McDonalds just up the road so I went there a couple of times to get a cuppa!

I left the hotel again at about 2pm and drove back to Oslo. My SatNav lead me easily to the place where the festival was being held but the road was closed to traffic so instead I found somewhere nearby to park and walked back. I had a wander around the venue and then sat in the sun while a local band played and then I watched The Pretenders. I thought I only knew one of their songs but in fact I recognised four and it was a good set that went down well with the crowd.

I wrote quite a detailed review (as always!) of Todd’s set on KasimInfo.com at http://www.kasiminfo.co.uk/2009/06/13.html plus a video of the set can be viewed online (link on the review page). The funny part is that Kasim can clearly be seen in that video shouting at me about where to meet him afterwards! (I didn’t realise that they were filming it other than to show on the large screen at the festival – I can clearly be seen a few times!) Kasim seemed to be really enjoying himself on stage (despite the evidence in my photos!) and showed no signs of jetlag which I thought was very impressive! He said afterwards that he left California at 8am on Friday morning and landed at Oslo Airport at lunchtime today after changing plans once!

I didn’t stay to see the headliner Big Band as they are a Norwegian band that I don’t know so I got back to my room by 11pm. It was so peaceful that it was wonderful!