I hadn’t planned to get phone service in Norway, so I downloaded maps to my phone before leaving Seattle. After the long train ride it felt good to be immersed in the jostling crowd as we wove our path toward the apartment. We followed my map to find the apartment we had rented. Not seeing a street sign, I asked a phone company vendor who was folding up her booth for the night whether we were on Fredolsensgate as I thought. She didn’t know.
Dronningensgate 15, #213
In the next block we found a street sign and knew we were heading the right way. We found an enormous old building with an ornate corner door labeled 15. However the door was gated shut in a way that showed the door was no longer used.
Maybe the 15 was an address for the cross street. I pulled our suitcases down the block again in search of another 15. No luck. Aaaarrrrgg! At this point my subconscious was beginning to form plans for finding a hotel in Oslo on the weekend of the biggest holiday of the year. My mom calmly viewed it as an adventure.
Finally I resorted to looking at the reservation confirmation. Oh! We were supposed to pick up the key at their business office across town. That meant we’d need a taxi. That was one of the moments I really missed having a fully functional phone. But, my mom who doesn’t rely on her phone as a constant connection to places and people, simply suggested we ask someone to call a taxi for us.
The woman working at the cinema called a taxi, and the man offered to look up the address for us on a map. I asked him to look up Dronningsgate 15, the address of our ephemeral apartment, and he did. It was in the next block where we found the 15. So maybe that was our building. I trusted the apartment office would tell us how to get in.
The apartment office was in a building with several other businesses and a security door. A couple with suitcases was trying to get out of the door as I stepped up, so I waited for them to open the door. With two bolts having their own twisting releases it apparently wasn’t easy to figure out how to unlock the door. It took the young man over a minute with his wife offering suggestions before he succeeded. As I watched him I imagined a dire image of a smoke filled building and a crowd of panicked people in the vestibule desperately trying to unlock the door.
When the couple finally escaped, I slipped inside and climbed the stairs to the apartment management company. after getting the key I returned to the cab and we finally arrived at the apartment’s door on a side street. The outer door is unlocked by a chip inside a small plastic card. I waved the chip over the door locks and hardware, over the security intercom, and finally over the magic panel which buzzed the door open.
Dronningensgate 15, #213
On the second floor we went down a long hallway before it turned left, right, left, right and down another length ending with a door showing an emergency exit sign above it. The room numbers had been getting higher but not up to 213, our room. Mom opened the exit door and found another length of hallway with more rooms. Ours was at the end. Our windows look onto the street on the opposite side of the building from where we entered.