Leaving Iceland was bittersweet as could be. We made our way to the airport early on Tuesday morning under gray skies, with a cold rain falling and a gusty breeze. It was literally the first bad weather we’d had all week — which in Iceland is just shy of an actual miracle.

While we were sad to leave the country behind, we were more than satisfied with the great trip we’d had. The experience had exceeded all of our expectations. And we knew we’d be coming back someday to pick up where we left off.

We were also finally starting to get excited for Spain again. Though anxiety over beginning this new chapter had come and gone throughout the last week, being at the airport with our bags and plane tickets in hand, I felt ready.

Goodbye Iceland. Hola, Madrid!

But first… Norway happened.

Due to the combined factors of a late flight from Reykjavik, confusion over the time difference and a few moments of stupidity, we missed our connecting flight to Madrid in Oslo.

I’ve missed flights before, and it was never a big deal. I was always placed on a new one within a few hours without paying an extra penny. But the Oslo airport is a place devoid of convenience, sympathy or helpfulness. And that’s where we were to spend the next 12 hours of our lives.

After being flatly told that there were no more flights to Madrid tonight and that the value of our ticket would not be honored, my resolve to stay calm and hold it together totally crumbled. The tears started gushing like an Icelandic waterfall.

I can’t even begin to count how many pairs of cold Norwegian eyes gazed blankly upon my splotchy tear-streaked face. How many times my hiccuping, quavering pleas were answered with shrugs.

Now, I won’t deny that it was 100% our fault that we missed the flight. I’m sure Norway is a lovely place, as full of good and bad people as any other. Oslo probably has a redeeming quality or two. But godddamn did I hate everything about the place and its people during that night.

We spent hours just trying to book a new flight. We went from ticket counter to ticket counter, where every agent would only tell us to look on the internet and leave them alone. They could not look up flights for us. They could not sell us the flights. They could only tell us to look on the internet and do it ourselves. I am still pretty much baffled by what it is these people actually do for their jobs.

Attempting to use the internet to figure it out ourselves was a nightmare as well. Every website was coming up in Norwegian, for one thing. Though we initially saw (and attempted to purchase) some great deals, they ended up being on scam websites. Everything else we were finding would have cost the majority of our savings. At one point we were considering buying tickets that would have had us spending the night in Oslo and then ANOTHER night in fucking Moscow: that’s how desperate things were looking.

All the while, we had to deal with getting kicked off the WiFi every half-hour or so and being forced to start the search over after going through the process of logging back in. Our devices kept dying, and we had only one barely functional power converter to share — which required you to sit very still and use one hand holding it in the outlet at the right angle.

Then, when we finally found tickets that weren’t astronomically expensive, our banks required authentication because we hadn’t told them we’d be using our accounts in Norway. We were sent confirmation emails over and over, but by the time we’d received the confirmation emails, we’d be kicked off the WiFi, then have to request new confirmation emails, then get kicked off the WiFi again.

At last, hours after we’d arrived, we had successfully purchased tickets. But we still had hours more to go — the flight wasn’t until 6:30 am. We hunkered down in a sad little plastic booth to spend the night, far too anxious and angry at ourselves and Oslo and everything to get any sleep.

Here are some fun facts about the Oslo airport:

It’s on a street named for Edvard Munch. Heard of him? He’s the artist who created the famous painting “The Scream,” which, incidentally, is just what I resembled for most of the night:

The airport’s main aesthetic accent is this sculpture that so strikingly resembles a semi-flaccid penis that it can’t possibly have been an accident:

RIGHT? Talk about a boner killer.

Also, a single beer in Norway costs something like $15, while a large pizza would have been about $36.

We just laid there, in our sad little booth and later on a sad little patch of cold, hard floor, gazing at the penis sculpture, watching the minutes tick ever so slowly away, and torturing ourselves with thoughts about what we’d be doing at that moment, in an alternate timeline in which we made it to Madrid on schedule.

Finally 6:30 arrived and salvation came. Though we still had a long day of traveling ahead and wouldn’t arrive in Madrid until 5 pm, as soon as we left the airport behind, we were positively jubilant. Well, maybe until about 20 minutes into our 6-hour Brussels layover, where we found ourselves again trying to sleep on another hard airport floor.

“At least we’re not in fucking Oslo” was the mantra that got us through the day.

Things got even better once we left Brussels. It turned out that the plane tickets we’d bought — by far the cheapest we could find — were actually business class, so we let the flight attendants wine and dine us like a couple of haggard, semi-delirious vagabond CEOs.

Free champagne? Don’t mind if we do! Followed by a steaming hot platter of gnocchi in cream sauce accompanied with delicately wrapped Belgian chocolates, fresh baguette, delicious cheese, and butter so fresh and flavorful I could have eaten a whole stick of it? Yes please, and more wine, garcon!

About a day and a half after leaving Iceland, we arrived in Spain feeling like whole new human beings — albeit ones in dire need of showers and naps. Luckily, they awaited us at the lovely AirBnB apartment we’d booked, which turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. More on that next time!

**EDIT**: I wrote this a few days ago, but we don’t have WiFi at our apartment yet, so I had to come to a cafe to upload it. While I worked I got to talking to the man sitting next to us, who turned out to be FROM OSLO, and he’s the nicest person in the world. Go figure.