We were up early to catch a bus back into town for breakfast. We had cased a few places the night before and headed straight away to one of the cafes we had seen. This was easier said than done though on the extremely icy footpaths. Rather than clearing the ice (which would be a never ending job) the Norwegians instead strap spikes (like crampons but smaller) to their shoes. For those of us without them it was a case of taking very small steps. We finally made it to a small café where it was a good thing one of the guys I was with spoke Norwegian as the lady didn’t have that great a grasp of English – quite unusual in Norway. I had an omlette (bit like a fritatta) and bread and butter, which must have been authentic as an older local couple, came in for the same thing. After breakfast we did a quick turn around the town, which is quite small, found some presents for the kids and decided to catch the bus back to the base.
The view from my window
The Harstad waterfront
The three guys I was sharing with and I had decided the evening before (after some beers admittedly) that for the full Scandinavian experience we needed to have a sauna (naked of course) and then run out and jump in the snow (again naked). It was time to man up and give it a go. After 15 minutes sweating terribly rolling around in the snow was actually quite refreshing so we did it again but this time with less time in the sauna.
The building where my cabin was. The pile of snow at the end of the road is beside where we did our rolling around
It was soon time to get into uniform for the trip to the airport to catch a C17 home. The flight was actually called forward an hour which is completely unheard of for a RAF flight but we still had to wait in a shed for 90 minutes watching Swedish infantry keep themselves amused wrestling on the concrete floor before getting a through bag search from the RAF MPs. I almost missed the bus to the terminal because I was in the toilet having drunk all my water because we were told that we wouldn’t be able to take more than 100mls of water on the plane (unlike our trip in Morocco) so I had drunk all mine only to be told now we could now take it onboard – bloody airforce! Anyway, we finally got on the plane and it was just like being on a C-130 with more leg room. The flight was uneventful, the boxed meal was rubbish and by 1930 we were getting our bags off the carousel in RAF Brize Norton. I picked up my hire car and by 2130 was at home in the arms of my loving wife.
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