In winter Hammerfest is a thirty-hour ride by bus from Oslo, though why anyone would want to go there in winter is a question worth considering. It is on the edge of the world, the northernmost town in Europe, as far from London as London is from Tunis, a place of dark and cruel winters, where the sun sinks into the Arctic Ocean in November and does not rise again for ten weeks.I wanted to see the Northern Lights. Also, I had long harboured a half-formed urge to experience what life was like in such a remote and forbidding place. Sitting at home in England with a glass of whisky and a book of maps, this had seemed an excellent idea. But now as I picked my way through the grey, late-December slush  of Oslo I was beginning to have my doubts. Things had not started well. I had overslept at the hotel, missing breakfast, and had to leap into my clothes. I couldn't find a cab and had to drag my unreasonably overweighted bag eight blocks through slush to the central bus station. I had had huge difficulty persuading the staff at the Kreditkassen Bank on Karl Johans Gate to cash sufficient traveller's cheques to pay the overcharged 1,200-kroner bus fare-they simply could not be made to grasp that the William McGuire Bryson on my passport and the Bill Bryson on my traveller's cheques were both me-and now here I was arriving at the station two minutes before departure, breathless and steaming from the endless uphill exertion that is my life, and the girl at the ticket counter was telling me that she had no record of my reservation. "This isn't happening," I said. "I'm still at home in England enjoying Christmas.Pass me a drop more port, will you, darling?" Actually, I said, "There must be some mistake. Please look again." The girl studied the passenger list. "No, Mr Bryson, your name is not here*" But I could see it, even upside-down. "There it is, second from the bottom,, "No," the girl decided, "that says Bemt Bjornson. That's a Norwegian name*" "It doesn't say Bernt Bjornson. It says Bill Bryson. Look at the loop  of the 'y', the two 'I's. Miss, please." But she wouldn't have it. "If I miss this bus when does the next one go?""Next week at the same time.,, Oh, splendid. "Miss, believe me, it says Bill Bryson." "No, it doesn't." "Miss, look, I've come from England. I'm carrying some medicine that could save a child's life."She didn't buy this. "I want to see the manager." "He's in Stavanger." "Listen, I made a reservation by telephone.If I don't get on this bus I'm going to write a letter to your manager that will cast a shadow over your career prospects for the rest of this century." This clearly did not alarm her. Then it occurred to me. "If this Bemt Bjornson doesn't show up, can I have his seat?" "Sure." Why don't I think of these things in the first place and save myself the suffering? "Thank you," I said, and dragged my bag outside. What words can best describe Hammerfest in winter?
Grey and dirty. Dark and cold. Unfriendly and expensive. Wild and forbidden.