Our guidebook called October “shoulder season.” Summer tourists had gone home. Winter tourists had not yet arrived.

The airport looked like a modern log cabin dropped beside the runway.

We stepped into the cold night air and climbed aboard the shuttle into Oslo.

The driver glanced at us in the mirror.

“Where are you from?”

Dani answered.

“California.”

He nodded.

“Why on Earth did you come to Norway… in October?”

He waited for an answer that would make sense.

The silence didn’t last long.

As we approached the city, he motioned me forward.

“Bring your camera.” He said.

I stood beside him as the bus disappeared into a tunnel.

“Ready?”

The tunnel opened onto the city.

Lights spread across the harbor. The buildings climbed the hillside beyond.

I raised my camera, but before I could take a picture, we hit a bump.

I stumbled forward, and the driver caught me. He smiled, then turned back to the windshield.

A few minutes later he asked another question.

“Do you have a hotel?”

“Yes.” I said.

“You are sure?”

“Yes.”

Dani, this time.

She told him the name.

He relaxed.

“Good. Just don’t sleep on the steps of City Hall. Okay?”

I looked at Dani. She looked back at him.

“No. We have a hotel.”

I pulled my jacket tighter around me as I found my seat.

Outside, the bus rolled on through the rain, the city lights growing nearer then cut off by blackness as we entered another tunnel.