expensive walk...

I still am having a hard time wrapping my head around the currency conversion and how expensive things are around here. Let me back up a bit...
Yesterday when we arrived in our hotel, one of the first things i did was attempt to plug in my laptop. We brought 2 converters along with us for all of our electronics. What we did not get, or should i say, did not know we needed were inserts for our converters-an adapter for our adapter. On our way back from lunch we stopped at a store which did not carry just the adapter sold seperatley so we had to buy ANOTHER converter. We got back to the hotel, Jeremy got in bed for a nap, I plugged everything in...the power cord to the converter to the adapter to the wall. About 10 minutes into me typing away i see little puffs of smoke coming from the converter. I ripped the power cord out, try to put together a sentence so i could wake up Jeremy, and try to fan off the convert while staring at the smoke detector! I could just imagine, our first day here and we either burn the place down or drench it! We did a little research and it turns out we did not need a voltage converter for the power cord, just an adatper. The laptop is all set now!
So this morning, well, more like 11am, I was trying to get ready to go out, and part of my getting ready routine is taking a flat iron to my squirlly bangs...we read the tag on the flat iron and it says we need to use a converter...we have the converter that was smoking and we have the other converter we brought but we did not want to open it in case we could return it. So I chance it, I plug the flat iron into the converter, plug that into the adapter and plug it all in the wall. Next thing I know, the converter is crackling and smoking. I quickly pulled it out and placed it on the window sill vowing never to use it again. We bust open the other converter, plug it in and nothing happens. I don't mean nothing happens like there was no smoke, I mean the flat iron could barley heat up. Which brings me to my story of the most expensive 15 minute walk i have ever been on and how i feel bad for foreigners visiting other countries.
I walk down stairs and ask Alex the concierge, who luckily spoke English, if he knew of a place that sold girly hair things, he directed me down the street and told me to look to the left...off i went. After a few minutes, I see Studio Alf Frisorer, see 5 people standing inside, walk up to the door, pull on the handle, the door doesn't open. the people ignore me so i walk down a little alley way to ask some super cute Norwegian girl if she knows where i can buy a flat iron...again, luckily she spoke a little English. She tells me to go in the hair salon, 'is it open?', I asked, she says yes and then laughed at me when i told her i only tried to pull the door open, not push it in. So i go inside and ask the super cute Norwegian boy for a flat iron, he has two kinds for sale. I bought the cheaper one...once i left and headed to the coffee shop i realized just how much the cheaper one was, i am embarrased to even say, just know that it was outrageous! I then head over to the coffee shop, order a couple of mochas,turns out they don't take US debit cards. I had change in my wallet but I was 10 kroner short so i had to run across the street to the atm, head back over and wait in line again. They were nice enough to make my drinks while i ran to the bank so once i paid i was on my way.

I think I did okay for not having Jeremy with me to loosely translate for me, although I was lucky so many people spoke my language. I can only imagine trying to explain "flat iron" to someone who had no idea what I was saying.

That 15 minute walk set me back a pretty penny, i mean kroner, but hey, at least i have a flat iron for the nex time we come here!