One with Nature

I have officially survived three days alone in the wilderness! Before leaving, I challenged myself to build an oven and bake a loaf of bread. About halfway to my intended camping area, I ran across a spot covered in lots of flat rocks. Perfect for building an oven! I stocked up and started on the second, much longer half of the trek.
Without much help from the typically poor Norwegian map, I made my way to the end of a small lake where I set up camp. I spent the afternoon gathering wood and setting up my oven (several times as it was not the most stable structure). I treated myself to a gourmet meal of pølser og lompe before crawling into my sleeping bags for the night.
Up bright and early at seven o’clock! I was way too warm in two sleeping bags and there was fresh snow sneaking in through the tarp I had wrapped around me. It was a combination that made me quite uncomfortable. Breakfast over the fire was a nice refreshment.
I gathered more wood, and undertook the bread baking project on the second day. I thought it went surprisingly well, but I’ll let you make your own judgements by the pictures. I even thought it tasted okay! The oven only caved in once while I was baking. I made two “loaves”.








While whistling away, enjoying the heat of my “oven”, two fellow soloists had come across my tracks in the woods. Cleverly following them back to my camp, they attempted to sneak up behind me as I waited on my bread. But as a seasoned survivor of rugged wilderness, I heard their footsteps approaching before they could get close enough to really surprise me.
Most of my time was spent either getting firewood, cooking, eating, or sleeping. That evening I made an absolutely delicious campfire meal. Salmon grilled in butter with potatoes, carrots and green onions, wrapped in tinfoil in the centre of the fire. Mmmm. And for dessert, a hollowed out orange filled with chocolate muffin mix, cooked in the same way as the salmon. Fantastic.
Nothing new, but the landscape is just as beautiful.

Overlooking Fagernes

 




Some of my favourite singletrack runs along this creek.



































The school has started a program on Mondays called Tro og Tvile (Faith and Doubt), where small groups of students go to the teachers’ houses for an hour or two. This last Monday, as we were were leaving, I said “Takk for alt”, which means “Thanks for everything”. The teacher replied, “Vil i fred”, or “Rest in peace". Apparently it's a phrase normally used only on tombstones. You can also say it when you’re dying.
Today was Familie Dagen. Most students’ parents came to enjoy slideshows, coffee and tea, a presentation by the students, and a buffet featuring “rømmegrøte” (basically pudding made of sour cream- even my Norwegian friends had more brown sugar in their bowls than grøte). The parents of my friend Olof were here from Holland, and I visited with them for while. Mom and Dad, did I mention they came all the way from Holland?
We’ve started our winter schedule now so I have three new classes: Dogsledding, a band class, and swing dancing. The dancing was actually quite fun. I was talking with one of my classmates after, and he said that he found the steps really hard.
”I was having a lot of trouble, so I always had to watch you.”
”No, I think you were always watching me, so you were having a lot of trouble!”
It’s always very difficult to find time for everything you’d like to do and everything you have to do. For instance, you finally find time to go for a run and you come back all sweaty and ready for a shower. Only then, when you’re half-naked, do you realize that you were only half-finished doing your laundry and that your towel is downstairs in the washing machine… Or you finally start writing a blog post when you realize it's two in the morning. Or you finally get to sleep and before you know it, it's time to drag yourself out of bed (but daylight savings time ends tonight so we get an extra hour of sleep!). This last week was absolutely crazy. The solo trip made for a tight schedule. I came back on Thursday in time for a chapel type meeting around the campfire down on the beach. That was great, except that I was supposed to be playing guitar. I raced to print off the lyrics and chords and we practiced right up until the meeting started. It went alright and I even sang some Norwegian songs!
One of the songs we sang was Blowin’ in the Wind. While walking back to the school, my good friend Elise continued the tune:
”How many times must the dodge-balls fly, before they are forever banned.”
I believe she meant cannonballs?
The weather has unfortunately consisted mainly of rain and sleet. But it hasn’t stopped me from training! I’ve been running with a few other people lately; it makes it a lot more enjoyable.
I cannot wait for the snow to come! An hour’s drive from here there’s about 500m of manmade snow for cross-country. A week from now, I think it will be worth the trip. There is no question that the snow is due; the stores have started selling julebrus (a carbonated Christmas drink) so I guess Christmas is supposedly on its way. It would be nice if the snow followed the commercial calendar.
All for now.