Another Good Month

Time flies when you’re having fun! As usual, it’s been another busy month in Norway. Lately, volleyball has been a significant time consumer, as we’ve been practicing towards our first game! Although we began before Christmas, we have had very few opportunities to practice since everyone has different schedules and, in the period after the holidays, the players were literally on opposite sides of the world. One class was in Kenya, another in Guatemala and El Salvador, one in Cuba, and a couple classes in Austria (in March, one class will be in Alaska and another in the Himalayas!).



In any case, we have managed to hold a few practices in the last couple of weeks, and in that time, we have learned a rotation (volleyball strategy) in preparation for the game against our neighbours, the Valdres Videregående Skole (approximately the Norwegian equivalent of a high school). During a very recent phone call with the coach at the high school, he asked if we also had a girls team, as they had started one in December and had been practicing towards a game against us. I, of course, not to refuse a challenge, said we did, and then struggled and eventually succeeded in rounding up enough girls and getting a couple of practices in before the big day. So, last Tuesday, I got the gym ready and our opponents showed up at the school- three hours early, so that they could practice and warm up. We folk high school students were actually by far outnumbered by them that day; almost everyone had gone to Oslo for a career fair type thing. The bus back from Oslo was late, but we got the game underway eventually. The girls played first, in front of a large, and enthusiastic student crowd. They lost in two sets but played very well, especially considering the amount they had practiced. Then it was us. During hitting warm-up, I think we were a little intimidating, as their coach confirmed after the game! However, not everyone fully understood the rotation tactics and it showed in the first set. Part way into the second set, we started to relax a little, and we came back from a seven point deficit to push the game to a third set! Our second set really did look good, and we had a lot of good plays and great hits. I’m not entirely sure what happened next, but I can tell you that we lost. It was fun either way, and we had most of the school behind us, cheering, clapping and belting out over-dramatic “ooh”s and “aah”s. We’ve had one practice since then, and there was actually a surprisingly large number of girls who turned up wanting to play. We’re looking forward to our next game!

Much of my time at the school is clearly spent with different sports and outdoor pursuits, but there are also less-structured, quirkier ways to use your free time.

One of these latest endeavours happens to pertain to my sweeter side… Yes, I thought that might capture the attention of all the aunts out there who may be reading this, not to mention my mom (who asks discreetly in every e-mail and Skype conversation about the potential Norwegian blondes I may have become involved with; now I’ve really sparked your curiosity!) …
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my involvement, as of yet, does not reach much further than volleyball practices. No, the particular endeavour I am referring to in this instance is the honourable 1kg chocolate challenge! (Drum-roll) Yes, the perilous pursuit of greatness and success, far more demanding than any hunt for blond-haired, blue eyed specimens of Viking lineage. The challenge is simple in nature: eat one kilogram of chocolate in one sitting. To date, only the contest’s founder has succeeded; the dog-sledding teacher, John Olav, allegedly ingested 1.00 kilograms of milk chocolate last year. This year, his legend has prevailed, with his recent conquer of a second kilogram of individually wrapped assorted chocolates. I witnessed this feat, and I can attest that each epic jaw movement, and each struggle of his throat directly reflected the revolting mountain of multiplying candy wrappers on the coffee table. Others have taken up the quest, but none have braved the entire trek. I myself do not yet feel up to the task but the looming gateway to manhood keeps me awake at night, and fate ushers me toward my sweet destiny. I must answer, and I kid you not, at this very moment, I prepare myself, as I consume the chocolate bar sitting next to me on the table (really)! I ask for your prayers. I will keep you informed!

Also occurring at the school recently is the LAN marathon. With nearly as much valour at stake as the 1kg challenge, the whole of Valdres Folkehøgskole flocked to the gymnasium, laptops in hand, for the entire duration of the weekend. The event consisted of everyone sitting at their pc’s playing video games together for as long as humanly possible. Does it get any better?! Well, to be honest, it gets a lot better in my opinion, although Nils did express severe disappointment upon hearing that I hadn’t participated. I attribute my passiveness to reasons of computer malfunction, lack of sleep, and most of all, plain disinterest. I spent the weekend telemarking and backcountry skiing instead!


Probing for possible snowcave locations. That’s a three metre probe.

And so it was that I and three other friends took off on a little ski trip last Sunday. We took to the winding highways of Norway after breakfast and after following a semi most of the way to Filefjel, we finely arrived at the Intersport ski shop where Hans (not me) needed to buy some climbing skins. This only took over an hour, and by two o’clock we’d closed the car doors and fastened our bindings! Despite the slow start, the sun was shining, and it was a mere 13 below compared to the –29 which read in the car’s display en route. None of us had been on skins before and we all appreciated the effortless climb up the mountain. We didn’t all make it to the top but it was a fun trip and we even made it back in time for me to skip supper and start another volleyball practice!

Since the trip to Austria, I’ve been on a couple short class trips. A couple of weeks ago, we went on a three day snow-caving trip behind the ski centre. I must say I was a little sceptic as to how we would find enough snow, and not to say “I told you so” or anything like that, but we spent the first night in the open air. This was in fact quite nice as well, but I did prefer the snow-cave of our second night. It was a fair bit of digging, but it was much warmer inside the cave and far more comfortable, especially with candles to light up the snow. Although our efforts were certainly worth it, our neighbouring snow-cavers were not so lucky. Unfortunately, they hollowed out a little too much snow, and were left with a rather overwhelming skylight which effectively defeated the purpose of the shelter. Oh well. And by the way, for those of you safety nuts, our teacher slept in a tent and checked each cave throughout the night.


Here, you see the class huddling together for warmth, as the conditions were not favourable for snowcaving.



I just realised that I nearly left out the most exciting part of the trip! Although, the area was not so remote, our teacher, Magnus, was not so familiar with the snowy roadways. We of course went the wrong way, and had to turn around. We drove the minibus up a driveway and backed out onto the road again. The trailer, on the other hand, took a nice little turn into the ditch! Our class cheered and tires spun, while Magnus kept his focus on the road. I got out and pushed the bus up the hill and out of the ditch, but that didn’t work (really?), so Magnus came and joined and started to unhook the trailer. As he did so, I pictured in my mind, the bus rolling back and squishing my poor friend between the bumper and the nose of the trailer.
Déjà vu. In my traction-less ski boots loaned from Paul, I skidded up the icy driveway, jumped in the moving bus, and slammed on the brakes! I may have saved the house on the downhill side of the road, not to mention the lives of my classmates, but I was too late to prevent a few decent scratches and dents along the side of the bus, from the corner of the trailer. Luckily, we happened to have the odd snow-shovel along on our snow-caving trip, and we eventually dug out the trailer and got back on our way. (True story, although I may have played up certain heroic moments!)



In order to bring myself back to a reasonable state of humbleness, I will recount a series of events which has slowly unrolled since my return from Austria.
A while ago, I was preparing for volleyball practice, but could not find my shoes. Anywhere. Not in my room, not in the hall, not in the dorm, not in the gym, not in the weight room … Nowhere. I even inquired about it at one of our weekly dorm meetings. No luck. I eventually moved on, and made do without my old pair of shoes.
Somewhere along the line, I next became aware of the absence of a certain pair of blue gym shorts I had. I checked everywhere. Not in my room, not in the laundry room, and no where in between. Again, I eventually relinquished the matter.
Then, as I was packing for a trip, I couldn’t find my backpack- which I kind of wanted to find. I checked everywhere, even in the first floor room with which ours was switched while we were in the Alps. Nothing. I thought about the matter a little, and eventually concluded that the last time I had used the backpack was during a trip to the gymnasium in Fagernes.
At this point, everything sunk in. Missing gym shorts, missing gym shoes, and a missing backpack, last used at the gym in Fagernes!!! This had been almost a month earlier, so I didn’t have much hope of finding it. However, I thought I may as well check up at the school. I walked in the door, and sure enough, first thing I see, is my backpack hanging on the coat rack, in it, my shoes, shorts, and even a shirt whose absence I hadn’t noticed! I’m sure it had been hanging there the whole time, and I’d probably looked straight at a good 100 times on my way to and from each meal for the last month.
Mystery solved!

Our most recent trip consisted of a short stay with the dog-sledding class. We slept in tents near the dog-yard, and had a laidback evening around the campfire. Earlier in the afternoon, we did a little skijoring, but my dog, Flaum, didn’t really seem to be aware of that. Then, later that night, we took the sleds out for a night-time ride amid the falling snow. It was really nice and I can only imagine what it would be like under a clear sky of stars and northern lights! The ensuing campfire was quite memorable; with about thirty of us sitting around a massive pile of burning logs, it was probably the biggest hotdog roast in which I’ve ever participated! Although there is no electricity or running water up with the dogs, John Olav (who lives there and owns the dogs, eats chocolate, and is basically just a great guy) brought out the generator, hooked up the stereo and cranked some rowdy Norwegian tunes, further enhancing our nature experience!
The next morning was, well … We had to get up at eight so that we could eat oatmeal and leave by ten to be back at the school for lunch. If we wished, we could get up early and take a second skijoring trip. I chose to sleep, and when my tent-mate and I eventually made it out of our tent by 9:30 (that’s 1:30am mountain standard time if you’re confused), the skijoring crew was only starting to leave. On top of that, we were to find out that there was in fact no oatmeal after all!
We packed up the tent and were ready well before ten o’clock, so I helped some of the others clean up around the campfire. We had to haul a bunch of square bales across the dog-yard, up a small hill, and to the shed. Of course, with only two or three of us, it would have taken quite a few trips to get all the bales over to the shed. Couldn’t we find a simple way to do it all in one shot? Luckily, we had a big tarp with us, so we loaded the bales into a big heap in the centre, and started to pull… Ingenuity has its weaknesses. I guess we slightly miscalculated the extent of our manpower, but we quickly compensated with the help of twenty or so other recruits. Having recalled these events again, I’ve just come up with what would have been a brilliant, if not obvious solution! We should’ve gotten the dogs to pull it, instead of letting them all sit there, laughing at our struggles!
Eventually (maybe 11:30), the others got back from their “early” morning excursion, and we all clamoured into the bus. The backpacks were all in the trailer, and although Magnus was chauffeuring, we were finally ready to go! It was at this point that John Olav informed us that he needed about thirty volunteers to haul firewood up the hill to the shed. Remember, none of us had eaten, and the dog-yard smelled like, well, dogs. We decided against the tarp technique, and got the job done in good time.
It was a fun outing, and just enough to get everything dirty the day before the holidays.


You can see I’m the only one who’s not making a weird face while looking at a map. Because I don’t need a map.

I’ve taken part in a couple of significant cross-country skiing events recently. I think I have mentioned before that I am planning to ski the real Norwegian Birki in March. Earlier in February, there was a Birki seeding race near Valdres which I raced in. 46km of hard work got me to the finish line in 2:57:11. I reached my 3 hour goal and it should hopefully be enough to seed me ahead of a few thousand racers at the Birki (there are 16,000 participants yearly)!
Last Monday, the skiing option class took a day (literally!) to trek the 50km from Beitostølen back to the school. It took a solid eight hours, and it was rather cold if you weren’t moving (about –20). But it was alright. The best part was being one of the first to come down a big hill, at the top of which stood a sign warning about the ice at the bottom. I’ll admit that I did fall; the entire trail was covered in ice, much like a section of trail in Athabasca, where water flows from a spring across the trail all winter long. Of the 30 or so skiers who were with us that day, I would guess that at least half of them fell. There was really no way of warning anyone before they came around the corner, so all we could do was watch, and laugh if they didn’t get hurt (no one got hurt, amazingly)! It wasn’t always the first thing you noticed on such a cold day, but when you did peek out from inside your balaclava, you took in some truly beautiful scenery.

My Norwegian is still progressing, I think? Not too long ago, I was talking about a possible job opportunity here in Norway with a friend, and I explained to her that “det ser ut som jeg kan egentlig jobbe så langt som jeg ville”. Or, “it sounds like I can basically work as slowly as I want”! I had meant to say “as long as I wanted”. At least I wasn’t talking with the boss!
Purely for your entertainment, Peter Solberg, a Norwegian racecar driver, made a similar blunder. I might suggest that his was slightly more humourous, but I’ll leave that up to your judgement. Before I continue, you must understand that he is nearly as famous for his poor English skills as he is for his racecar driving. During an English interview once, he is known to have said, “It’s not the fart that kills you, it’s the smell”! In Norwegian, “fart” directly translates to “speed”, and “smell” to “crash”.
Just imagine how easy it would be to learn Norwegian if there were such expressions for all words!
There is one rather interesting word which has made its way into the Norwegian vocabulary which is not so difficult to remember. Unfortunately, due to its online origin, it is not one I am too keen on using. “Laugh Out Loud”. Among Norway’s youth, the infamous MSN acronym is permeating the Norwegian language, in its transliterated form: “lol”, as a single word, pronounced “lool”. It drives me crazy. “Ya man, great story! It was so lool!” or “Do that crazy lool thing again! It’s so lool!” Ugh.

That pretty much sums up the last month here in Valdres. I guess I could mention that my camera doesn’t focus anymore, so I don’t have too many recent pictures of my own. (It’s under warranty and should be getting fixed right now, so I should be back in business by the time of my next blog post, which could be who knows when!) My luck with electronics is steadily going downhill. My computer only works about 20 percent of the time too, so aside from me being busy all the time, that could serve as a good excuse for my lethargic blogging practices!

I am currently on holiday right now in Cyprus, staying with Per and Lill under their extremely generous hospitality! I’ll post about that later but I will say that the weather is fantastic and I’m having a great time!
The morning I left the school for the holidays, I had a little time to kill, so I figured, “why not take a little skate on the rink before I go”? There were a good two inches of snow, and I scraped the whole rink. By the time I was almost finished, I had about 15 minutes to play hockey before I needed to catch the bus. I say almost finished because, as I set the shovel aside, the groundskeeper came with the tractor and took a quick circle around the edge of the rink to clean up the little snow I had missed. Thanks for the help!

One last thing. Happy Birthday Nils!
I would kindly remind each of you to call him and greet him on his special day! The number is 780-675-5248! He’s not usually very busy, so you can look forward to a good long talk! Don’t forget to mention that his older brother is still older and more mature than him! Lool!



’Til next time