Mind the Gap

I suppose I may as well start at the beginning. It feels so long ago. The beginning of our week long trek to London… We got off to a great start; Olof and I caught our flights to Stansted Airport without a hitch. We tolerated Ryanair’s (the famous European airline with seat-sales for ridiculously low prices, it’s cheaper than taking the bus) minimal legroom for a couple of hours before arriving in England where we were finally able to lie down at midnight to relax on the floor of the airport! I spent the night with stomach cramps and a sore back, pleasantries which helped me forget the noise of the cleaning machine as it droned past our sleeping quarters.

We caught the (not-so-)Easybus into London (when it finally came) the next morning and rocked out at the London Beatles Shop before snooping out the Sherlock Holmes Museum. My first impression of London was quite good. There are many nice parks.

  After checking into our hostel (which cost a mere 56 pounds for five nights!), we hopped on the tube in search of London’s main attractions.
St. Paul’s Cathedral was the first stop; a towering structure of awe-inspiring masonry on the outside, and an ornate sanctuary on the inside. Upon climbing hundreds of stairs to the top of the dome, we were rewarded with a panoramic view of the city.

I’m not certain that I can portray all that this story is worth, but I offered to take a picture for three Japanese girls at the top of the cathedral and they went absolutely crazy! They sounded like a chorus of at least 20 or 30 girls sweetly chanting (?) “thank-you you so much, awe… thank-you!”  This recurred another two times in exactly the same way as I took pictures with second and third cameras. I guess you had to be there, but it was absolutely hilarious; I could hear Olof laughing as he hid around the corner.

We meandered through the streets and then crossed the “Wibbly-wobbly” Bridge (named as such with respect to the grand opening when the bridge “wibbled” and (you guessed it) wobbled under the weight of hundreds of stampeding Englishmen. On the other side of the Thames, we toured the Globe Theatre and then made our way back across the water via the ever-famous London Tower Bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olof and I decided on London for four reasons. Flights were incredibly cheap, Olof’s brother is working there, I wanted to meet Mom’s friends, the Jacksons, and flights were incredibly cheap.
We met up with Nils (no, not my brother, Olof’s brother) that evening and had a good time.

Upon arriving in London, we each purchased a London Pass which admitted us into most of London’s main attractions. We were anxious to get our money’s worth, so we found ourselves running around the city via the tube, the bus and the sidewalk for hours on end. We made a visit to the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels before taking the boat down the river towards Chelsea FC Stadium- to find out that the last tour of the day had already left. We further explored the city that night, along with Nils, taking in some of China town and the Green Park area.

 

The following day, we made Chelsea a priority and headed there first thing in the morning, ascending the Wellington Arch and checking out Royal Albert Hall en route. It was a nice stadium, but what stood out most was the contrast between the away and home dressing rooms. According to the guide, this particularity has made at least some contribution to the team’s impressive success. While Chelsea enjoys a flat-screen TV and fancy lockers, the opponents have to squeeze into the corner of the room to see the drawing board- which also happens to be right behind the door- which in fact has to remain open at all times for fire safety reasons…

This was the last day that we could use our passes, so in the afternoon, after having seen most of what we wanted to see, we stood outside the most expensive attraction and sold our passes for twenty pounds to a couple of fellow tourists. They got in cheap, we got some of our money back, everybody’s happy!

That evening, we asked Nils’ boss at the hotel about a good place to eat fish and chips. A quick trip in the tube, and we were sitting down at the Shakespeare, waiting for London’s best.
And now, if I can give a small piece of advice. Never read a restaurant review online when you’ve already ordered your food! The comments we`re so negative I was almost convinced they were written by high school students studying Hamlet!
”Do you get a free pair of wellies with every pint? Because you need them to use the Gent’s.”
”… yet another soulless pub…”
”Malaria appears to be growing in the toilets.”
”A truly horrendous pub on every level.”
”Avoid this place like the plague. No, really do.”
”The food will probably kill you.”
In the end, the food didn’t kill me (although I haven’t heard from Nils since we left London") but I did decide against visiting the men’s room.

Another promenade brought us through Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden. Here we witnessed a street performer juggling a running chainsaw with his pants off (not without a painstakingly long build-up in which there was nothing worth seeing). Typical English…

With the expiry of our London Pass, it was time to seek out London’s free attractions. We made our way to the National Gallery where we toured the numerous halls at an increasingly brisk pace (there was lots of fine art but there was lots…).

Oxford Street-Primark-British Museum-Harrod’s-Regent’s Park-Tate Modern-Natural History Museum-De Hems-The Monument-Changing of the Guards… We saw it all. The museums and galleries were enormous and we could have spent the entire day in any one of them (if we had enough mental stamina).
As I said to a fellow spectator at the Changing of the Guards, “Well, we can say we’ve been here, but that’s about all.” The crowd was far bigger than I expected, and, standing at the very back, all we could see was Buckingham Palace and the black “hats” of the guards.
We didn’t make any purchases at Harrod’s, but we did see a 275 000 pound watch and some New Zealand beef for 198 pounds to the kilo!

As little time as we spent at the hostel, we had some good conversations with the Italian and the Spaniards who were rooming with us. The former was there looking for work but he repeatedly told me how much he wanted to go to Vancouver. He said this almost as many times as he mentioned the scenic beauty of Italy (although he also expressed a passionate dislike of Italian culture).

It was great to meet people in London. We spent our last evening in England with Dei Jackson and her husband Daniel. We were a little late meeting them. We discovered that the tube is not always as straight forward as we first thought. At busy times, it is busy! We had to wait for the third train to finally get on. Then, just outside the entrance to King’s Cross, Olof’s 150 Euro contact lens fell out on the sidewalk. Surprisingly, from amid a city of 10 million corporate-minded, tourist-ignoring inhabitants, there happened to be a very kind, eagle-eyed lady walking by who bent down and picked up Olof’s lens! I still can’t believe she found it. Was Olof ever happy!

We had a great time with Dei and Daniel at a quiet old English pub around the corner from the British Library where Dei works. We shared updates and talked about numerous different things. It was a very nice evening and it was nice to sit down and relax for more than five minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   Invading London aboard the HMS Belfast.

Scheduled for the next morning was another trip on the not-so-Easybus. We eventually found the pickup point (which was not at all where the map said it would be) only to discover that there were about three times as many people as seats. To the train we went; it turned out to be five pence cheaper and a lot easier!
At the airport I decided I may as well get rid of the seven pounds I had left, so I bought some Double Deckers, Twirls and Wispies to satisfy my craving for chocolate. I also purchased a five pound, European adapter for the four pound, English cell-phone that I bought during the trip. Yes! Four pounds!
As good as the chocolate was, my small shopping excursion nearly gave Olof a heart-attack and I think it likely taught him some new English words (he’s Dutch if I haven’t mentioned that yet); I came back to the place we’d been sitting only to find that Olof and our bags had disappeared! I looked around for a bit and when I finally found him (looking for me), he was in an obvious panic.
”The gate closes in five minutes!!!”
We made it. And I’m not sure what the deal was but it seemed we could have waited another 20 minutes to get on. Olof did show me after, however, on our Dutch boarding passes, that the gate closed at the time which he had thought. Anyways, although Olof almost breathed his last breath, we made it back to Oslo- where the story didn’t end!
I had arranged a ride with a friend from the airport back to the school, but the day before our return, her car had been broken into, so she had e-mailed me to say that she might not be able to come. The plan was that she would text either me or Olof. But as Murphy would have it, Olof’s phone died, and mine decided not to work in Norway (it works now)! I used the payphone to call her but I got the answering machine (she later told me that her phone had also died!). So we sat in Oslo for a while wondering whether we should wait or take the train. Fortunately, she showed up! The first thing they said (she had another friend with her as well) was that on the way to pick us up, their skis had fallen off the roof of their car! We got on our way and stopped at a gas station for a bite to eat, and after driving for a half hour or so, we realized that it would most likely have also been a good idea to fill the tank! Thankfully, we held out until the next pump.

And finally, we made it back after a very busy, but enjoyable week in London!

  That red spot in the middle is Olof. (Taken from the top of The Monument.)
 
           And that’s me. (Taken from the bottom of The Monument.)

                        And no, it’s not photo-shopped.

Inside The Monument… (And Mom, before you ask: yes, that is the real name. I’m not just calling every monument “the monument” because I can’t remember the name…)

                              Tower of London.

I Hope it Doesn’t Rain

I took this picture on an amazingly calm day three or four weeks ago on a hiking trip in Vossforet, south of Valdres. I’m trying to pick a name for it. Rocky Skies? Pictures in the Clouds?

Tiden Flyr

Wow! Time flies! It has been over three months since I was last in the homeland. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I’ve had a lot of different experiences in this time.

It’s been crazy here since my last post. I spent an unfortunately significant portion of the week before last in the kitchen doing dishes (each student has a one week duty to clean up after approx. 150 people after every meal for the entire week). Despite this setback, I still managed to get to Lillehammer for some indoor climbing with my class and then to Beitostølen for my first cross+country ski of the season! Climbing was a blast and it was definitely worth the blisters, which now, even after almost two weeks, remain as cracked, bleeding scabs, decorating my fingers. This reminds me of some recent news (involving more elaborately decorated fingers) which all the more emphasizes how quickly time passes. Congratulations Eziah and Alison on your engagement!

Working the dishwasher was apparently not enough. Last weekend was the Valdres Rakfisk Festival, involving 25 000 people crowding the streets of Fagernes (population 3000). I signed up to work amid a variety of odours emanating from fish which had been rotting in water since August (literally). I set up a number of tents on Thursday and then worked in the tasting tent Saturday morning. I started at 9:00 am and worked straight until 1:30 that night doing a bunch of different jobs. After taking down all the tents I had put up only two days earlier, I worked the rest of the night as a guard in the concert tent (basically listening to Norwegian music like the rest of the crowd, only I was wearing a bright yellow security vest and I was getting paid, not drunk). Oh, and I was backstage with Norway’s biggest bands…

 

Sunday morning was difficult- in part due to a late night after 16.5 hours of work, but mainly because I awoke to the news that I was apparently departing for a three day trip five minutes later! I was aware that the plan was to make skis last week but not a word had been mentioned about traveling anywhere to do this! I must say I was more than a little frustrated. After the fact, I discovered that the rest of the class had been provided with a sheet of paper disclosing this minor detail.
In any case, I ate, packed lunch and stuffed my bag in ten minutes and headed to Beitostølen to make my very own wooden skis. In light of the rough start, the rest of the trip went quite well. It was a lot of work but worth it to see the finished product.

 

This weekend was Beitosprinten 2010, or the Norwegian cross-country skiing and Biathlon opener, right here in Valdres. I was fortunate enough to join a group from the school to be forerunners at Friday’s free-technique 15km race. It was a great time, and we saw all the Norwegian big-shots (although the Russians took 5 of the top ten spots). As a volunteer, I received a “VIP” pass which I made use of for the rest of the weekend, sneaking into the lounge for hot soup and smoothies! I went again on Saturday fully equipped with a Canadian flag to watch and cheer (even though the Canadian team wasn’t there…). The cameras focused in on me and the group I was standing with more times than I can count; we were on the big screen in the stadium but also on hundreds of thousands of Norwegian television sets across the country!
 

On Friday, I was sitting in the cafeteria making my Canadian flag when one of my friends came in to tell me I had visitors wanting to see me?
”Hva?” (What?)
”Du få en besøk.” (You have visitors.)
”Hva?”
”Du få en besøk. They’re waiting for you upstairs.”
”But who would be visiting me?”

Turns out, Tor Loken, a Canadian from another Folkehogskole and whose brother I had been e-mailing, was passing through and he stopped to check out the school and say hi. It was nice to talk to a fellow Canadian again! We had a good chat and discovered that we had been having many of the same experiences:
-Gaining a lot of weight, likely due to a diet of bread and cheese.
-Finding it impossible to remember or pronounce even half of the names.
-Staring blankly into space while attempting to comprehend an indiscernible
Norwegian message. (These occasions are becoming much less frequent.)
I asked Tor what he missed most about home.
”The flat.”
He’s from Saskatoon.

I met up again with Tor at the races the next day. We then ran into, not one, not two, (not three) but four more Canadians! Norway just keeps getting better and better!

 

Sunday, I bit the bullet and put down some Kroner for gas and lift tickets in Hemsedal, an hour’s drive from here. It’s the only ski resort in the area that’s open as of yet and I was anxious to try out my new telemark skis!
As expensive as it was, I can’t say it wasn’t worth it. Det var kjempe gøy! The technique was difficult at first but by lunch time I felt pretty comfortable. I woke up this morning wanting to hit the slopes again! I guess I got hooked pretty quickly.

And before I go, I’d like you to meet my room mate!

We get along perfectly!

WE HAVE A WINNER!

A belated Happy Halloween to everyone! I’m afraid it seems to come and pass without any tricks or treats here in Norway. And now that the 31st is past, I’m pleased to announce that this post will reveal the winner of www.hasfeldt.blogspot.com’s very first online contest! First, a thank-you to everyone who participated! As promised in the contest rules, I now award each one of you the satisfaction of having done your best! And now for the grand prize!

The judging panel has put forward what seems to be a fairly clear winner; only one contestant correctly answered all five questions (although there were some close runner-ups). There has been some low-key debate concerning matters of eligibility, but careful review of the fine print has allowed us to determine a rightful winner.

To refresh your memories, I am pleased to award the contest winner with a “genuine Norwegian postcard”. I must admit I am slightly disappointed with the results, as postage to a Norwegian address would have been much cheaper.

But enough of that, let’s get to the business!

The correct answers are:
1. The picture is upside-down. This can be determined by comparing angles;
   the reflection shows less of the waterfall than the real image.
2. I knitted the toque, carved the spoon, and cooked the meal.
3. My side is the right; you could have determined this by the guitar and
   by the Habs jersey in the far corner (although I would understand if you
   were to assume my room mate is also a fan).
4. The photograph pictures a mug of hot chocolate, reflecting the inside of
   a Norwegian “lavo” (a type of tepee). I stayed in this on my riding trip.
5. This is a view over Leira, a municipality in Valdres. The picture is
   taken from the top of a cliff, where I did some climbing earlier this
   fall.
Click here to take another look at the photographs.

And the winner is… Henrik Asfeldt!

I’ll have to edit the eligibility criteria for next time to make it a little more interesting.

In any case, well done Dad! If I can find your address, you’ll have a postcard arriving shortly!

And just for kicks, here’s another photo! This time, feel free to enter answers as comments to this post.

What is the object at the centre of the photograph?

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.

Winter is Coming

Last week, a doctor from Fagernes came and did a full day seminar on first aid. There was a lot of information which we put to use the following day in practical exercises ranging from vehicle accidents to frost bite incidents. We practiced our knowledge in six different situations like these, all of which consisted of student actors playing dead, unconscious, or severely injured. However, most of the “unconscious” laughed, smiled, or cringed when we decided CPR was necessary.

Last year’s students held a reunion here last week. On Friday, we were locked in the cafeteria after kveldsmat (evening meal) for no apparent reason. Group by group, we were led outside by torch light at which point we discovered the reason for our imprisonment. We entered the old school building, and were welcomed by candles, cobwebs, and numerous ghosts- murdered by a student in 1929 immediately preceding her suicide (as the story goes). It was quite an impressive setup, consisting of ghosts springing down from the ceilings of bathroom stalls and pitch black tunnels, barely tall enough to crawl through, made interesting by countless hands reaching through the darkness to grab you. While two girls at the front of our group screamed and shrieked around every corner, I only jumped while stepping over a ghost twitching on the floor. With one leg over him, he sat up and grabbed me, nearly lifting me off the ground by my crotch! I never liked ghosts.

The quality, if not quantity, of my sleep here is normally quite good. Saturday night, though, at 1:30am, I was abruptly awoken by extremely loud music in the hall, of the Dr. Seuss genre. They marched up and down the hall harping on their noise-makers for a solid ten minutes in the middle of the night before continuing to disturb other victims. All we could do was laugh ourselves to sleep.
This is actually the second time I’ve been unceremoniously awoken in the wee hours of the morning. In a previous incident, I jumped with a start (almost right out of bed) when my ears perceived some extremely loud, sudden yelling six feet from my bed. The source of the noise turned out to be my room mate- struggling for air as two of our friends mercilessly used him and his bed as a trampoline. Once they’d had their fun, we were once again left alone to sleep peacefully.

Winter seems to be on its way. Temperatures are dropping and the snow is falling- just in time for my solo-trip. Each student in my class is hiking alone for three days. Not everyone is looking forward to it but I think it will be a relaxing and enjoyable excursion.
Yesterday, Olof and I ripped up some snowy singletrack. It was a great ride! Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take my camera along, but making the first tracks through the snow is always an irreplaceable experience. I hope to get another ride in before the snow accumulates too much.

If you read a particular blog of mine some time ago, you no doubt remember seeing the disastrous state of my room. I also mentioned that I posted the picture in the name of blogger transparency. I’ve been contemplating and I’ve decided that it would be healthy to abide by certain values outside of the blogging world as well. Please allow me this opportunity to show off my new lifestyle (even if temporary and infrequent).

Don’t miss your chance to win a Norwegian postcard! The deadline is approaching! Please refer to the previous post for contest details. E-mail your answers before the end of October!

Look Carefully

I have just returned from a four day hiking trip. As relaxing and enjoyable as it was, there is not much to tell you about aside from how nice the weather was, and how loudly the girls screamed when I jumped out from behind a tree. So rather than going on about the warmth of the afternoon sun and the cold of the morning frost, I’ve come up with this. Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question #1: (Left) Is the photograph right-side up, or upside down?
Question #2: (Right) Which 3 items in this picture have I made myself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question #3: (Left) Which side of the room is mine, left or right?
Question #4: (Right) What has been captured in this photograph?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question #5: In what region is this municipality located? (Hint: That’s my
             school to the left.)

 

The contest rules are as follows:
-Each competitor must properly answer every question.
-Answers must be e-mailed to hansasfeldt@gmail.com and NOT posted as
comments on this blog.
-Competitors must include their mailing address in the e-mail following
their answers.
-Only the first e-mail received from a competitor will be considered.
-Answers must be submitted prior to midnight of October 31.

Criteria used in determining the winner:
1. The competitor who correctly answers the most questions is considered the
   winner.
2. In the event of a tie, the competitor who answers earliest is considered
   the winner.

Eligibility:
-Competitors must be human. Google and other search engines are not permitted
for contest use.
-Competitors may participate only if they have agreed to the Terms and
Release of Liability Agreement.

Prizes:
-The contest winner will be acknowledged in a later blog post and will
receive a genuine Norwegian postcard.
-All other participants will be awarded the satisfaction of knowing they
have done their best.

Good luck!