As a Norwegian you are expected to love winter and snow, and are believed to be born with skis on your feet – well I never fit into this norm. It was with a big degree of scepticism that I decided to spend the New Year holidays in the Norwegian mountains with some of my closest friends. Turns out, winter is not that bad after all!
I flew in to Oslo and my friends picked me up at the airport, and we headed straight up to the mountains. Unfortunately it got dark really early so I didn’t see much on the way up. We spent the first night eating good food, drinking good wine and catching up with everyone. The next day I decided to give skiing a try – and my friends came along for a small trip. Being the good Norwegians we are, we skied to one of the after-ski bars to have a few drinks. It is safe to say that the trip back in the darkness was quite interesting.
Following a night at the local hangout – Gaiastova – we decided on a longer ski trip the following day. While I was still a bit scared, especially when it went downhill on narrow cross-country skis, I actually had a lot of fun. After getting the hang of skiing I went along enjoying the amazing scenery, occasionally stopping to take photos when there were no others in the tracks. Finishing the trip we had a few well deserved beers at the after-ski.
In order to warm up for the new year, one of my friends asked if anyone wanted to come bobsledding. For some reason, I thought this sounded like a terrific idea. The bobsled tracks are the ones built for the 1994 Olympics at Lillehammer, and today they are a tourist attraction. After signing away our lives in in a waiver and having the track explained to us, we went outside to watch others while we waited. This is when the nerves started to hit, but I was still determined to to the ride. For the tourist version you start off at the women’s starting point and go down 16 turns at a speed of up to 115 km/h reaching 5G forces. While the beginning was fine, it became difficult to keep my neck in place – the only thing I was told to focus on. Slightly bruised but filled with adrenaline, we all decided that this was a really cool experience – albright one we did not have to do again.
Our last night in the mountains was New Years Eve. Dressing up we had a wonderful dinner of homemade gravlax and grouse hunted by my friend’s dad – both were so delicious. The cabin we were staying at, was towards the top of the mountain, so when midnight rolled around we had one of the best views of the fireworks you could have. Also having spent the last few New Years Eves on a ship or in the dry South African mountains it was nice to see fireworks again. We finished up the night along with everyone else at Gaiastova.
This weekend was amazing and changed my view of winter quite a bit – I apparently even like skiing now. It was so nice to spend quality time with good friends I had not seen in a while and relax in the beauty of nature. Who knows, maybe there is hope for my inner Viking after all!
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