First Race in Norway

So we had our first race of the trip yesterday, which was really eventful. It is really something to be at the start and not having any clue to what is going on, and what people were saying to me. I was the first older skier out so I had nobody to follow. I arrived in the starting area and got to hear the whole race instructions in Norwegian. If there was not a clock telling me when to go I would have had a much delayed start.

The course was in a unusual layout. We first skied a 3km loop and then came through the start and finish and skied a 2km loop, there were a lot of really big hills.

During the awards ceremony the announcer tried to call up all of the Americans and get us all on to the podium. This took about 5 minutes because his English vocab consisted of only a few words. Once we were all up there he gave all of us these small glass bowls and a thanks for coming to the race, and welcomed us to Norway.

Today we went and watched ski jumping that was really, really cool. Here are some pictures.

Hi guys here are some pictures of Norway.

Norway

After over 24 hours of traveling and hardly any sleep, I finally arrived in Norway. My trip here was interesting. From New Jersey to Norway about two thirds of the passengers did not show up leaving 99% of the people with a whole row to themselves. It was better than first class! We were able to lay down completely, that was really comfortable.  

Once we arrived in Oslo we had to wait about three hours for Dan to show up, we passed our time by having luggage cart races and listening to Norwegian music.  Once we finally stuffed ourselves and the luggage in to two vans, we where off. What should have been a 2 hour drive ended up being more like a 4 hour drive.

We did learn one thing however; there are two ways to get to Lillehammer: the scenic way and the fast way. Due to none of the signs being in English we got to experience both! At all the stops we made trying to find directions, we realized that the people here are obsessed with hot dogs. They are everywhere, in a variety of different styles!

Now that we are finally here we are trying to stay awake till 9:30 pm with no naps to make our time adjustment easier, only two more hours left! I have a good feeling that I am going to sleep like a baby. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Our hotel is very Euro.  All of the rooms are stuffed together like sardines. The doors are about three feet wide, and so are our beds. The funny thing is that our room's bathroom is about the size of our room itself! The hotel is right next to the ski jump, at night it gets all lit up and looks really cool.   The Nordic trail passes right by the base of it, we will test that out tomorrow.

Good luck in the Tour De Ski!

 

Alicia