WEEK 20-22 IN OSLO - ALEX

 February 24 to March 16 Ski Races and More Travel

Over the last couple of weeks we haven’t gotten any healthier. Morgan’s dermatitis is cleared up, which is a relief as she’s back to sleeping regularly without waking up multiple times to scratch and itch. But we’ve both been sick with the flu, I had some strange foot pain that led me to take things easy for a bit, and I threw out my back and couldn’t walk for 48 hours. All fun stuff and we’re hoping that we’re getting all of it out of our systems now so we can have a healthy spring and summer.

Regular Life

Over the past few weeks I have continued to volunteer with my 80 year old Norwegian friends. The awkwardness has melted away and it is a very friendly and welcoming environment. I enjoy going and seeing the regulars each week and I feel as if they are excited to see me as well. We’ve also spent some nice evenings with friends. Morgan knitted with a group of women, something that has begun to happen with some regularity. I went with a couple friends to our favorite trivia spot and we came in second. We also were guests of our German friends who had a dinner party where they treated and introduced everyone to traditional Northern Italian dumplings. The dinner party was part of the revolving responsibility of our friends sharing parts of our home lives with each other.

The DNT wood chopping machine and “German” night eating dumplings originating from the Italian alps.

Hollmenkollmarsjen

On March 1 we participated in the Holmenkollmarsjen. A 36 kilometer ski race put on by the local ski organization that winds its way through the trails of Nordmarka. We made up half of the US contingent participating in the race. Almost all of the other 1400 skiers were Norwegian, so it was a very local event. The environment was a lot of fun and conditions were better, although not great, than we anticipated based on the warm weather and rain in the week plus leading up to the race. This was Morgan’s first ski race and only my second. We came out of the experience with the same impression, too many people thought they were going for Olympic gold, making things unsafe for everyone else. We both witnessed our fair share of crashes, but managed to come out unscathed. I skied the course in 2 hours and 36 minutes and Morgan in 3 hours 37 minutes.

At the finish line there was a volunteer interviewing people and broadcasting the interactions throughout the loud speakers of the arena. By sheer luck I was called out by the interviewer and after an initial awkward exchange we switched to English. I was a little embarrassed by the whole interaction and was happy that I didn’t know who could give me feedback on what I said. The post-race food selection was also a cultural experience in itself. Like almost every race we’ve ever participated in there is some food and drink for participants at the end. For this particular event there was only one option, hot dogs served in lompas (potato tortilla), which is the traditional Norwegian vessel for tubular meat. After having my fair share of hot dogs in tortillas the past few months I have definitively decided that I prefer buns to lompas.

Clockwise from upper left: The start line for our wave at Holmenkollmarsjen, Morgan anxiously waiting to start, the finish area where loitering is punishable by interview, lompas waiting for their hot dogs at the finish line, picking out our names on the board.

Trip to Trondheim

On the Sunday after Holmenkollmarsjen we went to Trondheim. This was part networking trip for Morgan and part fun trip for the biennial world championships. We also used the time to visit one of Morgan’s friends from UW who is on a similar exchange as Morgan right now at NTNU, a large technical university in Trondheim. The travel was more encompassing than we were prepared for. The journey is typically between 5.5 and 6 hours, but due to construction on one of the bridges there’s a portion of route that is temporarily replaced with bus service. That means getting off the train, boarding a bus, and an hour later getting back on the train and resuming the journey. It was a very pretty train ride through the mountains of central Norway, but 7.5 hours is a long time to be traveling.

We made it to Trondheim in time for the evening ski jumping event. They were jumping off the “normal hill”, which while isn’t the biggest jump they do is bigger than anything I would go down. A Norwegian won the event on the last jump of the night, which was quite exciting. His gold medal has since been stripped as the result of an investigation into the Norwegian ski jumping team cheating. The nuance of ski jump equipment alterations is more than I care to understand, but have appreciated the humorous drama it has caused. It has been a popular water cooler topic for Morgan at work and for me at DNT volunteering.

Only Tuesday, while Morgan was working at NTNU, I returned to the games and watched cross country skiing in person. The Norwegian men dominated the event, sweeping the podium and taking four of the top five spots. The women narrowly lost to the Swedes and finished in 2nd and 4th place. Compared to the ski jumping, which we were personally more excited to see, the skiing atmosphere was truly electric. There were at least 10,000 people in the arena and more scattered throughout the woods. The only complaint I would levy against the host Norwegians, and I was guilty of this as well, was immediately losing interest in the race and leaving the premises after the outcome had been decided and the home athletes were done participating.

Photos from the stands of the Nordic Skiing World Championships.

Also in our free time in Trondheim we visited Nidaros Cathedral, a large nearly 900 year old Catholic Church that is home to the Norwegian Crown Jewels. It is also the constitutionally decreed location of the crowning of the Norwegian monarch. We enjoyed walking the city with Morgan’s friend from UW, especially the charming old town that is built upon piers over the river. I also went skiing in the forest a short bus ride from the center of town. All in all it was a nice medium sized city and we are looking forward to returning with Morgan’s parents in May. During our trip the rain was unrelenting, so we’re hoping for drier weather in the future.

Clockwise from upper left: Morgan in Nidarosdomen, Morgan outside the NTNU library where she had spent the day working, view of Bakklandet, which is the old neighborhood in Trondheim, Alex skiing outside Trondheim.

Haugestol to Finse

Shortly after coming back from Trondheim we had plans to go on an overnight trip to the Hardangervidda mountain plateau and stay at one of the full service DNT huts. Unfortunately Morgan was sick with the flu, so I had to go alone. I left for the mountains early Saturday morning at 6:00 AM. What should have been a stress-free, essentially door to door trip to the train station by bus devolved into a hectic run across the city. The real time tracker on the bus wasn’t working, so I ended up missing the bus waiting in the warmth of my apartment thinking it had been delayed. When I realized the bus was no longer going to be an option I had 45 minutes to get the 3.5 miles to the train station, no public transport option, and a strong resistance to calling a taxi. I ended up running most of the way there, wearing 3 layers of wool and a jacket. I was very sweaty when I sat down in the train and relieved I didn’t have to sit next to anyone until I stopped perspiring.

The train ride to Haugestol was about 4 hours. There is almost nothing at the stop and of the few people who got off, I was the only one carrying skis. There was so little activity and direction that I became a little disoriented and confused, so it took me a while to get my bearings. There were also a number of signs detailing the danger areas on the frozen lakes I would have to cross in the area and after all the warm weather of late I knew that the hazards were real. Fortunately, once I got my wits to myself, traveling across the lake was easy thanks to a volunteer (as I later learned) who had demarcated the safe travel route. Volunteers also mark the trail with birch branches to make travel safer, especially when there are white out conditions. After an oscillating pattern of plus temperatures during the day and negative at night both snow and ice was in rough shape at the lower elevations, which made for challenging conditions. However, as I worked my way from Haugestol up in elevation to the plateau conditions improved rapidly. The second half of Saturday and all of Sunday was all spent in really good snow conditions.

Views from along the journey from Haugestol to Finse. The trail was marked by birch branches that are set and maintained by Volunteers so it was easy to stay on track. This area was the set of the snow planet Hoth from Star Wars. 

I spent the night at Kraekkja, a larger cabin where I would estimate 90 people could comfortably sleep. There is no road access, so in the spring season guests arrive by ski. The mountain ski season is centered around the Easter holiday and most of the remote mountain huts are only open for a month or two, punctuated by the holiday week where many Norwegians take to the mountains. Kraekkja was in the midst of its opening weekend and one of the first huts to open for the season in the area.

In order to save a few kroner, around the equivalent of about $10 each, I booked us accommodations in the dormitory instead of a private (2 or 4 bed) room. This ended up working out in my favor because all the other guests booked private rooms and left the entire 24 bed dormitory to me. Outside of the sleeping arrangements the food was very good, dinner was a very nice deer stew that the hut manager’s brother had killed last fall. The hut was cozy and I had pleasant conversations with Norwegians and fellow foreigners.

Looking down on Kraekkja and the inside of the empty dormitory that I had to myself on Saturday night.

On Sunday I continued to Finse, which is where I would catch the train back to Oslo. Saturday’s weather was quite gray, making it difficult to see, but Sunday was sunny which made it both easier to see from a skiing perspective, but also the vistas that were previously obscured in the low clouds. The stretch was particularly pretty and one of my personal highlights from being in Norway thus far. After arriving in Finse I spent the afternoon relaxing at the DNT cabin and going for another short ski tour. The only way to travel to Finse is by train or to walk, so services are limited to two hotels/hostels and the unstaffed train station.

Birken

On March 15 we participated in the Birkebeinerrennet, one of the biggest amateur ski races in Norway. The race was started in 1932, but has its roots back to the early 13th century when two Birkebeiners rescued their infant prince from their rival tribe. As part of the escape they skied over two mountain ranges from what is today Rena to Lillehammer. The prince would go on to become a very important Norwegian king who successfully unified the country and brought Norway into its golden medieval period. Today’s race honors that history with 10,000 people more or less travelling the same route and carrying a mandatory backpack with a minimum symbolic weight of 3.5kg.

Clockwise from upper left: A mass of skiers shortly after leaving the starting line (photo from the Birken), Morgan crossing the finish line in Lillehammer, Alex showing off the skis, Alex and a finish line hot dog.

Part of our Birken experience was sleeping overnight at the local school in Rena on Friday evening. Some, and I’m quoting an obscure Norwegian movie here, consider this to be the hardcore Birken experience, we just found it practical. We slept on a classroom floor with 14 other skiers on foam mattresses, which reminded me a lot of nap time from kindergarten. Morgan had one of her best nights of sleep since we moved to Norway.

Our sleeping arrangements the night before the race where Morgan had one of the best nights of sleep since we moved.

The race itself was both difficult and a lot of fun. The start is broken up into 17 different waves. I started in the 9th wave and Morgan in the 12th based on our times from the Hollmenkollmarsjen. People were peppered throughout the course cheering on skiers which made for a fun environment. The course and conditions were also in great shape adding to the enjoyment as well. I finished in 4 hours and 30 minutes and Morgan finished in around 5 hours and 50 minutes. There was a greater selection of post-race food than the Holmenkollmarsjen, but sad looking hot dogs in lompa were still the primary option.

After getting back to Oslo late Saturday night we had a relaxing Sunday and enjoyed the spring air. We went for a long walk on an otherwise lazy day and stopped by the mausoleum of one of Oslo’s most famous artists, Emanuel Vigeland. The mausoleum is covered in a fresco depicting sex, birth and death, Due to the intentional darkness of the room it takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust and see the art. We both thought that Gregorian chants fit the theme perfectly and I was personally reminded of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The inside of the Mausoleum, to the naked eye the room was darker and details on the fresco not visible.