The biggest village in peperkaker in the world

During the Christmas hollidays i went to visit Bergen. There we saw the world's biggest village in peperkaker.

Merry Christmas !

I wish you all a merry Christmas will a good meal, and a good time with your friends/familly and a lot of nice presents !

Heddal church !

Heddal church is one of the 28 stave churches in Norway! There appear to have been between 750 to 1200 stave churches in Norway, but in the 19th century most of them have been destroyed and replaced by "modern" churches.

But church has been build about 900 years ago, Heddal church is one of the most beautiful in Norway! 

You can also enjoy in Norway some old attics like this one:

Backcountry skiing !

We went Wednesday for 3 days backcountry skiing in Blefjell ! We left home quite late, so we had to go to Sigrisbu cabin. The moon lighted us.

We arrived at the cabin at 8h30pm. And spend there a good and hot night.

The next day, it was snowing, and the wind blows hard, so we went outside for only 2 hours for one descent.

In Blefjell, because of the wind, the snow height varied a lot, on some places you can find more than 1metre and on other around 10cm. So it was difficult to find a good area to ski, without destroying our skis on a rock.

On the picture you can see the little cabin of Sigrisbu, on the right there is a bigger one.

In the late afternoon, the sun came to say hello.

After a cold night, we woke up with a blue sky and a warm sun, so we decided to go early in the morning to a top to go down after.

On this face there was enough snow, but you have to be careful for the stones hidden under the snow.

In the background you can see the Gaustatoppen, and on the right there is the bletoppen (the highest top of blefjell 1342moh).

Skiing down was really nice with the good snow!

And it looked like we where the first going down.

Now with the snow that is falling during the next day Blefjell area will be better to ski, with more snow.

But be careful for the avalanches! this season will be dangerous with the fragile under layer.

So be careful ! 

http://ut.no/artikkel/1.7427851

Gaustatoppen

Like I said in the article just before, the Gaustatoppen is the highest mountain in Telemark. With 1883 moh, you can see from the top, with nice weather 1/6 of Norway!!!

The summit is done a lot of times each day by a lot of persons, it is around 1h30-2h to go up to the summit. Most of the persons go just until the bit tower you can see on the left. But the highest point is on the right you have to follow the arris. On the top you can enjoy in the DNT cabin some good waffles or a good meal!
On this map you can see the different places you can see from Gaustatoppen.

If you are lazy, you can also go up with the lift. It is amazing there is a lift going up, in the middle of the mountain.
For me the Gaustatoppen looks like the Kilimanjaro of Norway! he is alone, much higher than the other mountains all around, and there is often some snow on it. but it is not a volcano.
So if you have never been on it, you should go and enjoy the view, or during the winter you can enjoy going down by ski! but be careful of the avalanches! wear a beacon!

Cross country skiing

On the hills around Notodden, near to hogas you can find a nice cross country track. (on yellow on this map).

The round trip is around 1h30 or 2h depends on how fast you are. From there you have a nice view on Gaustatoppen the higest hill from Telemark: 1883moh, I will present some nice picture later on the blog.

You have also a nice view on Blefjell, (fjell means moutain in Norwegian). Blefjell is a nice moutain area near of Notodden, where i am going on wednesday to do backcountry skiing.

On this picture you can see Blefjell with a nice red sky.

Their are different methods how to do cross country skiing, I know 3 different one:

- the classic version, where you walk with your skis like if you are hikking, but with skis at your feets.

- the skating method, where you skate like in ice skating.

- and the French method, you can see it on the picture...where you walk like a duck.

Erasmus english dictionary

Some of the Erasmus students have made this nice dictionary about some typical Erasmus expressions: Enjoy!

you can add in comment some other Erasmus English expressions you heard to complete the dictionary.

home country dinner

Thanks to Janko & co (that I would like here to thanks). We have had some financial help from the 'Fomi' to organize some traditional dinners from our home countries.
We started first with the traditional Czech and Slovak dinner. Here Janko presents a famous traditional alcohol: "Tatrati" From the Tatras mountains.

Then on a background music from their country, we had dinner in the teachers cafeteria (thanks to them to have lend it to us).
So here you can see the disciplined
Erasmus students waiting for their turn of soup.
After we ate some meet with some delicious potatoes patties, and to finish a raisins cake.
But it was not just a dinner, they present us their country with a nice power point
 and some videos.

After came the turn of the French dinner, with as menu Tartiflette a traditional meal from the Alps with potatoes, beacon and Roblochon. (that's how it looks like).
Before the dessert, we had also a presentation about France. And we finished this nice evening with some crepes.







Yesterday during the afternoon, we have enjoyed doing some sledge competition, and eating a very tasty soup in a "Lavvo". ( A special thanks to the chef who prepared this delicious soup: Adam & co)
And after we came back to the university to have our last dinner all together...hopefully not. Thanks to all the Spanish people who prepared us also a very good dinner.

As menu we had some traditional soup from the canaries islands, after we enjoyed a spanish salad with potatoes with a nestor's salsa sauce, muy buenos tortillas y para postre naranjas con canela.
And of course we have also travelled trough Spain by their presentation.

Thanks to everyone for this nice moments shared all together...hopefully we can have others next year !
A big kiss for those who are leaving, but you have to come back next year to say hello ! and have other nice moments all together.

To finish this article I would like to salute a world record broken last evening with 31 grapes in her mouth. The precedent record was 24 hold by Flo and me.
Enjoy the performance:

(her identity is kept secret to avoid the media coverage of this event.)

Initiation to Extreme conditions

During this cold winter, with this extreme temperatures for a guy from south France, you can enjoy walk on the lakes, and spend a cold night under the snow...
That were our plans for this weekend...we took our tent, our sleeping bag, and our warm clothes, and   we put every thing in our big backpack. The expedition  could start, we walked not to far from our house (around 2hour of walking) in the event that this night we have to run home because of the cold...

So after two ours of walking in the snow, we put our tent near of what was supposed to be a lake. We make a fire (With only what we found in the forest) expect the lighter of course, and we can say that frozen wood makes a lot of smoke, but don't burns really good.
After cooking and eating, we waited to see a moose...but it was not for this evening, the cold made us go into our sleeping bags where we had warm.

After a cold night, we wake up with 5 to 10 cm of fresh snow!
Our footprints of the day before had disappeared we where lost !!

hum...that's how it could had happened in a story of in a movie...the reality is different...
We could still find our bigfoot prints in the snow. We saw also different moose footprints not so far of our tent, hope we sill see some next time.
We walked back home, with cold feet and fresh hands but it was a nice extreme expedition. we survived !

Floorball

On Friday, we had our last lesson of floorball, so we had a tournament.
Floorball is a typical Norwegian sport, it looks a little bit like indoor hockey, each team has to score in the goals of the opposite team, and a goalkeeper who is on is knees try to stop the ball. The ball is a plastic light ball with little holes to increase speed. You play with sticks like in hockey, but the game is much more technical and less violent than hockey.

 This is a picture of the final, in which I was happy to play with the red team.
If you have never tried floorball, you should, it's a really nice game.
In our university in Notodden, you can enjoy and join us playing on Monday and Wednesday evening at 7pm.
Hope to meet you there :-)

Provisions for the winter

How should ervery Erasmus school day look like:
First you wake up at 9, you go to university to cook and eat some very tasty Peperkaker.
On this picture you can see that we are doing it really seriously.

Some students were more inspirated that others...

Then after this session of cooking we had of course to immortalize this moment.
These students are the Erasmus immigration wave of 2010/2011 in Notodden.

We finished our cooking at 11am, we could go home to have a little rest after this hard moments. We wake up at 2pm to go to the cafeteria where a lunch was waiting for us.
It was really delicious! We had some very tasty lamb meat, which wads dried and salted. With it we had some nace marmalade, some potatoes, and mashed cauliflower.
And after we had also a good dessert.

Our stomac was really full, but the day was not finished yet, so after another rest, we met at 7pm at Friduun's House (our very nice Norwegian teacher).
There we ate a delicious fish soup, the best i have ever tasted. It's a very famous soup in Notodden, the 400 liters of it had a lot succes during the Notodden Blues festival.

So thank you all for this nice day ! and a special thanks from all the Erasmus students to Fridunn who invited us!

Cold weather = ice skating

This morning it was around -18°c, so it was really cold, I have read this morning that it was the coldest winter since 1919.
It was skill -15°c when I went outside, to borrow cross country ski and ice skates from the university.

The athletic field has been changed into a big ice skating rink.
Of course as Erasmus people we are not as good has the Norwegians, but we learned quiet fast. except may be some persons but I will hide their identity.
We tried to do like the pro skater we have seen on tv...

 Haha ! :-D

Photo session in Porsgrunn

Here is a little video about the photo session in Porgrunn for the University....Enjoy !