Lofoten

As you know, now it's easter holly-day, and we have planed to travel 1200km north, to Bodo, and then to take the ferry to the wonderfull Lofoten islands. hopefully we will bring you back some nice pictures :)

Telemark Skiing !

On Wednesday we went to kongsberg to enjoy the last snow, we had a lesson of Telemark skiing! invented in the Telemark area where our university is located! We started first on a little slope where we had to go up like this....

...and down like this.... or maybe not exactly like this but we are here to learn.

After one hour of training, our skiing technique started to look like telemark.
So we could now go to the next level.

The next level was on the big slope with our cross country skis :) (By chance, I had a mix between cross country and telemark skis.)

And after some more hours training we started by looking like professionals :) or at least if someone was watching us he could recognize that we where practising telemark skiing.

Thanks to Robert for the nice lesson :)

Bouldering

Like I said, with the nice weather comes the climbing time, so on Thursday we went Mathilde and I to do some bouldering at a place near the university (around 20 minuts of walking). The aera is very nice, it was a little bit difficult to find, because there is another cliff just under, but it was totally wet.
The good bouldering place is just above :)
We started with some easy boulders to warm up.

The cliff is more vertical than the one we where climbing on in the lessons, and also more difficult. The grips are little, and not a lot feet grips. But the cliff is very nice situated with a view on the lake and a good reception area.

We stayed there for five hours, trying and creation boulders, eating, sleeping, enjoying nature.

At around 3:30pm, Jan, Adam, Marie and Greg joined us to climb.
They made a little fire, unfortunatelly we had no saussages, we will organise a barbecue next time :)

Climbing season have started !

The sun is coming out very early, there are no clouds, it's warm, and there is not snow any more, so now, the outdoor climbing season can start! We had our first outdoor climbing lesson with Geir.
After a little warming up, we went to the rocks to have a little session of bouldering.

Geir have showed us different ways of to put our feet on the rock, the way of staying in balance. What is very nice outside is that on this kind of not steep wall it's not at all about strength, has everyone could think, but it's about putting our feet exactly on the good place, being confident, and about balance.

The second part of the lesson was a more free part, where we could choice the boulder we wanted, and we could by couples go and try to reach the top. 

I had of course a very nice time because I love climbing, but the other students told me also that they appreciated a lot :). To finish this nice afternoon Mathilde and I decided to climb the troll stone at the university, the west face, and the south face of the stone. ( on the picture the face in front you can see, and the one on the left)

Blefjell 2nd day

The 2nd day after a very windy night, i woke up, the sun was up since about one hour, and at my great surprise everyone was still sleeping, even this 4 persons who haven't felt that their roof have fallen on their heads during the night.

Because now i was awake, i wouldn't go back to sleep, i decided to go for a little trip on my own to have a nice view on the lake and all around. I took my skis and went up for half an hour to a little top from where i could look at the camp and see if someone was decided to put his nose outside the warm tent.

I went back to the camp because i saw some movement there. After a nice breakfast in the wind, we went to a learning objectif which i was looking forward to: reading a snow profile. The idea is to find a place where there is enouth snow (in this season), and to cut a part in the snow to read the evetual danger for the risk of avalanche, this method is called the norwegian method or the test of Faarlund. There are of course other tests that you can do, but it was nice to have some more info about it.

After that we had lunch, and because of the extreme hard wind, we decided to go back to the bus, the funny part started, because we didn't have to ski, we could just stay on our skis on the lake, and the wind did the rest. we where back home very fast! When we left the lakes, we came into a very deep and wet snow, where we had some problems to go down.
We all came safe back home after a nice trip, and on the road back we had a lot of tree fallen on the road.

Trip with the university to Blefjell

I just come back from a nice trip to Blefjell with the university, we stayed there for two days, and enjoyed the beautiful sun, and the hard wind.
The ski trip from where the bus to the place where we were going to set up the tent was quite short, we had in the beginning a little up hill, where a lot of us were in trouble with this deep wet snow. And after we had to cross several frozen lakes.

After having crossed three lakes, we arrived at our camp place. where we had a good lunch, and then we started by putting up the tents.

We had a quite lazy afternoon, we enjoyed the sun, we went fishing, and collecting wood, and those who wanted could go on little trip on skis, but because of the wind most of us just layed enjoying the sun.

we had also a monkey sleeping in the three (very uncommon in norway).

We had a nice evening around the fire, with a very good meal made by the cooking group.
And after a little discussion about outdoor life, we went in our warm sleeping bags, protected from the wind, to have a good night.

.....to be continued....

Trip from Bolkesjo to Selsli Cabin

This is a nice trip you can do: you start from bolkesjo (19km from Notodden), and there you start walking for about 4 hours to Selsli Cabin. We started with my mother, my ant, my Girlfriend and I walking with snowshoes in direction of Selsli.

The weather was fine, we could cross the lake, the ice was still strong enough!
While walking we had the pleasure to meet a beaver hut, and they have started working, a lot of trees were on the ground. they did a good job!

We arrived to Selsli cabin before that the sun goes under, so we went to the top at 810 moh. From where you have a very nice view on blefjell, and also on the big frozen lake near Bolkesjo.
Some erasmus will recognize this top, they went there during on of the first trips in of last semester, the without teacher trip.

Tomorrow we are going for a little 2 day trip in blefjell where there is still some snow. We will enjoy.

Lauvasknollen

The usual sunday walk, or the place where you have to bring your familly when they come to visit you is Eikeskar, a nice top where you have a nice view on notodden town, and on the lake. But after a while you get bored to go always on the same place, so lets discover a new nice peak!
Lauvasknollen

We started from Hogas, to the cross country ski track, and then on the left, up, and after about 500m again on the left! (i hope you will find the top with my very clear explication!). before you arrive on the top you have a very nice view on blefjell, LIfjell, Gaustatoppen, and also on the tower in direction of Kongsberg.

We made of course a nice barbecue in the Norwegian frilutsliv style! then we started again, our long walk to the summit, the snow is really very very wet now and you need snow shoes, we forgot ours...bad luck..
You get really tired when you walk in the snow and you go so deep in it.

We arrived at the top after an hour of fighting against the snow. On the top we where surprised to find this big tower in wood (personnaly i would not try to climb on it).

The spring has arrived in Notodden! the snow is melting very fast, and we could walk in teeshirt. when we went down we fell again some times in the deep snow, and we were happy when we reached the little lake that we had left when we started (near of the biathlon shooting field in hogas) .

We have reach the amount of 4000 page view ! thank you for your fidelity !

Cross country skiing with Lisleherad school

Today we were some students and the pupils from lisleherad school in Blefjell. The pupils where divided into three groups: the youngest were staying at the playground made with the help of the students. Others where going to a little trip, and the last group with the student's of the 5th grade (9 or 10 years old) had the chance and the honour to go this year because they are old enough, to the highest mountain of Blefjell: The Bletoppen (1342 moh).

We had not so much chance with the weather, because it was snowing, and foggy...but it ad also could be worse...so lets be happy! We started with a big up hill, of 200m, the children are full of energy, the race they were waiting for has started! it looked like it the physical proof to grow up to another level...now they are children and they are becoming teenagers...this is their Rite of passage...

I have to say that they did it very well, they reached with success the next level! they were all running up hill with their skis (here the words:"Norwegian are born with skis on their feet takes all its meaning"). When they fell they were again up after few seconds...

Unfortunately we didn't reach the summit because the visibility was very bad, it became to be cold, and we have to say it for few minutes we were lost, but we enjoyed the way going down, we tried telemark skiing with a lot of falls....and at the end we had an applause by the other pupils and students who stayed at the playing are (lazy boys).

waffle time !!

On Thursday like you know we usually have the traditional coffee hour, with nice waffles and warm drinks...Last week on we had the epic waffle hour, the idea was a big event, with a lot of waffles! 

The FOMI sponsored this event again! thanks to Fomi and organisators, we could have a lot of stuff to make waffles and a lot of things to put on. 

It started first with 25 minutes of baking waffles we were divided into 7 teams, and the aim was to bake the more waffles you could.  

And during this 25 minutes, at the end, they asked us to bake one beautiful and one tasty waffle, we had 5 minutes for it. 

This is how the beautiful waffle looked like....

Some are also funny :-)

And this is how all the waffles looked like the beautiful and the tasty one.

Because it was a serious competition, we had serious judges! they were two: the chief of the cantina, and the erasmus coordinator. they had to give a mark from 1 to 7 for the beauty, and for the taste. 

This is our winning team :-) 

When the waffles were made, the second part of the competition could start, with first by team, we had to eat without hands 3 waffles. 

(look at the video)

And the final task was to eat the most waffles you could, first in 1 minute, and after because it was too short..in 4 minutes.