Ice fishing

We went with the university to a lake to do some ice fishing. (the place is kept secret because the fishing spots remains secret!). 

We had a quite cold morning it was

 -17°c so we hurried to make a fire to warm up, and after to cook on.

So to practice ice fishing, first you need to be sure the ice is big and strong enough!

Here we had about 70cm of fresh ice so  that was not a problem.

Then you take the 'drill' (on the right of hakon) and you drill a nice hole into the ice, you clean all the snow and you are ready to fish.

This video shows how to drill....it's not exactly that way, but it works.

We learned also what kind of fish we have fished, how to clean them and to cook them.

The two first one are Arctic char, and the last one is a perch with a lot of bones.

Advices from a fisherman: 

You can see in the following video in exclusive how to fish Arctic Char.....Enjoy

Ski "Randonnée" in Konsberg Ski center.

Yesterday we joint the group A who where in Kongsberg Ski center for their lesson of snowboarding. We went to do some kind of alpine skiing: called "ski randonnée". The idea is to go up with your skis like in cross country skiing, but instead of wax to not slip down, you use some "skins", you scratch under your skis when you go up, and you take it off when you go down.

The difference with cross country skiing is that you can go up in real deep snow, and much steep hills. The other difference is that you can fix you shoes like alpine shoes to go down.

This video shows you how easy it is to go up :)

And this video you can enjoy my fall when I came down, Like you can see it really looks like alpine skis when we are going down

Trip to Selsli

This weekend we have organized a Cross country skiing trip to Selsli. On the 2 maps we can see the way we took.

We started from Notodden, more precisely from Tynnemira lake until Selsli DNT Cabin, it's a little bit more than 20km and about 600m of vertical drop. You have to count about 5 hours to reach the cabin.

Greg took the lead to give us a good rhythm, we arrived in Darstul after a little bit more than 2 hours.

There our group became bigger, two persons joined us. You can see on the picture the real cross country skiing movements realized by Mathilde....Runar (our cross country teacher) would be proud of you.

Here we are crossing a lake, the ice is big enough, but for the way back we took the way around the lake, the water on the ice scared us.

We reached the cabin at 3a clock pm, after a lot of hours cross country skiing.

On the picture from the left to the right:

Marie, Greg, Christine, I, Mathilde, Kalle. And the picture was taken by Roar who i would like to thanks, not only for the picture, but for the advices of this trip, and his help, so from all our team, Thanks a lot :-)

After a warm night for some of us ( those who slept in the cabin) and a little bit colder one (for those who slept outside) we woke up with a very nice weather, and a warm sun.

On this picture Janko in his snowsleepingroom :-)

Because we had a comfortable night, we decided to reach the top near of Selsli. the sight was wonderful with the nice weather we could see Blefjell, Lifjell, and the Gaustatoppen, and Notodden's lake with the fog over it.

The coming back was quite faster than the way to the cabin, it was most of the time down hill, so the problem was to not fall.

Enjoy this few videos of down hill in cross country skis:

First day of snowboarding !

We started at 8h30 from the university, and we went to Kongsberg ski center (about 30km from our university).
Like you can see, we where well equipped, with nice free helmets from borrowed by the skicenter.
We started to train on a little track with the good advices of Runar we improved fast our snowboarding skills!

It could have been a perfect day, again in our erasmus life, without the little incident....
One of us Twisted her knee and was transported to the hospital. But fortunately nothing is broken so she will be with us again in few weeks !

International Day !

Today was the International day at Hit Notodden!
The idea was that all the Erasmus students had to present their countries, and the studies you could do there!
Their where also typical dishes from the different countries, very tasteful !
Their where some big flags, some traditional songs, some pictures....It was very nice!














Then we had some two nice presentations by the French students from Strasbourg who came to visit the university... First we had a card magician, and after a presentation of Hip Hop dancing.

This very nice dice was not finished yet, After we had like every Thursday coffee hour with coffee or tea and waffles. And after we had organised by some Erasmus students with the financial help of FOMI a movie afternoon with refreshment. The idea is to that each country presents one of their best movies. 

This time it was a Slovakian movie called "The shop on the main street".

This is going to come in 53 cinemas

http://vimeo.com/18872140

Pizza, Poker evening.

Chirstina had the very good idea to organise a pizza evening. She had made the dough, and everybody could bring something to put on the pizza.
That's how they looked like, they where very good!

During the pizzas where baking, we started playing poker, because we had no chips, and no money we started playing with little peaces of paper....but who wants to win little peaces of paper?

So after thinking few hours, we had an idea!

We started betting some physical proofs (because we are very sportive students :-).
So we bet push-ups, sit-ups, then we started to do them outside...

And we finished putting our face in the snow, our head, our body, juping in the snow, swiming in underwear....
cold evening....
but when do we do that again ? :-) thanks to all for this nice evening !

First lesson of Cross country skiing.

For our first lesson of cross country skiing with Runar, we have been to the ski track on the road to bø.
We started first by waxing our skis to avoid sliping when we go up hill.
Except Pau, who is looking around to find someone who can do it for him ;-) joke.








After came the really funny part, some of us had already been on cross country skis, for other it was the first time, and for some of us had never been on skis. So everyone was falling all around, and trying to stand up in the deep snow.

On the pictures you can see Carole-anne on the first, Mads on the second, Nestor, and Mickeal.

We finieshed our lesson by a little race on the track, of course like you see it on the picture Camille with her super flashi purple pant from the years 60 is first !
She was excpected on this first place, nobody had never doubted of her talent, we had already seen her in the orienteering race with this pant, and she was also on the podium.

Alittle bit further is comming the second part not far from the first wave with Nestor padron alonso in first place. It was his first time on skis, but with his gran canarian style he is taking the lead of the second group, I think we can find him on the podium for the final race.

Tip for a nice Trip !

In  Norway, there are some places, you have to see!
For example the Preikestolen, and the Kjeragbolten.
This both places are around the Lysebotn fjord, so the idea we had because we had no car was to go by hiking from the Preikestolen to the Kjeragbolten...

legend: the black way is where we walked, in red where we slept, in tent or in cabin, and the two greens stars are the preikestolen ( on the left) and the kjeragbolten on the right)

So we arrived in Stavanger by train, then we took the ferry and after the bus to the preikestolen, and we started to walk from there.
It's wonderful, you walk quite all the time with a very nice view on the Lysebotn fjord.

After two days an half, we arrived in Lysebotn a little town at the end of the fjord. We hitchhiked to the eagle nest, its a restaurant at the top of the fjord at the other side, so we avoid the 700meters up.

After walking half and hour from the eagle nest, we set up the tent.
The other day we reached the kjeragbolten, we enjoyed the place, and then we came back to the eagle nest, highhiked again, it worked, and we spend one night in Lysebotn.
Next day we took a cheap ferry (not a tourist one) and we arrived in Stavanger, and took the train back home with a lot of unforgettable memories.....

Backcountry skiing in Lifjell area

We have started from lifjell skicenter, up to the arrow, and up again to the north by following the ski track (blue).
The weather was really nice, it was cold and foggy, and there was of course also wind.
I am not a specialist in avalanches, but it looks like it is quite dangerous now to go out of the tracks, the under layer looks really fragile. (If someone knows more about it, or if there is a site talking about it, you are welcome to add it in comments).

So we followed the ski track (blue one on the map) until the lake where the track stopped.
We tried to go further, but like I said, the conditions where not really there.
After a fast lunch, and before our fingers died, we went down, sometimes the visibility was less than 5 meters, so we had to be careful.
Even if we haven't seen a lot, we will come back it looked a nice area.


Thanks to Mathilde, Janko and Zdeno.

coming down from Eikeskard

This is Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, and also the old capital. It is located on the west side of Norway, in the region of the fjords.
When you are in Bergen their are two sites you have to see: The mount Floyen from where this picture is taken. You can go up by funicular or by walk it spend around 1hour to reach the top.
During the winter the walking pad is changed into a ski and sludge track, so it's nice if there is snow to bring your sludge :)

The second place you have to visit according to the tourist guide are the "Bryggen Docks". These old docks are twisted but they will not fall down so you should visit them.











And like a presented before, if you go during the month of November or December you should visit the biggest village of Peperkakker of the world:

Back to university

Today university starts again! We came back from belgium yesterday evening at midnight and where at time in the lesson this morning. We saw our schedule for this semester presented by one of our teachers Håkon.

During this semester we are going on cross country skiing, doing ice skating, learning snowboarding, and other trips in nature... and also some few lessons in class rooms.

I will do my model student and i am going to present you the schedule for next semester: 

CC skiing means cross country skiing; Kilo uteskole means a day where we are in contact with a "outdoor school". In PE-sport, we have some subjects like for example doping, disabled sport, fair play, and the lesson is organised around some debated. If you want to know more about the lessons, just ask :) by email, or by comment.

I am in hollidays with my family in belgium, i come back Norway the 4th of january with a lot of articles about my long travel...sorry for the abscence.