Tag Archives: skiing

The Final Countdown

Hei Alle!

As usual it’s been quite a while since my last post. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

– Our little PLU family has expanded! Two girls (Becky and Alison) from the University of Washington have arrived and are both teaching at Charlottenlund. It’s really great to have more native English-speakers at school! Plus, now Megan and I have people to sit with at lunch! Hooray!

– On March 17th our school had its ski day. This is very common here in Trondheim. The entire school (students and teachers) loaded up on buses to Mer�ker. Fans of the blog (or people who can actively use the scrolling function of their browser) may recognize Mer�ker as the place I nearly died attempting to learn how to downhill ski. Needless to say I was a bit anxious about this trip. Our teachers had been telling us/warning us/secretly plotting against us about ski day pretty much since the day we arrived at Charlottenlund. After my adventures downhill skiing (and on the evil chairlift/ people-mover) I was not too keen on finding a pair of downhill skis to borrow. I asked around to see if anyone had extra cross-country skis but to no avail. Each teacher was responsible for manning an activity so I decided to go sledding (or sledging as they call it here). Of course the day of the trip I had about four teachers tell me that I could have borrowed their extra cross-country skis. Too late. : (

Becky and Megan getting ready for their cross-country skiing adventure!

Overall the trip was awesome! We had absolutely incredible weather (very different from the last time I was in Mer�ker). The sledding hill was more like a sledding cliff so I did not participate. I ended up just hanging out with students who did not feel like participating in any of the activities. It was really great to talk to some students who I would not have normally had the opportunity to interact with. Megan and Becky (one of the teachers from UW) were able to get cross-country skis and let me borrow them for a little bit to try. I actually really liked cross-country skiing! I wish that I were able to get skis earlier in the trip because it would have been a blast to go skiing every weekend. This is one activity that I think I will try to continue next winter back in the States. For lunch we sat around a large grill and cooked hot dogs. Interestingly enough this trip was BYOHD: bring your own hot dog. I figured that if the school had enough funding to send 400 students and their teachers on a free skiing trip they would provide lunch, but whatever. Here in Norway we eat our hot dogs (or p�lse as they are called) wrapped in something called lompe, which is kind of like a potato tortilla. Super delicious. It was super fun just hanging out with all of the teachers and students.

– Ski day also fell on St. Patrick’s Day! St. Patty’s Day is not super-popular here because no one is really of Irish decent. However, Norwegians are always up for a party so it is celebrated. Megan, Becky, and I went to the only Irish pub in town (Cafe Dublin) and paid an exorbitant amount of money for green beer but it was fun regardless.

Becky, myself, and Megan celebrating our Irish heritage in Trondheim. (Please remember we had been outside all day! =])

– This past Monday (21 March) my supervisor from PSU visited Charlottenlund to observe me teach. I think it went well! I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a good report so I can officially become a certified teacher!

– This past Friday Megan and I finally made it to the Ikea in Trondheim! We literally pass it everyday going to school so it was fun to finally go. I LOVE Ikea (I think its fun to go through all of the mock houses) and it was Megan’s first time so we had a blast walking through the store. The Ikea here in Trondheim looks exactly like every other Ikea I’ve ever been to but instead of the just the furniture names being in Norwegian/Swedish, EVERYTHING is in Norwegian/Swedish. We had a late lunch at the cafe…the food was delicious! We took the free bus from Ikea back into town, which was super convenient. Fun fact I learned from that trip: it’s actually pronounced EE-KAY-AH. Who knew?

My new friend I made in Ikea. Who says vegetables can’t be fun? =)

– For the past week Norway has been experiencing some of the most miserable weather I’ve ever seen. I’ve named it the snowicane or snowpocolypse (mainly because I am a big How I Met Your Mother fan). We have experienced all sorts of precipitation: rain, snow, sleet, hail…everything. Oh, and gale force winds. Awesome. I think that the worst part is the fact that it will be snowing/sleeting sideways and then 10 minutes later be sunny. Ten minutes after that it will be hailing. Sideways. The pictures below are from my room in Steinan. They were taken less than 10 minutes apart.

– This upcoming week is my last week here in Trondheim. It’s really bittersweet. I’m excited to go home and see my friends and family but I’ve become quite attached to my life here. Charlottenlund is one of the greatest schools that I’ve ever had the opportunity to see/be a part of. I know that there is no school quite like this in the States: the teachers have a lot of autonomy, the students have a lot of personal responsibility, the teachers and students have open communication, there is no dark cloud of state and federal standardized testing looming over everyone’s heads. It really is a wonderful place to teach and go to school. I’m really going to miss everyone that I have met and worked with, both teachers and students.

That’s pretty much it for now! I’ll try to get in another post before I head back to the good ol’ US of A!

Location: Edgar B Schieldropsvei 42-18 7033 Trondheim Norway

Extra Gloves? Yeah…We are in the Alps

10 hours after returning from Monte Carlo at 10 P.M. on Saturday night, we left for the Italian Alps and the La Thiule ski resort as part of an IES-sponsored field trip. This opportunity to ski in the Alps was one of the main reasons why I chose to study abroad in Milan as opposed to other Italian cities. I have to say that this trip lived up to my lofty expectations as it was by far the most enjoyable trip I have taken so far. With the summit of the highest peak stretching into the sky at over 2,500 meters, I spent three days snowboarding white powder within a panorama of some of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen.

As an experienced snowboarder, but someone who had never boarded outside of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience.

On Sunday morning, we departed from Milan around 8:30 A.M. and arrived at the very underrated La Thiule ski resort, located directly on the border of Italy and France around 11:30 A.M. This three hour bus ride offered some spectacular views of the Alps. After arriving, those who were skiing or snowboarding went directly to the ticket office and purchased lift tickets (81 euro in total for Sunday afternoon and all day Monday and Tuesday). After renting my equipment and getting dressed, I hit the slopes around 1:00 P.M.

With the resort located at the base of the mountain, the summit can not be seen from the bottom as the sizable forest on its side and the cloud cover above block the view. So, when I first got on the lift (which was 50 yards from my hotel!), I had no idea of what what the view from the top would look like. With the first lift reaching over 2,000 meters above sea level, the ride up takes you through the clouds and offers ridiculous views of the surrounding mountains. On the ride up, I was struck with the sheer enormity and size of the Alps, as well as the beauty of the alternating snow-covered and jagged peaks. Even though this initial lift offers wonderful views of the Italian Alps, it was the lowest lift at the resort and paled in comparison to the top-most summit. Here is a view from the top of the highest lift on Sunday:

For the three days I snowboarded mostly with a group of three other guys who were all experienced snowboarders or skiers. So, within the afternoon, we were able to cover the majority of the front side of the mountain. With crystal clear views and virtually no clouds in sight, we were able to truly enjoy the majesty of the spectacular scenery. Overall, the conditions were pretty good, although it was a bit icy in spots.

One of the unique things about La Thiule is its location on the border of Italy and France. At the top-most summit, you have the choice to ski on either Italian or French side and also have a view of Switzerland and the distant peak of the Matterhorn. Our hotel was located on the Italian side, but after having covered the majority of the slopes on this side on Sunday, we decided to test out the French slopes on Monday. Featuring longer, more gradual runs, this side of the mountain offered a bit of a change from the steeper, narrower trails on the Italian side. However, I have to say that the view was just as good, and probably better. The conditions on Monday were the best overall of the three days. With slightly more cloud cover, the peaks were not as visible, but it only improved the unique scenery around us:

The last day was a struggle from the very beginning, offering the most difficult conditions. When we walked outside the hotel and noticed that there was very little visibility even at this relatively low elevation, we knew we were in for an interesting day. That morning, a storm rolled in, and due to our high elevation, cloud cover completely encompassed the mountain. Taking the lift to very top, unable to even see the chair in front of us or the lifts to the side of us, we not only couldn’t see any of the amazing peaks, but couldn’t see each other from more than 15 feet away (It is usually not a good sign when the chair lift operator has to lower the seat for you to board the lift since no one else had gone that high before us). This picture was taken from 15 feet away with the same backdrop as the one from the 1st day!:

Combined with a constant heavy snowfall throughout the day, this thick cloud cover made the entire top of the mountain un-skiable. It took us around 50 minutes to get down from the top since we had to inch out way down following the orange guide poles lining the slope! Good thing we knew the run from the previous day! Even though the conditions were far from ideal, I still had a very fun day. How could i complain, I was snowboarding in the Alps after I was just on a beach in Monte Carlo two days before.

Overall this trip was awesome and definitely my favorite so far among my travels throughout Europe.

Disclaimer about the Snow Conditions:

Although skiing in the Alps is almost always portrayed as white, powder covered runs within huge jagged rocks, the conditions at La Thiule were far more reminiscent of the typical East Coast mix of powder, ice, and manufactured snow than the deep, powder-covered runs of Colorado (particularly the French side). I have no complaints about the resort, but don’t go there expecting to be skiing in conditions typical of Aspen, Vaile, or Deer Valley.

Here is view of the famous Mount Blanc from the summit:

Location: La Thiule, Italy

Allora, Interlaken SWITZERLAND

Its been a while since I blogged, but I’ve just been having so much fun I haven’t really had time. Needless to say, two weekends ago I went to Interlaken, Switzerland.

Five of us (me, Dee, Chris, Aaron and Rob) all decided to go there so that we could ski/snowboard. We left on Thursday afternoon for Florence, to meet the bus that was taking us there through Bus2Alps. I cannot even describe how much fun I had.

We got into Balmer’s Hostel, the oldest hostel in Switzerland, at around 3am. By 7 we were awake and on our way to the slopes. We skied an area called the Jungfrau Region. The views from the top were so beautiful that we stopped every time and took pictures of the same mountains over and over again. I couldn’t get enough of the view.

I need to dedicate a paragraph about our roommates. If I had to pick one word to describe them it would be eclectic. I’m not even sure if one of them knew his own name. Another was the most overenthusiastic person I’ve met so far in my life. His stories went something like, “…and then we went up the stairs! IT WAS AWESOME, SO CRAZY, DUDE [everyone was a dude, even the girls] YOU NEED TO DO IT!” And the third was the ultimate surfer bro. I’m convinced there’s a chance he’s the author of broslikethissite.com.

In other news, it was nice to be on skis at least once this year, which I didn’t think was going to happen. Everyone in our group fell at least once when we were going down the mountain, so I considered it a successful day.

Guess what exotic food we ate in Switzerland? That’s right, you guessed it, calf’s head. Literally it was the face of a cow. It was pretty weird to say the least.

Saturday we went into Zurich, and it was so pretty. It isn’t anything like any of the cities I’ve seen so far, most of the buildings were no more than five or six stories. The buildings were so different even from the cities I’ve visited in Italy. The day was so relaxing, we just wandered and found random parks and buildings through out the city. There was this chocolate shop where we found chocolate hamburgers. Needless to say we were those 5 Americans who went into the chocolate shop and left with 12 chocolate hamburgers in all different colors. We almost ate them right outside the store, but we figured that would be a little excessive and made it about 3 blocks away before we tore the box open. Typical.

Sunday I think was by far the most epic day. Canyon Jumping. Enough said.

Enjoy the disclaimer we were given to read, and keep in mind that we were taken to the spot to jump buy three Swiss hippies, in an old 70s style van, and did donuts in the parking lot before we went up to jump and Aaron got a free shot at the top for being the first one of the day to jump half-naked.

I really don’t think I can properly describe it, so you can just watch these videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o20FYX2tb04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK00-yC07VE

All I can say is it was probably the most fun I’ve had here so far, and I can’t wait to recklessly jump off a cliff again soon.

Location: Interlaken, Switzerland

Skiing, Teaching, and A Trip to the Emergency Room: Three Unrelated Events

Hei alle! What a week it has been here in Trondheim! Here’s what’s been going on:

Last Friday Megan and I did not have school. Apparently it was supposed to just be a day off for the students and a work day for the teachers but somehow the teachers managed to get the day off too. I spent the day walking around the city with Megan and we met up with her mentor teacher Gunvor and her daughter for coffee at a cafe. That night Megan and I made a real homemade meal…which was delicious! We were quite proud of ourselves! All in all it was a very relaxing day that was much needed.

Photographic proof of our delicious meal!

On Saturday Megan and I went on the skiing trip to Mer�ker through SiT the housing office. We met at the Samfundet (basically the off campus student union) early in the morning to board the buses for the approximately 1 hour bus ride to the mountain. It was a beautiful drive through the Norwegian countryside. I began to notice that the weather was getting quite bad the closer we got to the mountain. I knew it was going to be an interesting day when our bus got stuck in the ice and started sliding backwards down the road. We eventually got that situation figured out and we made it to the ski lodge. By this time the weather had gotten pretty bad. I didn’t take a picture but I found one that describes the weather conditions well:

No, there is nothing wrong with your browser. This is actually what it looked like. It was a complete whiteout, but not the Penn State kind. You couldn’t see anything! The students running the program reminded us of an old Norwegian saying: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing”. And with that, we were off to get our skis.

After being fitted for my skis the staff sent me down the mountain, without direction or instruction. I must have been quite a sight to see. Unfortunately the ski lift (which was more like a people mover: you stood up on the ground and this contraption literally pulled you up the mountain) wasn’t working on the beginner hill so we were on the “childrens'” slope. Well another Norwegian saying goes “Norwegians are born with skis on their feet”. So naturally the kiddie hill was a bit more difficult than the equivalent would have been in the States. Honestly, skiing was really hard, especially with very little instruction (mostly from strangers willing to help me out) and the conditions. I made it down the mountain twice before deciding I should probably quit while I was ahead (i.e. still in one piece). All in all I would say that the trip was a success because I had the opportunity to chat with some other really cool international students and try something I’d never done before. I would like to try skiing again, but probably on a bunny hill with a patient instructor. =)

Monday was my first day teaching my own lessons. Honestly, my lesson was a bit of a dud. I was teaching my students the causes of World War I (which is difficult in itself), but adding the language barrier on top of that made it even harder. It was a great learning experience because now I know the type of language I need to use, how much content I should try to cover in one period, and general classroom management. My other lessons for the week (another social studies lesson, an English lesson, and a current events lesson) went much better. Being here has really made me aware of how difficult communication can be and that I really need to make a conscious effort to make sure that my students understand my vocabulary, the content we are covering in class, and the work that they are responsible for.

Tuesday was quite a day. In the morning Megan and I had by far the worst bus driver I’ve ever had the displeasure of riding with. Not only was the bus late but the driver kept slamming on the breaks for every little thing! By the time we arrived at school both Megan and I were feeling a bit queasy. Unfortunately things kept getting worse for Megan. After eating food prepared by our students, she began to feel quite sick. She made it home after school okay and we parted ways to our rooms. When I woke up from my nap I saw that Megan had Skyped me saying that she wasn’t feeling well…at all. Long story short, she had been stomach-sick all afternoon and needed to go to the hospital. I think that is the worst nightmare of every student abroad. Norway is known for having a health care system that is very different from the US. Did we go to the hospital? A private doctor? Th emergency room? Did we need our HTH medical cards? We had no clue what the rules were here. Megan’s phone was broken so I called our student assistant Ingrid (who did not pick up initially) and our program director Randi, who told us to take a taxi to the hospital. I finally got in touch with Ingrid who arranged to have a friend to take all of us to the hospital.

The hospital in Trondheim (St. Olav’s) is very similar to the hospitals that I have been to in the States, although there is way more art on the walls. Trying to make people feel more at home? I don’t know. We (Megan, Ingrid, Ingrid’s friend, and myself) got to the emergency room waiting area and took a number. We were called fairly quickly and Megan was taken into an examination room. They took her temperature with by far the coolest thing I have ever seen: it was hand-held instrument that the nurse put on Megan’s skin, moved it around to different areas of her face, and then waited for the beep to see what her temperature was. It was so cool! After the nurse (who spoke wonderful English) left, we waited for the doctor. And we waited. And we waited. About 2 hours later the doctor (who did not speak any English) came in and told her that she needed to get treatment in the emergency room. I’m still not sure what we were in for the first 2 hours, but regardless, we were moved down the the emergency floor.

When we got to the emergency floor Megan’s bed was placed literally in the middle of the hallway. There we waited again. Doctors and nurses just walked around us as if we weren’t there. (We later found out that there was a very serious car accident that required much of the staff’s attention, which is why we were kind of ignored for a while.) Once we waited in the hallway for about 2 more hours a nurse finally took Megan. It was the first time anyone had asked us for identification. Unfortunately we had absolutely no identification or proof of address for Megan because we left in such a rush. Apparently that was no big deal. No one seemed to be particularly worried that we had absolutely no form of ID. I guess that’s just how health care works around here: treat first and ask questions later.

It was about midnight when an emergency room doctor finally saw Megan. He determined that she either had food poisoning or the Norovirus (a.k.a. the Norwalk virus: a very contagious stomach virus that is highly contagious and is usually common in crowded places such as schools and cruise ships). Supposedly the Norovirus strikes Norway pretty hard every year. In fact, many kindergartens in Trondheim have been closed in January and February due to outbreaks of the virus. After hearing that the Norovirus is common in enclosed spaces the daily recess for my students (regardless of the weather) began to make a lot more sense. The doctor basically said that there wasn’t much to do so he sent us home. We had to take a taxi home because Ingrid and her friend had left about an hour earlier (they are teachers as well and had to go to school the next day). We left the hospital around 1am and I was home by 1:30am. Needless to say school the next day was less than fun. I’m happy to report that Megan is feeling much better now! She was really a champ throughout the entire ordeal. It’s scary being sick abroad but she handled it really well.

The rest of the week has been relatively uneventful. I’m trying to get in the swing of things: teaching and writing lesson plans. My social life is a bit dull since I have so much work to do and I’m exhausted after school. Hopefully I’ll be able to get more energy and experience some of Trondheim’s nightlife soon!

So a recap of the week:
-Days off from school are a much fun for the teachers as they are for the students.
-Skiing is hard.
-You don’t need ID to get treated in a Norwegian hospital.
-The Norovirus sucks.