Easter Break i Norge

Easter in Norway can basically be summed up by two pictures:

Skiing and chocolate, with a bit of sunburn and, well, not a whole lot else. Not a bad life!

I'm starting to come out of the chocolate coma of the past week, enough to write this post and realize that I'm going to have to go back to semi normal eating habits....tommorow. 

We get a little over a week off school for easter here, and we drove up to Geilo last Monday. This is going to sound like a repetitive first grader's journal - "and then I ate chocolate, and then I skiied, and then I slept, and then I woke up and ate toast...." but I'll keep the summary as short as possible.

Tuesday I went downhill skiing, and Wednesday we xc skiied up to Prestholt, about 7 km up to a cabin where they sell waffles, hot chocolate etc. I still haven't gotten used to this idea of skiing in what seems like the middle of nowhere (besides all the people trekking along with their kids/dogs/backpacks), and then suddenly coming to a cafe in a cabin which takes credit cards and has a barbeque sitting outside it.

There isn't much snow left here in Geilo, but as my host mom said today "Norwegians will search for the last fleck of snow left anywhere", which definitely sounds true for the ridiculous amount of cars parked along the highway wherever ski trails join with it, and the long lineups to buy waffles at the cabins. That also sounds like a lot of people I know back home,  but you get like 500x as much traffic on the bits of snow left here than you ever do at the Nelson trails, especially in late April.

Thursday we drove about 20 minutes to Ustaoset, where we started the days ski sloshing through a little river and then crossing a lake.

...and eventually coming into the hills and reaching a cabin that apparently has "Norway's best waffles." They don't even sell them with toppings they're so confident that they're good. And they are!

And no ski is complete without a kvikk lunsj!

I find it interesting that the vast majority of people out cross country skiing in Easter aren't exactly going fast (myself included). I saw very few people skating or even really striding at a fastish pace. Everyone looks more like they're out for a hike, and just happened to find themselves with skiis and poles attached to them. Definitely a relaxed, enjoy the sun type of atmosphere.

On Friday we joined lots of other people in crowding the Oslo-Bergen train for the short ride from Geilo to Finse, where we got off and skiied 38 km back to Ustaoset.

Host mom and I near the beginning

It was pretty much just an amazing, sunny and gorgeous ski, not much else to say about it.

Saturday we slept in then visited a neighbors cabin for the afternoon, where we were organized by families for an easter quiz. We managed to win, with 8.5 or something questions right out of 20. They were pretty random questions, from "where were the olympics in 1980 (lake placid) to how far is it from the equator to the north pole, to the average number of sheets on a roll of toilet paper. My only contribution was "how many calories are in a kvikk lunsj bar" (260). Not like knowing that has stopped me from eating way too many of them!

Today (Sunday) we went for a short ski; the majority of the time which I spent napping in the sun beside the trail:

I think I burned a total of like 6 calories the entire ski, det var deilig :) A nice way to finish off my last ski here in Norway. Until I come back someday, that is!

Here for easter they give out big cardboard easter eggs full of candy/other gifts:

So that was my easter in Norway; skiing, chocolate, waffles and sun. 

It's strange how being in another country makes you ridiculously patriotic about your own, and WAY too excited at any mention of it. I just glanced at the back of a bag of sørlands chips, which I think are the best chips they have here. 

And bam, Canada! American stuff is everywhere of course; you just have to open a newspaper or walk into a clothes store and see a t shirt or pair of shoes with an american flag design. But the little glimses of Canada are few and far between; a bit of coverage during the world cup, a random set of Canada flag cards brought out at a party (which I had  nothing to do with), or apparently an entire story on the back of chip bags. The story tells about one of the founders who returned from Canada inspired by Mrs Vickie's chips, and decided to make a Norwegian version. No wonder the Sørland chips are so good!

Happy Easter / God Påske!

The Easter chicken who graced the couch at the cabin for the past week haha