Skiing in Lillehammer

3 January

Let's see.  Where did I leave you off at?  Oh yeah, Lillehammer, Norway.  Which is gorgeous, by the way.

Woke up that morning and got ready first thing because doing that is always faster than eating breakfast first.  I piled my ski stuff on my bed (and the rest of the stuff on the other bed) just to make sure I had everything I would need.  Extra foot warmers?  Check!  Snow pants?  Ski goggles?  Gloves?  Check check check.  Ran over a mental list of anything else I would need for skiing, and I wasn't sure I had everything so I quickly dialed home.  According to home, it rang once before it stopped ringing.  Between dialing and the final decision, I figured that I did have everything and I wouldn't need anything else.  Then I went to eat breakfast (which was free with the room.  Yay for free breakfast!)

The initial plan was to leave on the 9:20a bus because I thought that would be early enough to make it to the hill.  However, I was ready by 8:00a, so why wait that extra hour and a half being impatient?  I left at the 8:20am bus instead.  And I think I annoyed the driver because I asked "This is the bus to Haljell right?" and then "Is this the ski hill?"  Dumb American, I may be, but at least I ask questions and don't get stuck someplace rather than not ask anything and get stuck someplace strange. 

For the record, yes this is the Haljell that hosted the Winter Olympics in 1992. 

The ticket office wasn't open yet, but the ski rental place was!  I walked in and the guys behind the counter were very nice.  I asked if they spoke English and they said "Of course!  What's your shoe size?"
"I don't know the European size."
"That's okay."
So I gave him my size and he checked a sheet hanging on a shelf before retrieving a pair of boots.  I tried them on and they fit well enough.  Enough room to wiggle the toes and even for a toe warmer if needed.  It wasn't too tight, and I didn't try to make it too tight.  First time's a charm.
"Does it fit?"
"Yep!"
"Take the right boot to that counter there," he pointed to the ski counter "so it can be fitted with a pair of skis."
"Thank you!  Er . .. tak!"

The ski guy stayed with me the rest of the time.  He asked how long I've been skiing, I said a great deal of my life.  He asked if I wanted advanced skis, and I said that I wasn't THAT good.  Really, I'm not THAT good.  Mostly because I don't take enough risks on the ski hil, not like my little brother who learned at the same time as me and skis like an Olympic pro.  But the guy was sympathetic to my experience and gave me a pair of skis slighter better than the standard intermediate adult skis.  Which was really nice of him.  As I was paying, he gave me a pair of poles to use.  He also strongly recommended a helmet which is included in the price of the "complete set" that I was renting.  Not required, but strongly recommended. 

I choose a helmet for various reasons.  The most prominent is that I've never skied with a helmet before.  Second, it's probably a good idea being all alone on a ski hill that's probably more advanced than anything in Wisconsin.  Thirdly, you're on a ski hill that hosted the Olympics.  Of course you should take a helmet.  A green is probably the equivalent of a blue back home.  That last statement couldn't have been more true. 

I'll be using skier terminology in this post from now on, so here's a few pointers as to what I'm talking about.
Non-Skier Legend:
- Green = easy run
- Blue = intermediate run
- Red = advanced run
- Black = super advanced run; experts only
**In Wisconsin, a Red would equal a Black Diamond and a Black a Double Black Diamond.  I'm using what they used in Norway for this post.
- slope = interchangable with run.  Means a groomed path on the mountain

So yes, a WI Blue was a Norwegian Green.  So it took a while for me to re-acquire my ski legs.  But I eventually got it.  Didn't do anything behond a blue, though.  And even the blues were kind of hard.  Wait, I did do something beyond a blue, but it was only because I had no idea where that one particular slope went and before I knew it, it was steeper than I was comfortable with.

The thing with skiing is if you come to a challenge like this, you really have to take it.  You can't really go back unless you were THAT determined to avoid the challenge.  And even then, when the challenge comes in the middle of the hill, it's easier to just accept the challenge than avoid it entirely.  I remember a time in Wisconsin I was skiing with my friend LIndsay, my brothers, and Dad.  We had to get to the chalet at the bottom of the hill, and most of the runs were closed.  The only way left down the hill was the steep black diamond right in front of the chalet.  Lindsay was there to help me down, but I do think she was more impatient than encouraging.  But Dad was there to say "Take really wide turns".  I took the hill slowly and with really wide turns, but I made it to the bottom.

And that's what I thought of as I descended that harder-than-anticipated hill mostly because I did the same thing.  I took wide turns and I took it slowly.  Don't go a speed you're not comfortable with.  Do what's comfy and everything will be fine.

But you should know that the comfy speed isn't always the most pleasant speed on the thighs.  You really gotta dig in your skis if you want to go slow enough to turn in time before you hit a tree (or someone else).  I started feeling my thighs about two in the afternoon, after I had been skiing for about four hours (factoring in that hour I took for lunch).  So I would take breaks halfway down some runs to stretch them out and loosen up again before continung onward.

Lunch, by the way, was a hamburger in a cafe with the Olympic name on it.  The hamburger didn't have any cheese but it had some 1000 Island dressing that reminded me of the Nitty Gritty in Madison.  The fries it came with had a flavoring I couldn't put my finger on, but it was good enough to snack on as I waited for my toes to warm up.  That was nice.  Also while eating lunch, a girl came up and pointed to the side of the table I wasn't using and asked something in Norwegian.  Of course, though context and gestures, I understood what she was asking so I said "Yeah, of course you can sit there."  She was joined shortly after by a couple friends and they sat and warmed up with hot chocolate.

I had also bought the Norwegian equivalent of a Kit Kat bar for lunch, but I saved that for later since I didn't feel like eating it right away.  It was a bit of an impulse buy, more of a "Ooo!  Norwegian candy!" than anything.  That chocolate bar I ate a few hours later when I stopped in the same cafe to warm up.  Ate it with a cup of hot chocolate that wasn't as good as the hot chocolate in Berlin but it was better than the stuff Ryan had in London.  So I deemed it acceptable albeit overpriced.

What else about that day?  First time on a gondola, that was an experience.  Nothing worth noting other than it was my first time riding a gondola.  And since I had nothing better to do, I rode it all the way up to the top. 

There was a mini terrain park for children on the hill.  I liked to play in that because it was less scary than the real terrain park for adults and tricksters.  I liked the rounded hill and the see-saw.  There was a mini race course where the halfway mark was a cute inflatable viking.  Of course there were a couple jumps and a few ramps that were extra slidey so you could spin or what not on them.  There was even a little conveyer belt so you can restrict playtime only to the children's terrain park.  I didn't stay much at a time because an adult in a children's terrain park was kind of weird, especially a solo adult.  So I would play for a few minutes, finish going down the mountain, take a few more runs, then return to the play park for some more innocent fun. 

It was time to call it a day when I went down a run and couldn't make out what sort of powder was coming my way.  I didn't want to ski on unknown snow, I skied the rest of the way down the mountain and into the locker room where I had kept my stuff for the day.  After getting off the equipment, I returned the skis and poles and stuff and went to get some cash for the bus ticket back to Lillehammer.

Also bought a postcard or two from the sports shop at the hill.  Mostly because I didn't know if I would get a souvenir from Lillehammer, but I planned to walk the main shopping street when I got back anyway.

It took maybe an hour and a half for the correct bus to come.  It was empty when it finally came, but the skiers returning to Lillehammer filled it up pretty fast.  I sat next to a window and was so tired I fell asleep during the twenty minute return trip.  Could not keep my eyes open for the life of me. 

Got wide awake when I returned to the outdoor air, though.  I had walked a main shopping street the previous night and I wanted to walk it again now that some of the shops might still be open.  So off I went and lo and behold, the sourvenir shop was still open!  Yay!  I ran into that and got a few postcards, a patch for Norway, and a tee shirt that fittingly says "Scandinavian Explorer" and features the flags of all 4 Scandinavian countries.  It just fits me, so I'm going to have to be careful about washing it.  I hope it doesn't shirnk on me!

Dinner was leftover pizza from the previous night.  I cooked it in the microwave in the guest kitchen in the hostel.  I wanted to eat and hang out online as I did so, but my computer wouldn't connect to the Internet in the kitchen.  To pass the time, I opened up an old Big Bang Theory file and watched an episode of that.  During the episode, more people came in to prepare their own dinner.  Don't know what they were waiting for, but they watched the remaining episode with me since it was the loudest thing in the kitchen.  After cleaning my dishes, I left for my room where my computer could connect to the Internet.  I had planned to catch up on blogging, but I hung out on Skype instead.  Yay Skype.