At 06:20 hours I woke up and started packing up my stuff, shoveled some food into my mouth and walked home under the cover of darkness. It was a little bit tricky because I didn’t follow an exact bearing,at the end I was just 50 meters off so I did a great job I think. Close to home I even found some deer hiding in the bushes who, after some time, went in the opposite direction I was going. Called my girlfriend, took a quick shower, ate my diner that was supposed to be eaten last night and had to run to school. And by now we were really getting some snow!

Because one of our teacher broke his collarbone during the weekend I asked if it was possible that I could give his orienteering class on Wednesday. After a quick conversation with Johne about my plans I got a green light and was teaching my own class.

I started out dividing the class in to small groups of three, containing one expert and two novice to orienteering. I asked the experts if they could explain how to receive and set a bearing. And just started walking around and checking if the experts were doing there job. In general this worked great! When I played the pointing game, where the group would stand in an circle around me and I would scream a bearing which they have to point out. If someone was confused their neighbor would explain it to them and after a three times everybody understood. I started walking to our orienteering area and when we were walking on the map I asked if everybody could find out where we were.. This was a nice exercise because everybody had to pay attention to details and had to try to interpreter the map to their surroundings. At this point it was hard for me coping with the big difference in experience because some just knew where we were and others were quit off. So this part was a little bit longer for the experienced and a little bit to short for the novice.
After everybody got the location I gave a checkpoint and the assignment of always knowing where you are. Off course after 1 km I asked the class where we were and for many this was already teaching them some map discipline because they where far off. Lesson learned and after finding the right location a gave our location for the base camp which every group had to find on their own. At our base camp and missing one group I explained the orienteering game and offered a chocolate bar for the group who would find the most checkpoints pointed out on the map and was back before 13:00 hours.

While everybody was on their way Erwan and I stayed behind and collected wood to make a fire. Which is good practice because it’s always difficult making a fire in the cold and snow.
30 minutes after everybody had left for their orienteering exercise the missing group got to the checkpoint and told us about their mistakes. But after a quick break they were on the run as well.
One hour later everybody returned within 15 minutes of each other and sat down to take some rest and to have some lunch. Even though we talked a little bit about the process and gave away the grand price to the winning team, I would have liked to do a full recap with the whole class. When doing this recap I could draw the techniques used and explain them a little bit further and every team could share their experience.
I decided not to do this because of the cold and the desire to get moving again. When we got back everybody had to go home to get some food and be ready for the Norwegian course. So I think I made the right choice but because of this didn’t got the highest results concerning learning to work with map and compass.

Conclusion: Even thought I was doubting if this was a smart move because I didn’t want to be ‘above’ my own class, in the end everything turned out great and I think I gave a good class.
On Thursday I did my first laundry using the washing machine.. I have to be honest and say that it wouldn’t have been the success that it was if my mom didn’t help me on skype, so thanks mom! ^^
On Friday I picked up 2 expedition tents and a lavvu at the outdoor education depot and chilled major ball sack at Marie’s place together with Ollie, went to the second hand shop, bought a present for my girlfriend and enjoyed watching Ollie concurring 3kg of free sausages. After this brilliant moment I was off to the Australians where I was invited to have diner that night.
And what a diner that was! When I arrived they forgot to defrost the fish and were running around with panic written all over there face. But after half an hour there is was:
They made breaded fish, which was bought at the local fish market and tasted great! They had potato with bacon in the oven who were getting boiled boiled by milk which gave it a real nice creamy taste. Besides this they mad some pees with tomato sauce and baked union. Never had pees like this before but I liked this more.They also made an Australian damper which tasted great with some blueberry jam. The Australian should have thought that I was a huge guy because there really was a lot of food! And we ate it all.. Then at the point that you know you’ve gone to far there was desert.
So at this point I was almost puking, but this desert was so beautiful and tasteful I almost cried and forgot about everything else in the world. I don’t really know how I should describe the desert but then maybe I just don’t want to. Something that tasty should just be tasted.
At the end of the diner I was totally blown away by the majority of tasty food and by some mind blowing secrets the Australian’s carry with them. Secrets I will have to carry the rest of the semester as well..

After the diner at the Australians we joined forces with Nick, Manuel and Kevin and started walking to the university. This took 4 times the normal time because there was some serious snowball warfare going on. After arriving at the university there were some more snowball fights and a planned ambush for Sara, Nayara, Ollie and Marie. With an brilliant improvised distraction plan from my side the team executed the ambush perfectly and professionally eliminated the threat by rubbing snow in peoples faces. One snowball in the eye, a bleeding nose and an impressive amount of time later we arrived at my place to sink into the couches downstairs, enjoy the warmth of the fire and to watch The lord of the ring: The fellowship of the ring.
Later that evening, laying in bed, and getting out of bed again to find Kevin’s key, I was thinking to myself that this day should have been damn close to a perfect day.
On Saturday, Nina, Erwan, Sara, Nayara, Katrin, Julie (a awesome girl from Slovak) and me were hiking in the forest through deep snow and put up camp at Baneheia. It wasn’t a long hike but hiking in these conditions were tough enough as they were with a backpack full of gear, food and tents.

When we selected a proper camping spot we put up the lavvu, one expedition tent and a tarp, Started collecting firewood at which Nina did a great job by climbing in trees like a little monkey to cut dead branches. By now Marie and Tina arrived at the campsite as well and we were ready to light the fire.
I don’t consider myself an expert at making fire but I do have some experience. Tonight would definitely hit my ego in the face because even though we had the right wood and reasonable preparation, the wood shaving just wouldn’t catch a flame. Not at all! Holding a lighter under a shaving wouldn’t get it to catch flame, even esbit blocks didn’t get them to make us warm. After a new preparation and multiple esbit blocks we had the fire going.. Even with a big pile of wood burning it was still having trouble but we managed. I think the weather had been so wet and the air so humid the shavings were worthless nevertheless I would really like to take this challenge on any time again.

We had an awesome time in the forest, enjoying the amazing amount of light the snow reflects, having multiple sporadic snowball fights (in which the girls were way rougher than me!), the music by Julie, a fire show by Nina and Nayara, and my first night in a lavvu which was a dream come true.