Nature has always played a central role in Norwegian culture and at this weekend it was time for us to find out more about it. The aim was to get a deeper understanding and experience of the important role of friluftsliv. Moreover, we should understand how nature has been a central part of Norwegian culture.

The start in this weekend was somewhat less than perfect. After a really long and very intensive 5 hour skype call I only had about 3 hours of sleep. That was no problem at all but after the gear was picked up nearly an hour later because of problems with the reservation and we started with a delay of an hour I was a little bit grumpy. Luckily I was able sleep a while during the car drive to Oslo, where our venue was at half past one in front of the Fram Museum. The Museum houses the world’s most famous polar ship – the fram. The best thing about it is that it is possible to come on board and discover the ship. I was surprised how big the ship was but the people in this times must have been shorter than nowadays or they had to move in a stooping position. At least, I knocked my head several times because the ceiling height was about 30 cm too short… Nevertheless, this was a great experience to get in so a close touch with the history of the polar explorers. Moreover, a really good exhibition around the big three polar explorers Fridjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup and Roald Amundsen and their men in the background who made the expeditions possible was created. A wide range of photos and videos made it possible to delve into the expeditions and adventures.

After the visit we drove to Holmenkollen to camp there right next to a ski track. As it turns out our spot was very close to the Biathlon arena wherefore a lot of athletes who made a training run passed our camp. This happened for example on Saturday morning as I was cleaning my teeth and a female athlete skied passed my within a distance of 1m and of course, both of us had to smile because of this weird scene. I expected that the athletes are very fast but it is unbelievable how fast they really are! There was a downhill slope in front of our camp and the very schussing with about 50-60 km/h. After breakfast Adrian, Stella, Line, Jill, Amy, Saedis and I decided to sightsee Oslo downtown. There, we were able to experience the joy and enthusiasm in relation to the Nordic World Ski Biathlon Championships. A huge stage were the medal ceremony was held in the afternoon, a big street market and a lot of attractions around the event like e.g. a small ski shooting arena reminded me to the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany. Before visiting Oslo it was quiet hard for me to understand the enthusiasm of the Norwegians but during this Saturday I started to understand what Biathlon means for them. We watched the team relay downtown at a public viewing spot and I started to feel a bit of the enthusiasm among all the cheering Norwegians. They were cheering after every single hit at the shooting and the relay was really exciting. Germany and Norway had a big battle for the first place which was won in the end by the Norwegian team. This led to a delirium of joy and was the start of the big party. During the medal ceremony there was a sea of Norwegian flags and the police had to close roads because of all the people who wanted to celebrate with their national heroes.

After a long day with a lot of new impressions we returned to the camp where Joey and Marek did crazy things on skies 😉 The evening was very funny and a perfect ending of this day. We also got in closer contact with our Norwegian neighbours. They shared their moose soup with us and we were sitting around their campfire and had a nice conversation about the event and the meaning of friluftsliv to the Norwegian culture. The last ones of us went to sleep at 2ish, I was too tired wherefore I went to sleep at around eleven. The next morning we had breakfast, struck our camp and loaded the gear into the van. Following, we drove back to Kristiansand.

 

 

Holmenkollen History

 

• Holmenkollen is a mountain with 371m above sea level
• The so called “Holmenkollen National Area” is used by people for popular and professional sports like e.g. cross-country, biathlon and ski jumping
• Holmenkollenbakken is a large ski jump in this area with a hill size of 134m
• 70 000 spectators can watch the competitions in the arena
• Holmenbollenbakken is the oldest ski jump of the world (first competitions took place in 1892)
• It is the most visited sight of Oslo
• the ski jump has been rebuilt 19 times

important upgrades include:

important upgrades include:

– a stone take-off in 1910

– a run superstructure in 1914 and a new superstructure in 1928

– during World War II the venue was used as a military installation

– further upgrades were made ahead of the 1966 and 1982 Wold Championship, as well as in 1991

– between 2008 and 2010 the entire structure was demolished and rebuilt