–          30-03-15

It’s a beautiful day in our Easter Holliday. Most students went back to their home country and others are making trips through Norway.I’m staying in Kristiansand and my friend Misha is coming over to visit me. We decide to walk to the Omventebåt and we go a bit further to one of the tops called Oddersjaa. Misha is building a small fire and I’m eating an orange. He mostly use a council fire, this fire provides a lot of heat, good hot coal and will even burn in the rain with wet wood. We have a beautiful view over Bannaheia and Kristiansand.

Snowhole trip
–          23-03-15 / 26-03-15

This is our big ski trip in Berdalsbu with overnights in a snowhole and in a DNT- hut.

Monday

I go with the bus of 8:45 to Berdalshu. We arrive at 12:00 and Len and Tim are waiting for us with a van. We drop our backpacks in the van and walk up to the place we start our trip. We do a short check on equipment. We wax our ski’s and separate the group in two. One group goes with Len and one group goes with Tim. We ski over a track to the first hut. It’s warm and even rains a bit. The track is uphill and the wax isn’t working. It makes it a hot, and we ski in t-shirts. Most of the time I’m in the back of the group with Miriam and Kirbby. We are not in a hurry and talk during the trip. We arrive at the hut round 15:30. Our group is in the small hut and the other group is in the bigger hut. We order our stuff. Fill up big pans with snow start the fire in the stove to melt it. Len comes over and tell us about the DNT hut system. And gives us information about building a snow hole. Our group is divided in 4 smaller groups for the snowhole. We are looking for a good spot to build a snowhole this afternoon. Every group gets a winddirection to look for a spot. We go to the west and find a good place 100m downhill of the DNT-hut. The place has a big slope and underneath it is a small stream we can use to provide us from water instead of melting snow. We have time left and play around the hut on ski’s. round 18:00 we go back into the hut and cook our dinner. I’m eating lentils with dried carrot and paprika, butter, Kerrie and green beans. I do the dishes together with Florin. I walk bare feet to the toilet who is set in a small hut next to our huts. And the cold snow under my feet feels awesome. We have enough beds for everyone to sleep on a matrass. Len is sleeping on our couch this night. At 22:30 is everyone in bed.

Tuesday

At 6 o’clock in the morning Jochen’s alarm is going off and everyone is annoyed, but continue sleeping. Most of us wake up at 8:00. I have breakfast in bed, oatmeal with hot water. I pack my gear and help doing the dishes. We are ready at 9:30 to leave the huts. The weather is lovely, it’s warm, the sun is shining and we have a perfectly blue sky. We ski to the snowhole area’s people picked out and discus if they are good or not.

Without backpack the area was nice to ski, with backpack is hard and a lot of people are falling down, including myself. Most of the time I’m falling is more for breaking than actually falling. Again it’s too warm for the wax and it’s not working at all. The area our group has chosen is good enough for the whole group of Len and we split our group in three smaller groups for digging and sleeping in the snowhole. Tim’s group is at the other side of a hill in our area. I lost my sleeping mat while falling and go back to find it. Luckily it’s on the last place I felt down. I return back and help Kirby and Miriam with building a cooking place with a couch and wind shelter of snow.

The boys are digging the snowholes. It’s so warm that they are digging without shirts on. We switch after a while. The boys take a break and I start digging with Miriam. I’m in the snowhole group with Daniel, Morrits and Miriam. We have fun during the digging. We find out it’s easier to use the snow saw to dig. We saw big blocks of snow out and Miriam started to build a wall around our entrance. I’m building a road to our snowhole, to make it easier to reach and to prevent walking on the roof of the snowhole underneath ours. In between we sunbath and enjoy the weather.  We have a break and take a look at the other group. They are building a combination of snowhole and igloo. They digged a tunnel with a hole and 5 people are standing in the middle of the whole with an emergency shelter over them. We all start throwing snow on them and it creates the dome of the igloo. After 10 min we stop throwing snow on them and the people in the dome sneak out one by one. The “sniglo” is build and we go back to work on our own shelters.

Jochen made a fire place out of our kitchen. Round 5 o clock  we finished the snowholes and sit round the fire and make dinner. I’m eating couscous with dried mushrooms, carrot and Kerrie. I go to the snowhole at 21:00. Miriam is already there and a candle is lighting the snowhole. The snowhole is warm and looks cosy.

Wednesday

I slept really well this night. The alarm went off at 8:00. I had breakfast and went out for a pee and boil water for my thermos. I pack my stuff, and we can leave the gear we don’t need for skiing in the snowhole. I wax the ski’s and at 10:30 everyone is ready to leave.

It’s cold and cloudy today.  Will is taking the lead and we go uphill between two mountain tops. My wax isn’t working and Len tells me to put on more wax.  The wind raves between the mountain tops and blows us away. I’m glad I’m wearing goggles, the wind and snow smashing in our faces. I’m in the back of the group again. I’m not so fast on ski’s. I’m so bizy with skiing that I don’t pay attention on the map. On top of the mountain we gather the group and build a shelter for a short break. We dig it on a slope and a part of it is coming down like an avalanche. The snow is coming over the slope and the break is cold and wet, but it feels good to have a break. We continue and do a practice with the compass for shooting grades to a certain point with people for when the weather is too bad to see features in the landscape. Jochen takes the lead and lead us back down at an other side of the mountain. It looks like an half pipe. Luke is last of the group and looks after everyone. I try to follow Jochen’s route but I’m falling over every time and get snow under my backpack and a bit in my jacket and its cold so I start to make my own route with more zigzags. I’m not falling over any more. We go back to the huts and take a break in the big hut. It’s for getting warm and dry our clothes. We do an evaluation about the ski trip we just did. We find out that some people have a different perception of being part of a group. Tim’s group also arrives at the hut. After a while a Norwegian class is in front of the hut and we have to leave to our snowholes. The weather is getting worse and I stay in the snowhole. I cook water at the door and write my note book. I make a hole above the entrance in the roof to provide the hole of more air. I go out for the toilet and find Norwegian students digging a snowhole next to our toilet. I have a nice chat with them, they tell about their snowhole and I tell them about our toilet next to them, so they won’t dig there. I help Anne and Katja with carrying water to their ‘sniglo’ and go look for another toilet place. I go back to my snowhole and go to bed.

Thursday

We have to dig ourselves out today. The entrance is totally covered with snow. It’s nice and warm in the snowhole and it’s good that I made a hole above the entrance for some air. We dig it out and face the weather outside. It’s stormy outside, a hard wind and it’s snowing. We wait for instructions of Len in our hole. We will ski at 10:00 and leave the snowholes. We pack all our gear and are ready at 10:00.

Len is telling us that we ski back to the road we came from and we are digging one person snow shelters somewhere there. Morrits is taking the lead and keeps the group together. The weather is getting better on our way down, and we can take our goggles of. We take a break next to a boulder and Lenn is telling us about making a snowprofile. We continue and stop next to a small hill and get the task to be under the ground in 20min. We start digging. After 20min Len gather us and gives us the news that we don’t have to sleep in this shelters and that we are going back today because it’s still stormy in the mountains. We walk along all the shelters everyone made and Len tells who will survive and who might not. Just one of our group wouldn’t survive. We ski back to the road and put all the gear in the vans. Someone off Troll active is driving us back to Evje because the bus had already left. We take the bus back to Kristiansand from Evje.

Jegersberg trip
–          18-03-15 / 21-03-15

Together with Luke and Osvaldas am I going to do a nice hike in Jegersberg.  I prepaired the hike together with Luke. We all made one evening dinner for the whole group and the other food we do on our own. Osvaldas is still recovering from an injurie on his ankle so we take it easy.Jegersberg trip

Wednesday

We leave at 14:00 from Kongsgard alle and walk together to Jegersberg. We walk to the Omventebåt today. the route is easy and marked by painted stips and piles of stones. We set our camp on the route to the Omventebåt between the threes with a water stream nearby.  The whole camp is set round 16:00 and we have plenty of time to make it comfortable. Osvaldas is sleeping in his bivibag under the stars, Luke brought a small army tarp and I’m sleeping under my own 3×3 tarp. I’ve got space for Osvaldas to sleep under my tarp if it will rain. I’m trying a new way of putting up my tarp and it took me some time to figure it out.

We build a nice campfire between the tarps in a hole that was already in the ground. I get some stones to put around the fire place, Luke and Osvaldas are looking for wood. There is plenty of dry wood hanging loose in the threes. Luke made a reflection screen of wood behind the fire and I made a couch to sit on.  We use water from the stream and we are eating my dish tonight. I made couscous with corn, split beans, paprika cream and curry. Not a light hiking dish, but it taste really good. We chill at the campfire and if the sky clears up we might see the Northern lights.

Thursday

I had a really good night and weak up from Luke who is cooking hot water and heaving breakfast. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day. Unfortunately we didn’t see the northern Lights last Night, but tomorrow we have a chance to see the sun eclipse. It’s our plan to walk to the Linvatna lake today. We wake up slowly, I have breakfast in bed, oatmeal with hot water what I had in my thermos from last night. We break up the camp and clean the fire place. We walk up to the Omventebåt and take a lunch break in the sun. I met the girlfriend of florin there and we have a short chat. We Put on our backpacks and an old men appeals to us. He tell us about a nice route at the west edge of Jegersberg and a hut on the route. It sounds great and because it will probably rain tonight according to the weather forecast we decide to walk to the hut and sleep there. During the walk we have a beautiful view over the Otra and Bonaheia. We met the man again at the edge of the cliff and he tell us that there is a climbing area underneath. The man turns out to be a ski and hike instructor and he’s very enthusiastic about the hike we are doing. We walk on and reach the hut. We attach our tarps to the side of the hut to prevent for the wind and a tarp on the roof against rain and increase the heat. We fit perfectly with three people in the hut, although the ground is a bit unequal. We build a nice fire on the fireplace what was already there. Ten meters from the hut is a swamp with a water stream. We collect some wood and relax in the sun. Luke teaches me to make a nice pot hanger for my pot and we have fun carving things out of wood. The sun disappears between the hills and we light the fire. We decide to go back tomorrow so we have one day to do shopping for the snowhole trip which start next Monday. We eat the dish of Osvaldas today, rice with vegetables and there is enough for a second dish. It started to rain a bit and we decide to go in the hut. Not long after we fall asleep.

Friday

We stay in bed for a long time. I go out for a pee. The sky is covered with clouds so we won’t see much from the sun eclipse.  We pack our stuff and walk back along the Omventebåt and return to the city.

Holmenkollen Oslo
–          13-03-15

Friday

Wake up early to tke the bus of 7 o’clock in the morning to Oslo. Some students from my class and from the Norwegian friluftsliv class are also with this bus. The drive to Oslo is boring, people are sleeping and it’s foggy outside, so there’s not much to see. We arrive in Oslo and the Norwegian students show us the way through the city. We take the bus to the Fram museum.

The Fram is the expedition boat Amundsen and Janssen used for their expedition to the north and south pole. We are allowed to go in the museum for free and have a few ours to spend there. It’s impressive how they travelled in such weather conditions.

We gather outside and take the metro up the mountain to Holmenkollen. It’s funny to see all these people with big backpacks in the city, people don’t seem to notice, like it’s normal here. In the city the temperatures were like a nice spring day, here up the mountain is snow. We walk to the camping place and set our camp next to a walking track. We walk to the skijump to see the women skijump competition. The weather is lovely and the sunset colours the sky like a painting. There are not many people in the stadion and we can go in for free. We see the whole race and go back to cook dinner. I eat and sheire the tent together with Jochen and Sharon. We made two campfires in our camp and relaxt at the fire’s. Somewhere in the woods is a big party going on and we take a look. The music lead us in the woods next to the løpe of the competition. Everywhere are tents and campfires with people around it. The fires are in holes and they build a couch of snow around it. Most of the people I see are drunk, but they are nice. A group people from Trontheim brought a music installation and created a dance place. I join them, this is the first time I have a party in the snow, and I like it. I leave the party round 2 o’clock in the night and go to my tent.

Saturday

–          14-03-15

It was a good night. This is the first time I wake up in the tent without condense on top of the roof.  We have a good breakfast made by Jochen. We gather at 10 o’clock and go to the skimuseum. The museum doesn’t really impress me. After the museum we’re free to do what we want. I watch the start of the skirace with some people and we take place between the people in the sun. a lot of people brought waffles, sausages with lumpe and kviklunsj. The race start and we walk to our camp to see the skiers passing by. We take a break at the restaurant and enjoy the sun. we see some of the skiers passing our camp. We walk back to the camp take some warm clotes and walk to the skijump to see the qualification round. We’re told that we have to pay and take a seet at the other side of the road on a hill. The wind is cold and some are leaving. I go with the others to the stadion and we can walk in without anyone asking for tickets. We dance with our Norwegian flags to get warm and stay till the end. They end the race with nice firework. We walk back and have dinner. There’s no big party tonight and we have a nice evening around our own campfire.

Sunday

–          15-03-15

We can stay in bed the whole morning, the sun is so hot on the tent that we have to get out. We watch the race from our campfire and walk around. We clean up the camp and pack our backs. At 13:00 we walk to the skijump to see the last race. We take place on the hill we sat before. There are a lot more people in the stadium today. And people check for tickets. We have to leave at three to go back for the bus. We can go with the metro for free today. We wait one hour on our bus at the busterminal and head back to Kristiansand.

Holmenkollen Oslo
–          13-03-15 / 15-03-15

Friday

Wake up early to tke the bus of 7 o’clock in the morning to Oslo. Some students from my class and from the Norwegian friluftsliv class are also with this bus. The drive to Oslo is boring, people are sleeping and it’s foggy outside, so there’s not much to see. We arrive in Oslo and the Norwegian students show us the way through the city. We take the bus to the Fram museum.

The Fram is the expedition boat Amundsen and Janssen used for their expedition to the north and south pole. We are allowed to go in the museum for free and have a few ours to spend there. It’s impressive how they travelled in such weather conditions.

We gather outside and take the metro up the mountain to Holmenkollen. It’s funny to see all these people with big backpacks in the city, people don’t seem to notice, like it’s normal here. In the city the temperatures were like a nice spring day, here up the mountain is snow. We walk to the camping place and set our camp next to a walking track. We walk to the skijump to see the women skijump competition. The weather is lovely and the sunset colours the sky like a painting. There are not many people in the stadion and we can go in for free. We see the whole race and go back to cook dinner. I eat and sheire the tent together with Jochen and Sharon. We made two campfires in our camp and relaxt at the fire’s. Somewhere in the woods is a big party going on and we take a look. The music lead us in the woods next to the løpe of the competition. Everywhere are tents and campfires with people around it. The fires are in holes and they build a couch of snow around it. Most of the people I see are drunk, but they are nice. A group people from Trontheim brought a music installation and created a dance place. I join them, this is the first time I have a party in the snow, and I like it. I leave the party round 2 o’clock in the night and go to my tent.

Saturday

–          14-03-15

It was a good night. This is the first time I wake up in the tent without condense on top of the roof.  We have a good breakfast made by Jochen. We gather at 10 o’clock and go to the skimuseum. The museum doesn’t really impress me. After the museum we’re free to do what we want. I watch the start of the skirace with some people and we take place between the people in the sun. a lot of people brought waffles, sausages with lumpe and kviklunsj.The race start and we walk to our camp to see the skiers passing by. We take a break at the restaurant and enjoy the sun. we see some of the skiers passing our camp. We walk back to the camp take some warm clotes and walk to the skijump to see the qualification round. We walk back and have dinner. There’s no big party tonight and we have a nice evening around our own campfire.

Sunday

–          15-03-15

We can stay in bed the whole morning, the sun is so hot on the tent that we have to get out. We watch the race from our campfire and walk around. We clean up the camp and pack our backs. At 13:00 we walk to the skijump to see the last race. We take place on the hill we sat before. There are a lot more people in the stadium today. And people check for tickets. We have to leave at three to go back for the bus. We can go with the metro for free today. We wait one hour on our bus at the busterminal and head back to Kristiansand.

Kindergarten visit Bragdøya
–          10-03-15

Today we are going to visit the kindergarten at Bragdøya. Bragdøya is one of the islands in Kristiansand. The kindergarten visits the Island since 1994. We arrived at the harbour, but there were no children or boats. It turned out the boat will be there in one hour.  We decide to go to a cafeteria in the mall and wait there.  We go back to the harbour and a small blue boat arrives. We all jump in the boat, before the boat leaves, Len jumps off and waves us goodbye. We all are a bit confused with Len jumping of, we thought he joked that he didn’t go with us. Well, we will find out on our own we all are a kind of grownups. We get off the boat and have no idea what to do. The shipper shows us the way to the kindergarten and gives us a map of Bragdøya.  The women of the kindergarten suspected us and ask us for our teacher. She explains that she don’t speak English and makes clear that we are not allowed to put pictures of the children faces on the internet. We start with a walk around the island. It’s a bit similar to Odderøya, but it has swamp ground, and is less high. There are a few houses on the island and sheep’s with bells around their necks.

Tipi

After the walk around the island we walk to one of the kindergarten groups. This group is led by a man and a woman. They watch over 12 children today. In the area the children were allowed to play in they had built a tipi with a fire place in the middle and benches around it. A big hammock made of nets, an improvised Viking ship, a shed and some swings. The man told me that they stay in the tipi with bad weather and the children go out and run in the tipi again to warm up. Under the shed the children were carving sticks with a knife. The women sit next to it and kept an eye on them. There are two knives and 5 children want to use it, they wait for each other and pass the knife to each other. The women explained that the children had lessens about using knifes before they went outdoors.  The children in this group are between 4 and 6 years old. Most children in Norway go to kindergartens. Before the kindergarten when they are 2 years old children go to something similar.

The children are playing at the area, they play in the hammock when I arrive. After a while all the children leave the hammock and go play somewhere else. Two boys are playing in the boat. A boy put the rope around a stick like when a boat comes to the shore. Another boy in smashing with a stick on the ground in the boat. 5 children sit in the shed and play with the knifes, I take a seat next to the shed and talk with the women. After a while I take a look in the tipi. The man is building a fire in the middle of it and some children sit around it. He tells me that an outdoor trip always has a fire otherwise you can’t call it a trip. One of the boys has a Dutch father and I ask him: “Snakke du Nederlansk?” He responds a bit shy and smiles “Ja, jeg snakker Nederlansk.” I have a conversation with the man who makes the fire, he was in the army now he’s working here and he really likes to be outdoors with the children. Before we arrived he did a role play for the children about a children troll story.  One of the boys walks out of the tipi, he wiggles a bit but doesn’t fall over. It turns out that he had issues with walking straight on paths but since he’s in the kindergarten he improved his motor skills really quick. It’s time to go to the boat for this group and all the children gather their belongings together. I go out of the tipi and sit next to Jochem and Morrits. We watch the children from a distance. They gather around in a circle and sing a song together to end the day. One of the children is pointed out as chief of the day and she has to count all the children to check if they are all there. She also had the task today to take care of the group, lead the walk to the ferry and ring the bell on the boat. They point out a chief of the day every day, to give the children some responsibility.  The group leaves in a row to the boat.

We walk to the other group of the kindergarten. This group has 18 children. And two women take care of them. Here they have a little wooden house with a big open door. In front of the house is a fire place with benches around it. They also have a tipi, but the children don’t use it today. There is an old wooden fish boat and an improvised cafeteria with some wooden branches that mark the café. The children in the hut are making something for Easter. The children are preparing for the boat trip back. They sing a song together in the hut and put their lifesaving jackets on for the boat. It takes a long time and the children start to play, they jump in the old wooden boat and play around it.  They leave to the boat and we wait for the others of our group to come back, and walk to the boat together. The boat sails twice today, because we won’t fit on it with the children. We wait in the cafeteria. and take the next boat back to the city.