Norge #1 January

Overnight in Jegerberg
– 29-01-15

This is our first overnight with the group. We walked to Jegers and the first activity was to put up the tents. We had to prepare two teambuilding games from every country. The games we did where very funny. Some of them we didn’t understand others were games most of us already know. The Swiss game made the most impression on me. We had to form a circle with four people and someone jumps over it and grabs the ankles from someone and flips over. It looked very dangerous, and not a game to play on compressed snow what turned into ice. We laugh a lot and had a lot of fun together.

After the games we started a cooking competition. We all got three ingredients to cook with. We had a broccoli, pasta and minced meat . I went on a trip with Sharon to exchange our broccoli leftovers for some other food. We managed to get an onion and a potato for it. We added the onion to our dish, to make it more tasty (I don’t think this is cheating, we ask them friendly to exchange the food). We gathered around the table and tasted all the dishes. We had to give them a grade. Our dish almost won because of the nutritious ingredients. The other made fish soup and chicken with rice. After the food tasting we had to prepare our own food. I brought some precooked rice with egg and vegetables and heat it up at the campfire. Len went home and ask me to be the contact person for emergency.

After dinner everyone joins the campfire and we have nice conversations. A few of the group walk to the joker and buy marshmallows. It’s snowing now. And the ground get covered with a new blanket of fresh snow. After a while I go to the tent, brush my teeth and jump in my bed. I sleep in the tent with Steve and Luke. They went to bed before me and are almost sleeping.

We have to wake up on time because we have lecture at 9:15. I had a good night, slept very well had no troubles with the freezing temperatures outside of the tent. I had the tourbread for breakfast, I didnt light the fire again because of the time, so no hot tea in the morning for me today. we leave the campingplace at 9:00 and go to the lecture with big backpacks and smelling like campfire.

Preparation day for our first overnight at Jegesberg.  From Thuesday 14:00 till Friday 9:15.

Packing-List

Gear:

• Backpack 55L + Cover
• Dry bag
• Plastic bags
• Tent poles
• Pegs
• tarp
• Sleeping Bag
• + 15°C Liner
• Light bivvy bag
• Sleeping mat inflatable
• Sleeping isolation mat
• Cooking gas
• Cooking pot
• fire steel
• fork, spoon
• thermos + cup
• cammelbag
• head light
• First Aid Kit
• knife
• map + compass
• mat to sit on
• toilet paper
• toothbrush + paste
• rope (approx. 10 m)

Clothes

• gore tex jacket
• down jacket
• fleece pullover
• merino long sleeve
• merino shirt
• quick dry trouser
• goretex trouser
• gaiters
• merino long underwear
• hat
• thin and thick gloves
• buff
• socks 2 pair

Foot:

• dinner: Rice with vegetables and eggs baked in butter.
• breakfast: homemade “toerbrood”
• snacks: Orange, nuts
• drinks: tea, hot chocolate, water

Receipt:  ‘Toerbrood’

Ingredients:

• 325g of wholemeal flour
• 125g flour
• 125g semolina
• 60g rye flour
• 125 g of dried fruit
• 125g mixed nuts
• 80g margarine
• 50g of honey
• 75g of cane sugar
• 250l milk

Preperation:

Preheat oven to 175 degrees.

Chop the apricots and nuts finely .

Do wholemeal flour , flour, baking powder , semolina , rye flour , apricots, nuts and raisins in a large bowl and mix well.

Melt the margarine and stir with the honey, sugar and buttermilk through . Mix completely by the dry mass and knead well into a compact ball. Divide the dough into 3 pieces , push them flat and place in buttered baking tins. Push the dough out so that it is approximately 2 to 3 cm thick and meets the edges. Bake for about an hour until tender and brown. Let cool on a wire rack.

Evaluation baking:

Probably used wrong type of flour by translating to Norwegian. To be sure I had the right flour I used them all. I had no measuring device and made less off all ingredients than the receipt says.  For the nuts and dry fruits I bought mixed nuts which contains: apricot, cranberry, raisins, almonds, peanuts, walnuts and chocolate.  I was proud of the result, It tasted good although the bread was a bit too hard. Next time I will try to use more butter                                                                                        to make the bread softer.

Banaheia trip
26-01-15

We have a day off and decide to go to Banaheia with some students of our friluftsliv class. I haven’t been to Banaheia yet, I’m interested how it’s like.

There is an open area with an outdoor theatre. One of the kindergartens spend their day playing outdoors here today. We walk up the hill and we walk underneath a big rock wall. The rock wall has some hooks for climbing. If I can find someone to go lead climbing with me I would like to explore this rocks and the rocks on Odderøya. We have a nice view from up here and take a short break. We walk to one other spot with a view over Kristiansand. It’s raining today and we decide to go home.

First ski trip
–          22-01-15

Our first skitrip was to Jegenberg.  We had some new snow so it was time for our first ski trip. We started practicing on a flat part of the løpe. Løpe is a prepared ski track with at the left and right side two lines to ski in. After some practice we went on a track around the lake. There were some steep up and down hills and we had to wait for each other. At the end of the group the teacher said we had to put off our skis and walk because it took too long.  We arrived at an open area had a break for lunch and did some practicing with going downhill at the open area. Children were playing at the open area and moved around like they are born with ski’s on their feet. Some of them asked us how we were doing in Norwegian, but I don’t know how to respond in Norwegian yet, so unfortunately the conversation ended very quick. After the practice together we split up in two groups, the experienced and the beginners. The beginners (including me) went with Len and practiced some rounds on a track around the open area. After three rounds we went back home.

This was my first trip on skis and I feel already more confident with these strange things underneath my feet. I’m looking forward to our next ski experience.

First ski lesson
–          20-01-15

We start our class today with a quick ski wax lesson. We learn the basics for waxing and wax our ski’s for the first time. We undo them of the storage wax and wax them for use. Now I know why our first time skiing near Hovden didn’t work so well. It wasn’t only our lack of ski skills that made it hard to ski, but also the storage wax.

We practiced on a flat area and did some exercise to get used to the ski’s. We were standing in a circle and had fun doing the exercise and see each other struggling with it. We played around in an area with some little hills and got instructions about the basics of skiing: how to put on your ski’s properly, how to move forwards, how to get up hill and how you go down. At the end we did a little race in groups.

I’m not comfortable with the ski’s yet, but it was fun and I learned a lot about skiing today.

Daytrip with Norwegians 2
– 19-01-15

This is our second trip with the Norwegian students. We will do some management games today together with the Norwegian students. We are divided in small groups and the Norwegian and international students are mixed.  We start with a game to make a stretcher for an injured person and carry him/her to the open place in Jegersberg.  I’m the one who has to play the injured person.

We take a small break and go to the next game we have to guide each other, we have to hold a stick and cover our eyes. Two people of our group guide us through the terrain. We have to make a shelter with our group with a tarp. After we build it every group has to explain the location and the shelter. The last game we play is a race to make a fire the group that burns the rope above the fireplace as first is the winner.  There are some rules, we have to start the fire with a firesteel, the people who have experience with building fire are not allowed to touch it, only help by talking. We end the day with a nice campfire and talk with the Norwegian students.

We had a lot of fun by doing the games today. We had more contact with the Norwegians and had to communicate with them to complete the games.  All the games had an competition element, but most of us didn’t want to win we just wanted to have fun. The weather was nice and we finally had some conversations with the Norwegian students.

Søndagstur
-18-01-15

It’s a Norwegian tradition to go on a Søndagstur (Sunday trip) to the mountains, forest and islands for a hike and cosy lunch every Sunday throughout the year, no matter the weather.

Today we are doing a Sunday trip with the ESN group to “Den Omvendte Båt” in Jegersberg. We visited this place with the Norwegian Friluftsliv students but the weather wasn’t so nice. The weather is very nice today, the sun is shining there is no wind and it’s warm enough to walk outside without a jacket. The rocks are still covered with ice and a bit slippery, our guide Christian, one of our buddy’s, warned us for the slippery rocks so we are very careful and help each other. Everyone is in a good mood and I have conversations with a lot of people I haven’t seen before.

We visit three mountain tops with beautiful views Sørlandet and Kristiansand. We make a group picture and take a break. We continue our walk to  the Omvendte Båt and stay here for a while. There are a lot of families on top of the hill. They made a camp fire and are toasting sausages and other food above the fire. The children are playing on the ice and climb on the threes and rocks. I’m impressed by this Norwegian tradition, they look harmonious with nature and look very relaxed. Our group is sitting on top of the big rock who presents the Omvendte Båt. One of the buddys is handing out hot chocolate to everyone. Another buddy is walking around with a selfie stick to make pictures of everyone. We walk back to the city and cross another mountain top with a nice view.

We walked almost 12Km today, but it feels like we walked less. The Søndagstur was a great success and I really liked to be outdoors the whole day in Jegersberg.

Trip to Hovden
–  16-01-15

I join a group who wants to go to Hovden for some ski and snowboard experience. The group exist of 6 people: Mirjam, Jannis, Morrits, Daniel and the roommate of one of the guys. In Hovden is a skiresort we planned to go there sleep in a tent and in Morrits van. We didn’t realy prepared the trip together. At school between the lessons we deceded that Mirjam made the evening dinner for the first night and Morrits and jannis buy the breackfast, snacks and dinner for the second night. We would split up the cost afterwards.

We drop all our stuff in the van on Friday in the afternoon and we leave Kristiansand around 18:00. We were driving with the van and Morrits car. We heard from Wytse who went to Hovden with a Norwegian group of freerunners that the road to Hovden was covered with snow and that we had to drive careful. In Kristiansand was no snow at all so we didn’t worry about it.  After a while driving up north, we saw some snow on the landscapes. How farther we went north how more snow we saw. After 3,5 hours driving we got some troubles with the snow. I had never seen this before, the road was an lane of ice because of the compressed snow. Next to the road were snow piles of two meter high. I was very excited about the whole thing, and I think we all were. The small car got behind and the van was too far ahead to see. We had to drive slow because of the ice road. Norwegian cars passed us with high speed. Most of the cars here have spikes in the wheels, what explains their fast driving. We had to go a bit uphill but the car couldn’t handle it and we had to push the car. We had so much fun by pushing the car, it was cold outside, the sky was  bright and we could see the stars. There were no places to go next to the road because of the snow wall next to the road. At a wider part of the road we decided to stop and put snow chains on the wheels. We didn’t exactly know how to put them on but we managed to put them on there. While we were doing this some Norwegians asked us if we were okay ore needed help, that was ferry kind of them. Luckily the snow stopped falling before we came there. And we continued driving. I had contact with Daniel in the van and told him we were on the road again. The chains helped with getting grip on the road but they made a lot of noise. We found a expansion of the road after a few kilometres and stopped there. A Norwegian car was also on this expansion and the man was fixing something at his wheels against the snow. The man helped us with the snowchain and explained to us that they were too big for the wheels of this car. He made them a bit tighter, this might work. We went on the road again. Still the noise of the chains. We decided to take them of and drive to the nearest side road to camp there. I contacted Daniel in the van and they had seen a church next to the road where we might could overnight. We drove there slowly and parked in front of the old church. The church was part of the village Bykle. Next to the old church was a bigger and new church. We saw lights burning in the big church. Miriam and I went to the new church to ask if we were allowed to sleep at the parking place for the old church. It turned out that a group of tourist also had to overnight somewhere and they stayed at the church. They looked a bit surprised when we asked them but they were okay with it.

We build up our tent and put the cars around it. It was not possible to put the pigs in the ground because of the snow and asphalt. We used the snow to fix the tent. When we finished we took a diner together in the van. The pasta Miriam Cooked was still a bit warm and we eat it like this. Morrits put some candles on the table and the atmosphere was nice and cosy. We went to bed around 2:00.

We woke up in the morning at 8:00. I slept very good. I used the isulation mat from school, my own inflatable mat, down sleeping bag, thin bivacbag and a liner. I was a bit to warm so I opened the sleeping bag at the side a bit. Mirjam also slept very well. We asked the friend of the guys how he slept and he said he slept well (although we didn’t believe them because he was moving a lot when he was laying in his sleeping bag). The temperature in the morning was around -8 °C. The boys in the van where still asleep, and we woke them up. They also had a good sleep but were complaining about too less space.

We broke down the tent and decided what to do. The car was not capable of driving on roads like this without snowchains. Morrits had a gps in the van and knew that there was a gasstation 2km away from the church. Mirjam, Morits and the friend walked to the gasstation to buy snowchains. Daniel Jannis and me. Stayed at the church and prepared the cars for driving. It turned out that the van couldn’t get grip on the road so it needed snowchaines as well. We fixed the snowchains around the wheels of the van and drove to the gasstation. Daniel stayed at the car, in case it would stand in the way. The tourist in the church arrived in a touringcar and they had to pass our car. People were standing on the roof of the gasstation to remove the layer of almost 2 meter of snow, this looked like a lot of fun and they were laughing. Unfortunately the gasstation didn’t sell wheel chains. They called to the next gasstation but they runned out. We decided not to go to Hovden but to go back and look for a nice place to have brunch and look for a place to do some skiing and snowboarding somewhere off piste. We dropped everyone in the back of the van and drove to Daniel. From here we drove back to Velle. We took a lunchbreak at the side of the road and had some fun there. Morrits and Jannis tried out their snowshoes what looked hilarious. We were all in a good mood except the friend (We still thing he didn’t sleep that well, or he might have thought we are weirdo’s, which is totally truth).  We moved on to Velle and went there to ask at the tourist offer if there is a ski resort nearby. And the women told us about Brokke, a bit further south. So we went there. We arrived there around 13:30 and gather information there. The piste was open till 16:00 so we had 2 ours of skiing or snowboarding. Jannis and Morrits went snowboarding, Daniel and the friend went alpine skiing and Miriam and me wanted to try out our cross country skis. Morrits forgot a part of his binding and used mine, which was funny to see (two totally different bindings, my old school second-hand binding and his new fancy binding). We would meet again at 16:00 at the cars.

I had a lot of fun with Miriam on the cross-country skis. It was for both of us the first time. Mirian is a snowboard instructor and struggled less than me on these crazy things. We went on a route what they call løpe. The route was almost flat, but still I couldn’t really go forward. Every time I felt down I had to laugh, and because I was laughing Miriam started to laugh and felt down as well. The sky was a bit grey, but this was my first meeting with the Norwegian snow landscape, and I think it’s amazing. We crossed a little stream and looked at it for a while, the snow on top of the round rocks in the water made the picture amazing. We had to go uphill, but the only thing I did was sliding down, laugh and falling over. I didn’t care about falling, I was wearing a skitrouser, waterproof jacked, had and gloves. Miriam find out a way to go uphill by walking like a penguin. I tried it as well but couldn’t figure it out even with all the instructions Miriam gave me. The only thing I could do was laughing. After this hill part we decided to go back. Downhill was even harder than uphill and the laughing and falling over repeated. On the flat area I managed to go forward without falling, so I already improved myself. We were back at the car 30miutes to early so we went in the café at the skipiste and drink a hot chocolate. The boys came down at 16:00. We dropped everything in the van and drove back to Kristiansand. We had so much pasta left from yesterday that we decided to heat this up at Daniels place in Rolligheden and eat together. Jannis and Morits dropped me off at my dorm kongsgard alle and drove back to K4G.

We didn’t make it to Hovden, but I’m really happy with this experience. It was fun to go on a little adventure with people I barely knew, but still I felt save with them and I had a lot of fun. Now I know my sleeping gear is warm enough for sleeping inside a tent when the temperature drops around 8 degrees. And I had my first experience on the cross country skis. And for the next time we have to bring snow pegs for the tent.

Receiving gear
–          15-01-15

Today we got all the gear from the university for our outdoor trips. It starts with the give out of tents. We have to put up the tents on the grass area in front of the storage room. We split up in groups of 4 and start to put up the tents. After we tried to build up the tent we gather and talk about how we made them and get some advice how to put the tents up properly. Some people are experienced with put up tents, and for some it’s the first time. We have tents of different sizes. I have to switch to a smaller tent because Jochem, the tallest guy of our class doesn’t fit in the small tent. My first tent group is with Steve and Luke.  We talk about how to pick out your campingplace and where you have to look after, like where to build a toilet, use a natural windshield, flat ground etc.

After the tent session Len hand out the other gear we need. For each group we get a stove with pans and a tent. We get our ski’s, skipoles and skishoes and you can take an extra isolation mat and fish gear if you want.