Today we went to the same location as our past two trips, Jegersberg, and the Norwegian students planned lots of fun team building exercises for us. We were all divided up into teams and went around to different stations to compete against each other. I was on a team with two other girls from my class and we were the smallest team and were at a disadvantage but we didn’t let that stop us!
The first station was a snowman building exercise with the directive to build the most creative snowman you can in 4o minutes…well we really used up every bit of that 40 minutes. We started out building a naked woman but felt that didn’t push the creative envelope far enough so we made her into a centaur. We were very proud of our creation and out of the other 7 teams ours ended up winning and we won a Norwegian chocolate bar which was AMAZING. I’m now in love with Norwegian chocolate, way better than the Hershey brand back home. Some of the other creations was a dog sled with dogs, a giant penis, a couple performing fellatio, a pyramid, a tepee, and a giant paraplegic snowman in a wheel chair. Safe to say that I think our naked centaur inspired the other more sexual based snowmen.
The next station had teams take turns directing a blindfolded member to find objects hidden out in the snow. We had two rounds of this and my team won each time, which I was very happy about :) We had the best communication and speed, even though in the second round the Norwegians said the object I had to get rested on the roof of a snow covered shed and no matter how hard I jumped I just couldn’t reach it, so that killed a lot of time. But we still won :D
The third station was a shelter creating contest and we lost that one by a landslide. We tried to make a normal triangular prism shaped shelter while the other team had a tall one tied up against a rock face with a snow wall and a cleared floor with a fire going to heat the area. Safe to say we lost by a land slide. Next time we make a shelter I will definitely try and use the landscape around me and do something similar because theirs looked absolutely cozy. Even though our idea was less complicated we did not finish our shelter in the time limit because we didn’t really stop to communicate our ideas. We each had a different idea on how the shelter should be and tried to do our parts and they didn’t coincide nicely. Now we know better, to sit down and plan first to make sure we are all on the same page.
The last station was the worst, as in the hardest for us. We had to do a relay race with various handicaps, all while wearing skis. Three times around the track, one racing with one foot on and one off, a three legged race and then one without ski poles. We ran the race twice and our three person group rotated responsibilities, however I got to the three legged section both times and suffice to say it was horrible. there was a downhill portion with a steep curve down and to the left and trying to turn when you’re on skis, going kinda fast and with one ankle bound to another person is really really really difficult. Can’t really snow plow to slow yourself down and its even harder to turn. Both times I raced against 2 Norwegian skiers so it wasn’t quite fair, but we did give them a run for their money on the second portion. But having to climb up a steep hill like that was even tougher than trying to turn while going downhill. I’m not quite sure if I learned anything from this exercise, other than Norwegian skiers can move super super fast on skis, its crazy!!! They practically skate with their skis!
All in all it was a fun and productive day and our team won 3 times and the other team one 3 so it was a good balance. Even though we were really the winners since we got chocolate :D