„Gipsies have arrived“ I thought when a huge pack of friluftsliv students (local and international) got off the bus from Kristiansand in Oslo. I hate to admit but I just followed whoever led us, because I trusted that Norwegians knew the way.  Few circles in central station and  we found ourselves in a bus going til Fram museum. To be honest I didn’t knew what Fram was so I was really excited to see a ship which was used for polar expeditions. What a great museum, at first I was frightened by all the information that was there, but patient reading let me have a little glimpse at the expeditions carried out by brave men of the past century.

I always confused Nansen and Amundsen.  I wasn’t sure which of them went to the South Pole and which tried to reach the North Pole. It’s pretty amazing to take a closer look at these adventures (if we might call it that way… these were no fairy tales). These men were away from their families, comforts and without any guarantees of success. And all of that was for purpose of exploring the unknown, maybe to explore their selves, I would presume. Sounds pretty epic, doesn’t it? I think reality was a bit different than I could imagine, but in the end of this visit I felt like I started understood these men. I could have imagine myself among these men, away from boring daily life…

Later that day we went to Holmenkolen – the famous ski jump. We set our own camp in the area near the stadium along with thousands of Norwegians – devoted fans of winter sports.

50k cross country ski race took place there. We observed as these remarkable athletes fought this distance through a very challenging terrain. We took a visit to Holmenkollen ski jump when even more extraordinary men and women jumped from this crazy structure! While there I was wondering how much practice and time it would take me to attempt such a stunt. I knew that you didn’t need to be a superman to dare such a mad sport. Desensitization is the key in my opinion.

Full of this unique aura we had to go back home once again – five hours on a bus with some dude sleeping on my shoulder… Awkward.

And if you look really closely you might see some children...

10th of March and we are on the boat to a mysterious island called Bragdøya. Our objective – observe children play in a local outdoor kindergarten. We got totally confused when our teacher Len left us on our own. He accompanied us to the boat and after all of us got onto this boat we just saw him waving goodbye from the jetty. After we landed onto Randøya we found our way to the kindergarten. Well, basically the whole island was one huge playground for the kids. Teachers welcomed us but they didn’t seem to to have been expecting us neither did the children. They were looking at us with large scared eyes from a back of their teachers – like little wild creatures as if we were some kind of scary aliens. It’s easy to understand them, while there were quite a few of us – eleven big-ass outlanders who didn’t spoke norwegian. As we didn’t want to scare them too much, most of us headed to explore the island – the amazing playground provided to these children by Mother Nature.

This island is huge! We made a big lap and returned to the place were most of the children were. This time as we approached in more little groups kids didn’t seem to be afraid of us anymore. If any of us made some effort to entertain them they fell in love with us instantly, specially Jochen – this guy just has a gift with children.

For the rest of our stay we talked with children teachers and observed children’s play. Teachers did not interfere in their play, they just peacefully observed them letting these children to explore the world and their boundaries with their own eyes.

As I asked a teacher about the worst case scenario in regard to these “risky plays” he answered that only once one girl had broken her arm after falling out of a tree. We both agreed that that is a fair risk compared to the great outcome that these children gain using Nature as their playground and it barely ever happens. Children get a chance to learn the lessons of our world and life by heart, by doing. That is more powerful than thousand verbal restrictions and warnings

I am happy to know that these kindergartens are becoming more and more popular in Lithuania.

And this is a trip to remember… It’s my first more “real” trip. Read about it in the “Studies and assignments” section.

Oh boy what an Epic week this was! ^^

It was hard to believe that we were all together only one month by then. And after this week staying in Troll Aktiv we had even more in common. Together we learned to ski, together we fell, together we got up, together we got lost and together we found a way again.

Tim – the owner of Troll Aktiv, was our second veileader. Each day we were divided into two different groups, practiced basic skiing techniques and tried more and more difficult challenges – from skiing on a well prepared ski tracks to the mysterious mountains above the valley, each day was longer and more difficult than the other (except the last one 🙂 ) but in the evenings we had very delicious meals. Cooking groups (each day someone cooks for the rest of the small group) turned out to be a very nice option for trips like this. We adopted this for our next self organised trips to Hovden and Hardanggervida.

By the end of this basic ski course skis were no longer that strange to stand on and mountains were not that misleading anymore. Evening lectures about first aid and packing made us ready for the trips to come. We are ready, bring it on Norway!

Real friluftsliv is about to take place… And here we are me and Osvaldas carrying big backpacks towards the Jegersberg. There is no more snow these days, so overnight didn’t seemed as a “crazy” idea.

We arrived into the area which is called something like “green field” – it’s not far from the Uni and it’s a well prepared site for the activities that we are about to carry out. Our goal today is to build a camp, play some group dynamic games and prepare a meal out of the products we get from Len.

It didn’t took us long to set a camp out, my group took longest to build a tent, but in the end all of us had a lace to stay. It just happened that non of us in my little group had much experience of building such tent.

Group dynamic games followed. It was a great fun, although not all of the games were that “group dynamic” as it was supposed to be, sometimes it was more individualistic. I can’t remember the names of these games but most of them were dynamic and fun. In the end we had to talk about these games and evaluate. Those who had presented best games according to everyone – were allowed to choose products for the meal that we were supposed to prepare next.

The game which I suggested turned out to be one of groups favorites, so I could choose a product. Sadly, I was a vegetarian and all of the products were some kind of meat. The only reasonable option for me – fish, so I chose fish. Kids… this is the story how I started eating fish again…

This is the place where you will find everything related to my stay in this beautiful country Norway and most awesome study program in the world – friluftsliv!

I apologize for my English in advance 🙂