Diaries of a Dane: Aussie alpine adventures

As an Australian, I have grown up with the idea that long car trips are just a factor of life.... Living in one of the top 10 biggest countries in the world means that I have a lot to explore, and with a geography teacher as a Dad, I get to travel to some pretty cool places... So for me, a long car trip is a walk in the park, as I have grown up in the backseat of the car, travelling regularly to my beloved Stuart's Point... six hours in the car, sometimes longer depending on the traffic. This year though, my beloved Stuart's was a little too far away, and I was lucky enough to trade sand for snow and my boogie for a pair of skis.... and let me tell you something, SKIING IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!!!

So last Saturday, I jumped out of bed at 3:45am and sleep walked to the car ready to begin our skiing vacation! My eyes were slowly dropping within about 30 mins into the trip... in fact just as we crossed a bridge with the sign 'WELCOME TO SWEDEN'...Yes thats right I did just say that I was in another country in the space of 30 minuets. Europe's geography is mind blowing and as an Aussie I suppose that it is hard for me to wrap my head around! So anyway, I slept through most of Sweden and woke just as we were passing Oslo in Norway (which is the capital). There wasn't much sightseeing to be done as it was mostly highway, but I enjoyed just soaking up the fact that I had traveled through three countries in the space of six hours..... mind blowing! So anyways, the car trip was fairly uneventful except we had a nice toilet break at a place called 'Balle Land' which i later found out translates to 'having sex land'... now thats something that you do not see every day. I must admit though that I missed seeing the randomly placed RTA stop revive survive centres.. although the pit toilets were in full swing! So I was kind of at home.

In total the car journey took around 10 hours.... (Australia we wouldn't even be in Queensland yet!) The drive up through Trysil Mountain was beautiful! Exactly like a Winter wonderland... Beautiful snow covered terrain and CHRISTMAS TREES EVERYWHERE!!!!!! The monstrous moutian that greeted us on arrival was gigantic, and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would actually skii down it! My nerves for the week were in over drive at this point.

After driving through Trysil and finding our house, we unpacked and got settled in. There were nine of us all together- my host family and three of their family friends who live in the same place as we do. There was a girl who was 14 and I got on with her really well. Kinda like having Hannie back (who i miss so much!) Anyway, me and Teresa had a little movie night where we ate junk food and watched Pitch Perfect. It was super hyggelit and I really enjoyed her company.

Anyways, I need to pace myself, I'm only on day one! Okay, so after getting settled in, we ventured down to get our skiing equipment. The mix of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish language was cool to listen to! Swedish to me sounds like Italian for some unknown reason. So ready and equipped with our equipment, we ventured back to our house for a rest afternoon. The view from our house was just beautiful and at night, it was simply stunning to look over the valley at the lights from the houses on the other side, which glowed and twinkled in the distance. Truly breathtaking! But i loved the view and I had never seen anything like it! That night, we watched the movie 'the life of pye' and then went to bed, resting up for what was going to be a very long and tiring week!

Woke up the next morning to have a breakfast of freshly made balle's (my favourite- i know i was complaining about the amount of bread intake in my last post but im starting to love it!) Then, i very nervously put my skiis on for the first time....

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I was so nervous about skiing (not so much as my mum, but still). For those of you who know me, I am a very clumbsy person and have the gift of being able to trip over my own feet so one could easily imagine how I would come home with my foot in plaster. On the first day, I felt like a broken bone was inevitable. I was terrified on skis and longed for the familiar comfort of wearing flip flops and swimmers at Grassy Head Beach.. My self esteem also got a work out as there were little Norwegians and Swedes skiing past me on the baby hill. To be honest, I thought that the baby hill would be the only place in Trysil I got to explore for the week as my legs were quite literally shaking and it seemed that my body would never have the ability to successfully ski without falling over. It was quite embarrassing as when I fell, I couldn't even get back up again. I had these strange long things attached to my feet which also couldn't move because of these hard skii boots (seeing me walk in them was the funniest thing ever) and I remember remarking 'my body is built for the beach! not the alps!'. I threw in the towel for a little after lunch and read a book, relaxing with a cup of tea and enjoying the beautiful view from our hutte. I did brave the baby hill one last time on the first day and this time only fell twice. So one can assume that some progress was made.

On Monday, I woke up early ready for my ski school lesson. I hoped to be joined by other people of the same ability to redeem my self esteem levels. However, when skiing in Scandinavia, one can not expect that, as these people were born with olympic professional skiing abilities. And as an aussie, I lack that qualification... There were three danes, one german and an american in my class. Turns out that they had all skied before and so their abilities succeeded mine by a long shot. My stomach did backflips and I began to literally fear for my life when my ski instructor told the class to attempt the jumps in the fun park. Ummmmm I thought this was a beginner class?! None the less, my skiing didn't really improve and my self esteem levels only declined as I ran straight into a figurine (used for learning to turning whey you are like 5 years old) HOW EMBARRASSING! I felt like attaching an Australian flag to my jacket just to justify my inability to ski. My skiing instructor was really sweet though and suggested that I would enjoy myself more if I changed to private lessons, and thats exactly what I did! So that afternoon, I decided to relax and watch the Hunger Games with Teresa.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday saw a huge improvement in my skiing abilities. With the help of my super nice Swedish instructor Jonas, my confidence built and I stopped falling over so much. After the first lesson, I was so proud of myself as I had conquered the baby hill and began adventuring the blue hills. Yes, I did actually catch a chairlift up to the top of the mountain (who would have thought). The views were just spectacular and once I got the hang of skiing, I fell in love. The Kooks song seaside was revived to skiing. Suddenly, any thoughts about a broken bone left my mind and I began to relax (and attempt to turn). There was something magical about skiing down the mountains, with a beautiful view of the Norwegian alps in front of you. I had to pinch myself... i couldn't believe that firstly i was skiing standing up straight, and secondly that I was in Norway. To make the scene even more perfect, the sun shone every single day. It even reached a very warm 10 degrees... Mother nature sometimes... just can not beat it. (the sun shone so much that the dreaded Aussie sunglass tan returned.. just like being at Stuart's.) So my book lay forgotten in the house and I began to go skiing at every given opportunity. My boots began to feel comftorable, and skiing underwear was my new bikini. By Thursday (my last lesson) I was ready to conquer the world (well...... maybe just the blue hills). I even went back to the jumps and attempted them. For me that was the icing on the cake. When I first put my skiis on, the jumps seemed like one opportunity to break every bone in my body.. however I went over them with ease and LOVED every moment. It wasn't Grassy Head beach and it wasn't my boogie but it had the same feeling. That night I went to bed feeling very proud of myself!

The next morning I didn't have a skiing lesson so I went back to the baby hill to practice my 'skills' or 'lack of' if we are comparing to the Norwegians and Swedes. Then, I went exploring the mountain with my host parents. It was AWESOME and I felt comftorable going down the blue hills. It wasn't rapid fast, but I managed.... I have a very good breaking technique to say the least. Went to bed feeling VERY exhausted.. especially because I had gone down a red hill and nearly pooped my pants. It was a little too much for me, so I ended going down on my bum (just like sand dunes right?!)

Saturday was our last official day skiing in Norway. By then, I was really sad to say goodbye. I am in love with skiing and plan on going when I get back to Australia (of course it won't be as awesome but still...). I had a really good time in Norway!! So at 3pm, we said goodbye to beautiful Trysil and i gave my skiis up for what hopefully wont be the last time. We then traveled home back to Denmark. I said goodbye to the snow as Denmark has finally FINALLY got some sun!!!!!! Now wrap your head around this australia. I skiied in Norway in the morning, ate dinner in Sweden andddddd went to bed in Denmark... so within the space of a day, I had been in three countries. HOW CRAZY IS THAT!

Now for all of those at home who don't believe that I had the ability to ski, please see the attached link. Yes it is me in the green jacket and YES i am going over jumps that are close in size to those at Elderslie's BMX track.... and i did manage to make it back in one piece. ENJOY! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSJAmTbY2SU