Norway

We spent last week skiing in Hovden, Norway with Lisbeth’s family. For me it was fun for several reasons. For one thing, I’d never been to Norway before. I’d also decided years ago that I hated skiing, and that I’d never do it again, so enjoying myself was a pleasant surprise.

We met in Vejle, at Lisbeth’s parents house on Saturday, where we spent the day leisurely shopping for supplies, packing, and, eating, visiting. We went for a walk after dinner, before we got serious about loading the cars. It was a very pretty evening.

We took two cars, one with Lisbeth’s brother Mogens’ family — his wife Anne and their three girls, and one with me, Lisbeth, Lisbeth’s sister Hanne, and her boyfriend Kaspar. Both cars were heavily loaded — there wasn’t much room to move around, but most of it was blankets, pillows, and coats, so it wasn’t uncomfortable. We drove for about three hours, up to Hirtshals, quite close to the very Northern-most tip of Denmark, where we took a ferry from there to Kristiansand, Norway.

This was like no ferry I’ve ever been on. They’re basically cruise ships with several decks for cars and cargo trucks. (Here’s more info on the ferries.) This one had nine decks. The one we took back had restaurants, a casino, and a tax-free shop the size of a small grocery store. They also have cabins, but we opted, like so many people do, to sleep on the floor. Since so many people do it, it’s a bit of a scramble to find prime real-estate. Kaspar and Hanne nabbed a good spot under a staircase. We did ok with a spot near the elevators on the ninth desk. Despite being surrounded by a group of German teenagers, it was fairly quiet.

We left at about 1:00 AM on Sunday morning, and landed in Norway at about 7:00 AM, where we discovered that in Norway the bakeries don’t open until 10:00 AM. We never found out if that was only on Sundays, but it was quite a shock to the Danes, who generally are quite crazy about bread and bakeries.

From Kristiansand we drove for about four hours to Hovden. The scenery is amazing. Norway is much less densely populated than Denmark, and the houses are made of wood instead of brick. That, combined with the rugged terrain, means there is no way to mistake it for Denmark. We stopped at a sort of camping place by a lake that is probably quite busy in the summer, where I took the three pictures above. The three below were taken about an hour from the ski resort.

We got to Hovden around noon, and were relieved to find out that we could have our cabin ahead of the official 3:00 PM check-in. It was a really cute cabin — more of a full-fledged house really — with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a pretty big main room. It even had a sauna.

It was good to stretch our legs and relax a little. We unpacked the cars and the girls played in the snow.

After some lunch, we went to the rental center and got our equipment. This was brilliant planning on the part of Lisbeth’s family. One of the things I hate about skiing is standing in line behind dozens of people that are all determined to get just the right brand of skis and just the right boots. This way we got our stuff right away and had time to try it out because we weren’t skiing until the next day.

I was quite apprehensive about being on skis again. The last few times I’ve gone, I wondered why otherwise sane people spend tons of money to put themselves in situations where being hauled off the mountain with mangled limbs is practically inevitable.

Looking back, I think there was several reasons for this. First, I was not in good shape. At the time I spent eight hours a day on a computer, another eight on a couch, and the final eight in bed. I’m in much better shape now. Also, I was with pretty aggressive skiers, and felt I needed to keep up with them, even though I wasn’t having any fun, and was in fact risking injury. Finally, the slopes I remember hating the most were those crazy mogul-covered black-diamond slopes. There was very little of that as this resort.

Anne and the girls had never skied before, so they spent a lot of time taking classes. We mostly skied with Hanne and Kaspar, and occasionally Mogens. Kaspar had only been skiing once before (but for an entire week) and was surprisingly capable. Hanne is quite good too, so we were all at fairly similar skill levels, which made it a lot more fun.

The resort is in a great location, and the main peak is one of the highest in the area, so the view from the top is incredible. And, except for Monday morning when it was so overcast that it was hard to tell the snow from the sky, we had good weather. The last two days were quite cold, but it was sunny all week.

We didn’t abandon the other part of the family completely. We checked in on them often, and by the week even took Marie on some black slopes, where she did great. In fact all three girls and their mother Anne all did great, which is embarrassing because I seem to remember spending more time lying in the snow than standing on my skis when I started out.

In the evenings we’d have dinner and then just talk, relax, and play games. I got to know everyone a bit better, but naturally they spoke Danish much of the time, and despite my two years in Denmark, I still understand a small portion of what is said.

We left Norway on Friday after another long drive, this time to Larvik. There we boarded another ferry at about 11:00 PM and slept on the voyage until we arrived in Denmark. This time, perhaps because get got a spot under a staircase that passers-by clearly envied, we slept really well. But it was probably just because we were exhausted from a week of skiing followed by five hours of driving.

(We know for a fact that our spot was envied because during the night someone to put a rubber tarantula in one of my shoes — universal language for, “…but I wanted that spot!”)