Silly Billies Return to Roam

The coolest little hut - Storlisetra! The Norwegian's have loads of holidays in May, so it is a very nice time for getting away! Last weekend we spent most of our time around Levanger for the Norwegian Craft Cup and Sprint Orienteering Nationals, after I did a rather long 140 km road ride to get there. You see a lot of these on May 17 - so I felt I had to include one in my post (-: Monday 17 May is the Norwegian National Day, so we came back to Trondheim to join the parade (Chris was the proud flag bearer at the head of my school's parade!). I did another big road ride that afternoon with Helen and Ally - across the Trondheim fjord on the free car ferry, cycled a 50km loop round the island, then hopped back on the ferry to get home. The trees have turned green and the buds have come out, but unfortunately the cold drizzly spring weather has continued. Despite a rather unappealing forecast Chris and I decided on a trip away to the mountains for the 'Pinse' (3 day weeke...

Skis on top of Vassfjellet On Sunday morning we slept in a little late (most unusual for us) so when we got up it was kind of brunch time. We have just acquired (thanks to the wonderful Laila) a waffle maker - consequently we sat down to a large steaming pile of freshly baked waffles. We are feeling most Norwegian with our waffles, rømme and jam. After our waffles and feeling like we had done too much orienteering of late, we embarked upon a most strange and excellent journey. We managed after some effort to secure our skis in a reasonably comfortable fashion to our backpacks, we loaded our boots inside and our poles too and we set off on our bikes towards Vassfjellet, Trondheim's most well known local ski field. Skis on wheels We got some strange looks as we cycled in the sun through the town (some people think the ski season is well and truly over and don't even believe that there is still snow in the hills). After just over an hour riding we reached the bottom of the ski f...

Landing in Trondheim Ten years after we said 'Goodbye' to each other in New Zealand my German exchange partner and I finally reunited in Trondheim - of all places! Julia is busy studying and working as a doctor in Germany, and since we did the exchange we have always kept in touch and promised that we would see each other again. It was Julia who finally put her foot down, found the time off work, booked the plane tickets and organised her visit. Of course, it was then that Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland erupted and it seemed as if nature was going to prevent us from seeing each other again..... Luckily Julia was able to take a flight the day later, and we met her down at the train station just after running Sprint Cup number 3 up in Dragvoll. It was great to see her, and amazing how little we had both changed really. We spent lots of time talking about New Zealand and all my friends and family she met there, and Germany and the people and places I saw when I visited her. Julia too...