One say that Norwegians are already born with skis on their feet and it seems they take them off again at the very end of their life only. And that's also what I experienced when going skiing with Mari this weekend.
The Norwegians go skiing here like others go jogging, do the groceries or go out drinking a cup of coffee: you simply walk outside your door, take a 10 minutes drive by tram and off you go. They do it after work, on the weekend, several days a week...just like others go to the gym. It's the most normal (and also affordable) thing to have a pair of skis at home, even for the youngest... It doesn't cost much to get some decent equipment, because it's common goods.
As this is thus a typical Norwegian/Scandinavian thing to go cross country skiing, I wanted to do it as well. At the moment there are all those sales on in the shops in Oslo so the already well-priced cross country ski equpiment became even more affordable. And well, once bought it usually lasts for several years... and always paying a rental fee also sums up. Thus, quite spontaneously Mari went with me to one of those sport stores and I bought a pair of Salomon skis, the bindings, ski sticks, a pair of shoes, socks and a ski bag... for not even 200€.
So, I'm ready for my first crosscountry ski experience. Initially Mari wanted to take me up to the Holmenkollen, but then she revised her opinion and thought it might be more fair to let me start on the flat tracks on and around the Sognsvann. You remember the Sognsvann? I've been there with my uncle Jan (see blog post from June 7th) and later again with my father and Andrea (see blog post from September 11th). Could be interesting to see the seasonal difference of the Sognsvann between June/September and now January.
So are you ready to go skiing with Mari and me? Then have a look through the pictures:
Picnic at a little camp fire
"Lilian, wanna have a cup of hot tea????"
On the lake itself
And here just for comparison the same lake in June:
Conclusion: though I think I will always prefer alpine/downhill skiing it was very funny do have done that. And I think I didn't even do a bad job out there... apart from that one moment that I didn't know how to get out of the track and break :-) I will definitely do it again... namely (at the latest) on February 13th or 14th. During this tour I realised that this would be the ideal version of skiing for my mum who couldn't become friends with the downhill way of skiing. Just curious I looked up flight rates and found a really cheap return ticket Düsseldorf-Oslo-Düsseldorf that weekend. So I just called her, invited her over and 10 minutes later her flight was booked :-) She will come with my aunt, Mari's friend. So this will become a really great weekend, I guess. Looking forward to it.
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