Sunday, April 6, 2008

snow... lots of snow...

Once upon a time God made Norway,
As one of the first places made by God, Norway cant really be blamed for its squiggly outline, I guess God needed to practice His drawing skills somewhere.
Despite this, however, it was a beautiful country, full of mountains and wild animals, warm and green in the summer, draped in the glow of the sun, yet a cold forsaken place during the winter, dark and depressing. The darkness could be seen by some, as an act of grace by our creator, to hide the squiggly outline from the eyes of a cruel world for half a year. On the other hand, others would see this as a cruel joke, as the other half of the year, bathed in the spotlight of the sun, there are no times of relief.
You can call the snow that falls here, a bit of a concession, to blur the outline in the spring.
Its with this lovely carpet of white where all the fun begins here in the spring.

You can do a number of things with it, some of it God has to do for you before you can have fun.
- you can roll it in a ball and throw it at someone
- pile it up and jump off it... errr
so i geuss God had to do most of the work for us to have fun with it.
Dropping it on a big hill was a great one. Sure it takes a bit of work to get the most fun out of it, but hiking 3 hours up a steep hill with a board strapped to your back, feet sinking in each step, sliding back step after step but slowly moving forward.
If you make it to the top, you're rewarded with a) an amazing view b) a bite to eat c) great soft powder and d) 900+ meters of mountain to descent as fast as you can. Strangly a 10-20m ride down is well worth the gruelling 3 hours walk up.
If it happens that God made a pile of the stuff for you to play with you have a few options.
- Grab a peice of plastic, find a steep patch and go for it. A 40m slide over in a few seconds, grab some air in the middle, just watch out for the landing.
- If you have a shovel you can dig a hole, cut some shelves, light a candle and you have a glowing cave to sleep in. A -20c night is quickly forgotten inside as you crash with some friends in your brand new glowing home. A silent tomb sheltered from any storm that rages outside.
- Grab a saw and build yourself a castle, carving brick by brick.
If all you have is undulating white hills in all directions just grab some cross country skis. Sure, at the bottom of every single hill you will probably face plant, we did, but the hope that we didnt was enough to grit our teeth and go straight down. Completely out of control, dodging and weaving, well following the bumps of the hill down and hoping you dont end up squished against someone in the snow, a giant heap of tangled people and skis.

When all else fails, due to the fjords, there are alot of bridges, go find one, grab some rope, and jump!