Juvaas II

Our first day at the glacier, with Bodil and her team.

Then the weather moved in...

Here is the road to the glacier.

White caps on an extremely small pond.... Lots of wind!

We had to run on this road before the vans would pick us up after skiing. 

It was for recovery (with Bodil's team).

The pond was still.

Sadly, the time came when Bodil's team left.  Emily and I were not yet ready to reclaim our place in the city.  We were just getting our ski legs under us and feeling aggressive.  We had no car and no place to stay.  Bodil that it would be smartest to stay at the hotel halfway up the glacier road because it would be the easiest place to get rides.  Everyone has to stop and pay a toll.  At the front desk, the man told us there were no more rooms.  But we couldn't just leave!  I asked the man if there was a couch, anything, we didn't really care.  He a little twinkle in his eye and said, "Well, we do have something..."  It was a summer cabin across the road.  There was no heat or electricity.  There was a little wood stove that I was excited to get cranking.  Thing is, it didn't really give off too much heat.  It was a really cute cabin and when we layered on the wool blankets, it really wasn't so bad.  And when we figured out the the hotel offered hot coffee and cookies after skiing, we were happy.  There were nice couches by a big fireplace inside, a nice place to park before bed.  

Our Small Cabin Home

Me beside our cabin

me, by our cabin.  When we got rides down to it, we got laughed at

when we said where we wanted to be let out.  One family laughed and

then proceeded to drive up to the hotel and ask which room we wanted

to be let off at.  They thought we were kidding.

The view

From beside the cabin

The view the other way.

A small part of the main hotel across the way.

Those cabins are heated.

As for rides, we made a lot of friends up at the glacier.  I'm pretty sure we were quite famous by the end, "you had the americans in your course yet today?"  But there were a lot of really nice people who thought we were awesome skiers and were quite happy to have us in their course.  So it was good training and good for the confidence.  We had some pretty good, buff courses and on the last day we even had timing.  I feel like I accomplished a lot.

Emily

Lunch break was eleven... for everyone.  We realized we could get hot pasta for only ten bucks, quite a deal if you are in Norway and they were pretty good size.  And I'm pretty sure everyday we gave into the Juvaas boller - the cinnamon rolls that they make in the lodge.  The whole lodge smells like them, makes them tough to resist.  So we quite enjoyed our lunch breaks! 

We helped pull at the end of the day, and then went to making friends in the parking lot for a ride down.  When we found ourselves flying over the bumps on the Juvaas road in fold down seats in the trunk of a Norwegian family van, listening to fairy tales in Norwegian, with little children chattering away in front of us, we sort of wondered how our lives had brought us to this particular situation.  But we enjoyed it all the same.

This helmet leads people to try to speak swedish to me.

That is even worse than Norwegian!

Life is good.

And then we became friends with Anna-Cecelia and our trip calmed a bit.  She had been on the Norwegian ski team and Bodil had introduced us to her but we hadn't spoken much.  She had just moved into the hotel that was across the road from our cabin.  She had four beds in her room and she was alone so asked if we wanted in.  Did we?!  We had also stopped cooking for ourselves and ate at the hotel.  This was the best move of the whole trip!  One night, we had nine different kinds of fish to choose from, along with tender pork, craw fish-like things, shrimp, potatoes... A big buffet, eat as much as you want.  Desert was not small deal either.  There were berries, chocolate mouse cake, ice cream, dark chocolate sauce, vanilla sauce, homemade whipped cream, caramel cake...   I feel like I am writing about a Redwall Abbey feast!  But it was delicious.  Anna Cecelia made sure we tried all the kinds of fish and went back for seconds on desert.  We were not roughing it anymore.  

Just practicing...

The last day we were there, there was too much wind at the glacier to even open the road.  But below, the sun was shining for a beautiful day.  I got a lift down to where Wolfi Frandl was staying and got to pop in and say hello. 

Where Wolfi was staying

The drive down.  Hard to believe they didn't open the lift.  

Looks like a perfect day for skiing.

At the hotel where we finally moved into.

Sunshine on the last day.

I have had a picture of this statue on my computer since eighth grade

and I had no idea where in Norway it stood but I found it at Wolfi's hotel!

Here I am trying to find the right bus to take to the Otta train station.