I expected Monday to be full of informative talks, old videos, safety briefings... that kind of thing.
Monday morning we gathered at the school- about 25 of us in all- for breakfast and a briefing. We were then divided into 4 groups and assigned tasks. Being in pretty fast Norwegian; I happened to miss exactly what this was about but realised that I was part of the 'dinner group' and we were set to work out what we'd all have for dinner and given a budget to go buy supplies from the supermarket.
Once that was done we were all fitted up for cross-country skis at the school. Luckily I had tried it a couple of times as a way to get across the lake to work- so this didn't make me as nervous as it potentially could have. We all loaded up into a bus and started driving. I sat there happily enough chatting to all the new people; where they were from, what they were doing, their experience etc etc. Mostly Swedes, a couple of Norwegians, a German, a guy from Peru and me; the Australian.
About 45minutes later the bus stopped; we all got out. One of us was given a map and the bus drove away. "O-kay..." I thought and started Skiing away hoping someone knew how to read the map. No one did. I was feeling quite happy with myself having only fallen over twice when right at the end I fell a third time trying to walk up a hill. That put me one fall ahead of the next closest faller- a Swede. Damn it!
Eventually we decided we were lost and all stood around looking at the map for about 10 minutes with very little progress... after a short while longer we decided to hell with it and over the next hill there it was: our destination- a big cabin in the middle of no-where. As the cases of beer and wine came out, the outdoor 15 person spa was uncovered- the first day of induction quickly devolved into a pretty awesome "get wasted & get to know each other" session.
At one point we were all set up into a game of hide and seek. The girls went inside for 10 minutes while the guys were outside looking for good hiding places. One guy took one for the team as a decoy and hid up in the snow: making it look like we'd all trampled up there with him. It was about minus 8 degrees outside by the way. We then went back inside through the side door into the kitchen. We turned off all the lights, crept silently in and lay on the floor until the girls went outside through the front door. Once they were clear of the cabin we grabbed a case of beer, slid upstairs and sat comfortably in the warm house while the girls marched around outside for half an hour trying to figure out how 10 guys had completely vanished.
Can you tell that I recently turned 25?
As we went around the dinner table to make the introductions formal I stood up and in my best Swedish said "Hi everybody, I am James; the 25 year old Australian. I can't speak Norwegian and I can't ski either but I have a tendency to do strange things and so here I am. Cheers!"Even though I was neither the guy who passed out nor the guy getting carried down the stairs to bed, I had a great night and look forward to what else is in store for us. I suspect I won't be getting too many more surprises of such magnitude but who knows. Tomorrow I am teaching some Norwegian kids how to ski. I probably should have learned how to do that myself first.
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