Gott Nyttår!

The past few days have been more or less the same as of late. Taking ski/snowboard lessons with Norwegians, Danes, Germans, Russians and English guests. I have been taking everyone from 3 year old German kids to 40+ year old Russian first time skiers. I had my first adult private on skis a couple of days ago and funnily enough it went really well. Having never stood on skis; in one hour I had Andrei doing nice even turns down the slopes. Go Russia.

It's New Year's Day here at the ski schol and everyone is understandably sluggish. I'm not quite as hungover as one might expect but I could certainly do with more than 2 hours of sleep. I am also fortunate enough to be scheduled on this week to set up/take down the

Our boss at the ski school, Linda, is a Swedish girl from Skåne (one of the southern provinces of Sweden) and is roughly the same age as me. Last night she put together a dinner for about 18 of us before we started the real new years celebrations at our local bar. After dinner we headed out the front and set off a few fireworks. Everything from little sparkler things to full on rockets.

Our regular nightspot here in Geilo is a bar/club called Off Piste. It sits reasonably high up and has a spectacular view of the whole village. After a brief but hefty dose of preparatory drinking/dancing we headed out to the balcony to watch as the whole valley lit up with all kinds of fireworks as the new year rolled in. Rockets were firing from at least a hundred different houses and street corners stretching out as far as the eye could see. We even had some people firing rockets on the street right in front of us up into the sky. I have to say this was far more impressive than any professional fireworks display I have seen and really gave a sense of a community of people all celebrating. Fireworks were still going off as I walked home around 4am. The money people must have spent on these things is simply mind-boggling. Sadly; New Years Eve 2007 saw the last legal private use of propelled explosives in Norway, I feel lucky to have had a chance to witness the end of such a long standing tradition. I understand why they're banning rockets:- I noticed they tend to shoot upwards at times and then at other times they decide to go a bit sideways... Aparently

A Sparka; "kick" in Nordiska (Swedish/Norwegian) is a small sled consisting of a chair mounted on a pair of flexible metal runners which extend back about 2-3 meters. There is a handlebar attached to the top of the chair back. The sparka is driven forward by one person standing on a runner, kicking backwards on the ground with the other foot, hence the name. The flexibity of the runners allows the driver to steer the sparka by twisting the handlebars. A kicksled works best on hard packed snow or ice- making the footpaths of Geilo ideal passageways. Living a good 15-20 minute walk from the village makes the sparka a godsend for me. A sober person can reach 15-20km/h on flat ground. Imagine what I can do down hill.