Maria, Yngve and I decided to go out skiing just a little bit back behind our housing. Yngve had a plan to do a 10k ski session, but it was Maria's first time skiing and my 3rd and within about 2 min of skiing we all realized that was not happening. Surprisingly, I was much more comfortable on the skies this time around which was encouraging. Maria did great for her first time, but there were a few rough patches along the way. It was actually really mean, because about 5 min after her trying it out we had a hill to go down. For those of you back home that don't cross country ski, it is very hard to go downhill on cross country skiies because your heel is not attached to the ski. We were a bit nervous about the hill and it was particularly frustrating because little toddlers were going by us as if they have been doing this for years (they probably have). You should know Norwegians really are born with skies on their feet. The mothers go skiing by pulling a ski stroller with a baby inside and then when the kids are old enough to walk parents put skies on them and ski with them between their legs.
After we waited about five minutes for all the elderly and young children to clear the way I went down first and I hear behind me "Wahhhhhhhhhh" I couldn't see her but apparently she took a beating and fell a couple of times on the way down. She's tough though and took it like a pro. Things went smoother even as we were beginning to realize just how much of a workout it really is. One of my favorite moments is when we faced yet another hill. We let Maria go first, which in hindsight was an awful idea because the path was narrow and almost at the bottom, she stacked and was laid out on the path. Of course, I was following behind her, saw her fall and thought "Oh shit" as I attempted with all of my might to stop in time but it was hopeless..right as I was flying towards her I dove into the thicker snow on the edge of the path. Yngve on the other hand, had seen this coming and gave us more space. I wish I could have seen what he saw because it was such a moment from the movies where two clowns collide into each other. I also wish we had the camera out at that point because the pictures of us laughing there must have been priceless. So he effortlessly skied down to us and we glared at him.
When we took a break and drank some hot cocoa Maria unwittingly stepped into a heap of horse poo. It took a little bit for us to realize it and we were like "ah what's that smell?" We look over to see tracks of horse poo ALL around her. She screams and says "oh, I hope I don't have any on me" and as she gets up we see poo all over her shoe and a little on her pants. At this point we are dying laughing as she was hopping around, stomping her foot in the snow trying desperately to get it off of her. Good times.
So we continued on...and definitely improved along the way. I gave Yngve the camera (see Facebook for the photo album) and he gleefully would go to the bottom of hills preparing to take pictures of us eating it. Much to our satisfaction we did pretty well...the only glitch was Maria had a problem stopping. I would ski to Yngve and she would keep on going, WAHHHHHs and all down off the track. It was pretty hilarious. By the end of the day there were several falls, many WAHHHs (not just from Maria), definite improvement and we had really great time. Maria and I both agree that this is an excellent and fun way for us to get some exercise, though in the future I think we can all agree that Yngve should go first down hills.
