Anyway, what this entry is REALLY about is my ski trip to Sweden.
I met a girl named Christine, at a rollerski race early in the semester and she has been extremely helpful in getting me involved with other ski training opportunities and also accommodating my cultural challenges. She and I went on this ski trip with her local ski club, Holte Skiklub, to Idre, Sweden. We left on Thursday night around seven and drove through the night arriving in Idre around eight the next morning.Idre was a nice ski area, although the trail system was not huge. Before we had arrived apparently there were concerns with the amount of snow, but I never checked because I figured I was in it for the long haul: snow or no snow. Luckily, or so they say, it snowed the whole trip up there and the first two days we were there. It was relatively crowded because of the lack of trails, and huge number of people at Idre; not only were two busloads of Danish skiers invading the trails, but Idre was also hosting pretty big ski races both Saturday and Sunday. While I regret not doing the races, I think based on my rented equipment and borrowed wax, it might have been a frustrating experience. The temperatures were mild the whole weekend, hovering right around freezing, but the wind chill definitely played a part.
I spent the weekend with 7 Danes, in an 8 person cabin with two bathrooms and three bedrooms.
Everyone was really nice and friendly, although they spoke Danish pretty much the entire trip, which left me VERY much out of the loop and a little isolated. My bunk mates were an interesting mix: adventure seekers planning to do the Vassa, a 90 kilometer ski race in March; two really intense brothers who appeared unable to clean up after themselves and listened to their IPODs every time they skied, despite the fact that they were receiving coaching; and two girls who seemed to enjoy skiing, but didn’t take it too seriously. The rest of the Danish group were mostly casual skiers, middle aged and older, who rocked some pretty amazing outfits and had personalities to match. On Friday, we skied around on our own, just easy to get warmed up. It was lightly snowing and the trails had not been recently groomed because of all the snow from the night before, so we did what we could.
On Saturday we woke up to very windy conditions and still snowy weather. While the temperature was warm, the wind made it FREEZING. We went out for coaching in the morning and afternoon, which turned out to be a bust for me as my group was mostly beginners and in general I got no specific feedback or coaching. Regardless, it was good to do some balance drills and any time on snow is better than none. Being a little disappointed with the amount of actual skiing I was able to do, I stayed out after dark, therefore after three p.m, to ski on the groomed lit loop. Unfortunately, because of the heavy snow, they were mostly waiting for it to stop before grooming, so the trails were completely covered with drifted snow, leaving a 2.5k loop the only really ski-able area- although even then I broke trail every time I skied the loop.
Sunday morning everything changed.
The snow and wind stopped and the weather cleared. 
Our coach got sick, so we joined another group before ducking out and skiing the newly groomed 15k loop instead. It was amazing. I went out early, while it was still dark, to get 45min in before we met up, but then spent almost four hours outside LOVING the snow! It was great skiing, beautiful conditions and lots of fun. I suddenly rediscovered why I love skiing! After a lunch break consisting of dark bread with mackerel in tomato, some crackers, and way too much chocolate, we headed back out for a quick hour ski before rushing back to the cabin to clean it and pack up our stuff. We left around 4pm and after doing some reading I, fully exhausted from my weekend of Danish immersion and long skiing hours, passed out on the long bus ride through cute Swedish towns as we headed south to rainy Copenhagen.
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