Thanksgiving and London

It has been a crazy busy past couple weeks since I last posted. In that time I've made a 6 person Thanksgiving dinner, gone skiing at Hemsedal again, moved to a new apartment and gone to London (and gotten stranded there) for work. Aaaand now I'm sick, so probably gonna take a sick day tomorrow.

I'm gonna start with pics from turkey day, the highlights being my now legendary (yes, legendary) apple and pumpkin pies.

They turned out oh so well and were well received by all my Norwegian officemate guests. By the by, this was the first such American holiday for all of them and they embraced it entirely, who wouldn't? Much wine and food was had and I surprisingly handled everything properly regarding proportions and timing. The turkey was the easiest part and that also come out pleasantly.

Before...

...after

Delish! Clementine was not impressed:

Although she was pleased when I gave her leftovers. Unlike Zimmer, she is an avid carnivore and is constantly trying to skim scraps off my plate. This time around there was definitely enough to go around.

The group:

From left to right: Bjorn Inge, Jorgen, Stig, Kjersti, and Stefan. A great crew for dinner if ever I saw one!

Two last pics of the setup and the aftermath:

Next up the London trip which was the epitome of yin and yang. The British are apparently the most pathetic people when it comes to dealing with snow, a couples inches of accumulation and the whole country goes to pieces. It was hard enough to get into the country but getting out proved to be more than the UK airline system could handle. I was supposed to get back on Friday morning and ended up being stranded there the entire weekend.

On the plus side, the work meetings were awesome as did the dinner for clients and the drinks that followed. And then there was the after drinks drinks where me and a few officemates explored the London bar scene. Somehow we ended up at a place with go-go dancers like so:

So yeah, yay work! Eventually I made it back alive but I wouldn't be remiss if another UK trip doesn't pop up on the radar any time in the near future.

Lastly I went skiing again the weekend after Thanksgiving, this time with a different group and a different cabin.

We also made the trip up in a slightly more cozy vehicle, i.e. a tiny-ass Peugeot.

Very cozy. The conditions were a little worse this time around as they hadn't gotten snow in a while, but there was a new lift open so we got the chance to scour a new part of the mountain. We got pretty aggressive too as despite the low snow levels we spent most of our time off-piste trying to hit any patch of fresh snow we could identify. We also did up the Hemsedal after-ski scene a lot more and it was a great time, even though it's still early season.

Arne Olav, the man, the myth, the legend

From right to left: Karolina, Dag, and random photo-bomber

Lively crowd, note the half naked chick in the bottom left...

I leave you with a portrait of a master; intrepid skiier and Nordic adventurer Sebastian Mankowski

Hemsedal

This past weekend I went on a trip with a group of new friends up to Hemsedal, Norway's second largest ski resort and it was pretty daggum awesome! For starters, this is definitely the earliest in a season that I've been able to hit the slopes. The snow wasn't amazing and only a tiny bit of the mountain was open, but it was a great time with great people and whet my appetite for more trips to come.

I drove up with Anette, who works at the office with me, and her boyfriend Jørn (pronounced yurn), this is in the car about 15 minutes outside Oslo.

It's definitely winter here kids. It got even snowier the further we went, but it was too dark to get good pics, so just imagine this but...snowier.

Anywho, the drive wasn't bad and in about 2.5 hours we were at the cabin that Jørn's company owns and it looked something like this.

Front door

Sauna!

Fireplace!

Breakfast!

Tor Andreas (left) and Jørn (right)

A sweet place all in all and really perfect for this kinda group trip. Also, regarding the sauna,Norwegians love their sauna time and for cooldowns mid sauna it's tradition to go outside and do sommersaults in the snow. Yes, it is cold, no I unfortunately don't have picks of that part.

Here are a few picks of the area immediately surrounding the cabin, which was about 15 minutes from the mountain itself.

Now some pics of the crew and the mountain.

Hemsedal condos from the lift

Sweet self-portrait

Anette and Jørn

Tor Andreas and Jørn

Tine, Anette, and Tor Andreas

2pm, it gets dark early...

Some fog rollin in, also that peak in the background is known locally as 'Little Matterhorn'

Rad skis FTMFW!!!

Hallingdal valley

Picture this with about 6 feet more snow and that is going to be February

Proof!

Apres ski :)

Super happy guy

Valley again

After skiing we would go back to the cabin and make a big dinner, play drinking games and work the sauna. That's some good living, the Norwegians say 'god stemning', which literally means 'good mood' but is used more akin to "that's the life!". Saturday night we even played the local version of what I know as Kings. And predictably we ran out of beer and resorted to filling the center cup with whiskey, rum, and wine. The results of which can be seen here...

Pretty much what you'd think

I also introduced them to the T-rex rule which was wildly popular

Good times had by all

The skiing wasn't entirely without a downside though as I did manage to do a major faceplant that almost knocked some teeth out. Please follow me on this tour of the scene of the crime (pics taken post facto):

Notice the clear path of skiing I have in front of me, what a lovely place to just cruise through on my way down the mountain...

...and the ground disappears from beneath my feet as the above pic is the last thing I see before plummeting about 12 feet straight into flat hard ground.

WTF!? Seriously, you don't mark that shit off? Landed hard, popped right outta the bindings and bounced my face off the ground. After confirming with some passersby that I still had all my teeth and my nose was straight I took a minute to compose myself and waited for my mouth to stop bleeding then went on my way. Alls well that ends well and although my face has been entertainingly swollen since then, it's starting to look more normal now.

Man I love skiing.