For many skiers this time of year the months of April and May are a time to travel, relax (a little bit), and enjoy time in the sun.  Recently, my exploration has included a trip to Prague (Praha in Norwegian), Russefeiring (I’ll explain later), and a triathlon called Villmannen (“The Wild Man”).

To start out, the city of Prague gave me a taste of the big city life in Europe and the best part was not dealing with the hours of travel and jet-lag—Prague is only a two-hour flight from Oslo.  So, for the first time in a while, I felt like an actual tourist.  The closest thing of comparison from back home might be a trip from Minnesota to Florida in spring—obviously with more of a historic European feel.  What I’m trying to say is that everything was green!  All the flowers were in bloom and temperatures were in the 70s during the day.  The trip gave me a chance to see Prague castle, walk across Charles Bridge, and gawk at the architecture of the ctiy.  In addition, and more importantly, was the opportunity to taste some true Czech pilsner and Budweiser… mmm

Inside St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle

Entering Old Town Square with a view of Tyn Cathedral

In Lillehammer, the Norwegian Russefeiring has been in full swing since the first of May and is coming to an end tomorrow, May 17th—the Norwegian day of independence.  The Russefeiring is most easily comparable to the celebration graduation celebrations from High School. The word itself, Russ, has no real translation to English, but it is a time for the soon-to-be-graduates of upper secondary school to celebrate the end of an adolescent life and do a lot of stupid things. For Russefeiring students dress up in red overalls and parade around town in red American vans (vintage) playing loud music.  The red overalls are easily recognizable and, according to tradition, must be worn without interruption during Russ (except when sleeping)—and without washing.  The one minor dilemma is that final exams come after all the festivities…

Russ in Oslo

And last but not least, I participated in a triathlon called Villmannen. My teammate Magnus Hals and I made up our mind a long time ago that starting a ski race in May would provide a good start the season, and Villmannen provided just that chance.  It started out with a 12km classic ski, which required an incredibly significant amount of klister (I think we had the wrong kind for the conditions… but more was better!).  The following mountain bike section was nothing special—mostly biking on roads.  For this section of the race I had a good energy level and just went with it.  However, transitioning from the bike to the run by far the most painful.  Right out of the transition area there was a large hill, and after skiing and biking for two hours my legs were not sending me happy feelings.  I found myself in a battle with a Norwegian man probably in his 50s (dang these Norwegians are tough), and simply fed off of his energy to the end.  I did cross the finish before him, but that didn’t really make me feel much better about myself.  I finished in 8th place and eighteen minutes back from the winner, and junior world champion in triathlon, Even Olsen.  Definitely will chock this up as a good, albeit long, experience.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 10:18 am and is filed under Norway, Student Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.