1. Me & Rikke. 2. No wonder everyone loves orienteering guys.. LOL 3. Our terrain. 4. Day 3 – yeah, that’s a glacier. 5. My dad. 6. Me & Rikke again. Sceptical faces. 7. How I was feeling most of the time (i.e. “I’m tired. I want to sleep. Let’s just reLaax”) 8. My younger sister, who turned 17 yesterday. Hurrah ! 9. My mum. 10. Celebrating the Swiss National Day with flags and love.
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While on the plane back to Norway I realized that I haven’t really explained what I’ve been doing these past two weeks, only summing up bits and bobs and parts of the puzzle. Orienteering is the key word. Boot camp, as I wrote about earlier is the closest definition you can get to what I have partaken in, at least for my own part.
The vacation started with O-ringen, one of the world largest orienteering competitions, which is held at various locations in Sweden each summer. This year it was held in the Söderhamn/Mohed area on the east coast, two hours north of Stockholm. After competing there for 5 days (with one day off in the middle to rest) we headed for Switzerland and the mountain area of Flims, Falera and Laax to partake in the annual Swiss Orienteering Week, which consist of 6 days of competing. After this (and Hungary earlier this summer), me and Rikke – my fellow partner in crime, felt that we needed a little cultural break, so we ended the whole debacle with 3 days in Milan, before heading back to Zurich to fly home to Norway.
In between all the running, we have kept ourselves entertained by eating our own weight in candy every day, participating in various outdoor activities like climbing through agility-testing tracks in trees (will post pictures when I get them) and mountain climbing (which was awesome, more pictures to come from that as well), as well as dancing at mysterious parties in the woods (don’t think I have any pictures of that though).
Right now I am finally home in my own bed in Oslo, getting ready to sleep for about 7 hours before life requires my presence again. Until then; ciao.
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“The Swiss National Day (German: Schweizer Bundesfeier; French: Fête nationale Suisse; Italian: Festa nazionale svizzera; Romansh: Fiasta naziunala Svizra) is the national holiday of Switzerland, set on 1 August. The day is today celebrated each year with paper lantern parades, bonfires, hanging strings of Swiss flags and fireworks.” – Wikipedia.
Day 3 is coming to an end here in Flims, in the Swiss Alps, and after today’s competition at an altitude of 2300 meters above sea level I had trouble climbing the stairs to the hotel room earlier. But today is the Swiss National Day, so watching the fireworks and paper lanterns were sort of mandatory (as we did last year in Neuchâtel as well). Paper lanterns might be one of the most beautiful things I know of, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to take any decent photos to share with you, and a photo really can’t explain the elegance of those balls of light that disappear into the sky.
Anyways, I am off to bed, I just wanted to share some Swiss love with you guys first. Lovely country both in the summer and winter, and one lovely flag as well.
Have you ever been to Switzerland?
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I have moved location again, from rainy Örebro in Sweden, via Oslo to the warm and sunny Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
Spent the first half of today bathing and enjoying the sun, and some self-applied stone therapy (hot stones on parts of the body that feels sore, actually worked to some extent).
Beach essentials: Orangina, sunglasses, iPod, newest editions of Harper’s Bazaar and COVER, my noodles and a towel.
Today is the Swiss National Day, so there’s music and all sorts of stuff happening this afternoon/evening.
Tasty lunch: tortellini with pesto, parmesan and parsley.
Reminds me of Malta, or maybe Greece. Love the colors.
Our narcissism is viewable from space.
Lost our luggage yesterday which meant that I had to use the deodorant that are in the toiletry packages you receive at the airport, resulting in that I have been walking around all day smelling like a man. Ugh. Hopefully the bags will be here by the end of the day, because this is really not a perfume that suits me. (and yea, because it’s the national day, all the stores are closed or else I would just bought a new one, silly.)
BTW, My mum discovered a store that sells (among others) Moschino at up to 85% discount. Guess where I will be tomorrow. Heh.
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