Our last day in Norway was a truly eventful day and falling asleep with people partying on the floor above was no issue at all. It was a great day!

I think the morning activities were supposed to be a secret, but everyone was talking about it anyway. We were going to the Olympic Park for team building activities. Those activities included shooting with a paintball gun on a moving target, shooting with a bow and arrow, running around in a maze but also going on the bob! I didn’t think too much of it, but it was kind of a big deal. If I am not mistaking, we actually went in the real course that the Olympics did in 1994. In the summer the bobs have big rubber wheels and reaches speeds of 85km/h. But in the winter, they can go up to 130! I thought this was fast!

My group was last on going on the bob, everyone was laughing when they came down and I was really excited. It was fun! But it wasn’t so extreme as I thought it would be. Maybe I have been filled after going on Helix so many times. But it was fun and totally worth it. I think it would be more thrilling during the winter.

We had lunch at the Olympic Park and then we all divided. Some went to Hafjell to go downhill on mountainbikes. I am sure that would have been super fun, but it didn’t really feel like a good idea so I went with another van up to the very top of the mountain, to Pellestova. I didn’t really know what to expect because we hadn’t gotten any information about it more than that it was an easy trek. It was an easy hike, but I thought it was going to be really cold so I changed from my sneakers to Timbaland boots. Bad choice. I got so many blisters and it is still all wet from where the skin was scraped off of my heels. Real nasty! I wasn’t cold, so my sneakers would have been enough. Three layers on my legs and four layers up.

In total we walked approximately 7km both ways, one hour up and a little less down. The whole mountain looked like it was on fire with the leaves on the blueberry bushes (or whatever similar things it was) turning red. It was so pretty!!

Out in the distance we saw white mountain tops and there were many lakes up there. It was a really nice hike. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to wear those boots it would have been even nicer. Here is a 360 picture from the top.

After the hike, we drove around up on the mountain, going to the small community of Sjusoen. I had a cup of hot cocoa, well-needed. Even if I got kinda sweaty and warm, I got really cold as soon as I didn’t move, so in the car I started freezing.

Back at the cabin, I was exhausted to my bones. And cold. So I cuddled up on the couch for an hour under a blanket until it was time to start dinner.

Last night’s dinner was insane! We had the biggest bbq ever and everyone was helping. We had been divided into different teams, some had paella, some had chicken, some had iberico pork (pigs who only eat acorns), vegetarian stuff, entrecote. It was insane. And there was a slight miscalculation in the amounts. Since there were so many different things and meats, it probably wasn’t necessary to have 35 portions of everything, haha! But it was sooooo good. I had seconds, but was so full afterward.

The very last activity of this trip was a picture contest. Beforehand, everyone had sent a picture of themselves to the group arranging the activities in the cabin. We then had to guess who it was. It was so hard. I only guessed 10/36, haha! But super fun game!

A long day lies behind me and an even longer is ahead of me tomorrow. Long days, with many fun activities equals time flies and this trip will be over in no time.

I had no idea what we were going to do today. On the agenda it said Maihaugen. Oh nice, I thought, that is probably up on one of the mountains and we will get a nice view. I don’t think I could have been more wrong, haha! Maihaugen is like an outdoor museum with old timber houses from like the 18th century and earlier. Super cute place!

I also, of course, took a 360 picture as I pretty much always do when I travel and the picture can be found on Google Maps.

Our next stop was the Olympic ski jump slope. Lillehammer was host of the Winter Olympics in 1994 and all the arenas and slopes and the torch man on the side of the mountain are still here. The slope was insane! We walked down and the vans picked us up at the bottom. My knees hurt after all those stairs down. I don’t really understand what goes through people’s mind who practices that sport. Crazy people!

Lunch at Peppe’s Pizza in downtown Lillehammer after. Delicious pizza!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the cabin doing work-related stuff. Department meeting and then a game of WSP’s values and what we think is important and should go in our action plan for 2019. We had some hectic discussions in our group but came up with a nice suggestion to the plan in the end.

Catered dinner at 7pm, and then several games. Like charades, a communication game that was really fun and some other games. It was fun, but I got tired and as soon as we were done, I went down and sat down in the sauna for a bit. Sooooo nice!

I kinda feel that a skiing vacation would be really nice! Living in a timber house, always being rosy and cold and warm and being in the sauna every night. Drinking hot cocoa. Perhaps not going skiing? Just doing everything else, haha!