If only

There are two situations that discourage me from blogging. One would be the obvious, when there's nothing going on. The other is when there's too much going on! Of course, it may be argued that in the latter case it's less a matter of discouragement and more a mix of plain lack of time and tiredness from the aforesaid goings on :). Case in point, the week since my last post!

Even though there was a full week of work going on, once we'd somewhat recovered from the weekend, it was off to Oslo to watch movies that very (in?)conveniently refused to be aired in our own Asker Kino! Twice! Well, actually that worked out the first time, when we went for Alice in Wonderland, 3D. (Yes the 3D part is important 'cos firstly, that's the only reason we had traipsed all the way to Oslo in the first place, and secondly, the fact that one of us was watching a film in 3D for the first time was a source of much entertainment! Over and above the movie that is, which was quite fine, but nothing earth-shattering, IMHO.)It was that response to 3D viewing that almost directly led to the Avatar 3D plans for the following evening! We went all the way to the theater, got our drinks and what not, and guess what?! The show was sold out!!! Even the lady at the counter was quite genuinely surprised!! We decided to watch Shutter Island instead. Which was running at Asker by the way :|. Not a bad movie, but really?! All the way to Oslo? Tchk, tchk.By the end of the week most of my partners in crime for much of the previous two weeks were slowly disappearing. Which is when the invitation landed up, for a whole weekend of skiing/snowboarding at Trysil, the largest ski resort in Norway, complete with acommodations at a nice cabin right on the slopes!! Having missed out on snowboarding for a full year, it was way too tempting to resist :).
So off we went, on Friday evening, and were quite pleasantly surprised to find that our cabin was indeed, right on the slope. Well, one of the many many many slopes :). And, as we shortly figured out, the tourist centre, rental place, ski-pass place, restaurants and the little supermarket were all, literally, just around the corner :D.

We called it an early night and were on the slopes in short order the next morning. And from then till the end of the day, it was just a non-stop blast down the slopes!!! I was definitely relieved to find that I'd lost none of my very modest skills, and had miraculously gained some!!! I could definitely go a lot longer, a lot straighter and a lot faster than last year!! :D :D Still can't turn on the leading edge though :|.
The euphoria lasted until the first couple of times I fell :P. It's sort of a vicious cycle after that, the more you fall, the more tired you get, making it more likely that you'll fall again. By the end of the day it was pretty clear that I knew exactly what I had to do in any given situation to avoid falling. It was just that my body was too tired to cooperate :D.
To add to the exhaustion was the sheer size of the place! The whole place was so big, and there were so many different slopes and lifts that it was quite possible to get completely lost!!!! And then there was the wind! Once or twice we ventured up towards the top of the hills, for a somewhat ill-advised look at the highest slopes. It was pretty much a mini-blizzard! With tiny bits of ice creating an effect pretty close to sandblasting!!
By the time we ended up back at the cabin we were all pretty much aching all over, but it was a nice kind of aching :D. There was even some live music and pool at the pub, right around the corner!The next day it was more of the same. The long sleep had helped some, and after getting over the initial stiffness, I had a pretty good time. Even the weather was better! Too soon, however, it was time to leave again. And the not too long drive back to Asker.
It would have been the perfect weekend! If only I hadn't lost my wallet on the slopes in that last hour or so :(. There were a few scraps in there that are irreplaceable, and truly lost... The bank card and driver's license, I can always get again. As a friend had quite succinctly put it, the less things you carry, the more you seem to become attached to them. :-<

Currently: still aching all over :P
Listening to: Train - I wish you would