Geilo with Lauren :D

So, the trains that go through Vestfold are definitely not as nice as the ones that go west-east and vice versa in Norway.  If you get a night train going towards Bergen, they give you free blankets, eye shades, ear plugs and blowup pillow.  Plus you are assigned to nicer seats.  The ones in Vestfold have really old vogner (I can't remember what that is in English... maybe wagons) with old, gross seats and you don't get anything free except gargabe disposal and the use of a bathroom. 

I sat on the first train from Larvik to Drammen for only an hour, but I sat with Malin from the dance studio and we talked about the Rotary Youth Exchange Program almost the whole way.  Then I got off the train in Drammen and waited for an hour before my train to Geilo arrived.  I spent the time trying to get to my spor (track?) and reading "Fluenes Herre" from Sondre.  I got a call from my mom right as I was trying to get on the train which was a little strange, but very nice to hear from her!  I was trying to get away with looking Norwegian, but that didn't work.  I was only speaking Norwegian, wearing my fluffy Norwegian sweater and reading a book in Norwegian, but then I spoke English on the phone.  My cover was blown.

I got on that second and last train for three hours to Geilo and slept because of the blankets, pillows etc.  It was actually quite nice.  I don't think there was one person who wasn't asleep on the train.  Also, the man who checked tickets came around the woke people up when it was their stop.  How nice is that?!

When I got off the train at 3:30 AM and saw Lauren for the first time since September, it felt like we had just seen each other.  Her host family's cabin is amazing!  It is more like a house than I would ever think of as a Norwegian Hytte.  There are two floors and people have their own rooms and there's a fantastic kitchen and there's ELECTRICITY AND RUNNING WATER.  I wouldn't exactly consider it "roughing it."  We stayed up until about 4 or 4:30 talking and eating (life of an exchange student...). 

The next morning we had a fantastic breakfast and went for a pretty long ski tour.  The boots I was using were too small so I kept getting foot cramps, but it was really fun.  We came back, showered and got on our PCs.  Yesterday we woke up and went on a 14 km ski tour with new boots, but it was 7 straight up.  It took us a loooong time to go up, and about 30 minutes to go down.  It was so beautiful up there.  Lauren and I kept reminding ourselves that "We are so lucky!"  We might never have a chance to see something as beautiful as that ever again.

We had tacos last night and made pumkin pie the night before.  Sorry this post is so scattered, we're on a train right now going to Lysaker (near Oslo) and someone came over the PA to say that "Norge fikk en annen gull" meaning that "Norway got another gold!"  It's very cool that people are so into skiing here and everything that is happening at Holmenkollen.  The only thing is, that Lauren and I must've been the most excited people on the train because we were the only ones that clapped haha.  We're good exchange students.

Sorry about the shortness of the post...

Will write more after holmenkollen!!