Time to....

...leave the Alps. Tuesday Andreas and I are off back to Norway before we head off to Canada the next day. It's going to be good to not have to stand pressed up in a corner of a crowded gondol, where nice ladies from England cover their mouth and nose because ppl smell bad (alright, I haven't showered for some time now, but Jesus!). People have a way of getting into the gondol no matter how crowded it is. It's all a question of pushing and putting some weight to it. I am going to miss all the opportunities you have here though with buses going in all directions, waiting for you when you take a tour outside the pist. The opportunities to get away from people offpist are pretty good, but there are of course others doing the same so you have to know the places a bit. But I think next time if I wanna go on ski holiday I'll try Czech Republic or something as they are much much cheaper. After all, Switzerland compares to Norwegian prizes. The beer, however, is cheaper. Had a great day skiing today though. Despite the wind gusts and generally the cold weather, we got some nice skiing. I got the good feeling today. Things worked out. I got a course of how to do jump-turns by Andreas. So I feel like I am making progress here. I only hope the good trend will continue, cause yesterday was absolutely awful. Nothing worked out. I guess the skiing hours yesterday compared to today tell everything: 1,5 hr to almost 6 hours today. I also have to give credits for Heierling, that does boot-fitting to a joyful experience. It's really expensive (590 CHF), but you get a liner that fits your foot. Well, it doesn't fit my foot perfectly, but I guess that inevitable. Andreas is showing off that he has 44 skiing days so far this season, while I can only come up with 30 skiing days in total. 25 of them from here in Switzerland. But that ain't bad either!

The second group has already made it to Canada by now. I believe they were going to have a shopping day in Calgary at MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) and I have a feeling I'll end up there as well, even though I already bought some new clothes at Mammut's factory sell-out outside Zürich last week. I still need a Thermarest pad and a new Down Jacket. I have serious plans of leaving behind a lot of my stuff I have brought with me down here though. It's a killer dragging around with a full Northface bag, one day-trip backpack and an enormous skiing bag that is filled up to the rim to getting charged for overweight.

Today there is a free-ride competition here in Davos, Fearnada. I don't think we're gonna attend to it, as it seems it's mostly gonna be skiing as fast as possible. There is going to be a dinner afterwards and a party at Montana. Could be nice too meet some new people. Another nice thing about Davos is that there are surprisingly many people that do telemark-skiing here. I think the owners of the one and only telemark ski shop in Davos, Full-moon, have been an exchange student in Norway and thus brought the art of telemark down here. People are riding Rottefella bindings and whatnot. That's nice. I get a lot of glances of my NTN-bindings though. Few dares to ask, and assume I don't understand when they stand next to me discussing it with one another leaving me out of it. That's a bit weird I think. But I guess, Norwegians and Swiss people are a bit same here with being distanced.

Let's hope the snow conditions at the Oslo Airport is improving as part of the group one was delayed from Zürich last night due to heavy snowfall in Norway and had to go to another airport and missed the flight to Frankfurt and Canada, but things seems to be normalizing at the main airport now, so they should be able to get going eventually! Only hope it's not going to be the same delays when Andreas and I are going back on Tuesday!