Short and almost boring update

Not much blogging lately, but that's mostly because I haven't done much worth writing about. My last three or four weeks have (mostly) consisted of working out, reading about travelling, packing, and buying Christmas presents. Packing because I'm moving after Christmas, and planning to pack stuff for my first trip to Asia. Hurray!

So, yeah, going to Singapore and Vietnam for three weeks, leaving on Friday this week. That's also probably means no or little updates here on the blog the upcoming something weeks. But I'll be back, with lots of pictures!

 

Bought me Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia on a shoestring so that I'll something to read on the plane. My travelling companion already has the specific books for Singapore and Vietnam.

Storm's end

The storm "Ivar" has been raging the town this evening. A bit of damages here and there, trees fallen, cars tipped over, garbage bins spread all over the neighbourhood, bits and bobs here and there.

All the busses were stopped at one point, which was particurlarly unfortunate as I had planned to take the bus to the Red Cross house at that exact point. Well, ended up running home and taking the bike instead. I have yet to put on the studded tires on my bike, but I figured it would be fine as most of the ice melted away the last couple of days anyway. Biking was no problem, just a bit too much side wind at one point.

I must say, I love the wind. The way it tears at your body and makes you utterly aware of the powers of nature around you. Makes me feel very much alive. Also, it reminds me of Svalbard. Lots of wind there. Picked out some windy and weathery pictures of a few of the people that were in my geography class on Svalbard. 

Fjellmedisinkurs

Okay then, having recovered from the shock of the peanut butter incident last week, I was off to Ustaoset last Friday for a weekend course in mountain medicine, held by the Norwegian Society of Mountain Medicine (NFS).

I went there as a sort of delegate from out local Red Cross alon with two others, but I also had friends from the NTNUI Ski og Fjellsport group who attended the course.

The course is a one-and-a-half day thing built up of many short lectures and practical workshops and demonstrations outdoors. Subjects covered were, among other things, history, equipment, stabilisation and evacuation, hypothermia, frost bite, altitude sickness, avalanche medicine, allergies, medication, fractures and luxations, bleeding, heat preservation, and other bits and bobs.

All in all, a smashing good course, and I would recommend anyone Norwegian speaking who enjoys spending time outdoors to take this course next year.

Most of the time it was so interesting that I forgot to take pictures, even though I had my little compact in my pocket all the time, but did snap a couple here and there.

Og forresten, hvis du ønsker å selv bidra og lære om førstehjelp, så pågår det nå intervjuer til opptak av vårens grunnkurs hos Trondheim Røde Kors Hjelpekorps. Det er ennå ikke for sent å sende inn søknad, bare klikk deg inn her.

127 seconds

Warning: long post ahead. You might have to actually read.

Ok, this is so typically me, posting about events way after they actually took place. I mean, still post post pictures from the Portugal holiday in 2011 and Svalbard semester in 2012. So considering this post is about events that happened in August this year, I'm almost early.

Aaanyway, tagged along to a couple of limestone caves, Ramsåsgrottene, with a friend. Went into the upper Ramsåsgrotte first, which is a wet system, with a stream running through it. Couldn't get all the way through though, there's a little waterfall you have to climb up and I haven't got the skills for that (see video below btw for the waterfall, I'm pointing at where we were trying to go, but it was a dead end). Now, this cave is really tight horisontally, but several meters high in places, and meandering. Moving along therefore ment going up and down and up again, and squeezing and jamming and climbing and crawling. It was strange, how the shape of the cave was just like the englacial conduits (read: ice caves) on Svalbard, the water has worked on the ice and the rock in exactly the same manner, only on different time scales. Nature, eh?

Now, as I've mentioned before, stamina is not my strong side, and I was pretty knackered and quite hungry on the way out. I took a wrong turn past some loose debris and before I knew it a big chunk of rock had fallen down onto my wrist and jammed my arm between the cave wall and the big rock. Stuck, properly stuck. Ow. I could wriggle the rock a little bit, but not move it on my own. What do we do? We panic. Start yelling for my friend and these flashback pictures from 127 Hours keep popping up in my head, and I start crying. See, this is exactly why I would never be any good doing extreme sports.

Friend (also called Ivar by some) goes to other side of rock and manages to lift rock just enough for me to get my hand out. Crawl out last bit of the cave, eat lunch, and all is well again now that my blood sugar is back to normal. We then went into and through lower Ramsåsgrotta, which is quite a lot easier to move through, and not as wet. Still, you can't really be much bigger than me to get through, there are a couple of passages where you have to shuffle along while lying on your back or belly. People have managed to get stuck in lower Ramsåsgrotta too, just look at this.

Dragging one self through tight caves does not fare well for whatever you're wearing. Both my jacket and and trousers were nicely shredded at the end of the day. And then I fell into the mud on the way back to the car, because that's what I do...

Might also add that all in all, I thought it well fun and would recommend it to anyone who hasn't got claustrophobia. And now I have myself little story to tell.

And yeah, I know, all the pictures are blurry, but it's all there is.

tight fit..

Movie time

Finally watching Touching the Void after it's been sitting on my harddrive for over a year now. Interesting stuff, extreme sports and the minds of the people who do it. Also watched Into the Mind earlier this fall. Visually beautiful movie, bit long though.

Personally I'm not there. I just haven't got the mental nor the physical strength for it, sometimes wish I did however. I would have loved that immense adrenaline rush. Now, at this point some might say go for it and you're capable of some much more than what you think you are. Actually, if something went wrong, and I was already tired and hungry, I would panic. I know this because I did panic, in a cave late this summer, my very own 127 Hours experience. Or rather, 127 seconds in my case. Oh yeah, totally comparable... But let's save that for the next post. It's adding up to be enough text for one post here.

Finishing off with som pics from one of my favourite places on earth, a trip to one of the ice caves inside glaciers on Svalbard. More pictures here. The girl is Katja.

Something

I am so fucking bored. With everything. Nothing in my everyday life is exciting. It's all just routine. Actually, it's not even routine, it's eating and sleeping and trying to find the motivation to get to school and the gym, while trying to tear myself apart from various television series which are all more exciting than my own life. Something needs to happen, now. I've got some travelling planned from New Year's, but where, how, to find the motivation to do anything before then?

Exterminate!

Off to Trollheimen in a mo' for a weekend hike. But right now it's Doctor Who for the win! I'm on season 4 of the new seasons, and I'm dreading the loss of David Tennant which is bound to come up soon. The Daleks are back, so let's finish off with some Dalek propaganda!

LSOR

Last weekend I participated in a three day practical course on how to lead a team during a search and rescue mission through the Red Cross. This was a regional course that took place on Fjellværøya. Good fun, mentally very tiring. I slept until three in the afternoon the day after I came home. The course consisted of a set of practical cases where we took turns leading our team through the given challenge. Learned loads and loads about myself and how I am as a leader, and how I can improve as a leader.

Anbefaler deg å sjekke ut om de har Røde Kors Hjelpekorps der de bor, og se om dette kan være noe du synes er interessant. Hvertfall hvis du er glad i førstehjelp og friluftsliv. Jeg stortrives i alle fall i Hjelpekorpset.

So now that I'm (on paper at least) qualified to go as team leader, all I can do is wait for the alarm to ring for the next search mission.

  

Wine and games

Missing Svalbard and the five wonderful people I shared a kitchen with. We were the Wine and Boardgames kitchen. It could be three in the morning, couldn't sleep, and I'd go sit in the kitchen. A moment later other non-sleepers would have heard my footsteps and pop their head in the kitchen door, I'd say "game?", and then we'd play Carcassonne or Cribbage.

Other times we'd sit and knit and crochet.

Bli-kjent-tur

Trip last weekend: Original plan was to bring my DSLR, and then I forgot it plugged to the charger... Hence phone pics again. This time from the Sylane area along with 44 other outdoor loving students. Saturday evening I found particularly wonderful, with a bonfire, gin and tonic, shooting stars, conversations, and finishing off sleeping under the open sky.

 

 

Water

Canoeing in Femundsmarka last weekend was absolutely suberb, even if it was pissing, pouring down all of Saturday. As I said, I can't find my waterproof camera, but I managed to snap a couple of phone pics without the battery dying completely. Maybe I should just buy a new camera, that should make the old one pop up I bet.