I think I will keep this one brief.*Is it weird that I giggled like an 8 year old when I wrote brief!?* :)
Anyway, from Garpenberg we headed straight to Sälen, this time it was just Anna, Nicolai, and me. We stayed in a nice condo type cabin, Anna's timeshare. We arrived on the 28th at night. The next day Nicolai and I rented skis for the week (Anna had her own), and that afternoon we hit the slopes. It was pretty nice skiing conditions, a bit icy on the popular slopes. It was quite cold the entire time we were there, probably -10 or -15C on average.. Plus there was a bit of wind some days. I wasn't 100% pleased with the skiing, but that was only because it was set up that you had to ski to a lift, you couldn't just ski to the bottom of a hill and have a lift. At one point I got stuck in an area with only three small anchor lifts that didn't lead anywhere or up the hill. So I had to cross the bottom of a couple slopes to get to the nearest lift that would take me up the mountain. I guess it was just different from back home, plus there were practically no trees so no skiing through the woods. Me being the silly girl I am, however, I attempted to ski in the small patches of trees between slopes, it happened to be quite icy that day.. So I went up this icy curve instead of following the turn it made and stopped myself with a tree... And my hip. :) But no real bruise to show for it. Oh, Sälen was the first place I ever road a anchor lift.. No calamities to tell about, however, there was one time when a guy was just hanging on to the bar and getting dragged up the hill on his stomach for a while. :P
On the 30th Bengt, Yulia, and their son Edwin came up to Sälen as well. It is great having them there, I love Yulia and Bengt they are wonderful. :)
New Years Eve was great! We all went to a nice restaurant in hotell Bügelhof. It was a wonderful three course meal, absolutely delicious! :) We made friends with the guys at the table next to us because Edvin hit one of them with the menu. :P They were very nice guys, living in Stockholm actually. The one Edwin hit just moved to Stockholm from Kalmar that week, he spent a year (or maybe a term) in Australia last year. After dinner we went to the night club upstairs and danced in the New Year, I had such a great time!
Okej, I'm kind of giving up on this post now.. I keep getting distracted.
So I saunaed a lot!! That was great! 90C so like 195F!! I love the Sauna. It's funny the first time I had a sauna in Sweden it was only like 40C, 100F and I thought that was very hot, now if I'm in a 65C, 150F sauna I think it is practically cold! :P 85C is a good temperature, you can sit in that for a long time. It is so relaxing.
We skied for a few days more and headed back to Stockholm on the 3rd (I think).
It was a wonderful beginning to this new year!! :)
