Since my last blog update, I have taken two fantastic snowboarding trips to northern sweden. The first was during out spring break basically, except it is much earlier than in the states, and many families go skiing for it. My family took me up to a ski resort called Bydalen. It is quite near the city of Östersund if you are interested. We went up there for a week and rented a cabin that was right on the hill. The mountain itself was nice, but still nothing like those out west in the US. It was still very flat.... However, they had a great line of jumps in their park so when the weather was nice I spent the day there. The other bummer of Bydalen was that I broke my snowboard I had bought here in sweden on the first day. It had slowly been breaking throughout the season and finally the core snapped after taking a tumble in some fresh snow (something that would have normally had no effect on the board). I ended up having to rent for the remaining six days, which of course turned out to be a very bad board... I still had a great time though and it was a very relaxing trip!
The next big trip happened just a week after I got back from Bydalen! And this trip was the one I had been looking forward to since the moment I found out it was offered. This was the rotary sponsored trip up to swedens super resort of Åre. It is a world famous resort where they hold the downhill world championships every year. In fact, the womens world championships were the week just before we were there. A couple exchange students were there for them and got to meet Lindsey Vonn. There were about 40 exchange students from accross the world that came, living all over in sweden. Many of us took the same night train up from stockholm, which took about 9 hours, but turned out to be incredibally fun. When we got to Åre on Sunday the 11th of March (my birthday) we headed streight to the hotel we were staying at which was in the nearby town of Duved. We didn't ski that first day, but instead got everyone settled into the hotel and figured rentals out. We then skiied the next four days. Unfortuanly, the weather was not on our side while we were there. It had been above freezing the whole week before and then went minus the sunday we got there, so the first three days were like riding on an ice rink. The second and third day we got a little bit of new snow, enough to get some nice turns in some hidden shoots we found. The top of the mountain was however closed the whole time we were there. The fourth day was by far the best. It turned partly sunny in the afternoon, and was above 0 the whole day, making for what I find is really fun soft snow. I spend most of that day in the park which is fantastic at Åre. I ended up doing a 65 ft jump by the end of the day (unfortunatly no photo proof though).
Needless to say, the most fun aspect of this trip was not the actuall snowboarding, but the social part. I got to meet everyone again that lives in different parts of sweden, as well as many "newbies" from australia who came just two months ago. We all had a great time at the hotel and on the slopes, and our chaparones were really fun people too. They were just a bit older than us so we bonded with them really well. It was very sad to leave everyone the last day and the trainride home was a bit depressing. However, I have already made plans to go and visit people who live far from stockholm. I am taking a trip down to Lund which is in the far south of sweden to visit several people who live in the area.
Thats the latest news! Spring has come to stockholm as well, it has been quite nice and the days are getting much longer (thank god).
