Day 21

Today was both my most disappointing and potentially most exciting day in Sweden so far.

Made it in to work by 7am only to find my access card wouldn’t let me into the IT department.  Three calls to different IT team members later and I still wasn’t in, apparently the card should work but it didn’t.  Grabbed a cup of tea from the canteen and waited.  A nice cleaner lady let me in around 7.25am.

The morning was pretty quiet, left the office just before 10.30 and made it to Helsingborg to meet Jens at 11am.  The three of us – Jens, myself, and Elsa (Jens’ super-cute 3 year old daughter) – were in high spirits on the hour long drive to Vallåsen.  The snow was reasonably heavy but we didn’t care, we were going skiing!

Got to the car park around midday and realised we may have made a vital strategic blunder.  Turns out this week was Danish school holidays and the little mountain was p-a-c-k-e-d.  Car park full of cars with Danish number plates, eating area full of Danish people eating but, luckily, the equipment rental area was empty.  This was misleading.

As is common almost everywhere in Sweden that you have to line up, to get rental equipment you needed to ‘take a number’.  Mine was 303.  They were up to 232.  Went into the ‘gathering building’ (full of tables/chairs, shelves to store bags/shoes and, of course, Danes) and got kitted up.  30 minutes later the board was calling number 241.  Took a walk to check out the slopes which were remarkably quiet.  Not empty, but not packed like Buller on a Saturday. 

By 1pm we’d been there an hour and they’d made it to 255.  At this rate we’d be hitting the slopes by about 3.30pm with the sun due to go down shortly after 5pm.  Yes, they had night skiing but the snow was falling pretty heavily and the thought of another few hours sitting around was too much to bear.  We decided to pull the pin and head back to Jens’ house.

Took the scenic route through beautiful forested countryside – everywhere you looked would have made a beautiful photo.  Decided to take a video instead:

Yes, that’s Jason Mraz in the background…

We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon/evening at Jens’ house in Helsingborg with his wife Marta, their 5 month old son Axel.  Marta cooked up a great big pastie thing filled with mince, parsley, sour cream and garlic then for dessert we had Marta’s crumble –filled with mango, raspberries and blackberries topped with ice cream.  Yum…

Shared photos of our trips – they’d also eloped to New York three years ago so we had lots to talk about.  While showing me some fantastic photos of their many ski trips Jens came up with the idea of me going snowboarding in France for my ‘holiday’ week.  He knew this tour company that bussed you from Helsingborg all the way to the resort in France, included all meals, lift passes, equipment hire, accommodation and guide. 

We checked out the website and found some dates that would work.  Not my last week, but a couple of weeks before I leave.  On Jens and Marta’s advice we decided it would be best to go to Tignes (since Val d Isère was fully booked) which happens to be the site of the European Winter X-Games in a few weeks.  Jens called up and confirmed there was a place left on the bus – which there was – and so we booked.  I have a week to pay, during which I need to get the official go ahead from Niklas. 

So it may have started a little disappointingly, but it ended on a high – imagine, snowboarding in the French Alps!!!