May 24th, 2008

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Today, we went to Lillehammer - which is where the Olympics were held in 1994. The scenery here (everywhere in Norway) is beautiful - and the two and a half hour ride there wasn't bad at all, barring the rain.

The weather was terrible - extremely foggy and a lot of rain. But we made the best of the experience anyhow, and we definitely still had a lot of fun. Many thanks to our cousins who took us there (and everything else they have done for us since we have been here).

We walked about 3 quarters of the way down and up the skiing area (going down is no problem, but coming up - my god - was painful as an asthmatic).

After walking down for a bit, about a few sections down, we went to the gift shop. The worker there was apparently one of twelve thousand workers during the Olympics and was telling us some stories.

This picture is what we should have seen walking down:


This is what we saw because of the weather:


An odd diversion - they charge you in places to use the bathroom!! We took a break once we got to Lillehammer to eat, and when I went to the restroom.. I noticed it was locked. I originally thought someone was there, and while I was looking around.. I saw the sign below:

Not being able to read Norwegian, the only words that stood out were: "10 kr" (money), "toalett" (toilet) and I put together than it costs that much to use the bathroom. Here specifically, if you were a customer it was free to use the bathroom - but my cousin said it is very ordinary to be charged to use the bathroom in public places in Europe. How odd!