I had to turn down way too many trips to the mountains due to prior commitments and academic reasons (yes, I'm actually studying a little bit here). My flat mate Kay celebrated his 30th birthday about a month ago, so we had a big party for him here. He was able to rent out one of the local 'basements' in Moholt, so it was a nice change of scenery for us all. Most of the basements here in the student village are 'owned' by a particular student group. Most academic tracts have an associated student group that organizes social event through out the year. So these basements are open regularly for students to hang out it, or they host events such as movie nights.I missed out on 2 cabin trips because I had to study for a midterm in my Applied Thermodynamics course, because I had to pass this test in order to be allowed to take the final exam in May. This is by far the hardest course I've taken at NTNU. It's extremely theoretical and disjoint. The course uses 2 textbooks and a compendium written by my professor. I wish this course just used one book where the material builds upon itself over the course of the semester. Anyways, the test was actually 5 days later than I thought. So after giving up a weekend to study, I learned that in actuality I still had another weekend to study. Although this came as a relief at the time, I still wish I hadn't given up a weekend in the mountains. In the end, the test went pretty well. I made some lucky guesses that proved right in the end.
Now for the best part! I went on cabin trip with 5 other people this weekend in the mountains south of Trondheim. Although the snow is almost gone in the city, there is still plenty of it up there. I took about 4 hours to go from the highway to the cabin with about 1000 ft of elevation gain. 4 of us went by snowshoe and the other two had touring skis. We had a nice relaxing evening in the cabin. A 30 minute nap turned into 2.5 hours. Then we woke up to make dinner and were back in bed by midnight.
Bavarian traditional music started playing at 6.30 so that we all got moving before the snow got too soft. We climbed up another 900 feet through the snow fields to the top of Gynndalfjellet. The weather couldn't have been better... Clear blue skies, sun, and ~40 degrees. This was the first time in months many of us have felt the warmth of the sun. The skiers skied back, 2 snowboarded, and 2 of us walked back. I miss my downhill skis. We took a couple hours break at the the cabin and enjoyed some lunch in the sun before heading back to catch the bus. The walk back was significantly faster because we didn't have to consult a map every .5 mile, so we had time to kill back in the main valley. We ended up skiing and boarding down a farmers field because there was a natural kicker (jump) right in the middle. I now know it's possible to snowboard wearing hiking boots. After a long day in the sun, we came back hungry and sunburned. Lucky for me, Kay was hosting a traditional Norwegian dinner night, so I had a wonderful dinner waiting upon my return.My spring break hasn't officially started, but it sure feels that way. Most of the other 3rd year Chem E's are on a trip to Brazil together, so many of my classes have been cancelled. I'll do some school this week, but not too much... ;)
