Norway - Day 7, Beitostolen

I woke up early and prepared myself for a long travel day. I made the trip that day from Oslo to Beitostolen where I would spent the remainder 7 days of my trip to Norway. I met up with three fellow Americans at their hotel and we waited for our chartered bus to take us on our 4 hour bus journey to a very small ski village.

We headed to Beitostolen to attend the Ridderenn event which is a weeklong event for people with all sorts of disabilities skiing downhill and cross country. The American version of this event is called Ski For Light. I was thrilled to sit next to a talkative and friendly Danish woman.

The impression of the ski town was what I expected: cabins strung about the mountain side, a grocery store, a couple of hotels, several restaurants and shops. I fortunately was invited by Mattis (whom I met at Ski For Light) to stay in his cabin that sits 1 minute walk away from the main hotel which is where all of the events are happening during the week. The ski lift is literally directly across the street and the ski area is about one mile away.

Once I arrived to Mattis' cabin, we walked across the street to the grocery store. As a way of thanking Mattis and showing him my appreciation for his hosting generosity I volunteered to cook for him for the week. After a yummy dinner together we went to the hotel and joined the evening social hours in the bar and live band.

The American version of this event (SFL) has only 300 whereas this one has 800 or so. Also, there are over 150 sports university volunteering and over 200 military soldiers supporting the event. The SFL event has a huge number of older participants with the average age of 55. On the first night here I noticed the massive difference in age of the participants and volunteers.

I had sooooo much fun dancing that night and reunited with some friends I had not seen in a while. All in all, it was a great day to a week full of fun!