Lillehammer!

That’s right!  We had three days in Lillehammer, and you get three posts.  Consider it our gift to you (which means now you have to get us one).  More importantly, there’s a lot more to say about Lillehammer — which we loved — than just that we tried some sports.

The cross country skiing World Cup was in Lillehammer that weekend, so there were many visitors (for Norwegian values of “many”).  This gave us a couple interesting observations to talk about.  As a visual aide, please look at the following picture of Lillehammer’s main street.

A couple things to note.  First, Norway LOVES Christmas.  This country started decorating around Halloween, and has not stopped.  The Christmas vibe is well past “homey” or “charming” and is often well into “intense.”  Second, much of Norway is unplowed.  (Most) streets are plowed, but walkways are just compacted by foot traffic, and lightly covered in grit to make it easier to walk.  Things can get wildly slippery.  In Lillehammer, one family had broken out their push cart, which is like a stroller on runners.  A parental unit pushes and glides, and children ride.  All in all, an extremely charming town.

Now that we’re cross country skiing experts, it seemed time to lend our expertise to the American cross country ski team.  To prepare, we had a friend bring us an American flag and scarves from the states, and we followed some skiers on Instagram (their social media presence is extensive and entertaining #llbean).

Some international context.  As we’ve said, this is the Norwegian national sport, and they dominate the circuit for both genders.  However, the American women are quite good, and help fill up the podiums and top-10 along with non-Norwegian northern Europe.

Arriving at the race was a very Norwegian experience.  We were dropped off by the shuttle in a remote parking lot some distance from the race.  From there, we had a ten minute walk up unshoveled steps, under risers for watching the biathlon, dashes across used ski trails, etc., with no indication of where to go except the distant strains of “Shake It Off.”

We arrived to find a pretty jovial crowd.  People had set up couches and built fires (there was a lot more open flame than I was expecting at a sporting event), children had built a sweet jump at the bottom of a slope, weird games were set up by sponsors, and Norwegian flags were plentiful.  It was snowing, a lot.  Competitors were trying out different waxes (Allison’s brief intro to ski waxing left out a lot of complexity, due to the fact that we don’t understand it, but skiers travel with 30-50 pairs of skis apiece to maximize their options) by skiing the course with a coach and stopping halfway to trade differently-waxed skis with him.  When we yelled at the preparing American racers, they looked up, smiling, only to be confused when we weren’t family (American skiers are not accustomed to being celebrities, I don’t think).  The race of the day was the classic sprints, where racers have multiple small heats and rounds of ~3:30 races.

Cross country ski races are pretty fun!  An American got third, and a Norwegian got first, so everybody was pretty pleased.  We went back later to watch on TV, and were able to spot ourselves and our flag:

To try and convince you this is a fun sport, watch this finish by a beastly undefeated fellow named Johannes Klæbo at the end of a 30km race the day after we were there:

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo

5 races

5 wins

He was 100m out with 1km to go…

17 World Cup races

8 World Cup wins

He's just 21 years old

This kid is special pic.twitter.com/9Icqz4Wt7C

— Eurosport (@eurosport) December 3, 2017

At any rate, we’re now fans of both cross country skiing and Lillehammer.  A great town, and a great visit.