Saturday, December 3, 2011

The World Cups Begin!

On Wednesday the World Cups here in Östersund started. You can read all about them on fasterskier.com (with most of the photos done by me and my dad).

 dad and i took a little break to do some shopping in town. i found some pretty awesome gloves.

while i was at the bottom of the course cheering on skiers, i had a little time to construct a makeshift flag (a very expensive one at that) with a spare swix triac pole that i brought with me.

 later, we went to the supermarket and found something very special and rare...the sun.

one of the coolest places to go during christmas time here in Östersund is the Julmarknad or Christmas Market, there you can find such swedish delicacies as moose kebabs and very heavily fried bacon pancakes.

maybe the best bacon pancake i had all day...maybe.

this morning (saturday) i watched Kikkan Randall of the US XC Ski team win the women's sprint in Dusseldorf, Germany on television. it was awesome!

i might need some more chocolate.

Monday, November 28, 2011

First Few Days

added a little american spirit to our apartments.

snowed last night. mostly in piles, directly on the trail... strange weather here in the somewhat-frozen north.

the snow is brown. good good.

2pm...and the sun is down.

bad news: it's raining. good news: rainbow!

...and then it started snowing!

watched Petter Northug kill it in some cross country races over the weekend.

tested some skis today. they were super fast.

the typical color scheme of a traditional swedish meal.

out in the ski testing area with all the wax techs.

GO USA!

feeling good after a solid 18km skate ski.


sorry about the 3 day gap in posts, i'll try to update this a little bit more... 

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Sweden: Round Three

This will be my third trip to Östersund, and hopefully the best yet! But as of yet, there is no snow here. So we'll see how this ski trip goes.


 packing. done.

primed to go.

 napkin on iceland air.

 icelandic hot chocolate: tastes much better than it looks.



safely arrived in winter wonderland. 38˚ and blue skies.


happy thanksgiving. go eat some fish, potatoes, lettuce, and crispbread.