"NORWAY" is beautiful, they say......
.
Norway is a beautiful country and I've been to Norway several times as a judge but never privately.This means that most of the time I get to see nothing else than a hotel-ice rink-hotel. On top of that I don't have good experiences with Norway!
I mean every time I went there something did go wrong!
The first time ever was to judge the "Pre-Olympics" in Hamar in 1993. At that competition I at one point took my camera and while doing so I turned around not seeing that the wristband got stuck behind one of the corners of the table. So when I pulled the table collapsed and fell on my two heels... It hurts! I could hardly walk for the rest of the week.
The second time was when I was invited by Norway to judge the "Nordic Championships" and had to judge the Junior & Senior Ladies that year. I started to judge the Junior Ladies and everything went fine till halfway through the competition. I started to cry! Not in the real sense of the word crying but I hardly could see anything through my left eye because of the tears. It didn't hurt or so but I hardly managed to continue. This was on Saturday during the short. After the competition they took me to the hospital in Oslo to find out what was wrong. It turned out to be some kind of snow-blindness. The Doctor told me that it is possible because of the light reflecting in the ice. Even the day after I still had problems and even to this day my left eye is still not ok. I don't have any problems with it only when I get tiered or when I'm too long in the sun I start to cry allover again. Anyway, because of this all I had one day off on Sunday which gave me the chance to see a little from Oslo. I couldn't work for another two weeks.
The third time: I just came back from Skate America that year and went straight to Norway to judge there but I caught some kind of virus on the plane coming from the US. This really hit me when I was in Norway. I hardly could move the day after and was very lucky that I didn't had to judge the pairs even though I did volunteer for it but wasn't drawn. In fact I was the only judge who only had to judge one event that competition giving me the chance to see something from the city...... Not!
The fourth time I had to follow a seminar and my luggage didn't arrive which isn't funny at all but no injuries and still no time to visit Norway.
The fifth time I had to go there was for a seminar and was invited by Britta Lindgren to take part at this seminar! She's such a lovely lady cause because of me she had to do the whole seminar in English cause I was the only person who couldn't speak Swedish! Yes Swedish in Norway, cause Norwegian, Danish and Swedish all are very similar languages so they all understand eachother. After two days I started to understand it as well! This time again nothing went wrong but still I didn't had the chance to see or do anything.
Here are some pictures from Hamar in 1993.
.
Norway is a beautiful country and I've been to Norway several times as a judge but never privately.This means that most of the time I get to see nothing else than a hotel-ice rink-hotel. On top of that I don't have good experiences with Norway!
I mean every time I went there something did go wrong!
The first time ever was to judge the "Pre-Olympics" in Hamar in 1993. At that competition I at one point took my camera and while doing so I turned around not seeing that the wristband got stuck behind one of the corners of the table. So when I pulled the table collapsed and fell on my two heels... It hurts! I could hardly walk for the rest of the week.
The second time was when I was invited by Norway to judge the "Nordic Championships" and had to judge the Junior & Senior Ladies that year. I started to judge the Junior Ladies and everything went fine till halfway through the competition. I started to cry! Not in the real sense of the word crying but I hardly could see anything through my left eye because of the tears. It didn't hurt or so but I hardly managed to continue. This was on Saturday during the short. After the competition they took me to the hospital in Oslo to find out what was wrong. It turned out to be some kind of snow-blindness. The Doctor told me that it is possible because of the light reflecting in the ice. Even the day after I still had problems and even to this day my left eye is still not ok. I don't have any problems with it only when I get tiered or when I'm too long in the sun I start to cry allover again. Anyway, because of this all I had one day off on Sunday which gave me the chance to see a little from Oslo. I couldn't work for another two weeks.
The third time: I just came back from Skate America that year and went straight to Norway to judge there but I caught some kind of virus on the plane coming from the US. This really hit me when I was in Norway. I hardly could move the day after and was very lucky that I didn't had to judge the pairs even though I did volunteer for it but wasn't drawn. In fact I was the only judge who only had to judge one event that competition giving me the chance to see something from the city...... Not!
The fourth time I had to follow a seminar and my luggage didn't arrive which isn't funny at all but no injuries and still no time to visit Norway.
The fifth time I had to go there was for a seminar and was invited by Britta Lindgren to take part at this seminar! She's such a lovely lady cause because of me she had to do the whole seminar in English cause I was the only person who couldn't speak Swedish! Yes Swedish in Norway, cause Norwegian, Danish and Swedish all are very similar languages so they all understand eachother. After two days I started to understand it as well! This time again nothing went wrong but still I didn't had the chance to see or do anything.
Here are some pictures from Hamar in 1993.
.
posted by Patrick at Saturday, December 02, 2006
<< Home