Lillehammering away...

This day sucks. Admittedly, it's hard to keep my spirits up when hearing this from Sara but after explaining that tobogganing does not involve going down a hill head first on your stomach, she started to ease up.  Seems she just didn't know what it was, she had it confused with some sort of backwards version of the luge. Don't you just love the way that word sounds? Luuuuuuge. Anyway, once we explained it to her she started to relax and we were able to get through dinner and get to bed early in preparation for the big day.

After the hotel's buffet breakfast the likes of which I'd never seen before (more on that later), we got dressed in our borrowed ski gear and headed up the mountain on foot to the Kanthaugen Freestyle Arena. We were all loaded up in silk long underwear, hats, scarves, layered jackets, and were missing the most important item: sunglasses.  Within minutes of walking uphill in the bright sunlight, I was blind from the snow's reflection and sweating my ass off. Sam couldn't take the sunlight and started freaking out, so I made him a turban with visor from my trusty scarf again. Yes, again. He peeled off all his clothes and was bitching and complaining, but I couldn't get mad because he had a turban on his little head with the end of the scarf folder over and sticking straight out out to shield his eyes. He looked ridiculous. We eventually made it up to the tobogganing area and got ourselves helmeted and ready to go. The guy was really friendly and I heard him ask another guy to explain to us in English how to connect to the tow bar. Listen, dude, if I can understand that much Norwegian, maybe you should just give it a go.  We were given the quick overview by Helper Guy and he even attached the tow bar for Sam and Jon's first ascent, and there they went. I got mine connected on the first try and started up the mountain after them, not realizing that it wasn't exactly going to be the easy breezy ride to the top that I'd been assuming. Tow lift? No walking up? Perfect! Well, not exactly. The toboggan is made of plastic, and for the first 25 percent of the ride up it banged my ass against the ground two or three thousand times per second as it rode over the uneven ground. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam! Just when the banging stopped and I thought I was home free, I almost fell right off the back and toppled backwards down the mountain, boots over brain. Oh, yeah, I am lithe as a cat.