Hemsedal

In the Easter holidays I went to Hemsedal located in Norway, which is in northern Europe. To get there I had to take: a taxi at 5.30 in the morning, a train from Seven Sisters, a plane from Stansted Airport (which took 2 hour and 30 minutes to get to Oslo - the capital of Norway) and from there I took a coach, a train and another coach to go up, up and up into the snowy mountains of Hemsedal.

What is there to do in Hemsedal? There is only one answer. Skiing. Hemsedal has a huge amount of slopes to ski on, and they are colour coded for difficulty levels, such as: green means easy, blue means average, red means hard and black means very hard. There are several different ways slopes can be tested: steepness, width and bumpiness (little hills are named mobies). I skied on green and blue, and got my turning ability to red.

In the mornings of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I did intermediate lessons. In the lessons there were two other English people, three Norwegians and one German, meaning that our teacher, called Nathalie, had to say everything she said, unless it was personal, in three different languages!

In lessons I practiced mammoth turns, keeping my skis parallel and hockey stops (a 90 degree turn then a stop); I did three blue slopes and three green; and at the end of the final lesson we, the children in the lesson, all got certificates.

By Archie, 4B