Michael with his 80ies look

Sunday we went cross country skiing in Elm Creek (I think) about half an hours drive from where we live. The weather was splendid, the tracks were good and it was just a wonderful couple of hours we spent up there.

My new toy, Kindle Fire

Pictures from St. Paul Winter Carnival

Yesterday we spent the day out at the "Coolest celebration on earth" - St. Paul Winter Carnival. There was a lot of beautiful ice sculptures in Rice Park and an impressively long parade through the city. Impressive how they could keep warm while sitting still on the parade cars....

Winter Carneval in St. Paul

At the movies...

Just enjoying an after movie cocktail in the VIP Lounge of Showpalace Icon cinema. Laura has been crying for to hours straight while we watched Extremely loud, incredible close. At least we had the Bacon popcorn to keep up the spirit...

29 etager...

Sitting in front of the fire place, studying while someone is playing the piano

På vej til undervisning i morges. Har lige spist frokost med seks fra mit Leadership and effecting change hold (sorry girls ;-D)

Weekend in Wisconsin

The weekend trip to Wisconsin to do the BirkieTour, a 22.5 km cross country skiing event, went very well in spite of the very cold weather. Our hosts were Scott and Jodi from Rovers, who have a cabin up there. They had invited us up for the weekend to join them in the BirkieTour. It was a very nice cabin, but it was very cold (-20 degrees (c) when we got there, and as there was only a wooden stove to heat the place it took a couple of hours to warm up the place. 

Jodi and Scott's cabin

We could see our breath indoor

After a couple of hours of sleep on a one-person top bunk, we were driving towards the ski event. It was -27 degrees (c) !!! So we prepared with multiple layers of clothes, toe warmers in the boots and hand warmers in the gloves and then we were ready.

The start got postponed 1½ hour as it was too cold. By the time we started the temperature had risen to around -16 degrees (c).

On the bus on our way from Telemark to the start, all greasy in order not to get frost bites.
In the background: Jodi and Scott.

It was a very nice race with quite a few hills on the way and the temperature was really not an issues when we got moving.

Laura after the race

In the evening we went to a nice Gastro-Pub in a nearby town and a had a well-deserved meal and a beer. During the weekend our hosts and other people we met at the race convinced us to the American Birkebeiner, 54km cross country skiing race, that takes place in late February, so now we really need to get started with some more ski training.

On the way home we stopped by a frozen lake where there were a lot of small ice fishing huts and cars! on the middle of the lake. So we (Michael) decided that we also wanted to test our cars ice driving skills and took it for a short spin on the ice.

We also stopped by the US Pond Hockey Championship, where they have a hockey tournament where al the games are played on a frozen lake with a bit different rules than normal hockey.

BirkeTour

To night we’re going to Wisconsin with two Rovers we met last weekend. Tomorrow we’ll participate in the “BirkieTour” which is a preperation race for the “real” Birkebeiner in Feburary.

2nd day

My 2nd day at school was great. As on Tuesday I started out with the advanced epi class (today however, Michael didn’t drive me, so I cycled…). Afterwards I had a new class, comparative health systems which is going to be very interesting – We started out by watching a 55 minutes film about the flaws of the American health system – I’ll post it later, I’m sure you’re dying to see it! The teacher wasn’t there, but everyone who knew her talked very good of her and she’d made a YouTube video for us. We’re only 12 people in the class and two other people had been in Denmark, one had even lived there and “had been trying to learn Danish”. Very nice people!
 

After classes I visited my teacher in Leadership and Effecting Change and had a nice chat with her, I’m switching classes so that I will take the Monday course instead of the Tuesday one, the syllabus is the same, but the Monday class is for public health students (like me) and the Tuesday class is for health administration students (something similar to MBA). Afterwards I visit my dearest helper Carol. I’ll need a picture of her, for the blog… As with the exciting film, a picture will follow later.

På vej i skole i minus tyve grader,krydser en dampende Mississippi river

So, I’ve had my very first day of school today. It began at 8.15 with a doctoral level epidemiology course that seems to become very hard work. Before the class started I got to talk with two girls. The class was rather small and some people knew each other. We are supposed to hand in six homework assignments, however we can talk about them and help eachother in groups, so I do hope I will find someone bright :-D In the period between my classes, two girls from the course helped me finding the SPH students lounge, locker rooms, and explained me how the printer works etc.

My second class was at 1.15, it was a much bigger class with almost everyone knowing each other, having internal jokes etc. – a bit intimidating. However, before the class started I talked to a girl who also didn’t know anyone, who was just as insecure as I was :-D. We did a name etc. round, so everybody got to know I was from Denmark and in the break, and also after class, a couple of (married!) men approached me and asked about me and Denmark… I even got a number if I needed help with anything. Lovely! For this course it seems as if there will be a lot of group work – the groups will be assigned so I will not be left by myself (girls’ thoughts).

For the third course I had today, it also seems as if there will be a lot of group work, we did a name-,experience-and-when-can-you-do-group-work-round and almost everyone were very busy and had only weekends and evenings to do group work – times where I would prefer spending time exploring Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wisconsin or some other part of the States or even Canada. For this class we will have to make our own groups. I did kind of hook up with three girls which I do hope won’t take up all my weekends. After class I chatted with a girl from this last class in the students lounge, she was also very helpful, giving me advice on where to find cheap tickets for the Theatres etc. Hopefully Michael and I will get to see The Lion king soon.

So: All in all I’m confident and optimistic.

Our first adventure in Minnesota

We had talked about going up North on a cross-country-ski trip organized by the same group we went bouldering with last Tuesday (called MeetUp). And when Michael got a reminder to sign up, we did. However, there weren’t any spots left (?!). As Michael had set his mind to doing some cross country skiing, he (of course) found another trip Friday afternoon (instead of working!?). He called the organizers and luckily they had just got two cancellations. As Michael was still at worked, I packed our bags and when he got home we left.

Ready for take-off

It was a five and a half hours drive and as we got closer and there were still not any snow, we got a bit nervous. 

52 minutes before we were there it began to “snow” (probably it was just drifting), we celebrated, however 10 minutes later it stopped and there was no snow on the ground whatsoever... 30 minutes before we were arrived, the ground was getting “whiter” and the temperature had fallen to 1º Fahrenheit (-17º!!!!) and there was quite a lot of snow.

We were welcomed by Rob, the organizer, and much of the group. They were all very kind and interested in who we were and why we were there. The group was Minnesota Rovers, an outdoor club which we are now members of B-D

The lodge we stayed at

 Our cabin and our car



Apparently it was "blue-extra weather" all weekend

We went snowshoeing on some marked tracks - and of course we went extreme off-road as well

X - treme

Extreme polar plonging

Sunday we did some kiteing on the lake

Michael, kite-skiing

Me, kite-booting

The last trip this morning