Jon and Ivan, just a couple of norwegians we've met thus far, with Jill at Bingo'n after the ski races.

Johanne and Quinn tearing it up on the dance floor. We ran into Quinn at the ski races and found out that he was from Montana and along with the US Telemark Ski Team training just up the road from us for the next month or so. He came over to party with us after the ski races and turned out to be a cool guy.

Birger, the coolest professor ever!

The view from the Olympic Stadium where we were waiting to see a couple of our friends, Espen and Erlund, go off the smaller of the two ski jumps with just their telemark skis. They had to go over to the far right side of the jump and literally jump onto the ski jump half way down, because their skis would ruin the ruts that the actual ski jumpers were using. The other side, where there were no ruts, only had snow half way up, so they had to crawl down to their, jump a small wall, and then go down the rest of the jump. They only flew about 30 feet, due to lack of speed, but it was really fun to watch! 

View of the valley from half way up the ski jump hill.

And another view of Lillihammer in the valley from the ski jump hill. You can see the main Olympic Torch at the back of the stadium. We were going to go pretend we were lighting it for fun pictures....but they had it blocked off, being as I'm sure every tourist who goes there would do the same.

Last Friday we went to the World Cup Ski Jump competition here in Lillihammer and it was much more than we thought it was going to be. The World Cup Downhill event was fun, but this thing was a blast!! I think half the town was out for this event. This picture was taken early on in the competition too. Just look at all of the other pictures of the ski jump arena and imagine the place PACKED with people wearing blue and red and waving their flags.....and many of them a little loopy as well. The Norwegians took first and second too, which made everyone go nuts! It was freezing cold, but one of our norwegian friends there had a coffee and homemade liqour combination drink that he offered us. One sip of that and you weren't cold anymore. Good times all around.