Hi Merry Christmas everyone!

This picture is actually from the day after Christmas but that's close enough right?

I went for a nice ski trip today with Torstein, who is my manager at Nordic. We went on a trail into Bymarka, which is just west of the main part of Trondheim. There is still enough snow to ski on up there, although it was getting a bit icy in some spots. Torstein was quite patient to wait for me on the top of some of the hills, as I am still trying to remember exactly how cross country skis are supposed to work. We skied to a small hut about 3 or 4 kilometers from a parking area and had a snack, then we came back on a different route. I walked down a couple of the nastier hills, as I prefer to have both knees continue to bend in only one direction.

I had a small Christmas party with some of the other new people from work yesterday. We had Joel and his friend Mel who was visiting from Australia, Cletus, Vinayak and his wife who are all from India and me. We all brought some different food and prepared it together. I brought a frozen chocolate cake for Mel since she shared a birthday with baby Jesus. I tried to translate the instructions on the box for the cake by typing them into google translate, but basically I got "cook on full boil for 2 hours". I wisely ignored the instructions and just let it thaw out until it seemed edible.
Cletus was somewhat flummoxed by what to do with a can of corn but he was relieved to hear that you only had to open it and put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. I also showed him how to make coffee 2 different ways so I expect him to be a full-on caffiene addict in a few more weeks. Best wishes to Cletus' mother, who fell and broke her hip last week in India, and had to have an operation to put a new hip joint in.

That's all for my Christmas update,

best wishes for 2009,

Miles