GOLFING IN WALES
Possibly a perfect drive. At least a spectacular view!
The past year, almost two years now, I feel I've started my posts with the following: "Now it's a really long time since my last post". Well, I'm not going to do that this time (even though it's no less true this time).
Last year, my good friend Tom and I went to South Africa for two weeks, mainly plaing golf. Now that we're both working men, we had to shorten the time span some, so we met in Manchester, England and drove to Wales for four days of golf!
Friday
I arrived early Friday morning at the airport, and Tom picked me up in his new Mazda. We drove straight to the first golf course, Royal St. David's Golf Course in Harlech. Harlech is a small village on the west coast of Wales, about an hour south of Caernarfon. Harlech is known for its Edwardian castle (approx. 12th century). The St. David's golf course is located in the sand dunes just below the castle, so you see the castle from every hole on the course. Being a links course, the greens are big and undulated. And it's windy. Despite the heavy winds, I played very well, scoring 34 points (with 20 additional strokes). The best part of the St. David's golf course was the front nine and the beautiful weather.
Royal St. David's golf course seen from Harlech castle
Tom's favourite - fairway bunkers
Saturday
We stayed in the caravan cabin of Tom's parents. It was located with a beautiful view near Conwy in the north of Wales. The second day, we drove back south again, this time heading out on the LLeyn peninsula and Abersoch golf club. This day, Wales definitely showed us from a different side, it poured down all day long. Both Tom and I realized that our waterproof kits were spectacular, keeping the rain at a comfortable distance.
After a moist morning in Abersoch, we headed back to Conwy, hoping to get a glimpse of the Celtic fayre, but it had closed for the day. So we headed on a small pub to pub round, trying some great beer at several different, great pubs.
Sunday
It was time for another try to golf on the LLeyn peninsula, but this time on the north side. About 1h 30 min from Conwy, we arrived at Nefyn, where we found an absolutely stunning golf course - Nefyn and District Golf Club. Six of the back nine holes are located on a narrow peninsula, allowing no errors on any shots longer than 5 yards. We offered some golf balls to the Gods of the sea, of course, but managed surprisingly well. We both ended the round with birdies on the 18th - the day ending with a tie in the Erasmus challenge 2011 competition! The day was a mixture of clouds and pouring rain, but ended with beautiful sunny evening sun.
In the evening, back in Conwy, we had dinner with Tom's brother and parents. It was very nice to see them again!
Monday
No long drive on the last day, we were challenging the local golf course, Conwy (Caernarvonshire) Golf Club. It is infamous for its difficult back nine. I perfectly understood this and played well the first nine, and failing miserably on the back nine. Tom on the other hand, had a less than happy front nine, but played great during the narrow, bushy back nine. He won the last round of the Erasmus challenge 2011, but the overall winner was me (wohoo). I crushed Tom with two wins and a draw (2.5 wins), over his 1.5 wins.
I won this time, but the Erasmus challenge adventure isn't over, and other challenges are to come!
Hopefully I'll be able to add some more pictures later, when I get pictures from Tom's camera as well.
SKIING WEEKEND
I've had a great day today, and yesterda was great too. Friday I bought new skis, lighter ones instead of my old mountaineering skis. So I had to give them a try yesterday. They felt great! Today, it was time for another trip, this time with Andreas, Henriette and Martin. We started out at Sognsvann, passed Ullevållseter and further on to Tryvannstua. There Henriette and Martin split off and went to Frognerseteren, while Andreas and I continued down to Bogstadvannet to Fossum, not far from where Andreas lives. There we chilled out and had a great dinner. A marvellous day and a great weekend!
MY NEW BOOK
Lately I've been very gadget oriented with a lot of "window shopping" for different fun gadgets. So, to satisfy the urge for something new and cool I bought myself an Amazon Kindle. I saw a man on the metro reading on his Kindle; Looking over his shoulder, it looked truly great! Third generation in sexy graphite finish is coming my way. Up to a month of battery time sounds great and I'm looking forward to trying it out!
2010: IT WAS FUN !
January: Bad Gastein
It's my last day of Christmas holiday today, before I return to a few of days of work until New Year's is upon us. I thought I should recapitualte a bit and try to summarize my 2010.
May: Beachcamp
So what have I been up to? The year started out with a fantastic trip to Bad Gastein in the Austrian Alps. A large group of friends enjoyed a week of skiing and snowboarding. A bit more snow would be preferred, but we still had a great time!
Practically the entire spring was spent on my Master's thesis, but I had time for a week at Beachcamp Turkey 2010. That was an amazing week where I learned a lot and got to play tons of beachvolley!
After a month and a half of thesis marathon finish in May and June I handed in my thesis on July 5th, two days before the deadline! Summer holiday was coming. One of the first things I did, beside relaxing and playing beachvolley, was to join Andreas to Rjukan, where we bungy jumped off the Rjukan bridge (83m). Awesome!
August: South Africa
For three weeks during the summer holiday, I was in South Africa with Tom (after the World Cup, but close enough to get some of the spirit). We had a great stay in Knysna at Tom's aunt, a magnificent many golf rounds at beautiful courses and a fun road trip through Stellenbosch and Cape Town, among other places. We even dipped our toes in both the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean (on the same day)! Still, the most amazing experience throughout these three weeks is probably a tie between bungy jumping off the Bloukranz bridge (216m) and safari at the Pumba Private Game reserve. Very different experiences, but both of them mind blowing!
In late August, I started my career as a working man, and the autumn months have mostly been about getting settled in a new city and to learn as much as possible in my new job. It's difficult, but very exciting! It's been a busy couple of months, also outside work, with things to do almost every weekend. One of the best was probably the weekend in Scotland, where I visited my father. Scotland is beautiful and has without a doubt many great places to play golf!
Another thing to mention for 2010, which unfortunately has been a significant event, is my knee injury. A couple of weeks after starting to play organized beachvolley in Oslo, an old injury revitalized itself and made it impossible to play beachvolley. I was bothered by the knee for a couple of months (due to some loose pieces of cartillage), but on December 8th I was scheduled for surgery and got them removed. I'm still not fully recovered, but progress is easy to spot!
Now, on December 28th, I think it's fair to say that it's been a great year and I really look forward to 2011!
WEEKEND IN SKIEN
The weekend is already over, it's incredible how fast the days have past!
My dad works in Scotland these days, so left for Skien to after work Friday to visit my mother. Straight from the train we went for a quick tapas dinner before we saw the Frikar dance show at Ibsenhuset. The show was a great mix of different traditional Norwegian dances, impressively stitched together to an hourlong show. Back home we enjoyed shrimps for a late meal.
Saturday we spent most of the day shopping, I bought myself new shoes, a suitcase and some guitar related items :) The same night we saw the Norwegian movie "The Troll Hunter", a mockumentary about the troll hunter Hans and his government job to control and kill the Norwegian trolls causing trouble. The movie was absolutely fantastic, a MUST SEE this fall (it's coming to European and US movie theaters in 2011)!
Today, Sunday, we went hiking not too far from my parent's house, down to the Norsjø lake. My mother is watching some friends' dog, so we were accompanied by two dogs. A very nice trip!
Now I'm on the train, ready for a new week of work. I'll be most of the week in Trondheim for work, but will have the Friday and weekend there to visit friends. I'm really looking forward to that!