Hey All,

Just a quick update on our last Europe trip for the year! We just went to Oslo for 3 days - and we are never going to complain about Edinburgh - or Southland, being cold again! We flew over first thing on Friday morning - there were 16 people on our flight (2 were kids), which made us wonder why no one else was keen to go to Oslo like we were! There were 4 cabin crew on board, so they had a pretty easy flight! When we landed it was 2 degrees - and I am pretty sure it didn't get any higher than this the whole time we were there! We spent Friday trying to organise how to get to a ski field somewhere, which seemed to take a while, before winding up at the Hard Rock Café for tea.

Saturday we were up first thing to catch a bus to Hajfell, it took 3 hours to get there, and we were the only ones that couldn't speak Norwegian on the bus, and the only ones without our own skis! When we left Oslo, the temperature was 0, and when we returned it was -1. I was pretty much wearing every item of clothing that I had taken! We spent the day skiing - was not very busy and was pretty cool with all the trees around (they only got in my way once!). I was probably the worst skier there - but gave Paul something to laugh at! We got to take gondolas up the hill instead of driving up too which was cool! Late in the afternoon it got super cold - so we finished up and went back to the bus.

On Sunday we went and had a look at a massive ski jump they are building/modifying for the 2011 world skiing champs, which was pretty cool! Then went to a Park that's famous for having heaps of sculptures - over 200. Then we went to the Christmas markets - which were more Eskimo style than the others we have been too - probably cus it was so cold! The stalls were in Tipi tents that had open fires going in the middle of them - smoking the places out! We tried Moose too - guessing that it must be legal to hunt it there! Then we walked around the water front to the opera house that's quite new! By this stage it was below 0oC again.

Anyways Merry Xmas and happy new year to everyone!!

Hope you have a good and safe one.

Haylee and Paul