Winter Park (vinterparken)

Important Note: HOLY S**T it was cold! (wow, it was very cold)

I am talking -15 degrees celsius people!

So we went to Lillehammer in the early afternoon, then we went and got lunch, before heading for the Winter Park. We arrived about 15 minutes before it opened and danced around and complained about how cold it was. Now in Norway they have a saying = " there is no bad weather just bad clothes", well blue jeans and no ski mask were killing me at that moment :) Even my fingers were cold just standing there , I had good gloves but cold is cold and -15 is friggin cold :)  but its a "winter park" right so freezing your butt off gives you the full experience right? (can i just have the experience with half the cold please :) The gates open, we see these little sleds , (they call them "sparks" in norway)(see pics) and we jump on them and start checkin the place out.

Come to find out the sparks help keep you warm and the hot "berry" tea we had was a nice help as well. So we were dealing with the cold and Liz helped me er i mean Liz put my scarf on proper(never wore one before) and things were good. We were having fun like kids again on the sparks and just taking everything in.

The Entrance fee was around $40 US ($195 NOK = Norwegian) and it was cold so at first you are thinking " I hope this is worth it". Well I can tell you it totally was worth it! After some picture taking and the tea we went over to where they had quads you could ride on an icy track, I got ready to ride and Liz warmed her hands at a fire pit.(they had fires conveniently located around the place to warm yourself a bit and to add light and character)

I had ridden quads before but not for a long time, but I was like thinking/saying give me the "crash course" on this thing and I will be off.

Ok, front break, back break, all brakes, I got it right?  Peace of cake!(easy) so I thought. Well, half way through the first lap I got her(it) stuck side ways in a tight corner so I tried to put it into reverse and I killed the engine! I am a guy(you know selective hearing...lol) so i missed the part where he said "you have to press on the brakes before changing gears! duh! Is what i feel like he should have told me as he ran out to get me started again(he said with a smile"no worries many people do the same thing)(forgot it takes pressing on the brakes to start as well:) so that was funny, I realized that i had slid on the ice and got stuck then I got nervous and fealt silly so I hurried myself to fast to get corrected and didn't think it out. The fist lap I was learning to ride on ice/snow and the second lap I was doing well.... Fun times, if I had the $ and the space to ride I would love one of those in the snow!

Next we went to the fairytale castle which was like a small museum tour of characters from Norwegian tales and folklore. After a short line we went on a 4 seater "twirly thing" on tracks that took us around the inside of the place. Some good photo ops(opportunities) and it was warm and we were off our feet for a bit after standing in line. We came back out from the castle to find someone had taken our sparks, even though I put them on an embankment of snow and left my water bottle on them. Really we would not use them much any more if we would have had them, but kinda stunk someone went out of there way to take "my fun" away(they were fun!).

However, I got over that disappointment quick, cuz(because) 25 feet away was the entrance for the Ice Hotel :)

The Ice Hotel was cool! There were like 12 rooms and each room had a radio and a different theme than the others(one was a honeymoon sweet with curtains above the headboard carved into the ice), and many of them sponsored by a company or someone it looked like. There was also an Ice bar $$ and a wedding chapel with reindeer furs on the benches. Much of the place had lights shining through the ice making the effect even cooler. Obviously the snow melts so each year they rebuild the hotel. I think they run the hotel til(until) march 12th. I also believe that the park is open year round just not the hotel and no sleigh rides :) Next time (hopefully) I will get to do the obstacle rope course.

I would suggest coming to the park when it first opens and go to the quad bike/castle/rope course things first to avoid longer lines. It was so cold and wintery it was not bad for us but its prob.(probably) pretty busy when the weather is warmer and more in the tourist season.

After the Ice Hotel we went through a "troll forest" which was sort of like a mini haunted house. then we went into a small museum/gift shop where we ran into the students from Minnesota i mentioned in the Lillehammer journal entry. At that point it was only 6:30 and we had done most of what we came to do and we were pretty cold again and i just slipped and bit it on some ice in the "troll forest" as it was nearly pitch black, so we decided to head out an skip freezing our buns off to wait til 8pm or whatever when they were going to do fireforks before the park closed.

We decided we had gotten our moneys worth and had a fun time and an experience only to be had there so we left on that note and headed to visit Liz's parents - another journal entry soon to come :)

I liked the winter park very much, but at the time, I was wishing it was 10 degrees warmer and then it would have been super fun :)  But it definately was fun and I am glad I experienced it that way and now that I am warm again, I am glad it was cold, because it makes the story funner to tell :)

If you are thinking of going there in future check out www.vinterparken.no