Travel Diaries (Lillehammer 2023)

I wanted to share a little bit of a diary from my trip to Lillehammer and why I was there.

Why?

At some part in 2022 I was in The Hadley Bowling Green Inn in Drotwich (blog post here for the hotel) I was having dinner with some clients, two of the three directors where I work and two other staff members and was talking to my boss, we had had a few drinks and he was going through LinkedIn and he said something like 'some guy wants us to sponsor him', I deal with the social media and the sponsors so wanted to know more but actually to be honest wasn't really interested because I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed but when he said is was somebody who bobsleighs I woke up and was like 'please sponsor him', Now one of my favourite childhood movies was Cool Runnings, my favourite secondary school teacher Mrs Walker loved the film and during the Christmas season we would watch that on the projector and whiteboard so hearing the company I work for can sponsor a bobsleigh-er. I now deal with the bobsleigh-er and we were invited out to go on a taxi bob and go see what we are sponsoring.

Tuesday 28th February 2023

Woke up and got the train from Harrogate to Leeds and met my work colleague there and drove to Manchester Airport.

Going through the airport was easy and straight to get some food so went to Giraffe, I order Mexican Tostada plate which is slow cooked marinated pork, refried beans, fried egg, smashed avo, chilli and pico de Gallo served on a flour tortilla although I removed the pico de Gallo.

Flight was amazing, easy and was lovely to see Norway.

No sooner we got through Oslo airport we went and got the hire car which was tough because the work colleague I went with has never driven on the other side of the car on the other side of the road in icy snowy conditions but it was hilarious. We got lost ended up going up a mountain in the dark which was scary but also quite exciting.

The hotel was so beautiful, what you think a Norwegian hotel would be, we dropped our bags off and noticed the guy we sponsor was there (the van with the sponsorship on, didn't see him) anyway we dropped our bags off then went into the village to get dinner, really lovely spaghetti carbonara. Then back to the hotel to bed because it was a full day of traveling.

Wednesday 1st March 2023

Waking up to this beautiful scenery was amazing.

I got ready and did a little bit of work on my laptop, blog posts, work on Maude & Noah then down for breakfast which was awful but anyway that is not going to spoil my day.

We didn't need to meet Mr Bobsleigh for a few hours so me and my work colleague went for a walk then drive around Lillehammer as well as other villages, it is such a beautiful place.

My heart was thumping as we drove to where we were meeting Mr Bobsleigh, he is such a lovely guy, second time meeting him, he was showing us around and we watched the professionals do it. We walked up the mountain and met his coach and some more of the bobsleigh-ers, now most of these are military men and women. Go time, Mr Bobsleigh's coach was the driver, I was person two, work colleague was person three and Mr Bobsleigh is the breaker and oh my God, that was the best thing I have ever done, go down in a bobsleigh has been the best experience I have done and I really want to do it again.

After this Mr Bobsleigh had to do some work so me and my work colleague went back to the hotel for a drink, I had some work to do. Stayed at the hotel for dinner which was also awful but I wasn't bothered because I wanted to get to bed, exhausted and knew we had a very early flight, VERY early.

Thursday 2nd March 2023

Travel back, boring but the day before was honestly the best day of my life.