Romme Alphine

Woke up early to catch the 6.30 am bus from City Terminalen to Romme Alphine, a place for skiing and snowboarding. The bus ride was 3 hours long. I decided to try out snow-boarding because I thought I had skiied before and should try out snow boarding this time. On the ski-slope, I started feeling a little apprehensive. We just kept going higher and higher. The ski slopes I went to in Korea are nothing compared to this! This was like 5 times the height and I heard that skiing in Sweden is nothing great and nothing compared to the Alps. Siao lah... For a non-experienced skiier and snow-boarder, these slopes are already too much to conquer. Who needs the Alps...


Upon arrival


Went to rent a snowboard for 270 kronors




Feeling all cool and funky posing with the snowboard. Imagine myself to be cool and stylo when snowboarding... haha... I thought wrong... Did not know what was in store for me YET!!


Dom and I posing with our snowboards

Once I put on the snowboard, I know its going to be harder than I thought. I don't feel very comfortable and have problems balancing and moving around. Still, off i go on the ski lift.
The trip on the ski lift seems forever, and we just keep going higher and higher. The slopes are longer than I expected when I was looking upwards from the bottom. We look out above everything and try to assess which slope looks the easiest.

Check this out... This is where you get off the ski lift and start your skiing/snowboarding. This is also the place where I first fell. Yeah, I fell once I got off the lift, Jenley fell on top of me and the guy had to stop the lift so that we could get up and away. Right... Great start...


Some scenery from the top.


A photo of me after I have just fell. Notice that I am all smiles... Haha... this was only at the beginning. Along the way down the slopes, I fall countless number of times. At first, everytime I fall, I would get right back up and laugh it off. But after a few times, instead of laughing it off, my laugh is like a half-cry, cos I was so damn tired and hurting all over the place. I scraped by butt and back tons of times, and whacked my knees over and over again. You fall so hard and so often that you're dreading the next fall even before it happens. I think it kind of hinders the learning process. Another super irritating thing is how we keep snow boarding into the sides of the slope and almost fall off track. That's cos the slope itself is not usually level from right to left and being the amateur I am, I cannot control where I am going half the time and am in perpetual danger of falling off the slope itself and into the woods. I think to myself "why is snowboarding so hard compared to skiing? I should have just skiied and saved myself all this pain. I probably could have done the slopes 8 times or something. Sucker for punishment. How come it looks so cool when others are doing it. This is not how it's supposed to be!" Sigh... I think it gets harder and harder to learn something new as you grow older.

Luckily, somewhere halfway down the slope, I begin to catch on a little, and have moments of actual snow boarding. Sometimes, you don't fall for a long stretch and am able to switch from left to right and then from right to left again. And these are the moments when you feel super happy and inspired to continue your agonising journey down the slopes. The bad thing is, when I fall, I fall even harder than before, probably because I am going faster or cos I somehow changeed my posture a bit. Instead of just plopping into the snow on your butt, you start falling forwards more and semi-tumble forward in a heap for some distance. Ouchhh! Finally, after 2 and a half hours, we reach the bottom of the hill. Yippee! I know we are supposed to make full use of our ski time and all, but I was in too much pain to continue immediately. We decided to go for lunch break.


After our first attempt at the slopes


I like this photo. Look cool, nice scenery, all smiles, yeah yeah... I feel like I busted my knees.

After lunch, Qiang, Dom and I summon up our courage to head up to the slopes again. Jenley is not feeling up to it and stays back to rest. I am dreading the falls already, but some thing at the back of my head tells me I didn't take a 3 hour ride just to snowboard once, so here we go again...


The ski lift


There seems to be a loong wait for the ski lift, but it doesn't really matter. It's not really that long a wait. And once I get to the slopes, I'll spend more than an hour coming down, so I don't think it matters.

I thought that the second time would be easier cos I felt like I was catching on during the second part of my first ski. I think the first part of the hill is harder and I was still falling like mad. I think to myself "this not how it's supposed to be, second time already!" plus, my knees were still sore from my first ski, so once I fell, they hurt more than previously. In a way, I did do better the second time round and made it down like in an hour and a half instead. You suffer from a lot of mixed feelings along the way. When you're travelling at high speeds, smetimes, you feel a sense of exileration, and at other times, a sense of dread for the awaiting tumble. When you eventually fall, sometimes you wanna cry from the pain, other times you can't wait to spring up and start again. Okay, enough of analysing my emotions. Here comes the really exciting part...

Guess what... We missed our bus...

Right on...When we reach the bottom of the hill, we still see4/5 buses waiting in the carpark. Then we return our equipment, head back and tada! All the buses have disappeared and the whole ski resort suddenly looks a lot more empty. We panick cos we are stranded at Romme Alphine. Then, luckily, we managed to hitch a hike from this young Swede, called Daniel, who was in Stockholm visiting his grandfather and came skiing on his own. We thought everything was ok, but in the end, it turns out he is heading to a town just 20 minutes away from Romme Alphine, called Borlange, instead of 3 hours back to Stockholm. However, we think it is no problem, as he is bringing us to the train and bus station of the town, where we can always find some form of transportation back to dear Stockholm.

At the bus, train station, what else can happen to us? Yes... We just missed the last train to Stockholm for the day and there are no busses and trains till the next day. You'll be really amazed at our bad luck, because it seems on the schedule, there are buses and trains at some approprate timings everyday, except Saturdays, and yes.. it was a Saturday.

So what do we do? The next train is at 10am tomorrow morning and next bus is at 12.30pm tomorrow morning. We decide that tough luck and we end up playing cards in the train station at 4.45pm. At 6.30pm, some security guard comes around to lock up the train station. We ask if the bus station is going to be locked up and he says no, so we proceed to continue our wait there. Finally, we play cards until 11pm and decide to rest for the day on the benches in the station.


My bench for the night.

It's going to be a long night, cos I am still feeling cold from the ski-trip. Basically, my back and butt is still wet from all the falling. I'm wet from ski pants, down to thermal and underwear. Qiang had huge chunks of snow stuck to his sweater at the back. Then what else can go wrong? A security guard comes to lock up the bus station too, and tells us to leave. Great... So it's 11.30pm, dark and freezing like mad outside!! And we are 4 homeless, freezing souls. We have no clue where the student hostels are and the only place we see is Park Inn... It's a 4 star hotel and Dom goes in to ask for the price. It's 650 kronors. We try to look for another place, but we can't find a straight route there and head back to Park Inn. There, Dom goes in to check-in to a one person room, while we hide away from sight in the cold. After that, we go in at separate intervals, so that it is less obvious that we are going to cramp 4 in a room.