to the sky

So, my main reason for going abroad was to see this ski jumping competition (4-Hills Tournament) and I can't even begin to describe how great it was. I only went to two of the four hills, first in GaPa and then in Innsbruck (where these photos are from). I know this probably isn't something a lot of you lot reading this are interested in, but I love my ski jumping. Back in 2005, or somewhere around that, I really wanted to become a ski jumper. But like a lot of my career choices it's a very male dominated profession and I didn't even know that women had their own competitions. And even then I would've been quite old to start training.. Anyway, I had such an amazing time. I've been on touching-distance from people I almost hero-worship, I've seen one of my favourite sporting events ever and I loved it all so much. I cannot begin to imagine what it would have been like to be there in, say, 2005, when I was more actively following ski jumping and actually knew all the jumpers and all the rules. (I don't care for all the young ones trying to push their way to the top, haha. And they're continuously trying to improve the rules so that the conditions would be fairer to everyone, which I think takes a little of the excitement away.) Why I chose this year is sort of important, anyhow. My favourite of all favourites, Janne Ahonen, made his second comeback, and as this may well have been my last chance to see him jump, I am the happiest gal to have had the opportunity to do so. I love GaPa and Innsbruck so much.

Well done you, if you had the patience to read through me rambling about something you possibly have no interest in or haven't even heard of! Believe me that I would've had so much more to rave about and so many more photos to spam you with. I think I have more than a 100 pictures that look more or less alike and I happily spent hours trying to figure out who actually is in every one of them. Oh, well.