Blogs from Norrbotten County, Sweden, Europe - page 7

So the first trip of the decade and since my self imposed break to earn some money after my South American odyssey, it has been my longest break without a holiday since 2006! And to add to the torture, we weren't leaving chilly London for warmer climes, purely the opposite as he flew up north to freezing Stockholm. We arrived and it was a balmy -3 degrees (balmy compared to what we experienced further on in the trip anyway). We traversed the icy streets and found our hostel and eventually managed to get inside where we dumped our stuff and headed out looking for dinner. We ended up finding a cheap burger place and as I went to order, my brain kicked in that they wouldn't understand English so I would have to revert to a ... read more

Research In Sweden After arriving in Luleå, our first task was to figure out what research project we would be working on. We had oppertunities at two locations, LTU the technical University in Luleå, or at SICOMP (Swedish Institute of Composites). At first my priority was to stay in Luleå where ten people would be staying, only three would be going to Piteå. But after going over the projects, I realized that to make the most out of the experience I should move to Piteå where there was a project with Civil Engineering applications. SICOMP is funded with grant money for individual projects. My project is funded by the European Union. So ironically, the National Science Foundation is paying for me to work for no pay for the European Union.... Go figure. The research projects ... read more

(voor Nederlands, scroll naar beneden) Getting married on Saturday ... and on Sunday morning to the airport: not the French Riviera but destination Arctic Circle. A little cooling is always welcome, not? "What is that?" they ask at the check-in. These are 2 sleds of 30 kg with everything to survive independently for 12 days in negative temperatures ... Eyebrows are frowning, so great, a honeymoon! Lapland, the region above the Arctic Circle, stretches across 4 countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and a piece of Russia. We choose the Swedish part of Lapland: rugged mountains, arctic tundra with valleys full of birch and pine forests. The area is a pristine wilderness, by far the largest in Western Europe. We draw our sleds (pulkas), walking on snowshoes, from Ritsem in Stora Sjoffalets NP, 130km north to Abisko. It ... read more

Hej från Sverige! I've been in Jokkmokk now for about a week and a half and have not blogged about it, that's a problem! We are staying at Samernas, a school that focuses on teaching pretty much all aspects of Sami culture. Only about 30 students study here in areas like Sami traditional food, Sami language, reindeer herding, and handicrafts. We live now in the same dorms that the students who study here do. Most of them are our age, being one or two years out of high school, but there are a few older students as well. Before I get into details about what we've been doing here, I should probably let you know a bit more about the Sami. Who are they? I tried looking the word Sami up in my dictionary, only to ... read more

Hej Alla! I am writing to all of you from the wonderful land of Sweden and oh, how great it is! I apologize for the late start in this blog process but we have been quite busy! For starters, we are currently in Jokkmokk in Norrbotten, which lies just above the arctic circle. It is surprisingly "warm" here. Today, it has been the coldest so far, 0 F at noon. If you can believe it, I've already been up and gone to church this morning. I couldn't understand most of what was being said because I've not studied very much in terms of religious vocab yet. In terms of language, we've had a couple of lessons from Roland already but most of the training in Swedish comes from dialog with swedes. It's a bit scary at ... read more