Blogs from Luleå, Norrbotten County, Sweden, Europe - page 3

Monday January 16th Well i had my first set of classes!! I am only taking two classes this quarter which is what is normal so im told. So the way things work here is that you have four quarters, two quarters per our normal semester. So quarter 1 and 2 were from Aug-Jan and I will be taking quarter 3 and 4 which is Jan-Jun. So today I had my Advanced Environmental Engineering - Microbiology class. It is an advanced level but both professors seemed pretty certain that I could manage it as long as I maintained the reading. That is my first piece of good news!!! The book is free YAY! The huge (20lb not kidding) science book is free from the university for the quarter! They have 7 copies and there are 8 people ... read more

A far better day today in every way. First of all the weather was fantastic which always makes everything good. We showered in the Tandy, after lugging several containers of water from the sanitaires, as it was obvious that the campsite showers were unlikely to be free. Went down at 9am and amazingly they were closed for cleaning. Great timing. Bob got the scooter out of the garage and we drove to Gammelstad a few miles away. This is the original location of the city of Lulea which was moved to the new site, 8 kms away on the coast, when the water levels dropped / the land rose in the 1600s, leaving Gammelstad, once an island, without any water in its harbour. Gammelstad is a Church town, now designated a Unesco World Heritage site as ... read more

LULEA Day 84 Got on the 6:50am bus to Lulea which will get me there for 9:40am and there is no way I could miss another train. Well guess what?!? My bus was 10minutes late, which caused me to miss the ONLY morning train out of Lulea by 1minute, yay me. But wait folks, no need to worry, I only need to wait 6.5 hours to get on a train back to Stockholm! And we all know how much I LOVEEEEEE Stockholm. Hold on! WHAT KIND OF TOWN HAS ABSOLUTELY NO TRAINS COMING OR GOING FOR 6.5 HOURS? THAT IS INSANE. AND DID I MENTION THAT THERE ARE NO STAFF AT THE TRAINSTATION ONLY A TICKET MACHINE. Oops sorry about the caps lock. Well the problem is that I can’t use a ticket machine because ... 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

I know I'm a month late, but I had such a great Thanksgiving this year! I flew up to Lulea to visit Kai for the weekend. I got there on Tuesday evening and there was so much snow! I don't know how much exactly, but check out the pictures. It was a beautiful winter wonderland! On Thursday, we started cooking at 1pm. We started by peeling potatoes and cutting bread into cubes for the stuffing. Kai worked on the coconut cream pie while I started the stuffing. I mixed olives, apples, and onions with the bread and chicken stock for my first attempt at making stuffing. I made three pans and got them in the oven an hour before meal time at 6:30. While I did that, Kai prepared the four little chickens and got them ... read more