Design Update

Hey, folks,

I upload a bunch more photos than are shown in the posts here.  If you want to see more, click on the photo on the right sidebar!  (That's the one of me writing)

Stavanger & Bergen

   So I arrived from Lofoten on the 10th.  We left for Bergen on the 12th, but the 11th was Bojan's birthday!  I baked a chocolate cake, topped with After Eight mint squares, which was pretty good.  He asked everyone to bring something from their home country, so the food was really good!  (I don't know that cake is an American thing, but I couldn't let a birthday pass without cake!)

   There was also a lot of drinking, and I (fortunately for you) have no photos.  The next morning we were leaving for Bergen at about 7am, so I left early, but not everyone did.  In the morning Aline was in a terrible state, but we all made it to the plane, so it was just fine.  We flew to Bergen, then drove to Stavanger and on to a cabin near Preikestolen.

Cabin Microwave: The Space Cube.
Awesome.

Jose brought fancy Belgian beer from Ghent!

   In the morning we drove to the trailhead for Preikestolen, a HUGE cliff protruding over Lysenfjord.  We hiked about 2 hours to reach the rock, and it was spectacular.

Me on the edge, 604 m from the fjord.

Relaxing above Pulpit Rock

   It was awesome up there.  The next day we drove back to Stavanger and got free omelets from a booth advertising International Egg Day.  Who would've thought?  Then we drove back to Bergen area and stayed in a TINY cabin.  After dinner we had chocolate pudding:

   Next day we spent in Bergen trying to decide what to do.  This was probably the hardest part of the trip.  It's always hectic to realize you don't know what you want to do and don't have a place to spend the night.  Bergen was a city...  I liked the nature parts of the trip a lot better.  There was a funicular up into the hills, though that was pretty cool.  At the top there was a good view and a troll forest.

Top of the town!  And introducing... Moholt the Moose!

Be one with the Troll Spirits

  That afternoon Bojan left us to play coach the NTNU basketball team (he was actually there for a match; that's why we picked this weekend).  As the day wound down we drove to Hardangerfjord, east of Bergen.  THAT was beautiful.  We stayed in a cabin (with a sauna!) and made pizza for dinner.  In the morning we ran down to the fjord and jumped in.  It was pretty cold but totally worth it!  I'm still waiting on photos from Jose...

   We drove to the nearest "big" town and took the ferry to the east side of the fjord, where we drove up into the mountains toward the glacier.  Eventually the roads were too icy and we had to hike, and that got tough when the road was REALLY steep and we were already calf-deep in snow.  We didn't make it all the way to the glacier - we just weren't prepared.  However, the view at lunchtime was great, so I can't really complain.

Ice expedition team.
Left to Right: Isa, Aline, Shirin, Jose Ruben, Alex, Marcio

Lunch on the glacier road.  Oh, yeah.

That night we drove back to Bergen and collected Bojan.  We drove to the airport, and most slept on the chairs in the baggage claim area.  Marcio and I went back out to the van we still had rented (until 8am or something).  He crashed on the bench and I got the trunk.

   Thus, at 5:30 am on the 17th I woke up in the trunk of a black van.  We caught the flight back and arrived in time to shower before class at 10am!  Whew!  It was a great trip, and we saw all kinds of cool stuff.  I think we also learned that it's good to have some time off - you can't spend 10 days together non-stop without going a little crazy.

   The last couple weeks have been low-key.  Lots of catch-up work and assignments.  I'm pretty much caught up, though, so it's about time to travel again!  Oh, and we were able to book a room in the CE department on the weekends, so we can watch movies on the projector!  Oh, and study...

Lofoten

Oh, my!  I've been VERY behind!  I was out of town from Okt 7-17, and it's taken until now for me to go through the pictures for a good post.

Part of the CoMEM experience in Norway is an excursion up to the Lofoten islands in the northern half od Norway.  That took me north of the Arctic Circle for the first time, and it was amazing.  First we spent Friday and Saturday on Polarlys, a cruise ship with delicious food.

The Ship

Food and Folks.  From Left to right: Shirin, Fitri, Isa, Trisno,
Aline, Bojan, Alex, Saud, Lijie, Ushanth, Rohit, Dimitri

We landed in Svolvaer, a small town on the east side of Lofoten.  That's where I saw the Northern Lights at last!  We stood for over an hour in the windy, 2 C night, watching greens and lavenders pour across the sky.  The aurora is truly surreal, and I can't do it justice.  It's like a rippling ribbon, or a flowing river, or a brush stroke across the whole sky.  It's constantly changing, and it's totally mesmerizing.  If you ever get a chance, go see it!

The next day we went traveled the island, visiting a few museums, coolest of all a Viking Heritage Museum.  The whole thing was in an 83 m Longhouse, shaped like a ship on top.  Everything inside was hewn to look like viking times.  They made lunch for us there in the main hall.  We were given cloaks when we walked in (the place wasn't well insulated) and sat along the walls while they cooked lamb stew over a fire in the center and served mead and tough bread.

Eating at the Viking Table.
It actually has a catch trough carved in for spilled mead and stew.

We went back to the hotel and after a delicious dinner we went to bed because we had to be on a ferry back to the mainland at 6am!  From there (Bodo), we hopped on a train and rode for 10 hours.  It was a comfortable one, and the views were beautiful for stretches of it, but 10 hrs is a LONG time...

My home for 10 hours...

We finally got back to Trondheim, and I slept hard.  The next day was Bojan's birthday, and I had to be well-rested!

A Few Quiet Weeks

So I've spent the last couple weekends in Trondheim.  I suppose sometimes you have to catch up with your studies.  The courses aren't very well organized, which can be quite frustrating.  I've got one where the professor clearly doesn't want to be teaching at all, one where there is a visiting professor who has a hard time explaining things or answering questions, and one where the lectures are given by someone different every week, leading to a predictable lack of continuity.  Soil Mechanics is still good, though!  Interesting that that's what I would've studied at Berkeley...

But being in Trondheim hasn't kept me from doing interesting things!  In fact, this past weekend I hiked out to a lake (Tømmerholtdammen), which I found by accident while running.  It's about 20 min hiking from my door to get to the park where the lake is located, and it took less than an hour to get to the lake itself.  That's something really great about Norway.  There are 3 more lakes as you hike deeper into the forest, so I've got plenty to explore... though maybe with skis...

Swimming in Bekken (a regional park)

I also got a haircut, which isn't that interesting, but it led to a funny picture.

Marcio the Maniac

This weekend we're going to Lofoten, a set of islands just north of the Arctic Circle!  I'm really psyched, though there will be a lot of transportation time (ferry north then bus tour then train south).  The following weekend I'll be headed south to Bergen and Stravanger to see some more fjords!