Uppsala views

Here are a few shots of the areas I frequent here in Uppsala and environs:


In bearable weather we cycle along the river, and there are a couple of stretches of tree-covered path:




There's also this field where we see deer sometimes (I saw two there today on my ride home)




There's a tower for bird-watching at one point, and it has a railing so that people don't fall into the river:




On the other side of the river is a typical Swedish country home - you see this type of house in this exact colour all over the place in Sweden!




Still by the river, but closer to home, there's a little wharf with a picnic table. Wharf needs post to hold it up:




Uppsala Castle - well, one of the towers at least. It's built on the high point of Uppsala city centre area, but I haven't bothered trying to get inside yet:




On another day, stopped to take another photo of that same house, and a rainbow appeared!




That day, Lena and Wiebke were also riding home with me so we all took photos. Lena:




Wiebke:




Bulrushes growing by the river close to my house:




Try to figure this one out:




That same post, photographed two weeks after the one above. Yep, that's snow, AFTER most of it melted:




For those last three pics, Sulagna accompanied me on my walk down to the river and for some distance along it, so we took a photo of her in the snow - her first time in snow! I taught her pretty much everything I know about snow, so she's well-versed now. She also participated in our lengthy snowball fight a few days later.

Stockholm

My buddy Nathan was traveling around Europe for a while, and came up to Sweden for a few days to have a look around, so we took a day trip down to Stockholm to see the city since neither of us had been there.

It was a rainy day, so photo conditions weren't very good and I took very few pics. We walked all around the city, went into stores, ate cinnamon buns (en kanelbulle = a cinnamon bun) which are apparently a very Swedish thing, and I bought a good pair of gloves.

It was Nobel Prize time, so when we went to the Nobel Museum in the old town (Gamla Stan) of Stockholm, we found news vans parked outside. While we were in the Museum, the Swedish Academy announced the Literature prize winner, although the Museum is not where the prizes are awarded or announced.




Stockholm is a city of islands linked by bridges. Gamla Stan, the old town, is a neat little island with narrow, winding cobblestone roads.






I wonder if this business was reading my blog when they were trying to think up their company name... after all, in Sweden they spell the name Andersson, not Anderson.




Outside the Stadthuset (City Hall) there are some big cement clam shell fountain things. Nate got to relive his younger days as a Little Mermaid fan:




Outside Stockholm's City Hall it is not permitted for beings from the underwater world to emerge from the water and try to join us real humans:




We made it back to Uppsala by train (40 minute ride) just in time to eat some couscous quickly and dash off to a students party in town, to get a taste of Swedish student culture and meet some locals. It was quite fun, though I don't have any photos to post here, sorry!

Sweeeden

I've been in Sweden for almost two months, and I haven't yet put any photos up! So, here are a few:

Self-portrait taken at full speed on my cycle ride home from university along the river path:




A night shot out of my window - my building looks exactly the same:




A bunch of us took a day trip out to Aland Islands, to have a look around and buy duty free stuff on the way back. Aland is a semi-autonomous province of Finland, just off the East coast of Sweden. Everyone there speaks Swedish, not Finnish, but technically it's part of Finland and they take both Euros and Swedish Kronor. This is a little boathouse on the Swedish sea shore, photo taken from the ferry as we left Sweden:




Funny ferry door:




In Mariehamn, the capital and largest town in Aland, they have this old boat, the Pommern (wikipedia article: here)






Tanaji would maybe make a good customs officer if he were to have a better uniform and take fewer breaks...




There were jellyfish all over the place (in the water)




The flag of Aland:




Ajit:




Tanaji:




Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil...




Marie, Greg, Marie, and Brett gambling on the boat home minus the money part:




The trip was fun, though there wasn't a lot to do in Mariehamn or surroundings, which is why there aren't any exciting photos.


Next post: my first trip to Stockholm!

Deutschland

After those few days readjusting to Europe following my summer in Cameroon, I stopped for two nights in Paris at Mike's place then headed eastward for Bochum, Germany to begin my Master's program in International Humanitarian Action. But Germany is not Sweden, you say, and you are right. I told you all I was going to Sweden, not Germany!

The thing is, there are 7 partner universities across Europe offering this degree with various specializations in the second semester, and we all go to one place for the first two weeks: an Intensive Programme or IP.

Bochum is a rather lacklustre and depressing town, with drunks sitting around all day at the train station just boozin it up, and the second most depressing university campus I have seen in my entire life (first place remains SFU Burnaby Mountain campus, which is eerily similar to this one and built in 1965, around the same time that Ruhr University Bochum was built).

The best day out of the IP in my opinion was our day trip out to the THW training grounds. THW is a volunteer-based organisation run by the German Government. They do rescue stuff with really cool machines and dogs and stuff. Here are some pics from our demo day:

Super organized for mission departure within just hours of receiving a call. All these THW cases of equipment are designed to be taken in the same manner as normal passengers take their luggage on a 737 airplane, which makes it very easy to get the cases processed at the airport and loaded onto the plane in minutes:




Training area for collapsed building / rubble rescues:








This is a camera with a ring of LED lights around the edge. It can be dropped down fairly small holes and has a speaker and microphone on it to communicate with a person trapped under rubble. It allows the rescuers to see in there as well as figure out the condition of the victim and best approach, if they can get the camera to fit and not get obstructed.




This dog has just been let loose to find a person trapped in the rubble. The dog was really fast and accurate!




This is not a gun, it's another camera! This one telescopes even longer than shown, and the tip with the camera lens on it can move from side to side!




Close-up showing maximum right angle bend of the camera tip:




They also do water and sanitation, and this huge tub is an important component of their portable water purification facility. They just need a source of non-salt water and fuel (they have enough fuel for a day or two usually, then need to find local sources) to process thousands upon thousands of litres of clean, crazily-filtered and chlorinated drinking water which has extremely high health standards.




This is the head of the water purification team. He LOVES his technology, and I don't blame him! Any Engineer would be happy to have a look at the neat filtering technology they're using and the interesting way they've set it all up for ultimate portability and durability. Like their cases above, this filtering equipment all stores in containers specifically designed to fit in standard airplane holds:




That night, my old flatmate Marcus managed to catch a train from his home in Munster to my hotel in Bochum. Marcus and I were two of five people living in a house together in Dunedin, New Zealand for a year in 2005 and he and I spent a month backpacking Australia together. We had a great time talking about all sorts of random stuff and catching up on old times.




On the 13th, we had a huge Karaoke Night at a local bar, organized by one of the students, Ruslan. Almost everyone was there, which means >100 out of the 140 program participants. It was a tonne of fun and very memorable.




September 14th was the last day of our program in Bochum, and I was not sad to take this photo as Danielle, Greg, and Tanaji left Ruhr University Bochum campus for the last time:





Next stop: Sweeeeeeeeeeeeden!