Norway : The preparation and arrival

So the first of the courses I'm taking is on glaciers, and so our first week of classes involved preperations for a trip to Norway to check out the Hardangerjøkulen ice cap and its outlet glaciers.

Anna preparing her crampons for the trip.

Monster shoes!

Laslo and Christian tying some knots - we had to learn a few to prove that we would be able to climb out of a crevasse should we fall in.

We then had to climb a tree outside the geology building.

We started our drive to Norway!

Our little van family.

The bridge from Sweden to Norway!

Our only tourist stop- a medieval Norwegian village. 

20 minutes from Geilo the other van broke down!

Getting off the train.

We had to take a train to Finse from Geilo because there were no roads to the tiny little mountain town which only have around 5 permanent residents.

We stayed at the hut in Finse - Finsehytta.

When you walk in, the first room is the shoe room! No wearing your shoes inside. 

As a side note, Swedes are just like Canadians that we take our shoes off when we enter someone's home.

Anna and Artemis in our room - complete with bunk beds.

Every night we were there we would get a three course meal for dinner - soup, an entree, and dessert. The first night it was potatoes, a potato ball (which is that weird looking thing), some sausages, and what I'm told were sheep's knuckles.

The first day was miserable weather, but we were all so excited to go out in Norway, we went anyways.

Hanging out in the fjord.

Tea - so nice when it's wet and rainy.

More photos to follow!

And suddenly I'm in Europe!

Hej!

For the next year I'll be on exchange doing my third year of university at Lunds Universitet in Lund, Sweden. Lund is a small city of around ~110 000 people, with around 45 000 of them being students. On this map of Sweden, Lund is basically next to the southern city Malmo, near Copenhagen.

I'm well below the arctic circle, and I'm told the weather will be similar to Vancouver, with some slightly cooler days in the winter. 

I arrived here in Lund on the 21st (after missing a connection and staying in Toronto for 24 extra hours... but I made it!) and since it has been a whirlwind. From getting a Swedish phone number (the plans are so cheap!) to just finding where I live, it has been busy, and so I have not taken many photos, but stay tuned there will be more to come! This will be a heavily photo dominated blog.

This is part of the building I will study in - Geocentrum.

This fountain is in the university's main square.

Yes, that's a castle, and yes that is the AF building, or Student Union building! 

The Student Union.

Nearly everyone in Lund travels by bike. There are places to park your bike everywhere.

My bike! Bright pink, but it was a good price and it came with a basket and lights. Turns out it is illegal to bike at night without forward and backward facing lights. 

Where I live. Sparta!

School spirit -- for a whole day you saw people dressed up completely just wandering around campus.

The main library (not another castle, but pretty close)

The Swedes seem to have a fascination for things in tubes! Caviar (left), Dill caviar, and space cheese (right). You an also get mayo or mustard or tomato paste in a tube. 

This is "pourable yoghurt." Supposedly its like a mix between yoghurt and milk.

Another item somewhere in between yoghurt and milk. A large part of the swedish diet seems to be dairy. 

Milk - spelt Mjölk (pronounced Mee-yoke) - comes in varieties as well. 

They don't refrigerate eggs here...

And there will be more to come! I have one more week before my first course starts.