Her er Jake!

The main (and only) building on the Grimstad campus.

Here I am!  I've (barely) made it to Grimstad, Norway!  (In case you're wondering, the blog title means 'Where is Jake?' in Norwegian).  I wil be spending the next six weeks as a TA at the University of Agder, Grimstad campus.  The campus is very small, about 2500 students, only consists of one large building, and is their engineering/technical campus.  They are very focused on oil and almost all of their research is into something related to oil drilling.

------ Day 1 -----

So, first, I have to tell my story of actually getting here.  I got on the plane at 19:30, and the pilot told us that the APU was broken (made by Hamilton Sundstrand... go HS!), so we would be closed in the plane with no air conditioning for about an hour while we waited for something.  After learning how much I really can sweat, we took off an the rest of the flight was fine, if long - about 8.5 hours.

The offending clouds. Very threatening.

We got into Amsterdam, and I walked the airport and drank coffee for a few hours until I could board the connection to Kristiansand, a city about a half hour from Grimstad.  It was a pretty awesome experience to hear languages from every corner of the globe in one place and took my mind off of the idea that I hadn't slept in 24 hours.

When we began our approach to Kristiansand, we were told that the cloud cover was only at about 200 meters (650 ft) and the airport's system for guiding the plane in was broken.  These combined to cause an hour of circling the airport, two aborted landings, and finally a diversion to Stavanger (about a 3 hour drive in the wrong direction).

Landing in Stavanger went smoothly, and the airline gave us 100kr ($17) for food and got a bus to take us to Kristiansand.  This bought me a coke ($4), two candy bars ($2), and a hot dog($6) with change to spare, everything a weary traveler desires.  The bus left for Kristiansand, and I ended up catching the last bus to Grimstad by about 5 minutes!

One last look at the entrance as the sun sets.

----- Day 2 -----

The sun sets (late) on Grimstad.

I just got back from a walk through town as the sun set at 23:00!  I don't have much to say, really, but I like the town, and will try to write more about it later!

Just a giant propellor on campus.

There were a bunch of these awesome all
wooden, large sailboats in the bay

The other side of the building; I'm not sure what that tower is for,
but it has an awesome view of the city and bay

Bringing in some more delicious fresh-caught salmon or crab!

On my way home, after the sun (finally) sets,
this is one of the markets we went to.