Pre-Spain Update

Hello again!  The students had their fluid mechanics midterm yesterday, so I was preparing them for that and then grading most of last night.  They did pretty well, but a few were bummed out by their scores.  Overall, they performed about where we expected, and I gained a new respect for the amount of thought and effort that goes into grading!  I only had to grade thirteen exams, which took about 5 hours, but I was exhausted afterward!

Anyway, I'm just posting a quick update before I fly to Madrid this evening.  If I can, I'll post some pictures as I take them this weekend.  Otherwise, I'll post an update when I get back on Sunday (July 15).

Ha det bra!
Jake

The 4th and My First Lesson

Looking along the beach toward town

Hello again and happy (belated) 4th of July!  We had great weather here for the 4th, and took full advantage - grilling, boating, and enjoying nature.  After class, we went down to the beach to grill out with some of the Norwegians!  After we'd grilled more pølse (hot dogs) and brats than we could eat, we headed off to a public island via a boat owned by one of the students.

[Update:  I'm going to preemptively apologize for the insane formatting of this post. Blogger really doesn't let you arrange multiple pictures well.]

A view looking south on the island

One of the fields on the island.

The island was about 400 meters long and 150 wide of forest with a beach that we landed on (I'm pretty sure it was Herøya).
Most of the students hung out on the beach and grilled some more, but Garrett and I walked to the south end and ran into some sheep!  I beat up one of my feet a bit getting across the island because the island didn't have any official trails, but I'm pretty sure I just got a bad bruise.  It very worth it though - a mother and baby came up and sniffed my hand before getting scared off.  The island was a lot of fun to explore - it reminded me of some of the hiking I did in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.

Walking through the island, I ran across
a makeshift path (that lead right to a swamp)

The sheep flee when I ask the black sheep for some wool.
I guess he didn't have 3 bags full.

The sheep from further off

This is the mother and baby (to the right) who
came up and said hi!

Having a good time fishing last night.  We caught 6 good
sized fish! (From left: Chris, Jack, Garrett)

 A few of the other students have taken up fishing a lot and have been catching quite a bit of mackerel and cod (which I've been able to steal on occasion).  I've gone down to hang out with them on the docks, but I haven't made the step to buying my own pole and lures, etc yet.


A last note, I taught my first section of class today.  Professor Martin had me prepare and present several example problems for the class.  I really liked the opportunity to get more involved in the course, as right now I've just been providing homework assistance to students outside of class.  We're introducing conservation of momentum for fluids and then conservation of energy soon.  It looks like I'll continue to work example problems for the class, so hopefully I'm doing a good job!  I have received positive feedback from the students which was really great to hear.

Walking across the island.

A nice picture of the rocks on the south end of the island.

The sun sets on another week in Norway.

Stavanger

We got back from our weekend trip to Kristiansand and Stavanger yesterday, and, as a side note, I figured out what the story was with the two men in rowboats on the solstice celebration.  They had rowed to Denmark, but were too tired to row back.  They were doing it for the 150th anniversary of his famous Ibsen poem, Terje Vigen, which is set around Grimstad.

On the first day, we took a van from Grimstad to Kristiansand to visit Aker Solutions, and oil drilling machinery company.  The van driver took almost half an hour to load our bags into the van (there are 13 of us), so we were really late to arrive at the plant.  Still, the tour was great, because we got a chance to look at the hardware and really get a scale for how big these things are.  They have a hydraulic power unit that goes on drilling platforms and had 8 pumps, each putting out something like 30 MW (40,000 horsepower)!

The sun sets on our first night in Stavanger.

After the site visit, we continued on to Stavanger - about a 3 hour drive from Kristiansand.  We got in pretty late but took the chance to walk around the sentrum (downtown) of Stavanger before retiring to the hostel.  Our hostel was attached to a hospital, so we enjoyed the sounds of helicopters flying in throughout the night.

In the morning, we got free breakfast from the hostel and discovered a delicious Norwegian breakfast food.  We took a small, buttermilk pancake, buttered it, put on a piece of geistost, and then spread some jordbær (strawberry) jam on top... delicious.

A man suspiciously reminiscent of Churchill
overlooks the bay in Stavanger.

 In the morning, we visited National Oilwell Varco, another large oil drilling machinery company.  They are actually based in Houston, but much of their controls design is done at the Stavanger site in Norway.  This tour was really cool, especially because they brought in one of their engineers who gave a great presentation on how they control what's going on at the location of the drill bit.  We also got to use the simulator that they train drillers on before they go out onto the rigs.  The simulator had a screen that wrapped around, so you could actually look around to see what was going on.  Later, we went to the oil museum, but there wasn't much to talk about from that.

We actually experienced the main takeaway from the oil museum in person!  Stavanger is a very important oil city, and as such, has become one of the wealthiest cities in Norway, therefore becoming one of the most expensive cities in the world!  I had hoped to get some kind of souvenir, but I don't think I saw anything that cost less than twice what it should.  We still enjoyed walking around the city and having some food and a (70 NOK) beer at a pub on the bay.

On our last day, we took a boat tour of the Lysefjord.  Lysefjord is one of the most famous fjords in Norway because of its picturesque beauty.  I didn't stay the extra night to climb Preikestolen, but I got to see it from +600m below.  Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

Someone surprised that sign maker.

During the boat tour, we pulled
up to this waterfall and took some
water to drink!

A view of Preikestolen from the bottom.

A closer look at Preikestolen.  If you take a look, there's
a guy standing at the top looking over the edge.

A pretty typical picture of the views during the boat ride.

The Insomnia, Pictures Post

One of those giant slugs with my
foot for scale... gross

Well, I think I'm still adjusting to the timezone here and wanted to post those pictures from my hiking before I go to Stavanger for the weekend - I leave tomorrow early morning.  We're going to be touring Aker Solutions and National Oilwell Varco, two companies related to oil drilling.  Then we're going on a boat tour of the Lysefjorden where we should see the Preikestolen from the water.  I plan to stay an extra day and make the hike to the top of Preikestolen, so expect some cool pictures from there.


I went on three hikes where I took these pictures.  The first one was just up to the church which you'll see later in the photos where they had a pretty cool monument set up.  I could only understand bits and pieces of the plaque, but I believe it was for those who died in the resistance movement during WWII.

The main monument, the column had names around three
sides.  The clouds in the background were a huge downpour
that I barely beat getting back to the dorms.

Just another picture showing one of the cannons around the
sides of the monument and a small stone bear.

The next day, I went on a hike along the "Knut Hamsun" path.  For those of you who interested in literature and drama, both Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun have very strong ties to Grimstad.  I walked the path that Knut Hamsun snuck along to post a letter to his wife after being committed to house arrest for supporting the Germans in World War 2.  I didn't get many pictures of the path, but it was very rugged and very impressive for an 80 year old man.

The last path was up to a lookout point that you can see from most of the city that I found by walking around until I saw a gravel path that looked right (thank you allemannsretten) and walked up it.  The view was fantastic, and I took many more photos than I'm going to post here.  The name of the point was Binnaben, which I don't think has any special meaning.

This was from the Knut Hamsun path.

A view of the church and town from the last path.

I climbed up to "Binabben" which I think is just the name of
the lookout point.

Future summer home?

Looking down on the town roofs.

A last look at the town before I head back to campus.
(Except I can't figure out how to move the pictures, so this is 2nd to last, I guess)

Here's a view of the town from the last path.  The campus is at the very top right of the picture.

Hvalbiff and Friluftsloven

The final product.  Pan seared vhalbiff,
boiled potatoes, and onions.

Quick update before I go to bed, and then I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

We tried our whale (hvalbiff) last night, and it was pretty good!  The uncooked meat was a dark, mottled red that was a bit slipperier/slimier (but not gross) than a beef steak, but otherwise looked very similar.  We prepared it like you would a steak on a stovetop, and it even tasted very similar to beef but slightly more bland.  It also had very thin tendons(?) throughout that made it tougher to chew but not terribly so.  Like true Norwegians, we boiled some potatoes, and then added some onions and seasoned salt for flavor, and had a great, very filling dinner.

A quick preview of the pictures from yesterday.
More to come

I also hiked up to the church that overlooks town and along another path along some bluffs/cliffs in town.  I took a lot of pictures, and am going to sort through them, and talk more about the hike tomorrow because I'm heading to bed soon (it's 23:15 here, already).

Quickly though, a bit of background on why I've really started to enjoy Norwegian culture:  A big part of Norwegian culture is "friluftsliv" (free-loofts-leev) which is a philosophy of being outside and connecting with nature.  It's really woven into the fabric of their society, and it means that opportunities to be outside are very available.  For example, there's a legal precedent (possibly a law) called "allemannsretten" (all-eh-mahns-ray-ten), or "every man's right" which means that you can basically walk through and enjoy nature in Norway without worrying about violating private property.  In fact, you can even camp on someone's property for up to 3 days as long as you are 150 meters away from their house or cabin!  I really like the idea that enjoying outdoors is so important that they actually established it as a right.  You can read more about it here - that link should lead you to a translated page that really captures the philosophy.

Anyway, going to bed, and I'll post more about this tomorrow. I have some really cool pictures that I'd like to share.

Jake

Slugs. Everywhere.

Skål Norge!

Hey, sorry for the delay in my posts here!  I'm going to try to post every 2-3 days depending on how many exciting things I have going on in my life.  (Hopefully I can shorten these massive posts then, too)

The town is really great and very much like you would imagine a small european fishing town... I'm pretty sure I could take pictures every day here an not get bored of it.  The weather was great for the middle of the week, and I went down to the "beach" near campus.  There were great views of the archipelago off shore, but the water (the Atlantic) was still a bit chilly.  Later, I walked to town to get coffee (and of course, forgot my camera) and climbed up to the church you can see in the "Day 2" part of last post.  There were amazing views of the city from it, so I'm definitely going back with my camera next time it's nice out.

Can you tell I really liked this house?

I've also begun learning about and starting to try Norwegian foods, or at least as much of it as I can afford.  The matpakke is the traditional Norwegian lunch and is traditionally has an open-faced sandwich with some brown cheese and other seasonings.  I'm not sure exactly what kind of cheese it is, but it's sort of mild, sweet, surprisingly filling, and definitely coming back to the states with me if I can bring it.  I've also tried some paste called "Kaviar" which is some sort of fishy stuff that comes in a toothpaste tube.  Not recommended.  This week, my goal is to try some hvalbiff, or whale meat.  I've heard that it is really good and very similar to steak... don't judge me.

The view of the archipelago from campus.  Grimstad is
(supposedly) well know in Norway for boating around it.

Today the cloud and rains were back in force.  This brought out hundreds of 4" long, smelly, black slugs.  Everywhere.  My mission to not step on one has been successful so far, but I'm not holding out hope.  It was supposed to be the Sankthansaften (midsummer's night) festival, but it was raining like you wouldn't believe.  We still went downtown, but you could tell that many people stayed in.  Everyone sang some popular Norwegian songs while we stood awkwardly in silence, and then there was a boat parade / competition that was, again, rather poorly attended.  What was cool, though, was a pair of guys in a row boat that had (or we were told that they had) rowed from Denmark!  That's about a 2 hour ferry ride, so we were a bit skeptical, but supposedly this is an old tradition where they bring flowers and present them to the mayor of the town.  Also, there are piles of firewood all around the shores of the islands that would usually have been lit tonight, so I'm hoping that those will happen sometime later.  In better weather, they would light those and then stay up all night celebrating the longest day of the year.

The clouds move in before the festival.

Yes, again with that house.

Playing with the focus of my camera.  Not dramatic,
but I liked it.

Anywho, I'll keep updating as exciting things happen.  This week, we're going on a guided tour of the town, and then visiting Stavanger Thursday - Sunday.  I'll get to see Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock), which I'm really, really excited for.  I'm hoping to get to hike it, but we'll see how the weather turns out.  Also, also, I just bought tickets to go to Madrid in mid July!  I have a friend who teaches there and am very excited to visit.

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.