I apologize in advance for the shortness of this update, and the lack of hijinks described . I'm about to begin my holiday travels (in about 12 hours) and am trying to make sure everything is ready.
I will be spending Christmas with my distant family in southern Norway, and then traveling to Reykjavik, Iceland to spend New Years with a friend from my graduate program at UW.
I am taking the train to Oslo tomorrow. It is a six-hour ride, and I will be able to enjoy all 4 hours of daylight while on the train going through the Norwegian countryside. I am excited because it is an apparently beautiful trip. Once in Oslo I will be met by Tore Ramsrud (my second cousin, two generations removed), and he will give me a ride to his house in Hønefoss. I will spend several days with his family, and then spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with Morton Indrelid (my first cousin, two generations removed) and his family. Two more days after Christmas will be spent with Tore's family.
On December 29th I will be heading to Reykjavik, Iceland to visit with my friend Olafur. Olafur and I are in the same class in the graduate Structural Engineering program at UW. He comes from Iceland, and is doing the reverse of what I did, visiting UW for a time before returning home to Iceland. He has invited me to join him for New Years festivities in Reykjavik, so I will have an opportunity to see some of Iceland while I am there. I will be back in Trondheim on January 2nd.
I do not know what my internet availability will be like, so I doubt that there will be any new posts until after Christmas.
God Jul og Godt Nytt År!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
More food adventures!
First a surprise. I went to the store today and saw clementines on sale for the equivalent of $0.75 per pound. I actually did a double take because of how cheap it was relative to what I am used to. I bought a kilogram, and hope that they will stay at this price for a while. This is the first time that something has been this much cheaper, which makes for a nice change. Cheers Norway.
The first of my recent culinary adventures is centered around the Christmas party that the SIMLab held in one of the hotel restaurants in downtown Trondheim. All the people involved in the SIMLab attended, and we had our own personal banquet room, so it was a classy affair. We had a traditional dinner, which was prefaced by the Christmas carol "Deilig er jorden" that everyone sang along to. I initially translated it as "Delicious is the Earth", but was corrected that it was "Glorious is the Earth".
Following the carol, we sat down to the traditional Norwegian dish of lutefisk. For those unfamiliar with this dish, it is dried codfish prepared in potash lye. I can only describe it as fish-flavored gelatin. when the lutefisk is made, they take a section of dried cod and by applying lye, which is a very basic, and dissolves much of the proteins within the fish to give it a jelly-like texture. While it sounds completely unappealing to most people, I liked it. I wouldn't have it more than once a year, however. I also noticed that based on what part of the fish you were served, the texture was widely varied from jelly-like to what we would consider to be a normal fish texture.
It had a rather mild fish flavor, and while the texture was a bit off-putting, nothing about it tasted bad. As I was told by Tore, my professor, it is eaten not really for what it tastes like, but for what you put on top of it. There were four types of mustard that you could have it with, as well as brunost, a brown goat cheese. Also available was a maple syrup that was as thick as honey. That's right, maple syrup and fish. I was hesitant at first, but had to try it, and while a bit strange it tasted good. By far the ultimate in topping for lutefisk was large chunks of bacon and copious amounts of bacon grease. This was consumed in enormous amounts and the waiters were constantly bringing us more. Later into the night, after most have had a few drinks, a cry of "Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!" was started (by two professors, no less) when we ran out and wanted more.
Lutefisk is a very strange dish, and I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to rub ashes all over dried fish and then try and eat it just to see what it tastes like. At dinner I heard two legends. One explained that it came from Bergen, where a large store of dried cod was kept in a house. The house caught fire, and the roof burned away as it began to rain, which put out the fire. The fish was unharmed apart from being covered in ashes and soaked in rainwater. A shortage of food prevented the fish from being discarded, so it was stored again. When they returned to the fish at a later time, they realized that it had changed dramatically, and was now lutefisk. People were starving, so the people tried it and found they could eat it, and so lutefisk was born.
The other account I heard was that it was used as a way to fend off the vikings. First villages attempted to give vikings spoiled fish to eat. The vikings, being vikings, had no trouble tolerating the fish, and so the villagers tried to make the fish even more toxic by adding lye to the fish in hopes of poisoning the vikings. The vikings, being vikings, were able to stomach the fish without problem, declaring this special kind of food a delicacy. And so lutefisk was born...
There were several side dishes. One was green mashed peas, which tasted like an incredibly solid split pea soup. Bacon and bacon grease were added. Another was boiled potatoes. In the absence of salt and butter, bacon and bacon grease were added. Lefse, something I am familiar with, was also available. This did not have bacon added, but the brunost was quite good with it.
Also served with dinner was the Norwegian spirit, aquavit. It's a yellowish-brown liquor distilled from potatoes. While aquavit is a Scandinavian liquor, Norwegian aquavit is special because it is placed in oak casts and travels by sea to cross over the equator and return home. The casks give the liquor its color, and supposedly the motion of the sea as the ship rocks back and forth contributes to the flavor of aquavit. It has an herbal flavor, tasting mostly of caraway seed. I was also instructed by my professor in the proper way to enjoy aquavit, because there were two ways. The first is to sip the aquavit and then chase it with beer. Tore told me that you only do this if you're weak, because it ruins the aftertaste of the aquavit. The only proper way to enjoy it is to have a sip of beer, followed by the aquavit, or just the aquavit without the beer, and make sure that you enjoy the full flavor of the alcohol before continuing on with food or a drink of something else.
After dinner we all retreated to a different room full of very comfortable chairs and talked while enjoying coffee and cognac. It was a highly enjoyable evening.
~ ~ ~
The next adventure with food I embarked on occurred tonight, when I cooked whale for dinner. Here is a picture of the raw whale that i cut before frying it in butter with onions:
In addition to the whale, I served canned green peas in butter as well as baked potatoes. These potatoes were amazing. After peeling the potatoes I sliced them most of the way through and stuffed each of these slices with onions, slathered the whole thing in cheese and butter and baked it until the potatoes were just right. With the drippings from the whale I made a gravy that we had with everything. Here is the delicious spread:
As far as how the whale tasted, it was like a fishy-tasting beef. This probably does not sound very appetizing, but it was quite good. It was a mix of a fish flavor, a slightly sour taste with hints of the gaminess of moose or lamb. The the more well-done pieces of whale tasted fishier while the medium-rare slices tasted more like beef. Adding pepper made it taste more of beef as well. I didn't have any frame of reference before trying it, but it was quite tender, more than I expected. For dessert, we had more of the kanelbuller.
I don't know what the next meal I will set as my goal, but I was talking with Henning and he suggested anglerfish. It's apparently a very rich-tasting fish and not uncommon to have here in Norway. It's supposedly comparable to lobster in both taste and texture. Intriguing. While the cut of meat will undoubtedly be expensive, it is all in the name of science, so I have no choice but to pursue the unknown!
Sadly it is raining again. I'm wishing it were colder so that it would snow again. Tomorrow is supposed to be a balmy 41 degrees F. I'll keep hoping for a dramatic drop in temperature.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Adventures and food
First, a picture of the sunset:
This picture was taken from the NTNU last week, at 2:45 pm. Today we only had 4 hours and 45 minutes of light. I checked the sunrise/set tables to see how long the shortest day of the year will be on December 21st, and there will only be 4 hours and 20 minutes of daylight then. Here is another picture that was taken as daylight faded, several days later. It's of the main library of NTNU, taken from a bridge in the Trondheim city center. Sadly it's a bit blurry, but I had to increase the exposure time because of the fading daylight and
I originally thought it would be much more difficult to deal with such little daylight, but it has not actually been too bad. I notice that my sleep schedule is very hard to fix into one set period of time, without daylight to help regulate it.
Several weekends ago I went on a hike into Bymarka again. I went with Victor and his girlfriend Idun, and several other of there friends. This time we went further into Bymarka, and here is Gråkallen standing between us and Trondheim. The day was beautiful with blue skies. Even if I complained of the rain as I first arrived, it for the most part stopped halfway through October. Days have been quite clear and even though daylight grows less and less each day, the daylight that we do have here in Trondheim has been clear and wonderful, dotted with several brief sprinkles and snow showers.
Below is another picture from nearly the same place, this view is more north of Gråkallen. This area of Bymarka was very beautiful, with rolling hills all over, outcroppings of rocks distributed among them. We hiked on cross-country skiing trails that were not yet covered in snow. We hiked on a Sunday, and many other people were out with us. Very few things are open on Sundays, which makes it an excellent day to get out and go hiking. Families with kids of all ages were about. One fun thing that I noticed on numerous occasions were strollers parked off the trail, at the base of small hills. They almost looked abandoned, and while some might say that the family was just on the other side of the hill eating lunch, I believe something quite different. I think that it may be a test that all Norwegian babies go through once they are a year old or so. They are left in the wild to fend for themselves, to toughen them and make them stronger and more resilient, and make their own way home. I suggested this to Victor and he laughed, but not without a knowing smile. This is the land of vikings, after all...
Here is a picture of Victor and Idun, coming down a hill. They had just been checking a map to make sure we were on the right path and were catching up.
Here is a picture of a lake that I believe is called Skjellbreia. Sadly we did not go down to the edge of the lake, because we needed to make sure to get back to the city before it was dark, and we were beginning to run short of time.
Today was the first day that it went above freezing in a week and a half or so. Most of the snow that was left after the snowfall last week had mostly turned to ice after the first two days. Now as I look out the window I see mostly green, and I hope that it will get below freezing again and snow soon. Below is a picture I took two days ago when I was walking around Trondheim. I took it from the top of a hill that children were sledding down on the last remnants of snow (ice). The picture does not do these children justice, unfortunately. The hill was really steep, and while the picture makes it look like there was a good deal of snow, it was not at all true. There was one main track of ice, with all the surrounding hillside combed bare. The uncovered ground was not at all soft, it was rock-hard frozen mud. A group of 6-7 year-old kids were gathered at the top with 10 sleds, all in a line along the top of the hill. With a wild battle-cry, they all at once began to descend the hill, ignoring the ice track. The ground may have been hard as rock, it was still frozen and slippery, and the children descended ice or no ice. Half of them crashed, mostly because they were trying to crash the others as they raced to the bottom. This must be a more advanced form of viking training, where the children are pitted against each other while practicing invasions.
The last week has been an excellent week of meals for my roommates and me. I think it is mostly due to classes being finished and everyone having more time because they are only studying. It began with Henning cooking an amazing meal of reindeer and moose meat with mashed potatoes and onions. So incredibly delicious! Here is the reindeer meat that was seared to make the outside cooked but leave the inside nicely rare.
Here are meatballs made from ground moose meat and some diced onions. Pan fried and wonderful.
A picture of Henning, our cook, frying meatballs and boiling potatoes.
Here is the spread. Reindeer meat, moose meatballs, mashed potatoes, fried onions, gravy made from the drippings, and a Portuguese wine courtesy of Sebastião. This was the first time I'd tried either reindeer or moose, and I can't say which I preferred because their flavors were very different. The reindeer had a very strong taste, a flavor I would describe as "gamey" or wild, but was very very good. If it had been cooked much more it would have become very tough, but I do not know if that is a characteristic of the animal or of the specific bit of meat we had. The moose meatballs had a much milder flavor that was more subtle, and you could enjoy for a long time as the taste lingered. For dessert, we had kanelbuller, basically Swedish cinnamon rolls.
The next major meal was cooked by Sebastião, and was a traditional Portuguese meal. Sadly I did not take pictures, and I will do my best to describe it. It began with snacking on incredibly tasty cuts of cured beef and pork that his mother had sent him from Portugal, accompanied by a Portuguese wine. The main meal was a stew called feijoada with Portuguese style rice. Feijoada is a stew with beans and many different meats: Cured beef, cured pork, pork sausage, blood sausage and tripe. It was so dense and so delicious that it just sat in my stomach, and I sat for an hour or so after the dinner. For dessert we had chocolate salami, which Sebastião made by mixing crushed cookies, powdered chocolate, butter and sugar together, molding it into the shape of a salami and cooled it in the fridge. By no means was this a healthy meal, but everything about it tasted amazing.
Tonight Henning cooked, making a risotto with mushrooms, garlic and onions. There was no white wine, but instead he used a red wine, which colored the whole thing purple. It was tasty and filling, and while Henning did not make a huge amount of food, it fed us all because we only had very small second helpings. For dessert, we had a special kind of German cake called Christstollen, which is had specifically during the Christmas season. It seems to be a fruitcake and has lots of raisins, cinnamon and cardamom, and is blanketed in powdered sugar. Incredibly dense, and very good with coffee.
My next attempt at cooking was decided for me yesterday when I was shopping and saw this package:
This is whale meat. I've never tried it, and Henning said he hadn't either. Sebastião said he had a very small taste, but said he wants to try it again. I don't know how to cook it, nor does anyone else in the apartment. I'm going to start searching the internet for some recipes, and see what I come up with. If anyone has any recipes they'd like to share, please let me know. I'll let everyone know the results of the experiment with my next post.
This picture was taken from the NTNU last week, at 2:45 pm. Today we only had 4 hours and 45 minutes of light. I checked the sunrise/set tables to see how long the shortest day of the year will be on December 21st, and there will only be 4 hours and 20 minutes of daylight then. Here is another picture that was taken as daylight faded, several days later. It's of the main library of NTNU, taken from a bridge in the Trondheim city center. Sadly it's a bit blurry, but I had to increase the exposure time because of the fading daylight and
I originally thought it would be much more difficult to deal with such little daylight, but it has not actually been too bad. I notice that my sleep schedule is very hard to fix into one set period of time, without daylight to help regulate it.
Several weekends ago I went on a hike into Bymarka again. I went with Victor and his girlfriend Idun, and several other of there friends. This time we went further into Bymarka, and here is Gråkallen standing between us and Trondheim. The day was beautiful with blue skies. Even if I complained of the rain as I first arrived, it for the most part stopped halfway through October. Days have been quite clear and even though daylight grows less and less each day, the daylight that we do have here in Trondheim has been clear and wonderful, dotted with several brief sprinkles and snow showers.
Below is another picture from nearly the same place, this view is more north of Gråkallen. This area of Bymarka was very beautiful, with rolling hills all over, outcroppings of rocks distributed among them. We hiked on cross-country skiing trails that were not yet covered in snow. We hiked on a Sunday, and many other people were out with us. Very few things are open on Sundays, which makes it an excellent day to get out and go hiking. Families with kids of all ages were about. One fun thing that I noticed on numerous occasions were strollers parked off the trail, at the base of small hills. They almost looked abandoned, and while some might say that the family was just on the other side of the hill eating lunch, I believe something quite different. I think that it may be a test that all Norwegian babies go through once they are a year old or so. They are left in the wild to fend for themselves, to toughen them and make them stronger and more resilient, and make their own way home. I suggested this to Victor and he laughed, but not without a knowing smile. This is the land of vikings, after all...
Here is a picture of Victor and Idun, coming down a hill. They had just been checking a map to make sure we were on the right path and were catching up.
Here is a picture of a lake that I believe is called Skjellbreia. Sadly we did not go down to the edge of the lake, because we needed to make sure to get back to the city before it was dark, and we were beginning to run short of time.
Today was the first day that it went above freezing in a week and a half or so. Most of the snow that was left after the snowfall last week had mostly turned to ice after the first two days. Now as I look out the window I see mostly green, and I hope that it will get below freezing again and snow soon. Below is a picture I took two days ago when I was walking around Trondheim. I took it from the top of a hill that children were sledding down on the last remnants of snow (ice). The picture does not do these children justice, unfortunately. The hill was really steep, and while the picture makes it look like there was a good deal of snow, it was not at all true. There was one main track of ice, with all the surrounding hillside combed bare. The uncovered ground was not at all soft, it was rock-hard frozen mud. A group of 6-7 year-old kids were gathered at the top with 10 sleds, all in a line along the top of the hill. With a wild battle-cry, they all at once began to descend the hill, ignoring the ice track. The ground may have been hard as rock, it was still frozen and slippery, and the children descended ice or no ice. Half of them crashed, mostly because they were trying to crash the others as they raced to the bottom. This must be a more advanced form of viking training, where the children are pitted against each other while practicing invasions.
The last week has been an excellent week of meals for my roommates and me. I think it is mostly due to classes being finished and everyone having more time because they are only studying. It began with Henning cooking an amazing meal of reindeer and moose meat with mashed potatoes and onions. So incredibly delicious! Here is the reindeer meat that was seared to make the outside cooked but leave the inside nicely rare.
Here are meatballs made from ground moose meat and some diced onions. Pan fried and wonderful.
A picture of Henning, our cook, frying meatballs and boiling potatoes.
Here is the spread. Reindeer meat, moose meatballs, mashed potatoes, fried onions, gravy made from the drippings, and a Portuguese wine courtesy of Sebastião. This was the first time I'd tried either reindeer or moose, and I can't say which I preferred because their flavors were very different. The reindeer had a very strong taste, a flavor I would describe as "gamey" or wild, but was very very good. If it had been cooked much more it would have become very tough, but I do not know if that is a characteristic of the animal or of the specific bit of meat we had. The moose meatballs had a much milder flavor that was more subtle, and you could enjoy for a long time as the taste lingered. For dessert, we had kanelbuller, basically Swedish cinnamon rolls.
The next major meal was cooked by Sebastião, and was a traditional Portuguese meal. Sadly I did not take pictures, and I will do my best to describe it. It began with snacking on incredibly tasty cuts of cured beef and pork that his mother had sent him from Portugal, accompanied by a Portuguese wine. The main meal was a stew called feijoada with Portuguese style rice. Feijoada is a stew with beans and many different meats: Cured beef, cured pork, pork sausage, blood sausage and tripe. It was so dense and so delicious that it just sat in my stomach, and I sat for an hour or so after the dinner. For dessert we had chocolate salami, which Sebastião made by mixing crushed cookies, powdered chocolate, butter and sugar together, molding it into the shape of a salami and cooled it in the fridge. By no means was this a healthy meal, but everything about it tasted amazing.
Tonight Henning cooked, making a risotto with mushrooms, garlic and onions. There was no white wine, but instead he used a red wine, which colored the whole thing purple. It was tasty and filling, and while Henning did not make a huge amount of food, it fed us all because we only had very small second helpings. For dessert, we had a special kind of German cake called Christstollen, which is had specifically during the Christmas season. It seems to be a fruitcake and has lots of raisins, cinnamon and cardamom, and is blanketed in powdered sugar. Incredibly dense, and very good with coffee.
My next attempt at cooking was decided for me yesterday when I was shopping and saw this package:
This is whale meat. I've never tried it, and Henning said he hadn't either. Sebastião said he had a very small taste, but said he wants to try it again. I don't know how to cook it, nor does anyone else in the apartment. I'm going to start searching the internet for some recipes, and see what I come up with. If anyone has any recipes they'd like to share, please let me know. I'll let everyone know the results of the experiment with my next post.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, I hope your Turkey Day was a good one. I hope you know that I give thanks for you all. You may remember me mentioning my dislike for the way that coffee is made here in Norway. I've found something else that I give thanks for. In the main eating area that waffles are served in every Friday, a coffee machine was installed, and it wonderful. It gives you a choice of espresso shots, French or Italian lattes, mochas and hot chocolate. It makes me very happy. Here is a picture of this great machine, and you may notice the mug is a Boeing coffee cup:
I had my own Thanksgiving dinner in Trondheim with my roommates. I was at the store several days before, and saw a meal mix that you cook with water or milk to as well as cooked meat. It was called amerikansk gryte, which as far as I can determine is basically American pot/meal. It looked like nothing from the U.S. that I was familiar with, but I bought it anyways in order to have an ironic Thanksgiving dish. I also wished to have a REAL American food to share with my roommates, because I could not guarantee that the amerikansk gryte would be edible. I made proper macaroni and cheese, with three types of cheese as well as cream, and baked it in the oven. Here is the finished result:
You can see the amerikansk gryte in the pot with the spoon, which we had over rice, and the mac & cheese in the dish above it. The mac & cheese was a huge success, and even though there we were only three people, we nearly finished the huge dish between us. The amerikansk gryte, however, was met with mixed criticism. It was in no way bad, but there was nothing really that great about it. One of my roommates said it reminded him of cafeteria food in middle school, something that they put all the bits of everything that nobody want into and make a stew with. I'm tempted to agree with him. After making it and tasting it, I still am not quite sure what is American about it, the closest thing to it would be chili, but that would be a stretch.
Here are the two roommates and me. Sebastião, from Portugal, is on the left and Henning, from Germany, is on the right. Omid, the third roommate from Iran, was too busy studying to join us for dinner. All classes are done with now and everyone is studying for exams that are happening for the next few weeks.
In terms of my research, I am still playing around with calibration of the material model. I don't quite know everything that I'm doing, so there are many occasions when I'll be working on some aspect of it for a day or two, and after reaching a result, I'll show my results to Tore, my Professor. He will then tell me, no, I am incorrect and show me the proper way to do it, and I will go back and in several short hours i will have the correct result. I don't mind though, this is the way I prefer to learn and I definitely am learning. I would like be working towards some of the physical experiments that will be done, but the lab technicians are very busy, and there are delays. Hopefully in the next week or so we will start breaking things for real. My fingers are crossed.
One other thing that I have done here is look over and correct a few documents for grammar. Being a native English speaker, they wanted me to check them over and make sure everything makes sense. I do not have much input to give them, they're English is impressively good.
It's getting cold here. It's been below freezing here for the last three days, around 20 degrees F. Supposedly it will get above freezing on Wednesday for two hours or so. It snowed last night, leaving three-quarters an inch on the ground. Here is a picture of where I live covered in snow, I took it on the way to school today:
Now that we have entered the Christmas season, people have been counting down to Christmas. One fun surprise has been ths Advent wreath that the SIMLab has:
It is made from square aluminum tubes that have been crushed in an experiment. These four tubes were grouped together during the experiment, and during the impact, became stuck together as they collapsed. The hollow centers have been packed full with metal shavings to make a place for the candles to stand in. I had a grin on my face after seeing it.
Daylight is down to about five and a half hours now. The sunlight always looks like late afternoon, which is a bit disorienting. I'm getting used to the dark.
Farewell, and another update soon!
I had my own Thanksgiving dinner in Trondheim with my roommates. I was at the store several days before, and saw a meal mix that you cook with water or milk to as well as cooked meat. It was called amerikansk gryte, which as far as I can determine is basically American pot/meal. It looked like nothing from the U.S. that I was familiar with, but I bought it anyways in order to have an ironic Thanksgiving dish. I also wished to have a REAL American food to share with my roommates, because I could not guarantee that the amerikansk gryte would be edible. I made proper macaroni and cheese, with three types of cheese as well as cream, and baked it in the oven. Here is the finished result:
You can see the amerikansk gryte in the pot with the spoon, which we had over rice, and the mac & cheese in the dish above it. The mac & cheese was a huge success, and even though there we were only three people, we nearly finished the huge dish between us. The amerikansk gryte, however, was met with mixed criticism. It was in no way bad, but there was nothing really that great about it. One of my roommates said it reminded him of cafeteria food in middle school, something that they put all the bits of everything that nobody want into and make a stew with. I'm tempted to agree with him. After making it and tasting it, I still am not quite sure what is American about it, the closest thing to it would be chili, but that would be a stretch.
Here are the two roommates and me. Sebastião, from Portugal, is on the left and Henning, from Germany, is on the right. Omid, the third roommate from Iran, was too busy studying to join us for dinner. All classes are done with now and everyone is studying for exams that are happening for the next few weeks.
In terms of my research, I am still playing around with calibration of the material model. I don't quite know everything that I'm doing, so there are many occasions when I'll be working on some aspect of it for a day or two, and after reaching a result, I'll show my results to Tore, my Professor. He will then tell me, no, I am incorrect and show me the proper way to do it, and I will go back and in several short hours i will have the correct result. I don't mind though, this is the way I prefer to learn and I definitely am learning. I would like be working towards some of the physical experiments that will be done, but the lab technicians are very busy, and there are delays. Hopefully in the next week or so we will start breaking things for real. My fingers are crossed.
One other thing that I have done here is look over and correct a few documents for grammar. Being a native English speaker, they wanted me to check them over and make sure everything makes sense. I do not have much input to give them, they're English is impressively good.
It's getting cold here. It's been below freezing here for the last three days, around 20 degrees F. Supposedly it will get above freezing on Wednesday for two hours or so. It snowed last night, leaving three-quarters an inch on the ground. Here is a picture of where I live covered in snow, I took it on the way to school today:
Now that we have entered the Christmas season, people have been counting down to Christmas. One fun surprise has been ths Advent wreath that the SIMLab has:
It is made from square aluminum tubes that have been crushed in an experiment. These four tubes were grouped together during the experiment, and during the impact, became stuck together as they collapsed. The hollow centers have been packed full with metal shavings to make a place for the candles to stand in. I had a grin on my face after seeing it.
Daylight is down to about five and a half hours now. The sunlight always looks like late afternoon, which is a bit disorienting. I'm getting used to the dark.
Farewell, and another update soon!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A month gone by!
I've now been here for a month! 35 days, in fact. I hope that everyone had a good Halloween, I meant to go to Nidarosdomen (Nidaros Cathedral) graveyard to take pictures to be in the theme, but I went on a hike instead that day. I went with Victor, his girlfriend Idun and their friend Magnus to a mountain called Gråkallen (explained to me as the "gray old man", where the word kallen is used to refer to hills/mountians). It's 551 meters tall and was a good hike to get to the top.
The day we went was very foggy as we left Trondheim, taking a streetcar out of town to get into the Bymarka, a wooded recreational area to the west of town. This is a big place, with an area of about 80 square kilometers. I took a picture of Trondheim as we left it, and you can see the fog hanging over the city:
We stepped off the streetcar at a small station in the wilderness and started off on a trail towards the mountain. During the winter, this trail is used for cross-country skiing. They even have street lamps lighting it in places (Narnia's Lamppost, anyone?) The scenery was beautiful, and there were little enclosed fields as we walked past. Here is one filled with fog, I liked the look of the fog hanging in the air with sun beams shining through:
The hike had hardly any snow present, but it was quite cold out so there was iced over pools of water. In some cases the pools were deep enough and the ice thick enough that you could walk on it and the ice would not crack. You could then jump up and down a little on it and have it crack little by little underneath you until water began seeping through. Ah, taunting nature. In some places, the ice froze in weird formations, like the picture below shows. This occurred several times, and the ice was not in sheets, but its a spidery web of bars of ice. There's no water below the ice either. It was weird and different, so I too a picture of it.
It was also cold enough to freeze the some of the water in the ground, so that you would be walking over frozen mud unless you would break through the iced mud-crust and sink into the soft and unfrozen mud below.
We reached the top as the day approached sunset. The morning fog had cleared away by midday. Since the daylight savings switch, its already dark here by 4:30, and the days are still getting shorter. I took a picture at the top of the mountain as the sun was setting. The day gets cooler and fog starts collecting over the fjords. The top of the mountain is over the fog layer, so you get to look down on a sea of clouds. While Trondheim may not have the same kind of fjords as the ones that are constantly photographed in the fjord country of Norway, it still is quite beautiful.
Looking East on top of the mountain, you can look down into Trondheim as the sun sets, and the moon rises in the background:
Looking South from the mountaintop, on another arm of the fjord as it's covered with fog, with mountains in the background:
This is much of the same view as the picture with me in it, but after the sun has set more. Looking North-East from the top of the mountain. I know this picture does not do the scene justice, and a HDR image would probably be much more pleasing to the eye. I don't have such abilities, so instead you get bits of the sunset and fog, and an underexposed hillside.
Just a picture of the sun setting behind mountains and obscured by clouds:
The work/research I'm part of is starting to pick up, and I'm started to do things besides reading. The tests will have a simulation built from finite elements to do some numerical modeling of the experiment, as well as to calibrate to test data after it has been generated. One of the jobs that was assigned to me was to calibrate a numerical material model of the steel that we will be testing. The goal is to have a mathematical model for the performance of the material so that once calibrated, virtual simulations can be done at much less cost than full scale laboratory testing.
I've never done something like this and am a little out of my element, but with the help of the other students as well as the Professor, I'm plowing through it (making many mistakes, of course). I'm also finding some time to work on my thesis that I owe Professor Stanton back at the UW, to keep it moving towards completion.
When not working or hiking or sleeping, I have spent a good deal of time walking or running around Trondheim, just exploring. I brought very few books with me, but I do have some audio books on my iPod that I've been listening to as I walk. While listening to Frank Herbert's Dune, I came to the conclusion that Vikings are merely Fremen who are from a harsh, cold and icy environment instead of a hot desert one. Now I am listening to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It's been interesting how similar many of the names in the saga seem to be Scandinavian inspired.
I'm sorry that it was so long between updates, I'll try and be more frequent with updates.
The day we went was very foggy as we left Trondheim, taking a streetcar out of town to get into the Bymarka, a wooded recreational area to the west of town. This is a big place, with an area of about 80 square kilometers. I took a picture of Trondheim as we left it, and you can see the fog hanging over the city:
We stepped off the streetcar at a small station in the wilderness and started off on a trail towards the mountain. During the winter, this trail is used for cross-country skiing. They even have street lamps lighting it in places (Narnia's Lamppost, anyone?) The scenery was beautiful, and there were little enclosed fields as we walked past. Here is one filled with fog, I liked the look of the fog hanging in the air with sun beams shining through:
The hike had hardly any snow present, but it was quite cold out so there was iced over pools of water. In some cases the pools were deep enough and the ice thick enough that you could walk on it and the ice would not crack. You could then jump up and down a little on it and have it crack little by little underneath you until water began seeping through. Ah, taunting nature. In some places, the ice froze in weird formations, like the picture below shows. This occurred several times, and the ice was not in sheets, but its a spidery web of bars of ice. There's no water below the ice either. It was weird and different, so I too a picture of it.
It was also cold enough to freeze the some of the water in the ground, so that you would be walking over frozen mud unless you would break through the iced mud-crust and sink into the soft and unfrozen mud below.
We reached the top as the day approached sunset. The morning fog had cleared away by midday. Since the daylight savings switch, its already dark here by 4:30, and the days are still getting shorter. I took a picture at the top of the mountain as the sun was setting. The day gets cooler and fog starts collecting over the fjords. The top of the mountain is over the fog layer, so you get to look down on a sea of clouds. While Trondheim may not have the same kind of fjords as the ones that are constantly photographed in the fjord country of Norway, it still is quite beautiful.
Looking East on top of the mountain, you can look down into Trondheim as the sun sets, and the moon rises in the background:
Looking South from the mountaintop, on another arm of the fjord as it's covered with fog, with mountains in the background:
This is much of the same view as the picture with me in it, but after the sun has set more. Looking North-East from the top of the mountain. I know this picture does not do the scene justice, and a HDR image would probably be much more pleasing to the eye. I don't have such abilities, so instead you get bits of the sunset and fog, and an underexposed hillside.
Just a picture of the sun setting behind mountains and obscured by clouds:
The work/research I'm part of is starting to pick up, and I'm started to do things besides reading. The tests will have a simulation built from finite elements to do some numerical modeling of the experiment, as well as to calibrate to test data after it has been generated. One of the jobs that was assigned to me was to calibrate a numerical material model of the steel that we will be testing. The goal is to have a mathematical model for the performance of the material so that once calibrated, virtual simulations can be done at much less cost than full scale laboratory testing.
I've never done something like this and am a little out of my element, but with the help of the other students as well as the Professor, I'm plowing through it (making many mistakes, of course). I'm also finding some time to work on my thesis that I owe Professor Stanton back at the UW, to keep it moving towards completion.
When not working or hiking or sleeping, I have spent a good deal of time walking or running around Trondheim, just exploring. I brought very few books with me, but I do have some audio books on my iPod that I've been listening to as I walk. While listening to Frank Herbert's Dune, I came to the conclusion that Vikings are merely Fremen who are from a harsh, cold and icy environment instead of a hot desert one. Now I am listening to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It's been interesting how similar many of the names in the saga seem to be Scandinavian inspired.
I'm sorry that it was so long between updates, I'll try and be more frequent with updates.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
After the first full week...
Sorry for the delay in posting about what I am up to. A disclaimer about this post, it will be a long one.
I'm beginning to settle into a routine here, usually getting to school between 8 and 9 and leaving around 5. At school, I've mostly just been reading about what I'll be working on. Almost everything that I've learned before coming to Norway and the Structural Impact Laboratory here at NTNU has to do with earthquake engineering. It turns out that there are very few earthquakes in Norway, and while they focus on impacts here, I have never had to learn about impact loading of structures or the related fields. This means that I've been trying to bring myself up to speed on impacts through a crash-course (clever, no?) of reading papers and books on the subject.
I've found two books through the library that have been very helpful, and several papers through the internet, as well as from students and professors. Two of these papers happen to be written in Norwegian. I know very, very little Norwegian, but I've been trying to wade through them through the best of my ability. It turns out that Google Translate works far better than any translator I have ever used, and while it is not perfect, it helps me get 50% of the words. With the help of Google and a very basic understanding of the Norwegian language, I can sort through the papers and get the gist of them. I've made up lists of words that I could guess meanings of and then took them to the professor I am working under, Tore. He got a laugh out of my attempts to do so, but told me I was doing a good job, and encouraged me to continue. I doubt he expected me to do something like this.
I've found out a bit more on the testing that I will be a part of here in the lab. It turns out that there is very little instrumentation that is used for the tests. They use a load cell which is used to measure the force exerted on the pipe section during the tests, and they use a pair of synchronized high-speed cameras to record how the object deforms. That is all they plan on using for these tests. Professor Tore told me that I may have an opportunity to work with one of the technicians on another set of tests for him to better understand how the high-speed cameras work. The professor is very interested in blast- and impact-loading of structures, and one of his other projects involves lightweight protective structures. He is looking into how to best use lightweight materials, like aluminum, to protect things from harm. Simply put, he's shooting bullets at aluminum plates and seeing how well they perform as armor, while recording the entire test with high-speed cameras. I'm looking forward to being involved, or even just observing these tests.
While I was at the University of Washington, I met a student who was doing the reverse of what I am doing now. Victor came from NTNU to study geotechnical engineering at the University of Washington. He's now back at NTNU and he has been incredibly kind to show me around and help me better get to know the place. He's also been nice enough to let me tag along to events and meet some of his friends. Last Tuesday we went climbing at an outdoor climbing wall, which I took a picture of part of and you can see it below:
It would have been impossible to have this climbing wall if it was not covered as this one is, but that covering only protects you from direct rainfall. It doesn't keep out the 30-32 degree F chill, nor does it keep some of the holds from getting slippery due to 80% humidity. Such conditions are normal for them, so it made for an intense night of climbing. What I'm trying to say is that here in Norway, climbers and vikings are one in the same.
This year, NTNU is holding their student music festival, Uka. It happens once every two years and the goal is to raise funds for the student organization. Luckily I chose this year to come to NTNU because had I come a different year I would have missed it. They have many people performing over the span of two weeks or so, all in this giant tent that can fit about 6000 people inside:
On Friday, I went with Victor to see the band Franz Ferdinand. I find it very fitting that the first concert I go to in Norway is of a Scottish rock band. There was an opening act provided by a local Norsk band called Datarock. The tent was completely packed with people and while it was in the mid-30's outside, it must have been 70-80 degrees F inside. It was quite a shock to come out of the tent, with slightly compromised hearing and a blast of cold air. After the concert, we went to a bar in downtown Trondheim called Lille London, or "Little London". Decorations for this pub consisted mainly of statues or pictures of Winston Churchill, pictures of the Tower Bridge in London, and statues of 19th century British Jungle explorers, pith helmets and everything.
Friday also consisted of the wildest weather I have ever been exposed to. The day started off overcast and quickly moved to rain, before the sun appeared, after which it hailed. It then moved onto rain again before merely being overcast. Following this trend it then snowed, grew sunny again before gently misting and finally ending the day with a light snow. Unbelievable. The first snow stuck around for a day and I took a picture of it outside the dorm area where I'm living:
You can see one of the dorm buildings in the background. It clearly has three windows, but there are actually six floors, which confused me at first. There is a staircase that runs up the middle of the building, and the floors on either side of it are staggered. I hadn't seen anything like that before.
On Saturday, I finally managed to get bedding and pillows at Ikea, so I no longer sleep in my sleeping bag, which is a nice change. One interesting thing that I realized is that in the U.S., one of the novelties of Ikea is the Scandinavian food that you can get there. In Norway, the same novelty doesn't exist. There still is food sold there, and according to Victor, there is some novelty still because it is Swedish food sold in Norway, but I don't think its nearly the same as it would be in the U.S.
This past weekend had the finest weather I've had yet in Norway, with blue skies and sun most of the days. Because of this I wandered all over the city and took a few pictures. There is a river that runs right through the city, called Nidelva, I believe, and several photos of it are below.
This is a picture that was taken when it was overcast, and is the river bank opposite of the cathedral that I showed a picture of in a previous coast. The white building at the top of the hill is some kind of old fortification. Apparently in the summer time there are many BBQ's and other gatherings that happen in that area. It seems to be the Trondheim equivalent of Gasworks Park.
This is a picture of the back side of the houses that line Skjopmannsgata, or the "Merchant Street" that runs along the river. Most of these houses have been renovated, but originally merchants used to live in them. They used to have small cranes that protruded out from the face of the building and boats would pull up right next to them and they would unload goods.
Here is a picture of the river as it nears the fjord. Boats are anchored here, and there is an old dry dock that is just outside the bounds of the picture.
Sunday evening had a beautiful sunset that I took a picture of from my dorm window. It reminded me of the Northern Lights a bit. Apparently in winter time, you can see the Northern Lights from Trondheim, but they are rather faint because of the light pollution.
Here is the picture of one of the main buildings of NTNU, at the north side of campus. It houses several classrooms as well as the main library. I thought it looked rather nice lit up at night so I took a picture. It is one of the few beautiful buildings on campus.
The building I work in is on the south side of campus, and it is much less beautiful. It is just a cluster of buildings on the hill, and much less beautiful with modern architecture. The gray skies don't help its appearance.
There have been several more realizations I've had throughout my time in Norway so far:
- Norwegian coffee is quite different from coffee that I am used to in Seattle. I think the way the beans are roasted or the quality is different, because it doesn't taste nearly as good. Also, they have a tendency to brew a pot of coffee and then let it slowly cook on a burner for several hours, giving it a burned taste. I'm growing used to it, but I already know that when I come back to Seattle I will be in heaven.
- I've said it previously, but food is very expensive in Norway. One interesting realization I've had is that in the U.S. it is generally cheaper to eat food that is bad for you than it is to eat healthy, whereas in Norway it's just as expensive to eat unhealthily as it is to eat a healthy meal. In some cases, it's actually more expensive to eat junk food than it is to eat food that's good for you. Because of this, I've been eating healthy meals. Cheers, Norway.
- I've also been trying some different kinds of foods. Fish is very readily available here, so I've been enjoying pickled herring, as well as sardines and some other kinds of preserved fish. I bought a can of something that looked like peppered sardines, but it turned out to be a ground fish cake in the can. My first thought was that I had opened a can of cat food, because that is what it looked like to me. After double-checking to make sure it was not cat food, I discovered it tasted fine. It was just the surprise of getting something completely different than what was expected that made me wary.
- It's not just food that is expensive. Everything is expensive. A single ride on the bus is $5 USD. I just got back from the post office to buy several post cards. 12 post cards cost $20 USD, and I still have to pay for postage. Lame, Norway.
- I've discovered that I have relatively good pronunciation of Norwegian words, because Victor and others have complimented me on it. Except for one letter that for some reason, gives me incredible trouble. The Norwegian letter ø is something that I cannot properly pronounce. In talking to people, I generally have to repeat words with that letter in it several times until my meaning is understood. With Victor and his friends, it has been the source of several good laughs. Still, I feel that 28 out of 29 letters is something to be proud of.
Apologies again for the length, but I think that some of that is due to the many pictures I posted. I'll try and post more frequently so that you don't have to suffer through paragraph after paragraph of text.
Farvel!
I'm beginning to settle into a routine here, usually getting to school between 8 and 9 and leaving around 5. At school, I've mostly just been reading about what I'll be working on. Almost everything that I've learned before coming to Norway and the Structural Impact Laboratory here at NTNU has to do with earthquake engineering. It turns out that there are very few earthquakes in Norway, and while they focus on impacts here, I have never had to learn about impact loading of structures or the related fields. This means that I've been trying to bring myself up to speed on impacts through a crash-course (clever, no?) of reading papers and books on the subject.
I've found two books through the library that have been very helpful, and several papers through the internet, as well as from students and professors. Two of these papers happen to be written in Norwegian. I know very, very little Norwegian, but I've been trying to wade through them through the best of my ability. It turns out that Google Translate works far better than any translator I have ever used, and while it is not perfect, it helps me get 50% of the words. With the help of Google and a very basic understanding of the Norwegian language, I can sort through the papers and get the gist of them. I've made up lists of words that I could guess meanings of and then took them to the professor I am working under, Tore. He got a laugh out of my attempts to do so, but told me I was doing a good job, and encouraged me to continue. I doubt he expected me to do something like this.
I've found out a bit more on the testing that I will be a part of here in the lab. It turns out that there is very little instrumentation that is used for the tests. They use a load cell which is used to measure the force exerted on the pipe section during the tests, and they use a pair of synchronized high-speed cameras to record how the object deforms. That is all they plan on using for these tests. Professor Tore told me that I may have an opportunity to work with one of the technicians on another set of tests for him to better understand how the high-speed cameras work. The professor is very interested in blast- and impact-loading of structures, and one of his other projects involves lightweight protective structures. He is looking into how to best use lightweight materials, like aluminum, to protect things from harm. Simply put, he's shooting bullets at aluminum plates and seeing how well they perform as armor, while recording the entire test with high-speed cameras. I'm looking forward to being involved, or even just observing these tests.
While I was at the University of Washington, I met a student who was doing the reverse of what I am doing now. Victor came from NTNU to study geotechnical engineering at the University of Washington. He's now back at NTNU and he has been incredibly kind to show me around and help me better get to know the place. He's also been nice enough to let me tag along to events and meet some of his friends. Last Tuesday we went climbing at an outdoor climbing wall, which I took a picture of part of and you can see it below:
It would have been impossible to have this climbing wall if it was not covered as this one is, but that covering only protects you from direct rainfall. It doesn't keep out the 30-32 degree F chill, nor does it keep some of the holds from getting slippery due to 80% humidity. Such conditions are normal for them, so it made for an intense night of climbing. What I'm trying to say is that here in Norway, climbers and vikings are one in the same.This year, NTNU is holding their student music festival, Uka. It happens once every two years and the goal is to raise funds for the student organization. Luckily I chose this year to come to NTNU because had I come a different year I would have missed it. They have many people performing over the span of two weeks or so, all in this giant tent that can fit about 6000 people inside:
On Friday, I went with Victor to see the band Franz Ferdinand. I find it very fitting that the first concert I go to in Norway is of a Scottish rock band. There was an opening act provided by a local Norsk band called Datarock. The tent was completely packed with people and while it was in the mid-30's outside, it must have been 70-80 degrees F inside. It was quite a shock to come out of the tent, with slightly compromised hearing and a blast of cold air. After the concert, we went to a bar in downtown Trondheim called Lille London, or "Little London". Decorations for this pub consisted mainly of statues or pictures of Winston Churchill, pictures of the Tower Bridge in London, and statues of 19th century British Jungle explorers, pith helmets and everything.Friday also consisted of the wildest weather I have ever been exposed to. The day started off overcast and quickly moved to rain, before the sun appeared, after which it hailed. It then moved onto rain again before merely being overcast. Following this trend it then snowed, grew sunny again before gently misting and finally ending the day with a light snow. Unbelievable. The first snow stuck around for a day and I took a picture of it outside the dorm area where I'm living:
You can see one of the dorm buildings in the background. It clearly has three windows, but there are actually six floors, which confused me at first. There is a staircase that runs up the middle of the building, and the floors on either side of it are staggered. I hadn't seen anything like that before.On Saturday, I finally managed to get bedding and pillows at Ikea, so I no longer sleep in my sleeping bag, which is a nice change. One interesting thing that I realized is that in the U.S., one of the novelties of Ikea is the Scandinavian food that you can get there. In Norway, the same novelty doesn't exist. There still is food sold there, and according to Victor, there is some novelty still because it is Swedish food sold in Norway, but I don't think its nearly the same as it would be in the U.S.
This past weekend had the finest weather I've had yet in Norway, with blue skies and sun most of the days. Because of this I wandered all over the city and took a few pictures. There is a river that runs right through the city, called Nidelva, I believe, and several photos of it are below.
This is a picture that was taken when it was overcast, and is the river bank opposite of the cathedral that I showed a picture of in a previous coast. The white building at the top of the hill is some kind of old fortification. Apparently in the summer time there are many BBQ's and other gatherings that happen in that area. It seems to be the Trondheim equivalent of Gasworks Park.
This is a picture of the back side of the houses that line Skjopmannsgata, or the "Merchant Street" that runs along the river. Most of these houses have been renovated, but originally merchants used to live in them. They used to have small cranes that protruded out from the face of the building and boats would pull up right next to them and they would unload goods.
Here is a picture of the river as it nears the fjord. Boats are anchored here, and there is an old dry dock that is just outside the bounds of the picture.
Sunday evening had a beautiful sunset that I took a picture of from my dorm window. It reminded me of the Northern Lights a bit. Apparently in winter time, you can see the Northern Lights from Trondheim, but they are rather faint because of the light pollution.
Here is the picture of one of the main buildings of NTNU, at the north side of campus. It houses several classrooms as well as the main library. I thought it looked rather nice lit up at night so I took a picture. It is one of the few beautiful buildings on campus.
The building I work in is on the south side of campus, and it is much less beautiful. It is just a cluster of buildings on the hill, and much less beautiful with modern architecture. The gray skies don't help its appearance.There have been several more realizations I've had throughout my time in Norway so far:
- Norwegian coffee is quite different from coffee that I am used to in Seattle. I think the way the beans are roasted or the quality is different, because it doesn't taste nearly as good. Also, they have a tendency to brew a pot of coffee and then let it slowly cook on a burner for several hours, giving it a burned taste. I'm growing used to it, but I already know that when I come back to Seattle I will be in heaven.
- I've said it previously, but food is very expensive in Norway. One interesting realization I've had is that in the U.S. it is generally cheaper to eat food that is bad for you than it is to eat healthy, whereas in Norway it's just as expensive to eat unhealthily as it is to eat a healthy meal. In some cases, it's actually more expensive to eat junk food than it is to eat food that's good for you. Because of this, I've been eating healthy meals. Cheers, Norway.
- I've also been trying some different kinds of foods. Fish is very readily available here, so I've been enjoying pickled herring, as well as sardines and some other kinds of preserved fish. I bought a can of something that looked like peppered sardines, but it turned out to be a ground fish cake in the can. My first thought was that I had opened a can of cat food, because that is what it looked like to me. After double-checking to make sure it was not cat food, I discovered it tasted fine. It was just the surprise of getting something completely different than what was expected that made me wary.
- It's not just food that is expensive. Everything is expensive. A single ride on the bus is $5 USD. I just got back from the post office to buy several post cards. 12 post cards cost $20 USD, and I still have to pay for postage. Lame, Norway.
- I've discovered that I have relatively good pronunciation of Norwegian words, because Victor and others have complimented me on it. Except for one letter that for some reason, gives me incredible trouble. The Norwegian letter ø is something that I cannot properly pronounce. In talking to people, I generally have to repeat words with that letter in it several times until my meaning is understood. With Victor and his friends, it has been the source of several good laughs. Still, I feel that 28 out of 29 letters is something to be proud of.
Apologies again for the length, but I think that some of that is due to the many pictures I posted. I'll try and post more frequently so that you don't have to suffer through paragraph after paragraph of text.
Farvel!
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Sun Does Exist in Norway!
This morning, as the skies grew lighter, I saw a distinct lack of clouds. Contrary to what I thought was possible, there was an actual sunrise, with blue skies, birds chirping, and only clouds in the distance. It was beautiful. Lest you think the day is too perfect, it's still 33 degrees F. I count my blessings.
This was not actually the first time that I have seen the sun in Norway, I saw it for a brief window of 10 minutes yesterday. Then too, I thought I was imagining things. I thought the the shining object in the sky was perhaps a hallucination brought on by the stress of relocating to a far distant country. It turns out that Norway punished me for this line of thought, for thinking that I might actually deserve sun, by promptly starting to hail after the 10 minute window of sun had passed. Perhaps the mostly clear skies of today will be a prelude to an almighty blizzard. This is only what I've now been conditioned to believe.
While I talk about the sun and the lack of anything resembling good weather, it is because this is unusual for Trondheim. At least, according to someone in the building I am working in, this is the 2nd wettest September-October period Trondheim has ever recorded. That being the case, I am also realizing other things: Several times now I have been on the way to a meeting, or to school, and passed by something that I think, "I should really take a photo of that, I'll do it on th way back," only to find that on the way back it is pouring down rain and the last thing I want to do is stop for another minute outside to take a picture of something. The lesson here: if something would make an appealing picture at the time, take it then.
Sorry there are no pictures with this post, I will try and take some nice ones to share while I am out today, and post them in the next entry. I also must apologize for misleading you to think that you could all follow my other blog. It turns out that only those with a University of Washington net ID can access that page. I'll just have to share all that I am doing in the technical sense with this blog as well, and those that are uninterested will just have to bear with it. Don't worry about the other blog though, this is the good one.
This was not actually the first time that I have seen the sun in Norway, I saw it for a brief window of 10 minutes yesterday. Then too, I thought I was imagining things. I thought the the shining object in the sky was perhaps a hallucination brought on by the stress of relocating to a far distant country. It turns out that Norway punished me for this line of thought, for thinking that I might actually deserve sun, by promptly starting to hail after the 10 minute window of sun had passed. Perhaps the mostly clear skies of today will be a prelude to an almighty blizzard. This is only what I've now been conditioned to believe.
While I talk about the sun and the lack of anything resembling good weather, it is because this is unusual for Trondheim. At least, according to someone in the building I am working in, this is the 2nd wettest September-October period Trondheim has ever recorded. That being the case, I am also realizing other things: Several times now I have been on the way to a meeting, or to school, and passed by something that I think, "I should really take a photo of that, I'll do it on th way back," only to find that on the way back it is pouring down rain and the last thing I want to do is stop for another minute outside to take a picture of something. The lesson here: if something would make an appealing picture at the time, take it then.
Sorry there are no pictures with this post, I will try and take some nice ones to share while I am out today, and post them in the next entry. I also must apologize for misleading you to think that you could all follow my other blog. It turns out that only those with a University of Washington net ID can access that page. I'll just have to share all that I am doing in the technical sense with this blog as well, and those that are uninterested will just have to bear with it. Don't worry about the other blog though, this is the good one.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Mailing Address
If you want to reach me by post, my mailing address is:
Herman Kragsvei 12-62
7050 Trondheim
Norway
It snowed yesterday on the hills nearby the city. Here is a view from my window:
Herman Kragsvei 12-62
7050 Trondheim
Norway
It snowed yesterday on the hills nearby the city. Here is a view from my window:
First Impressions of Trondheim
I've been in Norway for almost 48 hours as I write this, and a great deal has happened so I'll try as best I can to explain all that I've done so far. I've arrived in Norway with the intended purpose of doing research at NTNU, but I'll try and keep technical discussions of what I am doing for research to a minimum. If you are interested in following what I will be researching, look at my other blog that I am doing as a requirement for the exchange program:
https://depts.washington.edu/vallelog/blog/index.php?/categories/120-Werner,-John
I wanted to look down on Norway as I flew into it, but i was so tired from lack of sleep and constant traveling that I promptly fell asleep once aboard the plane. I did wake up the last half hour of the flight but found the countryside blanketed in clouds so there was nothing to be seen. When I first got off the plane, I stepped down a set of stairs onto the tarmac took a deep breath. The air smelled fresh and clean, and it was cold out. I made it through customs with no difficulty and found the airport bus, or flybussen, that would take me into the center of Trondheim. I made my way on board and enjoyed finally sitting down with a proper amount of leg room (non-exit rows in airplanes: not comfortable).
As we drove the 30 kilometers to Trondheim, we passed through three very long tunnels. These tunnels had one lane of traffic in each direction, and the opposing traffic passed very close to my bus. The dark and narrow tunnel with lights passing very close to the bus while I was in a sleep-deprived state made for a surreal experience. I got off the bus at the train station and walked the half kilometer to my temporary housing, Bruns Botell. This may have been the longest half kilometer of my life. I had about 165 pounds of gear that I was either carrying or dragging, and I was so very tired. I guess I could have tried to find a cab but that would have been so incredibly lame. I persevered and finally made it to the place I was staying. The quality of the room was good enough, except for its smell. The entire building smelled of cigarettes and gross.
I slept for 8 hours or so, woke up and got ready for my day. I was meeting with one of the professors that I would be working under, as well as had several different places to go to and fill out/turn in paperwork. I walked to the NTNU campus and met Professor Tore Børvik, one of the lead professors at the SIMLab, the Structural Impact Laboratory that I'll be working in while in Norway.
The project that I will be involved in is related to impacts on pipelines. An Italian company produces elbow-joint fittings for pipelines that the Norwegian oil company, StatOil uses, but the Italians made a mistake in the production of these fittings. They are made from a two-alloy stainless steel that was cooled improperly, resulting in a third steel precipitate to form in the fittings. This third component, which they refer to as the "sigma phase," makes the pipe sections much more brittle. If a section of this pipe is impacted by an oil ship, it is important to deform and be somewhat flexible in order to prevent a disastrous oil spill. These more brittle fittings greatly increase the likely-hood of such an event happening. The project I will be involved with aims to better understand how different levels of this sigma phase precipitate affects the performance of the steel, specifically under impact. The bottom line: I get to be part of a project that will break a bunch of test specimens with a gigantic hydraulic hammer. This hydraulic pendulum impactor, or kicking machine, is huge. I don't know its specifications, but I know that it is used to simulate car impacts, so it is VERY powerful. A picture of it is below:
I haven't yet had a chance to tour the SIMLab, something I am very excited to do. I'll get my opportunity to do so on Monday. I have an office space to call my own, where many of the visiting scholars stay. One of these, Rafael, helped me enormously by showing me where I needed to go for the rest of the day. It has been an excellent experience so far because everyone is very helpful and welcoming here.
After a day of running around filing paperwork, getting keys and meeting people, it was time to move to my permanent residence for my stay in Norway. I'll post the address soon. I realized that I didn't want to travel the 2.5 miles from my temporary place to my dorm room with all my crap, so I took a cab. It turns out that my driver was a very colorful character that, upon finding out that I was from the not-so-united states, he climbed up on a soap box to tell me everything wrong about the U.S., as well as the European Union. The cab ride was relatively short, but angry. He wins the award for least welcoming person I've met so far.
I arrived in my room, and though it was small, it did not smell bad and was comfortable. I need to get some sheets and a pillow for my bed, currently I am using my sleeping bag and a rolled up sweatshirt. So far, I have only met two of my three roomates. We each have our own rooms but we share a common room/kitchen and a bathroom. There is Hanning, from Germany, and Omit, from Iran. I have yet to see the third roommate who is Sebastian, and I am not sure where he is from. Each of the two roommates that I have met were brief encounters and I have not seen them since. I've kept my door open for most of the day today and no one has surfaced yet. I'm hoping to at least have some interaction with them soon, because I need to figure out how certain things work in the dorms, like waste disposal, laundry, and other things like that. I also am hoping that they don't stay in their rooms all the time, and interact with me. I may try and lure them out by cooking dinner for us all. If they continue to live like hermits, I'll have to start experimenting with how to best draw them out of their rooms and closed doors.
My first impressions of Norway, specifically Trondheim, are that it is cold and wet. When I arrived it was 35 degrees F, and it has yet to go above 40 degrees F. Now, you might think, "John, why did you go to Norway to stay through MIDWINTER if you think that is cold?" Don't worry, I have appropriate clothing for the cold, it was just unexpected that it was already this cold. It is also very wet out, with constant and varying degrees of precipitation. It is very much like Seattle in this regard. One difference is the humidity. I think that it's been over 80% humidity since I've arrived. I've experienced how humidity can make it feel much hotter than a thermometer reads, but this is the first time that I've experienced humidity that makes it feel colder than it actually is. Add in the wind-chill factor, and it makes for very chilly weather indeed. Also, I have yet to see the sun, and have only once seen a patch of blue sky for a maximum of 15 minutes. At least there's daylight still. I took a picture during one of the brief pauses in rainfall, when I was on a bridge looking over the river (look for the tiny hint of the rainbow going over the cathedral):
One of the other things that I have noticed in my stay so far is that many times Norwegian announcements are followed by the same announcement in English. This makes it very nice except that while many times this is done with other languages, usually the first statement is given, a pause is taken, usually for a breath, and then the statement is again said in the other language. My experience so far is that there is no pause between the Norwegian and the English, and they are crammed together in the same breath. This means that if the person talking has a strong accent, you have to listen to every word in order to make sure you catch the entire announcement when it starts in English.
I also have realized that Norway is very expensive. There are more taxes going on, which means that they don't pay for insurance and other such things, but it increases the prices of goods. When they don't have to pay for other things, they can spend more money on the goods they buy, so I guess it works out. I know that I only really need to pay for food and lodging for myself, so I am not worried, it was more just a culture shock than anything. This morning I went out to the store to buy basic necessities, and it turned out to be $61.00 USD for about 3 days worth of food. Is America ready for this? I know that some people would object. Still while it did surprise me, I recognize that it works, and the following months will demonstrate to me how it could be beneficial.
Sorry for the length of the post, but its been a flurry of activity for me the last two days, so I wanted to make sure all the important points were covered. I'm sure they weren't but I'll continue to add things as they happen or occur to me.
https://depts.washington.edu/vallelog/blog/index.php?/categories/120-Werner,-John
I wanted to look down on Norway as I flew into it, but i was so tired from lack of sleep and constant traveling that I promptly fell asleep once aboard the plane. I did wake up the last half hour of the flight but found the countryside blanketed in clouds so there was nothing to be seen. When I first got off the plane, I stepped down a set of stairs onto the tarmac took a deep breath. The air smelled fresh and clean, and it was cold out. I made it through customs with no difficulty and found the airport bus, or flybussen, that would take me into the center of Trondheim. I made my way on board and enjoyed finally sitting down with a proper amount of leg room (non-exit rows in airplanes: not comfortable).
As we drove the 30 kilometers to Trondheim, we passed through three very long tunnels. These tunnels had one lane of traffic in each direction, and the opposing traffic passed very close to my bus. The dark and narrow tunnel with lights passing very close to the bus while I was in a sleep-deprived state made for a surreal experience. I got off the bus at the train station and walked the half kilometer to my temporary housing, Bruns Botell. This may have been the longest half kilometer of my life. I had about 165 pounds of gear that I was either carrying or dragging, and I was so very tired. I guess I could have tried to find a cab but that would have been so incredibly lame. I persevered and finally made it to the place I was staying. The quality of the room was good enough, except for its smell. The entire building smelled of cigarettes and gross.
I slept for 8 hours or so, woke up and got ready for my day. I was meeting with one of the professors that I would be working under, as well as had several different places to go to and fill out/turn in paperwork. I walked to the NTNU campus and met Professor Tore Børvik, one of the lead professors at the SIMLab, the Structural Impact Laboratory that I'll be working in while in Norway.
The project that I will be involved in is related to impacts on pipelines. An Italian company produces elbow-joint fittings for pipelines that the Norwegian oil company, StatOil uses, but the Italians made a mistake in the production of these fittings. They are made from a two-alloy stainless steel that was cooled improperly, resulting in a third steel precipitate to form in the fittings. This third component, which they refer to as the "sigma phase," makes the pipe sections much more brittle. If a section of this pipe is impacted by an oil ship, it is important to deform and be somewhat flexible in order to prevent a disastrous oil spill. These more brittle fittings greatly increase the likely-hood of such an event happening. The project I will be involved with aims to better understand how different levels of this sigma phase precipitate affects the performance of the steel, specifically under impact. The bottom line: I get to be part of a project that will break a bunch of test specimens with a gigantic hydraulic hammer. This hydraulic pendulum impactor, or kicking machine, is huge. I don't know its specifications, but I know that it is used to simulate car impacts, so it is VERY powerful. A picture of it is below:
I haven't yet had a chance to tour the SIMLab, something I am very excited to do. I'll get my opportunity to do so on Monday. I have an office space to call my own, where many of the visiting scholars stay. One of these, Rafael, helped me enormously by showing me where I needed to go for the rest of the day. It has been an excellent experience so far because everyone is very helpful and welcoming here.
After a day of running around filing paperwork, getting keys and meeting people, it was time to move to my permanent residence for my stay in Norway. I'll post the address soon. I realized that I didn't want to travel the 2.5 miles from my temporary place to my dorm room with all my crap, so I took a cab. It turns out that my driver was a very colorful character that, upon finding out that I was from the not-so-united states, he climbed up on a soap box to tell me everything wrong about the U.S., as well as the European Union. The cab ride was relatively short, but angry. He wins the award for least welcoming person I've met so far.
I arrived in my room, and though it was small, it did not smell bad and was comfortable. I need to get some sheets and a pillow for my bed, currently I am using my sleeping bag and a rolled up sweatshirt. So far, I have only met two of my three roomates. We each have our own rooms but we share a common room/kitchen and a bathroom. There is Hanning, from Germany, and Omit, from Iran. I have yet to see the third roommate who is Sebastian, and I am not sure where he is from. Each of the two roommates that I have met were brief encounters and I have not seen them since. I've kept my door open for most of the day today and no one has surfaced yet. I'm hoping to at least have some interaction with them soon, because I need to figure out how certain things work in the dorms, like waste disposal, laundry, and other things like that. I also am hoping that they don't stay in their rooms all the time, and interact with me. I may try and lure them out by cooking dinner for us all. If they continue to live like hermits, I'll have to start experimenting with how to best draw them out of their rooms and closed doors.
My first impressions of Norway, specifically Trondheim, are that it is cold and wet. When I arrived it was 35 degrees F, and it has yet to go above 40 degrees F. Now, you might think, "John, why did you go to Norway to stay through MIDWINTER if you think that is cold?" Don't worry, I have appropriate clothing for the cold, it was just unexpected that it was already this cold. It is also very wet out, with constant and varying degrees of precipitation. It is very much like Seattle in this regard. One difference is the humidity. I think that it's been over 80% humidity since I've arrived. I've experienced how humidity can make it feel much hotter than a thermometer reads, but this is the first time that I've experienced humidity that makes it feel colder than it actually is. Add in the wind-chill factor, and it makes for very chilly weather indeed. Also, I have yet to see the sun, and have only once seen a patch of blue sky for a maximum of 15 minutes. At least there's daylight still. I took a picture during one of the brief pauses in rainfall, when I was on a bridge looking over the river (look for the tiny hint of the rainbow going over the cathedral):
One of the other things that I have noticed in my stay so far is that many times Norwegian announcements are followed by the same announcement in English. This makes it very nice except that while many times this is done with other languages, usually the first statement is given, a pause is taken, usually for a breath, and then the statement is again said in the other language. My experience so far is that there is no pause between the Norwegian and the English, and they are crammed together in the same breath. This means that if the person talking has a strong accent, you have to listen to every word in order to make sure you catch the entire announcement when it starts in English.
I also have realized that Norway is very expensive. There are more taxes going on, which means that they don't pay for insurance and other such things, but it increases the prices of goods. When they don't have to pay for other things, they can spend more money on the goods they buy, so I guess it works out. I know that I only really need to pay for food and lodging for myself, so I am not worried, it was more just a culture shock than anything. This morning I went out to the store to buy basic necessities, and it turned out to be $61.00 USD for about 3 days worth of food. Is America ready for this? I know that some people would object. Still while it did surprise me, I recognize that it works, and the following months will demonstrate to me how it could be beneficial.
Sorry for the length of the post, but its been a flurry of activity for me the last two days, so I wanted to make sure all the important points were covered. I'm sure they weren't but I'll continue to add things as they happen or occur to me.
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