Paddling to Munkholmen

The beauty of being a student is that one has the liberty to seize the day when an opportunity shows itself. So last week, when we had a miraculously long period with sun and warm weather, we grabbed the chance to go for a morning paddling trip to Munkholmen. Munkholmen is an island just outside Trondheim. Sadly I have never been there before, so I am happy I got the chance before I leave the city.
It did not take more than 30 minutes to get there, and that was in a very slow pace indeed. The water was completely still and the sun was warm. The words we all kept saying ware idyllic and fantastic.
Well ashore on the island we sat down to relax a bit, being a bit tired from the early start. A tip for others planning to take the trip: bring breakfast or at least coffee=)
On the island we also got to see plenty of birds nesting. Because they are so well camouflaged they were hard to spot, and one time I did not see it until it was inches away from my foot. Even though they were lying next to the path and we walked passed them, they did not move at all! Either they are very tough or they are used to people.

Thanks to Magnus who managed to take photoes while we were paddling. I am not quite there yet, but soon:)

Very happy group:)

A "short" stop at the island to relax in the sun

See what I mean?

It's beautiful in Trondheim when the weather is right

The view towards Trondheim from Munkholmen

The Norwegian National Day

On the 17. May we celebrate our National Day. This is the date at which our constitution was first signed. The traditional celebrations is walking in parades after marching bands, eating lots of ice-cream and playing funny games(especially for children). The celebration is mostly devoted to the children in Norway, they have their own parades and this day is about them having fun.

For me, this 17. May meant I finally got to wear my traditional Norwegian costume, bunad. I did not bring it to Sydney, so it had been two years since I last wore it. I really like wearing it even though it is a hassle to iron the shirt the day before and exhausting to wear the whole day. It is also a typical problem to get blisters from the shoes.

Since the day is about celebrating our country, I had to start the day with a run in the forest. The nature in Norway is something really appreciate. It started with perfect running weather, dusk rain, and I could not have got a better start on the day. But just when I got home, it really started pouring down and it did not stop till late in the evening. So it was a wet and cold celebration this year.

Ida joined me on the morning run:) Trondheim looks rather grey..:/

After the run, the next on my program was champagne breakfast with the rowing group. The breakfast lasted quite a while, and I went directly to the parade. It is so much fun to watch the parade in Trondheim because all sort of people walk in the parade and try to entertain the audience. After a while I joined the parade and walked for the rowers and then for EMIL. Part of walking in the parade is shouting hurray, the name of your school or organization or singing songs. This is very true for walking with EMIL; you haven't done a good job, if you don't have a sore throat.

Bagpipes seems to be in every parade I go to:)

Anything to keep dry and warm:)

Men in uniform! Hurray!

It seems not everyone is happy about walking in the parade

drumming nurses, very cool!



Vikings=)

!

!!!

The rowers with oars and blazers for the occasion:)

Walking with EMIL is always nice:) The EMIL oath is written on the back of the "banner": Teach us the joy of simple things, about laughter that doesn't have hurt in mind, forgiveness free of motive and love to all humans underneath the sun

After the parade I was so lucky that a friend and her brother invited my over for dinner(it's impossible to go get a table anywhere on this date, especially when it is raining). To get a homemade meal and traditional dessert out of the blue is luxury for a student! Thank you very much!=)

All in all a good day, although the weather could have been better. Plenty of highlights through the whole day=) Now, it is back to having no life and writing and writing and writing on my thesis. Thank god for daydreaming..:)

Not every day I get a rose so it was highly appreciated even though it was from a random guy(not being a stalker)

BDO-mila

In the typical Trondheim weather BDO-mila, a running competition, was arranged with more than 500 participants. That's many for a run on a weekday in Trondheim. Due to lack of shape, I did not run, but of course I went to cheer on the sporty people who did=)
The run was made up by six laps around a fortress on top of a hill (a bit like the fortress in Newcastle(Australia) making it a 10 km long run. The laps were pretty flat, but that also meant no breaks, and believing my friends who participated it was a tough run. I had a good time cheering with my friend Ragnhild and a friend of hers, and it was as always inspiring to see how fit people are. It makes me want to get that extra energy they seem to have. Especially the winner, no one even came close to beating him. As most sports events these days, this one also had their celebrities participating: Petter Northug and Eldar Rønning from the national team in cross country skiing. Eldar did best of the two as he was the third one to finish.

It was so much fun to see so many familiar faces participating and especially people I know are not runners, but do different kinds of sports. What I did miss was familiar female participants. I did not see one woman I know in the whole race; we have to get better at participating in competitions girls! Here are some photoes of sporty people=) I apologize for the poor quality, butthe cold made it difficult...

The start, rather crowded and at one point we worried they would run over some of the small children who started before them..

3 men ran from the rest already in the beginning



Audun, still with good spirit:)

Haakon(to the right) in deep concentration

Eldar runnig past Ola, but it didn't last long before Ola tried to pass him again and did so too!=)

Eivind with some energy left:)

Technoport

Last week the Technoport conference was held in Trondheim. It was two and a half days filled with interesting lectures, debates, mingeling and culture. The theme of the conference was Sharing possibilities, and the importance of doing just that is indeed what I was left with.
It all started with mr. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa from Japan who emphasized the importance of collaborating across different areas of science to able to find new sollutions that might help us on the way of fighting climate change. His ideas were both inspiring and educational.

Hiroyuki Yoshikawa

 Due to snow in Oslo one of the politician who was going to open the session was late, but she came and held her speech. I am surprised that even thoug she was several hours late, it appeared as if she had never seen the words on the sheet of paper in front of her. As if that was not bad enough, I really wish someone could send our Minister of Education and Research a Cambridge pronunciation dictionary. ASAP!


Kristin Halvorsen as we know her...

One of most fun things to attend at this conference was when friends of mine kept lectures about there thesis:)


Tor Martin giving a speech about his lecture

 After a short break the conference continued with dinner at Lian, a really nice place outside Trondheim. Dressing up, having a nice dinner and company is not bad for a monday..=)

Lian

Live feel-good music at the dinner:) sweet!

 The next day the most interesting part was the debate, even though the panel that was put together was a bit too homogeneous to be my cup of tea.
And in the evening the highlight of the whole conference found place. I was so lucky that a professor emeritus sat down next to me. He had so much interesting things to talk about, and it is so fascinating to listen to everything he has experienced. He went from working with eletronic to physics and wave power as early as in the 70's. So he also gave an example of how fruitfull it can be to bring indeas from one science to an other. When he said he had worked with wave power I had to ask if he knew my supervisor. Indeed he did, he had even been his supervisor when he was working on his doctor degree. Once again: It's a small world we're living in!

Rita Ottervik, the mayor of Trondheim. Got to love the glas:)

The principal at NTNU holding a speech asking the new generation to clean up the mess that they had made:p

Extraordinary good company at the table:)

 The evening ended with Technoport awards were 6 awards were given in different catagories. It gave a good insight in what is happening in different areas and also that the specter is very broad. (It is way to easy to get narrow minded while studying and especially while writing on once thesis). Apart from the awards there were several musical performances. It all started with a very geeky piece of music. The composer described how he had worked when writing the piece using Newton's laws of motion and the Fibonacci numbers. Really cool, but I think one has to be a bit geeky to appreciate it.

A really cool band that combined traditional joik with jazz:) awesome!

A perfect "easterweather" weekend

I was in shock, but a good kind of shock. The weather forecast said it would be warm and sunny for a whole weekend! Of course that meant 3 long skiing trips. Twice I visited one of the skiing areas just outside the town called Estenstadmarka and once I went skiing in Bymarka which is on the other side of the town. The combination of sun and a relatively high temperature while it is still snow is called easterweather, based on the idea that this is how the weather is like during easter. It seldom is the case.

Around the skiing areas are some huts that are open during the weekends and some of them have opening hours during weekdays too. At these huts you can buy dinner, lunch, some snack or a cup of coffee. But in this fine weather many chose to have their meal outside. Some even made a fire to grill sausages and marshmallows. This is what we do almost every day during Easter so I started longing for the holidays. Luckily they're not far away.

The view of the town from Estenstadmarka

The hut in Estenstadmarka: Estenstadhytta

Outside the prepared tracks in Bymarka, really nice to skate on the hard surface of the snow
(what's the word in English?)

It's fun to make one's way through the trees:)

Elgsethytta, one of the huts in Bymarka. Really crowded that Saturday=)

 I peacful evening wit a lot of food was what I both wanted and needed after all this outdoor activity. So I visited my friend Gunnhild and we had a totally relaxed evening:) Good food and lots of candy! She had also got a kitty just recently and the most exhausting activity that evening was to play with it:p

The kitty chasing the electrical mouse...

Forcing the kitty to cuddle a bit=)

Hiding...

Gunnhild in Estenstadmarka the following day=)

The clouds are coming:/

EMIL's annual Chistmas party in february

Two years ago a new tradition was started at EMIL (my student organization): The Christmas party!:)
But because of the exam period before Christmas and because there is other events early in the semester, we decided to arrange it in February. The party is for everyone that has participated for the organization in any way.
On the 25th of February we gathered very nicely dressed at the hut of a skiing club outside of Trondheim. The hut was decorated like Christmas and under every plate was a song booklet with Christmas and student songs that was sung during the meal. Also lying under the plate was a note giving everyone a challenge to do during the evening. It was everything from being responsible for the ladies' or the mens' speech to have an aerobic session or always saying yes to what was proposed. Of course this resulted in a hilarious evening and I think everyone had a blast=) Even cleaning up after the party was fun because everyone were in such a good mood:)

Unfortunaltely I had too much fun to remember to take any photoes:/ But when I remembered I took a lot:p

Getting ready for the Justin Bieber challenge

The Justin Biebers soon got company

Aerobic session

Combined partying, dancing and cleaning up...=)