It’s been a whole week since we arrived in Sweden! Let’s take the time to look back at it.
I flew in to Gothenburg from London last Saturday. I had spent a week with my grandma and saw all of my other relatives, and got over jet lag in the process. In the photo below taken at the very beginning of my trip from London to Gothenburg, you can see the town my grandma lives, Stanmore, on the top-right of the image.
Since we didn’t have class until Monday and I flew in really early Saturday, I had quite a bit of time to kill. I immediately went on a run all around the park right next to us, Slottsskogen, and was amazed how expansive, forested, and hilly this park only two blocks away from our hostel was. I took the picture below at the start of my run, at the top of a hill in the Southern end of the park. Those of you who have explored the park will know it as right by the small castle.
Besides getting ahead on sleep and reading a lot, most of my first weekend here was spent getting to know everyone else doing the ISEED program. We went out for dinner Saturday night, and again on Sunday evening, but with Dr Wettergreen as well as some of the professors running the Dare to build program, or the equivalent of Engi 200 which we start next week.
Class started on Monday at 9am, which meant I was in for a rather painful 6am wake-up since I wanted to get my run out of the way in the morning. I did this every day this week, and eventually got used to it (though next week we start an hour earlier so that’s not happening any more). In class, we dove straight into CAD with a little bit of TinkerCAD, and a whole lot of Fusion 360. Although it can often be tedious and frustrating, I really like how I can tell I’ve made a lot of progress this week, and have a far better understanding of CAD than when we were exposed to it in the final project of Engi 210. It was hard work since we were working from 9 to 6 and sometimes had homework afterwards, but luckily a fika a day keeps the migraine away.
I spent most of the week in class, running, and doing homework, but there certainly has been some highlights. Thursday was a national holiday, similar to 4th of July but as Swedish as you could get ( the story of it included a cross country ski race for christ’s sake). We had the afternoon off, and spent it checking out the zoo in the park next to us and later all riding scooters together to the mall in downtown Gothenburg. And this Saturday, we joined a block party that felt more like a Rice public than a gathering on the street.
Even with all of this going on, some of my favorite memories this week have been on my runs. It’s a great way for me to see parts of the city I would never go to regularly, and explore the parks nearby. I’ve put some of my favorite photos from these runs below; most are near the top of hills that look out into the city. The last one is along a ridge in the massive forest next to us that I explored on my long run yesterday.
All in all, it’s been a great week. I really like this city and the people I’m with on this trip. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what the next three weeks have in store.