May 31st:
After days of travelling, I finally landed in Sweden at 9:30, just in time for a great sunset. Then I took an Uber to the Slottsskogen Hostel where I promptly checked in a fell asleep exhausted.
View from plane just before landing
June 1st:
After forcing my jetlagged body to wake up at for breakfast, I returned to my room to check out then re checked into my new room that I would be staying in for the rest of the month. My sleep schedule was already messed up on California time from staying up until 3 am playing xbox with my friends which was not going to be sustainable for a month in sweden since I would be going to be at 12 pm Gothenburg time. To try adjust my circadian rhythm and keep myself from napping in the room all day, I walked around the city for about an hour before coming to a coffee shop where I decided I would have lunch. One man sitting in the shop heard me ordering in English and called me over to sit by him and chat. For the next few hours we talked about all sorts of things, ranging from his time in Sweden to the years he spent in San Francisco helping a single mother raise 2 disadvantaged twin brothers who eventually would both be drafted to the same NFL team. (See Sean and Sam Manuel of the San Francisco 49ers). Eventually his 25 year old son arrived and we discussed the most notable things I should do during my time in Gothenburg. After saying goodbye, I walked back to my room and met up with the other students who were on the iSEED trip and we went out to dinner a few blocks away from our Hostel. The other Rice Students on this trip are Ben, Christian, Daniel, Kung, Megha, and Yufei.
June 2nd:
On my last day before classes, I explored more of the city with Kung and Christian. We had coffee at the shop I went to yesterday then walked over to a park with a super steep hill and Fort with cannons on top. From up there I had a great few of gothenburg. Later in the night we went out to dinner with all the students and some professors at Chalmers University where we had a good view of the river while eating.
View of Gothenburg from the fort
June 3rd:
First day of classes for the month and first real work since the end of finals. We started off the day with some Tinker CAD, which I was able to handle relatively well given that is usually meant to introduce middle schoolers to 3D design. A little after lunch we transitioned to the main 3D design program we would be working with for the remainder of the ENGI 355 course, Fusion 360. While it took me some more time to get adjusted to the program since it was more complicated than Tinker CAD, I eventually became more and more comfortable
Chalmers
June 4th&5th:
On Tuesday and Wednesday we had some more long days of CAD but I ended up enjoying the process of building the parts a lot more once we learned more techniques such as the sketch tool where you could draw out your design in the 2D then make it 3 dimensional, rather than just working with combining primitive shapes. This made the 3D design process feel more like puzzle solving rather than tiring school work. Something else that helped pass the days was the daily fika break(s). I guess ~20 minute coffee breaks at 10am and 3pmn are customary in Swedish culture and these breaks helped recover from the work and also gave more time for me to get to know my classmates better.
June 6th:
Thursday was the Swedish national Day and the start of a long holiday weekend for many. Because of this, Professor Wettergreen gave us a half day so we could go out and participate in some of the festivities going on around the city. Walked around the huge park right by our Hostel which was packed with people. After walking to the the Zoo at the top of the park and getting Ice Cream, we walked by the symphony as they were playing 1812 overture for the finale of their performance. We then all downloaded the “Tier” app which allowed us to use the electric scooter we had seen parked everywhere around the city. Once we had found 7 tiers, our menacing scooter gang rolled out and over to Haga where we ate and hung out for a while. After we finished eating we all split up looking for 7 Tier scooters again and planned to meet at the nearby mall which miraculously worked. Once we realized most of the shops in the mall were closed anyway, we got some super sushi for dinner then split up again depending on whether people wanted to use the tram or scoot back to the Hostel. While the scooter is very addictive, it is reasonably priced so i don’t feel too bad about doing it repeatedly.
In Haga
June 7th:
It was mostly empty at Chalmers today because people were on their holiday weekend. We learned some more complicated techniques on fusion 360 to keep things interesting and savored what might been our last Fika at Chalmers. Once we got back to the Hostel Christian and I made 8 Burgers and they were some serious gourmet stuff if I’m being totally honest here but 4 big patties were still a lot. After that me and the boys played some soccer with a semi deflated ball we found and had a great time.
June 8th
Started Saturday off with some great Brunch at Egg & Milk with Megha and Christian. The group spent the afternoon working on our homework problem set then some of us went out to the street festival for a few hours where it rained on and off for an hour.