Heading into the final week of our Sweden trip, we all knew that it would be intense…and it was.
On Monday and Tuesday, we did the usual work of constructing our path from 8 to 5:30, but after, we had night classes where we learned the rest of our CAD course material. It was hard working for 8 hours, coming back to the hostel, showering and eating, and then doing class for 2 hours after, but we all survived.
On Thursday we had our final presentation for the Engi 200 class. Because I did not have time to work on the presentation on Monday or Tuesday, I spent about 4 hours preparing and practicing it on Wednesday. I got about 4 hours of sleep that night…waking up the next morning was not fun. We had to wake up extra early in order to get to the site on time to set up the projector and then gave our presentations to the group. I did good and believe I accurately portrayed the design process of my path and fully explained its characteristics.
After work on Thursday, a group of our project team went to a nearby lake for swimming, food, and relaxation! The lake was a decent sized body of water with rock formations surrounding all sides. We layed our bags and Daniel, Scott, and I decided to go for a swim. The water was cold, not as cold as the archipelago water, but still chilly. In the center of the lake was a floating platform which had a diving board and multiple platforms to jump off of. The highest platform was about 12 feet high and was sorta scary jumping from for the first time. After we finished swimming, the pizzas arrived. Once the pizzas had been devoured, we decided to play a traditional Swedish game where each team has 4 blocks that the other team has to knock over by throwing cylindrical wood pieces. Once all the blocks are knocked over, the game is over and the team who knocked them down wins!
Friday was the Rice students’ last day to work on our paths. Everybody was working as hard as they could trying to make as much progress as possible to make it easier for the Chalmers’ students to put the finishing touches during the final week. Drills were drilling, saws were sawing, and everybody was moving 3x speed. The plant path made considerable progress, and I believe that my team will be able to really make it beautiful for opening day. It is unfortunate that the Rice students could not stay for the last week, but I think we all felt comfortable leaving our paths in the capable hands of the Chalmers’ students.
On Saturday, it was time to go home. I woke up at 5:45 AM to leave for the airport to catch my 10:30 AM flight to Frankfurt, Germany. There, I had a 2 1/2 hour layover until my flight to Houston. My flight home was 11 1/2 hours long, but it felt like forever. Getting off the stuffed flight, I went through passport security, got my bag and drove home. I threw my clothes in the wash, and immediately went to bed…what a trip.