Well, it’s finally here. The end of our trip to Gothenburg. Let’s look back at what happened during our final week!
Straight from the beginning, the entire Dare2build crew was working hard this week. The Rice students and summer workers were leaving Friday, so we had to finish the majority of the project by then. We did a lot last week, but at the start of Monday we were only at the point of having gravel laid and logs cut so we really had our work cut out for us. Only Poppy and I were able to work on our path, so we put the logs that were already cut into place. We then spent the majority of the day screwing in the branches that connected the small logs (the first third of our trail). Our strategy was to make a few rows and add diagonals after that to strengthen them.
Tuesday was the first day our entire team was on site and able to build so we really made the most of it. Following the same approach as Monday, we spent the entire day screwing in the rest of our path. By the time we went home, the majority of our path was in place, making this by far the frog team’s most productive day of the project.
On Wednesday I switched gears from working on the path to be the food and fika guru along with Helena, Scott, and Maria. We opted for an American style, cooking hamburgers and fries for everyone to eat at lunch.
On the way back to the hostel Wednesday, we stopped at Jarntorget because Christian told us about . I ordered a saucey chicken breast, and can gladly say I was not dissapointed. The rest of Wednesday, however, was not so fun as I had to grind for the majority of the night on the final presentation we were to give on Thursday morning, only getting a few hours of sleep.
Thursday was my favorite day this week. We gave our presentations in the morning and had a few other group activities before our team spent the afternoon adding the final logs to our path and starting our portion of the circle. Most of the fun came after work, though, when we all went to a beautiful lake near the site. There was a diving board there, so you can probably figured out how I spent my time.
To be honest, not a ton happened on Friday. I worked on strengthening the connections between logs and ensuring they didn’t wiggle too much for the majority of the day. We also started laying the final layer of gravel and soil around the logs so it would be clear what needs to be done for people working on our path next week. I had an evening flight, so I had to leave early, but we managed to get a lot of photos in before I left.
After that, it was sadly time to leave Gothenburg. Instead of flying straight home I actually went to London first because there’s no direct flight home and I wanted to spend a little extra time with my family. I arrived there late Friday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon, which gave plenty of time to have a water gun fight with my cousins.
After that, I boarded a plane at Heathrow and was on my way back to LA. After a whole month, a lot of work, great memories, and countless new friends, my study abroad was over.
