Studytrip Scandinavia 2023
Dit is de Blog van de studiereis van 2023 naar Scandinavië. Elk dag schrijft een van de deelnemers een stukje dat je hier dan kan lezen.
Blog 16 May - Ilsa
Today was our very last day! The day consisted of breakfast on the ferry, five trains and only two delays.
The time on the train was very quiet, as most of us were still tired after a short night's sleep. A few people played some BoomIt! or spent their time on the Nintendo DS, while others spent the whole journey sleeping. Luckily the transfers between all the trains went smoothly despite the delays, and soon the scenery changed back to the flat green fields of the Netherlands.
Our mascots, the tiny plush moose and the little rubber duckies also made it all the way back home! Even the foldable chair Thom took at Valborg survived the rest of the trip. 
It was a great trip, and we had loads of fun! Now that we're back, the writing of the travel report will commence.
Thank you for following our trip, and till next time!
Blog 15 May - Dominique
Today we woke up in Kristiansand where most us went to the supermarket to get their breakfast/lunch/dinner.Then we walked to the harbor and while waiting to board, some of use played 'football' and others read/ate something or took a nap.
At diner time, some of us ate at the buffet. The desserts were trully amazing!
In the evening we played hide and seek on one floor, but the hiding places were scarce. The sunset during the game was wonderful. 
Later almost everyone was in the starlight palace. This was a casino and nightclub with live music. While dancing the rocking of the ferry was less noticeable.
It was a nice last night of the trip!
Blog 14 May - William
Today the first of three travel days started at 6:00. Half an hour later everybody was outside at the hostel and we went on our way to Bergen station. After finding the right bus to take us to Arna, we got onto the Bergensbanen to Drammen (direction Oslo). As the first people already dozed off again, the snowy plateau of the Hardangervidda came in sight. The sun shone all day, so sunglasses were more than welcome, especially with all the reflective snow.
As one fought the boredom by making sudokus (some people more successfully than Koen), the other accepted the tiredness and tried to sleep. Some people went for some coffee at the on-board bistro, again others spent their hours staring out the window at the beautiful landscapes or playing a game on their Nintendo DS (but without the Mario Kart parties this time).
As our destination came closer, the snowy hills made way for more streams, lakes, cliffs and trees. After a not too long transfer at Drammen where we had time for some late lunch/early dinner and some groceries, we embarked on our final Scandinavian train ride, to Kristiansand.
Especially on this train, most people's energy levels dropped and people decided to sleep, read, puzzle, listen to music, watch a movie/series or be annoyed by gymnast youths TikTokking in the train isle. The views coming past the windows were still beautiful with forests and waterfalls, and still some snow capped mountains in the distance now and then. Just after 20:00 we arrived in Kristiansand and luckily the hostel was only 5 minutes away. Within 5 minutes in the hotel room, Bart found out the hard way that our sink was clogged and that it is dusty in the trundle bedspace. Some people were persuaded by the takeaway grillroom right across the street handing out 20% discount tickets, before most people gathered down in the lounge where a long travel day ended with some coffee, tea, other drinks and even a Norwegian board game.
Blog 13 May - Nora
Today was our free day at Bergen, so everyone enjoyed sleeping a little longer than, for example, tomorrow. Then everyone took their own plan, but most of us went hiking in the mountains around Bergen. Spoiler: it was fabulous.
Björk, Koen, William, Ida, Fabian, Simon and I decided to walk down to the city first, and then following a little river up among some beautiful lakes. (Credits for the photos go to Björk.) The walk started on normal roads, but as soon as we were in the mountains we walked up a really small path up the mountain.
In one of the higher lakes some of us decided to swim, but maybe we could have seen by the snow on one side of the river that the water was really cold. However, it was worth it! 
We kept climbing up the mountains and the sights got better and better. Still on a small path, we sometimes had to find our way steeply up or down some rocks. Our goal was to reach some mountain called Ulriken. From there, 1369 staircase steps brought us down to the hostel again. We walked 17.3km with 790m altitude. We were tired, but also really satisfied.
Others have been doing other trails and some of us have been visiting Bergen. Therefore, everyone was tired thus the evening was calm. Some of us watched Eurovision Songfestival, others consumed their last beer or crisps. Most of us went to bed early, because tomorrow we will have to be packed and ready at 6:25, to start getting back to Nijmegen again.
Blog 12 May - Ida
Today was another early morning for us, but luckily a yummy breakfast was provided with a wonderful view. The rest of the day was filled with fun field trips and more physics, that I think everyone has enjoyed and been enjoying. I put a picture of my notes in this post, so you can get an abstract projection of my brain and maybe what we learned today :)The first visit of the day was the Birkeland Space Centre, where Nikolai Østgaard gave a talk about the different astrophysics research done at the centre. He told us about their research on the asymmetry of the Aurora Borealis (northern hemisphere) and the Aurora Australis (southern hemisphere). Unfortunately, the odds of (visually) seeing the Aurora in Bergen are pretty slim. The space centre also does research on gamma rays that are emitted from lightning on Earth. A special detector with a very high time resolution, which is necessary to detect the short gamma ray pulses from earth, was built at the centre and is currently doing measurements on the International Space Station.
We had a few hours in between the two institures (which were both located in the same building). Together with some others, I got lunch at the supermarket nearby, hung out in the park and rode around the area on the popular pink electric scooters. The hills in Bergen are quite intense and steep, so it is better for your legs to not have to walk up them all the time, and the scooters always make Angry Scooter Noises going up.
After lunch, we visited the Institute for Reservoir Physics and got interesting talks from Arne Grave and Zachary Alcorn. Zachary is from Ohio, and Arne just took a year-long sabbtical in the United States, so I personally loved listening to their American(ish) accents. They told us about their research on using carbon dioxide to extract oil and gas from the ground. Oil and gas is stored in porous rocks, kilometres deep in the earth. Carbon dioxide does not only push out these fossil fuels from the pores, but it is then captured in the ground. This is then an effective form of carbon storage.
We also got a tour in a few reservoir physics laboratories. These range from microsize (analyzing samples only a few millimeters wide with a specialized microscope) to macrosize (cilindrical rock samples pumped full of CO2 under a high pressure) . In their biggest experiment, in the basemet, a see-through tank is filled with different layers of sand and rock with varying perocity, and it is saturated with a Ph-dependant colored dye. Then, carbon dioxide is injected into the tank; the 'normal' rocks are colored blue by the dye, while the CO2 areas turn yellow because of their acidity. The blue and yellow dyes create a nice visualisation of the spread of CO2 within the rocks. 
After the tour, one of the scientists was very kind to walk us to the university museum. He told us that "there were some nerds looking at whale bones, and suddenly, there was a university here.". We were allowed to look at a not yet opened exhibition there, developed by a PhD student, who was still working on the setup and had to inject more CO2 into the tank in the middle of his talk. The tank there was more than twice as large as those we saw in the lab, two meters wide and one meter high, and a camera took pictures of the dye distribution every 10 seconds. The PhD student was researching the movement of CO2 within the rock and its possibilities for chaotic behavior.
We took the bus back up the steep hill to the hostel. This was quite busy and reminded some of a lovely bus in Nijmegen #bus10. Dinner provided by the hostel was good. After dinner, some people went on a hike, and others sat in the sun outside and played cards. This went well until the whole mountain was swallowed by a layer of cold clouds. Ilsa and Björk bravely hiked all the way up the Ulriken mountain and had a beautiful view of the sunset, with a blanket of clouds and snow below. Bergen is a stunning city that I'll be sad to leave. Tomorrow is a free day, so I think we will spend it enjoying the wild nature, mountains and fjords. Adjø!
Blog 11 May - Koen
After a long day of travelling yesterday, we had a calm morning where most people of the group came to the breakfast around 9:00.
At 12:10 the part of the group that was still at the hostel met up and went to the institute of today, which was the Medical Physics Department of the University of Bergen.The rest of the group went into the city centre already or hike up the mountain a bit. At 13:00 we all met up and went to the institute.
After we visited the institute a part of the group went back to the bus, but unfortunately that broke down and they had to improvise to get back to the hostel. A few other people went to the bolder hall. 
After having cooked som food (or heated it up in the microwave) most of us went to the common room. There people played some games and watched the Eurovision song festival.
Blog 10 May - Shen
Today we had to get up very early to leave the hostel at 5.15 in order to catch the train from Gothenburg to our new destination: Bergen.
First we took the train to Oslo, which was a trip of around 3.5 hour. Fortunately we had more than two hours to kill there, which gave us plenty of time to explore the capital city of Norway.
Some of us went to the roof of the Oslo Opera House to get a nice view of the harbour. After that we also went to the Akershus Fortress and the Oslo Domskirke, where a memorial stood to commemorate the terrorist attacks in Norway in 2011.
We then took the train from Oslo to Bergen which took ~7 hours. During the trip we same some beautiful s lakes to waterfalls and snowy fields. During a short break we decided to have a quick snowball fight with luckily no casaulties reported. 
Once we arrived in Bergen it was already past 19 thus we went straight to the hostel and checked in. After eating a frozen pizza (after it was put in a warm oven) I played a game of foosball with a few others and then headed off to bed for our day tomorrow. Blog 9 May - Wicher
Today we got up early at 7 o'clock, after a night without to much sleep. We stayed up late because we were trying to see the northern lights, unfortunately without success.In the morning we visited the Wallenberg Center for Quantum Technology (WACQT) where we met Johan Veiga Benesch. He gave an overview of the progress of research of Quantum Technology. He also gave different uses for the technology like communication, sensors and mainly computers. After that Mats Granath gave a talk, also about quantum computers but this time about quantum error correction and repetition code.
Lastly we got a look at the cryostats where the quantum computers are actually located.
This was the only free afternoon in Gothenburg so we had a lot to see. We first went to a park to get some ice cream because of the nice weather. Near that park were the botenical garden which we visited next and after that we went to one of the biggest sailing ships in Scandinavia.
Others used the afternoon to take a boat to different islands (and delivered some packages).
In the evening some of us went to the Swedish fastfood chain max and discovered that it was actually pretty good. 
Then we packed our bags and went to bed early to prepare for our trip tomorrow.
Blog 8 May - Fabian
Today we woke up in Gothenburg for the first time and took off for our visit to the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers. After we had a nice talk from a Dutch intern student about creating an educational escape room, we got introduced to the work of the Equestrian Sports Science institute. The presentation taught us about the similarities between researching horses and astronomy, the heat conductivity of hooves and the ethics of putting horses on Mars.
After a nice lunch in the sun, it was time for the next institute: the Optical Levitation Laboratory. They showed us a setup where they caught a water droplet with a laser and let it levitate until it evaporated. After this, some PhD students told us about their different research projects. Of course there was a fika afterwards.
Once the long day was over, the group split up. People had a quick meal and went bouldering, had drinks at the park, went looking for cute animals or took a rest from the long day.
Blog 8 May - Odilia
Today we traveled from Stockholm to Gothenburg. We took our time in the morning for getting up, eating breakfast and packing the last things.
After we walked with all our bags through Stockholm to central station. We had a direct train to Gothenburg from there in which we were divided into three coaches. At one of the stops, coach number 4 had his own small little reality tv scene. A man in there had a little too much to drink of his enormous whisky bottle (reminder that it was 12.30 pm) so he was escorted out of the train. 
Besides that we were also greeted by very nice views. 
In Gothenburg we took a bus to our hostel. Two people had to take a second because the bus wouldn't allow more people in. After we dropped our stuff, a group went to a park nearby to enjoy the great weather.
Then of course it was time for dinner. We have a great kitchen in the hostel so all of us chose to cook and eat in the hostel. We again split in different groups and I was part of the wraps group. 
When all the dishes were done some people still chilled a bit in the kitchen area and played some games.
Blog 6 May - Wouter
This day was our last day in Stockholm and together with a few others I spent it well. Rather than taking the tourist boat around the city of which we have seen quite a lot already, we chose to take the bus boat to an island called Vaxholm outside of the city. Along the way, we had the most beautiful view of all the islands, boats and enormous villas.
On Vaxholm we walked to a former lighthouse that turned out to be someone's home and to the playground where we couldn't resist taking the slide. We planned to visit a café to experience the famous Swedish Fika. Once there, we turned out to have landed in heaven as we encountered a display of many delicious cakes. Of course we couldn't choose, so we shared our cakes, of which we bought too many. We already planned to eat ice cream on the island, so on our way back to the harbour we just had to do so, despite the sweet cake bombs we just had.
Back in Stockholm we visited a few souvenir shops and meanwhile some people visited the ABBA museum. Just south of Stockholm another group went hiking in the Tyresta National Park, while a few others visited Drottningholm, the private residence of the royal family. Last but not least, a few people did not leave the IKEA unvisited. All in all, we have had an amazing day! 
The rest of the evening is filled with partying and packing bags as tomorrow we will be traveling to our next destination: Gothenburg! Blog 5 May - Dominique
Today we visited the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA). Starting from our hostel we walked to the institute and saw this church. When we arrived at NORDITA where Odilia, Björk and Bart gave a brief summary about what we will hear that afternoon.
Gerben started with his talk "Spacetime and gravity between Newton and Einstein". After this, Florian Niedermann talked about "Tales of empty space: the quest for the origin of dark energy". He mentioned the vacuum energy as a candidate for dark energy but this is the "worst prediction ever". Besides the physics he also gave a realistic view of being a scientist and to get a grant for research. 
After a short break, we get a talk from Nikki Arendse about "The discovery story of gravitationally lensed supernova Zwicky". She drew the graphics in the slides herself. In the talk she gave us an explanation about lensed supernavae and how they found supernova Zwicky. Then Sofia Qvarfort talked about "How large can we go? Pushing the limits of quantum and classical physics".
Afterwards we visited the Scientific Fika. Here we got a talk by Joe Roussos about "Expert disagreement in advising and research". Then we drunk some coffee or tea and there were some sweets. There were a lot of blackboards, so one is now decorated with horses (I can imagine you don't see a horse in every drawing). 
We walked back to the hostel and people started cooking.
Tomorrow is a day with nothing mandatory on the schedule, so the perfect day to explore the city or its surroundings!
Blog 4 May - Ilsa
Today was the day to indulge ourselves with Stockholm's culture and beauty! I started my day doing what I've been doing a lot on this trip already: holding the door :)
In the morning, we visited the Nobel Prize Museum, where we (of course) took special interest in Marie Curie.
After our visit to the museum, everybody had the chance to explore the city by themselves or in small groups. I decided to go to ABBA The Museum together with Ida, Tycho and Fabian. On the way there we happened to walk by the changing of the guards at the palace! 
We got a little bit cold on the way to the ABBA museum, so we got coffee/chai latte at a tiny coffee cart by the water.
Once at the museum, we had loads of fun, and decided to recreate some iconic pictures!
After we got 'Voulez-vous' stuck in our heads for the rest of the afternoon, it was time to return to the hostel, where we cooked delicious risotto. After that, I had a lazy evening and watched some Netflix.
Tomorrow we'll be going to another institute, so it will be a full but interesting day!
Blog 3 May - Bart
Today marks the first full day in Stockholm, but it's also Wicher's birthday! So when everyone gathered in the morning, we first sang a happy birthday song for him. After that we walked to the department of Engineering Mechanics, which is part of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. We visited several laboraties of the department and got a closer look at the research performed there.We started at the Biophysics group, where we visited a motion capture lab. Secondly we were shown cellulose filament, one of the worlds strongest biobased materials. Thereafter we saw some windtunnels at the Fluid Physics Laboratory (FPL). Each windtunnel is used for different experiments and has a different way of measuring the speed of the wind. Lastly we saw a model of a sailboat designed to transport cars. This model is used to study if the carbon footprint of the transport sector can be reduced by making use of the wind.
After our visit most of our group went out for a walk around Brunnsviken, a lake in Stockholm. It was really fun untill it started to rain. Then, most of us took the bus back to the hostel after having walked 13 km. In the end, only one person managed to complete the full hike (congrats Willie ?).
In the evening everyone cooked and ate in the hostel, which was also really fun.
Blog 2 May - Pim
The day began early (at least in my opinion) for the last time in Copenhagen. We enjoyed the free breakfast one last time before packing our backs and heading to the train station.
Here we took the train to Malmö to leave Copenhagen and Denmark for Sweden! In Malmö we changed for a 4 and a half hour train to our next stop, Stockholm.
To kill the time, off course some pulled out their Nintendos again for a game of Mario kart and others were busy playing card games. Some people (including myself) thought it was a good time to take a nap however a crying baby prevented that at first. After the baby was removed, peace was restored and i got my well-deserved nap.
When awake we could enjoy the beautiful landscape of Sweden with forests, lakes and wild life like deer.
Arrived in Stockholm, after checking in our new hostel, we went to dinner alltogether in a nice restaurant where we had a buffet with all vegan food and an amazing view over the city.
Hereafter some people went back to the hostel, where others already explored the city a bit, which concludes the first day of our stay in Stockholm! 
Blog 1 May - Thom
For the part of our group who went to the Valborg celebration the day started in the metro still on our way back to the hostel. When it turned 12 o'clock, it felt most appropriate to sing our Birthday boy Tycho a song!The morning after we travelled back to Lund to see Lund's observatory. We first got an interesting lecture about exoplanets, after which we were able to see the observatories that are still operable.
Then we went for a walk over the campus. Apparently the physics department partially exploded some time ago, and they left an art piece on the wall as a reminder!
The walk on the campus ended at the plantarium, here we also made a group picture.
After this we splitted up in smaller groups to explore Lund a bit more, or to already go back to Copenhagen. I went to Lund's botanical gardens to see some famous Dutch tulips with Simon!
We continued our journey back to Copenhagen to have food at the food market called Reffen, since we heard they had a lot of nice food! Here we also managed to see (a part of) the rainbow!
Then we went back to the hostel to already pack our stuff, because tomorrow we will go to a new city, namely Stockholm!
Blog 30 April - Jeltje
Today was a free day and what fun we've had! A large part of our group went to Lund to take part in a student celebration of Valborg (or 'sister April'), which officially celebrates the beginning of spring. However, the students mostly celebrate that the end of the school year is near and this is done with a lot of adult beverages and fun. There were about 25.000 people, so it was a good chance to socialize with the locals. In the evening a large bonfire was lighted and this sight was enjoyed from almost comfy lawn chairs.
Those of us that did not go to Lund split into a few smaller groups. Whilst enjoying many rays of sunshine, some of us went to the botanical gardens to see the huge hothouse and pretty plants, some of us went to a food market called Reffen to enjoy the deliciousness that is prepared there and some went for a beautiful hike outside of the city.
Meanwhile, I visited a palace called Rosenberg filled with treasures such as paintings, interesting clocks, a mechanical cabinet that can produce many different types of symphonies and the royal crown jewels.
Afterwards we went to 'the round tower', which is an observatory of the university. The fun thing there is that it has no stairs but instead has a spiraling ramp all the way to the top. 
Tomorrow we're going to Lund again to visit the Lund observatory, so stay tuned for the blog of Tomorrow! Blog 29 April - Blörk
For some of us, this day started with recovering from our night out before. After sleeping in quite late I went out to the local bouldering hall to work out. It was very small, but also quite cheap (50dk) and for 1 day it was perfect. Other groups of people went to the art museum, took a 6.5km run, see the royal palace and/or took a walk in the city.
At 15.30 we met up in the harbour for a 1hour guided boat tour. We saw palaces, military buildings, the little mermaid, parliament, churches and many bridges. The sun also came out regularly to give us some warmth.
After the tour we walked to the restaurant were we enjoyed a buffet with the whole group. There was so much food to eat since it was unlimited. The chocolate mousse was particularly good. 
Then we caught the last moments of daylight on a bench in the park before getting back to the hostel for a night in with a drink or a book (for me it's the book).
Blog 28 april - Simon
Today began with the most beautiful singing Denmark has ever heard on the stage of Studenterhuset. On our way home by metro we had a quick stop at Max (a Swedish fastfood chain) and when we arrived, we slept like roses.
Most of us got up fresh and fruity and, after a much needed, nourishing breakfast, we took off to the centre for Ice and Climate. We listened to a very interesting talk about the research they do with the ice they get from Greenland and how this says something about the climate of ancient times.
After the visit we explored the city and climbed the round tower with a breathtaking view of the city and a telescope as a reward. We had some after-dinner drinks and ended up clubbing!
This concluded another beautiful day in Copenhagen. Ending with a fun fact: I found some (kinda) frikandellen broodjes.
Blog 27 April - Tycho
After a well deserved night of sleep, it was already time to wake up early to visit our first institutes of the study trip.After a short breakfast and a quick walk around 8 o'clock we arrived at the Niels Bohr Institute. Probably because of some sleep deprivation, Simon thought we were in Paris and was eager to point out the Eiffel tower and had to take an iconic picture with the leaning stone of Pisa.
At the Niels Bohr Institute we got an interesting talk from a archivist at the Niels Bohr Institute archive about the life of famous physicist Niels Bohr.
After getting a quick tour around the office of Niels Bohr we were treated with another lecture around astroparticle physics at the Niels Bohr Institute.
Having already been listening to two lectures in the morning we took a short break during which a few people decided to play in a children's playground and be childish while playing a game of tag while others were harassed by a seagull.
After our lunch adventures we walked to the Centre of Quantum Devices where we were given a short recap on semiconductors and were given a tour through their facilities.
After this long day me and a few others decided to enjoy the local cuisine of the Lidl by making ourselves some delicious wraps in the reception the hostel.
With a loaded belly we prepare ourselves for tomorrow and are excited for the experiences and institutes that are coming up next!