Blog 16 May - Ilsa

Wicher 2023-05-17 14:50

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

Wicher 2023-05-16 11:08, laatste update 2023-05-16 11:08

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

Wicher 2023-05-15 12:58, laatste update 2023-05-15 12:59

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

Wicher 2023-05-14 21:27

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

Wicher 2023-05-13 19:23

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!