Tallinn, Estonia

I went to Tallinn for an Ultimate tournament called Kick in de Kök, which means "peak in the kitchen" in Swedish and is the name of one of the fortifications around the city, with the Swedish Fish, the women's team here in Stockholm. It was my first time going to eastern Europe for more than a few hours and also my first time captaining a team.

One of Tallinn's watchtowers, Tall Herman. The other is named Fat Margret. 

Tallinn old town skyline.

A friend from the squad and I went early Friday morning, so we could see some of Tallinn before the tourney. I didn't take many photos, but the old town was really cute and there is a fantastic pancake place called Kompressor that I would highly recommend (but only order one, they are really big). After a day of exploring, we met up with the rest of our team and a men's team from Stockholm called GRID for dinner followed by a medieval-ish tavern with delicious cinnamon beer and a sportspub to watch the end of one of Sweden's Euro qualifiers (they lost).

We went as a team that was there to have fun. As a club, there are mentalities of the Swedish Fish: the speedy, well oiled machine and the team that comes to have fun. There is a lot of overlap, but we brought a fun-oriented squad! This has a tendency to confuse our opponents. One remarked in the spirit circle, "We expected more from you." OUCH! We came in 7th out of 9th and had some hard fought games, but also some where we were trampled. It was a little disheartening, but we were a mix of fish teams past and present, 4 fishies, a fishie who had moved back to Germany, her twin sister and a girl who plays on another team in the Stockholm suburbs who has just come to cheer on their men's team, but we convinced to play since one of our handlers got sick and couldn't make the trip.

This haunted-looking liquor store was (luckily?) closed.

Our "intense it's defence-time" faces! and party winning leis!

We were the team that sang and danced on the sidelines (to a Swedish children's song about fish), the team that chanted really loudly, basically the team that I never in a million years would have thought I would have been part of. This was in stark contrast to the men's team from sthlm, who went to win (spoiler alert: they lost in the finals for like the fifth year in a row).

It was kind of weird, they kept stats for goals and assists. Apparently I threw 15 scores and caught one. I only remember throwing about 3.

We won the party with our sick dance moves and made up theme (there was none given, so we went with something approximately equivalent with "On a Boat" in preparation for our upcoming cruise). I still have the prize, a bottle of the local liquor (nobody really likes it).

We took a boat back from Tallinn (my first non-river cruise), which allowed for saunaing, more dancing, and an impressive stop at the duty free shop in preparation for our upcoming fundraiser party.

Sweden Semester I: A look back

Written in January, but just never posted! It's interesting to look at my expectations for this semester and how things are panning out. (pretty spot on)

Just a few weeks after arriving, I was invited to a teammate's summer cottage to close it down for the season. It was down a dirt road that was off another dirt road, which was off a gravel road neat Kopperberg. The cottage was powered off of a single solar PV panel and has a composting toilet. We went mushroom and lingonberry picking (very swedish activities), rowing on the lake and played lots of board games. It was a nice, relaxing introduction to the country outside of Stockholm.  

The crew rowing

Shortly afterwards, I went to Swedish mixed nationals with the Syndromes. They let me play in the less important pool play games. We ended up getting the Bronze (out of seven teams) and I think everyone was a little disappointed, but we'll get 'em next year!

Cool looking shroom (not for consumption

Then came lots and lots of school and The Royal Institue of Technology or Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (KTH pronounced Ko-tay-Ho) My courses were Renewable Energy Technology, Energy and Environment, Sustainable Power Generation and Sustainable Energy Utilization. That last one was particularly rough... dry early morning lectures on complicatedish material. I'm glad it's behind me... No more classes! Just a 30 page paper and a 20 minute presentation stands between me and my master's degree.


My friends Dani and Anders hosted an american thanksgiving for some of the north americans. Check out the sweet potatoes that I made (L) and my plate full of goodness (R). I took some photos of the people there, but we were all stuffing our faces and they didn't turn out very attractive

Right before exams, I went to Lapland with a few classmates to attempt to see the Northern Lights. We were successful! More photos can be found here. We also did some hiking in the snow and saw some reindeer. Since I would have been procrastinating and not studying for exams anyways, that seemed like a good way to spend the time.

Right now I am playing the indoor season with the women's team Swedish Fish. We went to København for Kung Volmer. After I got used to the necessity of throwing hammers, it was lots of fun, but super tiring (we had three handlers and the other two were sick, so I only rested about a point each game). We ended up 11th/14 had some close games, but are still figuring out team dynamics and lost our last match to some rude young girls, which was a little embarrassing. We have a big tournament in Göteborg/Gothenburg the weekend after I get back from Bangladesh, which I am really looking forward to, we are getting some player back who had taken off the first half of the season. 

That said, I'll be staying at KTH next semester for my thesis. I start the semester off (early) with a 3 week trip to Bangladesh to do a field study relating to identifying/developing good/effective/sustainable business models for rural electrification. I'm really excited about this opportunity and the flexibility that writing an academic thesis (rather than working for a company) should afford me. 

For the upcoming semester, I'm looking forward to getting to know Stockholm a little bit better, my dad visting for a soccer extravaganza, traveling to european tournaments with ultimate, and ya know... figuring out the next few steps in my life (maybe).

Tortilla

We had a brunch with the ultimate squad this weekend and while I was looking for recipes, I kept being drawn to frittatas. The one I wanted to make called for goat cheese, but the grocery store I visited did not have any, so I changed course mid-shop and decided to make a tortilla (the Spanish variety).  This is a thick, dense potato and onion omelet that is served at all hours in Spain.

It's been about a year since I left Madrid and this seemed like a fitting marker of that milestone. After consulting several recipes and Alberto, my Spanish course-mate, this is what I came up with:

After adding the mixture of egg, fried potatoes and onions to the pan. 

After the flip. It was not very graceful.

Finished product. Super oily.

I ended up not taking it to brunch (I opted for scrambling eggs and baking some spare peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough). It tasted fine and had the right consistency, but it was just sort of underwhelming. Like it's hearty, substantial and nice, but wasn't really impressive. It also took a really long time to chop all the veggies and cook through, so I don't know that I'll make it very often, but I'm really glad that I tried. I have been snacking on it all weekend and will continue to enjoy it with lunch this week.

Taste of Sweden

It has been snowing steadily all day and the ice cream truck still runs! I heard the song playing and thought it was some sort of residence complex-wide alarm!

Swedes are prodigious ice cream consumers and I had heard of this phenomenon, but this was the first time I have ever seen a truck here (even in the summer).

 I chased it down. It wasn't a typical ice cream truck, they sell mostly bulk bars/cups (+frozen pizza), but I was able to buy an ice cream sandwich!

Bangladesh

I'm in Bangladesh now doing research for my Master's Thesis, which is about the different business models being used to deliver energy services in rural communities (I'm also looking at water a little bit). The food is very tasty and the family that I am staying with couldn't be more helpful or nice.

The girls who  I live with.

Construction next door

So far, I've had mostly long days of field interviews, with a few days in Dhaka for meetings with other stakholders like Grameen Shakti (part of Grameen Bank) and BRAC, both major development players in Bangladesh (and the world).

A very happy (no, really) poultry farmer and his digester.

The collectors and sorters/operators at a MRF/digester. Yes, their shirts are adorned with both the Toronto Maple Leaf' and Armani logos.

View from the 19th floor of the Grameen Bank Building. You can see the national cricket stadium.

Yummy snack with puffed rice, spices, oil, some orange things, and onions.

If you are a brick manufacturer and are not operating in Bangladesh, you are probably missing out. These guys are all over the place. Construction everywhere!

Stockholm

I've been in Stockholm for a little more than two weeks now and it's pretty great! It's nice to be back in a city with ogle-able bikes and a well thought-out public transportation system.

I live on the island of Kungsholmen, which is really cool. There is a 9 km waterfront promenade along the perimeter, which is additionally buffered by big green parks/greenspaces for most of the way. It's so pretty, like makes me actually want to  go for a run; however, I've yet to take my phone to capture the great views. During the weekends everyone is crusin' around on their boats playing fun music and there are lots of balloons- it's like a parade! 

Rålambshovsparken is on the island and is super cool. When I first arrived, there were outdoor movie showings and picnics. Under an overpass that goes thought the park, they've built basketball courts, track straightaways and a skate(and scooter)park, since the area would have been concrete anyways. Last week I went kayaking around Kungsholmen and some of the other islands with some classmates. The red building in the background is the city hall and on the right you can see the main part of Stockholm and maybe even make out the central station.

It's an easy comute to school and close to the center. Plus, I live in an (sort of) actual apartment building (instead of a dorm) and my studio has a full kitchen (read: oven) that came stocked with cutlery and accouterments. My room still isn't "together" - I need a bookshelf or another set of drawers and have been checking the basement room for abandoned items regularly. Magents and postcards cover my fridge and the room came with a swedish flag, but the rest of my posters/art will be going up this weekend, if I don't take a trip.  I've been riding the metro, but will take more advantage of my subscription to the city's bike sharing program. The metro rides have given me lots of time to read on my new ereader, but I want to have a better grasp of the city.

The weather has been (surprisingly) quite nice, albeit a little schitzo. Shorts and dresses are still occasionally appropriate!

I've been practicing with the local ultimate team, the Stockholm Syndromes and I am way way way way-er out of form than I expected, but they are nice people and it's good to be running around again. The first practice was really weird, I did great during the drills part, successfully laying out twice during the hucking drill, but when it came to the scrimmage, I dropped every single disc. I also got skyed and a blackeye for the trouble (it's finally gone!). Playing-wise it has gotten substantially better since then, but I've been cupping and popping, so it's still unnatural and awkward. Nationals is in two weeks in Jönköping, I probably won't play that much, but it will still be fun to check out the scene and a different part of Sweden! They won silver last year, and from what I've gleaned they seem a little bit bitter about it, so we are totally gunning for the gold!

Sweden seems to run on cards. Metro card, temporary student card (photoless - just to get the reduced metro price, but also surprisingly valid for claiming the student discount at fancy, yummy, vegetarian buffets), bike card, bank card, cafeteria card, library card, insurance card, old student card for when temporary one fails, residency card, computer-room card, american driver's license for when residency card is not accepted, and my german blood donor card (just because it has my blood type incase I'm in an accident). Fortunately the change-purse that I bought in Morocco to give as a gift (and forgot to) is perfect for carrying them + some krona (and the wallet that I had planned to buy at home this summer, but forgot to, would have been horrible). The krona is sort of an annoying currency and not just because everything is expensive: the coins are relatively large. A small coffee at the non-student price is like two and quarter dollars, a cheap beer at a bar is about seven and a half. All of the citrus looks really sad to be here. That said, there is definitely a greater diversity of food available here than in Madrid or Nantes.

 

My Grandma has suggested that I update more frequently with shorter posts, so I may try that and see how it works out!

Here you can buy (light) fun

End of Semester

The end of the semester was really hectic. One morning there were 5 exams, some of which were open book. My testing seat looked like this:

The tests were generally frustrating; they covered half day seminars from the beginning of the semester and wrong answers were negative points. So the tests were short, but being exam ready on five different topics was rough.

That afternoon we went to an incinerator. It was pretty cool. Below you can see the giant claw that moves the garbage from the intake area to sorting belts. At residences recyclables are put into yellow bags and other stuff into blue bags, then they are optically sorted at the facility. I wanted to see the optical sorter in action (I had learned about a similar facility while at NCSU), but it wasn't running the day we went. We did get to look at the flame in the incinerator, although it didn't resemble anything we had learned about in our combustion couse. The loose trash, which doesn't get sorted is moved around using a giant claw (see video)... worst arcade game/prize ever?

bags to be sorted

optical sorters

It wasn't all work! People cooked for me! Anto made a delicious Indonesian meal and Caitlin made me a half-birthday fruit salad.

 


I biked with my mustachioed coursemates down to the new carrousel in Nantes to watch the Bastille Day fireworks, which were the most graceful I've ever seen. They were syced to delicate techno.

After the final IEP presentation (it went ok... I was poorly prepared) and a final night celebrating in Nantes (most of my friends went to an old shipbuilding warehouse that has been transformed into Crepetown), I took a train to Lyon where I met my cousin, her old exchange-sister, and Emily in Lyon.

Hipsterized fountain horse

We took naps at a roman amphitheater. The cathedral was beautiful and at the top of one of the huge hills. It was also a double decker: below the main level, which was full of mosaics, was another that was dedicated to Mary and was painted in pastels: blues, purple, green. So pretty!

Floor of the top level of the cathedral

We also visited some nearby beaujolais vineyards. The area isn't very touristy, so our actions were mainly dictated by our quest for food. We saw a church steeple and walked towards it, thinking there would be something there. There was a restaurant (closed), bakery (closed, but they deliver!), and a pharmacy, where the nice lady understood my poor french and let us know that there might be something in the next town over-- 5 km away. So we hiked there through the grape fields and there were two restaurants! One was closed and the other was open, but just for drinks. The kind men there informed us that there was a supermarket not too far away. It was next to a park, so we had a nice little picnic.

pretty house

little cousin in search of food

After the girls left for Paris, I met Max, a French intern that I worked with in Germany, for a hike near his grandparents house at the start of the alps, in the Massif de la Chartreuse. Aside from the hut with dozens of boar's feet, the views were stunning. After the hike, his parents took us to the lake that you can see from the mountain.

  

View of the lake from the summit

View of the summit from the lake

I flew to boston via Munich the next day. During the layover, I picked up a copy of my favorite newspaper and did a complicated interview/Fragebogen (survey) in german, which boosted my german-speaking confidence, which was sort of low after the trip to Baden-Baden.