Friday, June 7, 2013

Far North

Yesterday was a travel day. After a convivial time with some University of Agder students who will be studying at the University of Minnesota this fall, we got a chance to sleep in a bit, then packed up the bus and headed off to catch our flight out of Kristiansand.
Yesterday was a travel day. After a convivial time with some University of Agder students who will be studying at the University of Minnesota this fall, we got a chance to sleep in a bit, then packed up the bus and headed off to catch our flight out of Kristiansand. That airport was small enough not to have jetways, so we got to use a stair truck, delighting me and other Arrested Development fans.
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After two very short flights, connecting at Oslo, we landed in Trondheim, the ancient (although not current) capital of Norway. It's a beautiful city, centered around the Nidaros Cathedral and Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

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Nidaros Cathedral

Today we went to a series of lectures on renewable energy at the University, described as "The MIT of the North". We also got to see their high power test labs, including a 1.2 million volt lighting simulation! (video pending) We learned a lot, and are very excited to go on to an offshore wind farm tomorrow.

PS: While Trondheim isn't far enough north that the sun never sets, at this time of year, sunset is at about 11:20, and sunrise is at about 3:15. Thus, it never gets all the way dark. I took this picture out my hotel window at about midnight last night. It's very strange and cool.
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