"Some things are the same no matter where you go."

I have to start with another shot of the tremendous view from outside my home base. I'm living with Kenneth and Espen, two guys involved with IAESTE here in Norway. They're both friends of Liz-Iren, who met me at the airport with her friend Hanne. All four of them have done so much to make me feel welcome. Within two hours of my landing they'd given me a quick tour of the city, took me grocery shopping, and dropped me off at the new house.

I think I'm living in the coolest student house at the University of Tromsø. My new-found friends - Espen and Kenneth's University friends - live in the other houses in the village. They pile into our kitchen every night to hang out. I've heard all sorts of stories about the pranks that they've played on eachother and the escapades that have taken place. It sounds like University antics are the same all over the world.

Liz-Iren, it seems, had done some careful planning, as I'm living with the computer-crazy people! By the second night, I'd already played (and won) my first game of Norwegian Starcraft against Espen. (I was lucky, though, and he swears revenge is coming!)

While we're on the topic of the house, check out this next shot, which resolves another burning issue: the question of the existance of trees in Tromsø! There are lots of them. This shot was taken just behind our place.

Oh, and Geo lovers, take a look at this specimen from our back yard! Can you say 'upheaval?'

Espen, Liz-Iren and her boyfriend Frodo took us around Tromsø on Monday night to give us a look at the city. (Well, we call him Frodo, as his Norwegian name is Dag-Frode - hyphenated and tough to pronounce - and besides, Frodo is a cool name!) My desperate attempts to learn Norwegian have proven more than just a little amusing, and everyone here has been very helpful. Thankfully, most folks in Tromsø know at least a little English. They learn it from a couple of places: formally in school, and informally from movies and TV. Just about everything on TV is in English with Norwegian subtitles. It's too bad - I was hoping to watch The Phantom Menace in Norwegian! I visualized Jar Jar 'spaking' like the Swedish Chef. I imagine that my Norwegian sounds at least as funny to the Norwegians as Jar Jar does to me.

It was funny to hear the gang debate whether or not to teach me 'dialect.' Apparently there are many different flavours of Norwegian. The tapes I bought were teaching me Oslo-style Norwegian. We decided I should learn the northern (Tromsø) dialect. That way I have the best chance of understanding what people are saying. I think it's the equivalent of teaching someone to speak Canadian english with a Newfoundlander's accent. I've already made my first embarassing pronunciation mistake, but thankfully it was with one of the guys at AutoSim (more about AutoSim soon!). I was trying to say (spelled phonetically) 'korschen har du det?' which means, 'how goes it?' but I pronounced the 'or' in korschen a bit like a 'u' and left out the 'r.' Yup.

On Tuesday afternoon, I took the bus back into the city and explored a bit. The next couple of shots were taken on my trip. I accidentally took the bus the wrong way on the way home, so I ended up seeing even more of the islands than I bargained for. It was great.

Looks like they have no need for my Undergrad thesis here - the pigeons are reproducing just fine! These birds are outside of a Lutheran church in town. I had a chance to meet Topy, a friendly 18-year-old local guy who works there. In between showing my their bible - written in Norwegian between 1636 and 1637 - he told me a bit about growing up in Tromsø. He likes the place, but being isolated from the rest of the world gets to a kid after a while.

Check this out: the next shot of Hanne and Espen was taken outside our place at one in the morning. Yes, that's an hour after midnight.

Here's the obligatory Canuck take on the Midnight Sun. First of all, it really doesn't set. Ever. During the day, it's a little higher in the sky, but not much. Early in the morning, like in the picture below, it descends low enough to give a bit of a 'sunset' appearance.

Is it bizarre? You bet! Does it make it difficult to sleep? Not really. On Monday night, my body was giving me some really weird signals. At 6, there was sun. At 9, still sun. Then there was STILL sun, and I glanced at my watch to find it was quarter to midnight. It felt like my body was saying to me, 'what's going on?' I've been so tired out by the action-packed days around here that sleep hasn't been an issue.

I love the mood that the midnight sun sets (um, or doesn't set, I guess). You never have to take nightfall into consideration when exploring. With that in mind, there's a mountain here that is begging me to climb it. It's the one behind the arctic cathedral (it's the schnazzy one found on the Destination Tromsø site.) I guarantee that pictures of the climb are coming soon.

Last night we had a 'waffle party' at Hilde's place. I tried - and loved - brown cheese for the first time, and even provided some good, good Canadian maple syrup. I took a shot of all the IAESTE crew present. There are two shots here, so I'll list all the names with a bit of info between the shots.

Top row left to right: Frodo, Liz-Iren's boyfriend, Star Wars enthusiast, satellite imaging guru and waffle chef extraordinaire; Kjersti, IAESTE Tromsø's external affairs rep; Shannon, fellow IAESTE trainee, computer science student and Canuck from Newfoundland!

Bottom row left to right: Edmundas, Lithuanian IAESTE trainee who hitchhiked from Finland to get here; Hilde, our hostess for the evening, IAESTE Tromso's head, and soon heading to the Czech Republic for her own exchange; Espen, my housemate, a wizard in both biology and computer science, writing his last Masters exam tomorrow, and with Kenneth, a prankster; Liz-Iren, my first Norwegian friend, also a biology guru, also finishing up exams, and one of those people that makes a place happier just by being there.

I mentioned that Frodo is working with satellite imaging. He's employed at a place here where they're receiving geographical data from satellites. Being this close to the North Pole means that satellites in polar orbit are in range for very long periods of time. When data is streaming into Tromsø, it comes at a rate of over eight megabytes per second. It pours in like that about every second of the day. (How much they're receiving per day is left as an exercise.) The data is used for weather analysis, cartographical imaging, and other non-military purposes. What a cool job!

There's so much more to write about. It turns out we'll be travelling SOUTH for Arctic Week. I'm excited about the possibility of taking a cruise down to Oslo. If time permits, that's exactly what I'll do. There's an island even further north of here as well, Svalbard, that I'd very much like to visit. I figure that if I'm this far north, I might as well go all the way.

I haven't written anything yet about my job, and I think I'll save that for a future entry because I don't have any pictures of the folks here yet. Suffice to say that it's exceeded every one of my expectations. It's a bit dreary out there today, as it snowed and then rained. When the weather clears up I'll take some shots from where I'm working. You wouldn't believe how inspiring the view is.

OK, I can't help but write something about AutoSim while I'm on the topic. First of all, my co-workers are great. I'll tell you a bit about them in the order I met them.

There's Martin, our boss, a great guy who has been very accomodating and welcoming. He hooked me up with the computer I'm now using to write this. The next guy who came into the office on Wednesday morning was Kjell, a very friendly and technically-inclined guy who I've really enjoyed working with so far (pronouce the Kj like a sh and you're on your way). Kjell has been teaching me Norwegian at quite the pace, and we've been cracking jokes about everything from Star Trek to Norwegian pronunciations (see above). After Kjell came Bjørnar, the self-proclaimed artist of the bunch, who has been working on 3D landscapes and models for the virtual worlds. For someone who eschews technochatter, he wields some mighty power in front of the terminal when he starts designing. Next in was Markus, whose thesis I'd read before coming here. Marcus is the in-house Norse God of Technology, and it seems there's nothing he can't make Linux or Windows do. He's working on this very cool implementation that would allow for a 'distributed brain' using multiple processors. The Artificial Intelligence implications alone are astounding! And, yes, both he and Kjell are continuing my Linux conversion. Jamie and Phil will be pleased to know that this is the equivalent of the local Linux dojo, and my training continues with a new pair of zealots!

So off we went yesterday to see the virtual reality setup. Man, this thing is incredible! You sit inside a real car that's been totally retrofitted with force feedback technology and sensors to detect what you're doing in there. The back wheels are replaced by hydraulics that allow for changes in the car's pitch and yaw. There are sensors in both the gas pedal and the brake, and the steering wheel's response is remarkably convincing. There are two screens: one massive, curved one in front of you onto which three separate images are projected; and one behind you, which makes the rear view mirrors work. The experience is incredibly authentic. I actually got motion sick, and, while I didn't puke like one policewoman did, I came awfully close! The sick feeling came whenever I hit the brake. It's apparently a fairly common thing - they call it Simluator Sickness - and in this case it was a result of my brain being so convinced by the experience that the fact it didn't experience the inertial effects of braking caused it much confusion.

Oh, and there were the trolls, too. At one point, with Kjell away at the computer and me in the driver's seat going through a virtual replica of a 26-kilometer tunnel about to be built in western Norway, Marcus leapt up in front of the car and screamed like a banshee. I did the same, drove the car off the road, and we all just about busted our collective guts.

Alas, the simulator is going to be moving south to Trondheim next week. Hopefully I'll get a chance to use it at least once more. A popular passtime, I hear from Kjell and Marcus, is to get people absolutely hammered and then have then try driving it. They've performed this experiment both formally and informally. Speaking of beer, there are a couple of local øler I've got to try. One is called Hakken, the other Mack. A pint is on the order of 50 kroner - that's almost ten bucks!! Drinking responsibly won't be a problem here.

One beer story. While touring on Monday night we stepped in and out of a pub whose name roughly translates to 'the dairy.' The prices of all of the beers on tap are listed on a display that looks a bit like a currency exchange listing. Just like at a stock market, the prices of the beers fluctuate based on supply and demand, and the current prices are continuously updated on the board! Rumour has it that if you're lucky, you'll be there to experience the occasional built-in 'stock market crash,' during which prices plummet and everyone rushes to the bar before rapid sales ensue and prices are driven back up. What a brilliant idea!

But now it's 9:15 and I'm still behind the computer, and the gang back home is probably wondering where I am. There's a 25-minute, 19 kroner bus ride between me and them, so I'm going to duck out now and write some more later. I'm already deep into thinking about car driver artificial intelligence, but it's time to swap back into 'hanging out in Tromsø' mode. The quest to find a balance between 'enjoying this beautiful place' and 'doing as much of this very cool work as I can' has already begun. I guess some things really are the same wherever you go.