Åland: Autonomous, But Finland
Last weekend, I visited an "autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking administrative province of Finland" (Wikipedia), called Åland. You easily reach the island from the Swedish port of Grisslehamn by ship and the trip takes exactly two hours.
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Åland's flag
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On the island itself, you do need a car because there is not too much to see in the capital city of Mariehamn, which can be reached by bus. The landscape looks surprisingly different from Sweden. The earth from the fields is somehow "grey". Åland is also in a different time zone (GMT +2) than Sweden and you get the Finnish mobile phone networks there.
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Masts of the "Pommern"
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One thing you can see in Mariehamn is the "Pommern" museum ship.
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Viewpoint
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When driving around the island, there was suddenly an approximately 30 meter high view point, which offered a nice vista over the island. So if you are looking for a nice one-day trip, Åland is definitely an option. Especially when you have such a nice weather...
Valborg Video
Here a 5-minute video from the Valborg celebrations in Uppsala.
Germanwings: Flight Deck Visit
Pilots are loneley, at least sometimes. During the flight, the door to the flight deck has to be locked and after the flight everybody rushes out to pick up their luggage.
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Flightdeck
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Since I had the opportunity to be on Germanwings flight 229 from Stockholm-Arlanda to Cologne-Bonn yesterday, I just asked the flight attendants whether it was possible to take a picture of the flight deck (of course after touch-down). "Sure" they said, I just had to wait a bit until the majority of the passengers had left the plane. "It's ok, you can go in now", said one of flight attendants finally to me.
Eventually, I made my way into the cockpit and asked the pilots "Hello, can I take a picture?". "Sure, also two if you like!" replied the pilot. So I did. I also told him that it was a nice flight and he answered "I like to hear that, you are welcome!" He seemed to be really happy about that positive feedback. Already during the flight he had made two (normal is only one) announcements.
So I took the following pictures and I was really surprised how real the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 actually is. I installed an additional Airbus A 319 (which was the one I flew with yesterday, too) in the programme and the real flight deck indeed matches the one from the computer. Although being no aviation expert, I could recognize the most important parts.
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Autopilot
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This part is the Autopilot. As you can see, the selected heading was 310°, the altitude 5000 feet and the vertical speed -100 feet per minute.
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Landing Gear
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This part controls the landing gear. There is a lever for extending and retracting the landing gear. The three green buttons above indicate that the landing gear is currently extracted. Below these three buttons are another three buttons, which set the intensity of the automatic brake (low, medium, max).
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Flaps and Speed Brakes
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The lever on the right controls the flaps, the one on the left the speed brakes. The switch between "ENG 1" and "ENG 2" starts the engines.
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Throttles
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These throttles regulate the power of the engines. The "black and white discs" are the pitch trim wheels. Above the throttles, left and right, is the "MCDU", the multifunction control display unit, a kind of flight computer.
If you want to really know all the details, have a look at this excellent page. It explains nearly everything. Thanks again to Germanwings, they really offer an excellent service. I'm sure this was not my last flight with them (next one is next Tuesday :-) ).
Falun: First class to Uppsala
Last Saturday, I went with Sam to Falun, a small town roughly two hours north of Uppsala. Since Sam is also a blogger and well-known for endless entries picked with all the details, I just link to his post, which pretty much explains everything we did there. :-)
I took (as always) some pictures there, which you can see here. I will write in a special blog entry in the near future about how nice the trains in Sweden are and how perfectly the railway works in general, so stay tuned for that.
This is Gothenburg calling…
I am currently in Gothenburg (that is Göteborg) for the weekend, accessing the Internet via an open Wireless LAN access point, which is apparently somewhere in the neighbourhood. Haven't seen that much of the city, yet, but so far Gotheburg seems to be a bit different from the Uppsala and Stockholm region. Unfortunately, the weather is not the best, so I hope that it improves tomorrow.
There are still the same shopping chains here, so when I stepped out of the station after a 5 hour train ride from Uppsala, it felt a bit strange to see a shopping center where everything looks so familiar. But there is a nice opera building here, I went in there and picked up the programme.
Pictures soon, so stay tuned...
Back from Molvania
Just returned from a one-day visit to Molvania. We flew on Friday night from Stockholm Arlanda airport with Wizzair directly to Lutenblag, the country's capital. It was still cold there, about -7° C during the day. Although everything was much cheaper there, the hostel we stayed in was expensive and really dilapidated.
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View from the TV tower (CC)
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The city looked very run-down and often reminded me of pictures of the former Soviet Union. Although you can buy a lot of Western products (Coca Cola and so on) there, the shops do not stimulate you to buy something. Nothing is nicely arranged, every looks as if it was just thrown into the supermarket. We also wanted to visit the National Museum, but I was closed due to construction works.
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Typical houses (CC)
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The picture below shows one of the main streets. The city does not have that many attractions, most of them are just boring. We took a guided tour of Europe's oldest nuclear reactor, which was quite interesting, but also a bit scaring. I had to wear thick, protective safety clothes, but the guide told us that there was absolutely no risk of radiation. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures of the reactor.
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One of the main streets (CC)
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The language, Molvanian, is absolutely weird. "Zlkavszka" means "Hello" and "Grovzsgo" goodbye. The people we met were actually not very friendly, but that might have been because it was so cold and we were tourists. Many of the inhabitants didn't speak English, but some of them spoke German since the country was also invaded during World War II by Nazi Germany. The country's currency, the "strubl", is funny, too. To buy a can of Coca-Cola, you need to pay with 10 bank notes. The coins (1 strubl = 100 qunts [100 q]) are absolutely worthless. Luckily, they took at some places my Visa card.
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The underground (CC)
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A few times we took the underground, which was built -as many other things- by the Russians. The air in there was pretty humid. Outside, Lutenblag has to deal with smog quite often. Most of the industrial companies do not adhere to the strict European environmental standards and therefore just "blow out" their exhaust. I would have liked to take a round trip through the country itself, but the time didn't allow that.
What bothered me a bit was the fact that the country applied for admission to the European Union in 1997. I don't know whether there are any real negotiations at this time, but the guide from the city tour told us that many Molvanias are hoping to become part of the EU. However, I currently see that everything there is so different. The government is said to be very corrupt and there are often ethnic unrests, since many Molvanias come from very different backgrounds.
I will put more photos online, as soon as I have them ready...
(All pictures of this entry are licensed as creative commons, the credit can be found as a link "(CC)" in the description of the image)
Ruter And Me On Tour
This midday, I went together with Ruter from the IKEA back to Flogsta. Who is Ruter? Ruter is IKEA's low-cost ironing board and everybody has been missing it. We now share the cost of it among four people. There is no other ironing board in my corridor and in my building, either.
Some words about the weather: Although it feels not really cold (we have around -3 degrees centigrade), there now is a lot of snow. In contrast to home, when it snows the snow remains on the ground and does not melt away. When it is fresh it is quite difficult to bike on it because it has not compacted yet. I think if we had this amount of snow at home, everything would brake down. But here even the busses run on time.
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Snow scene right before my house
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Another thing that bothers me for quite some time is the local petrol station. They have a banner hanging there that says "Sänkt bensinpris" (=lowered price for petrol), but they do not display the actual price somewhere. Someone else seemed to like that banner though and put it on his or her balcony (see below) here in Flogsta. I guess he or she didn't pay too much for it.
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Lowered petrol price
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The other thing I did today was that I upgraded my bike with respect to traffic safety. Although lights came with the bike when I bought it, the holder of the frontlight broke. So I bought a complete set of lights and mounted them on my bike. The rear light first did not fit on the sattel pole, but luckily I had brought some rubber tape and with that I could thicken the pole. Now the rear light sits perfectly.
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My bike (see arrows for new lights)
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In addition to that, I also bought a bike helmet. In Maastricht, it would never come into my mind to wear such a helmet, but here you directly interfere with the car traffic as a cyclist. And I have heard from a lot of people who crashed with their bike. But luckily, no fatal injuries so far.
By Bus to Uppsala
Since Yesterday, I am in Uppsala after I landed safe and sound on Stockholm's international Airport Arlanda, runway 01 right (This one is not in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, though, there is only 01 left :-) ). I flew with Germanwings, which is everything but a low-cost carrier. It looks like a standard Lufthansa flight. Nice personnel, they even reduced the amount for excess luggage I had to pay. The plane itself (one of the Airbus A 320 Germanwings possesses, ) was very clean, the amount of space one had was very low though. The plane was not fully occupied, roughly 60 percent (!) of all seats were free. So I had one row for myself.
After touchdown, I switched to a normal bus that brought me to Uppsala. There I was welcomed by two nice Swedish girls who brought me to my room, again by yet another bus. My room is for Maastricht standards of very high quality, everything is clean, I have my own bathroom and a shared kitchen an living room. Everything is equipped with IKEA furniture, so it directly looks familiar. On my corridor live about 12 other people. The ones I have met so far are pretty nice.
Today I went to the city to do all the paperwork (like getting the internet codes, signing the contract for my room an so on) with other exchange students, mostly French people and some other Germans. (Finally, here are not that many Germans like in Maastricht, I even met some Dutch students :-) ). The various nations offer a lot of activies during the coming weeks and in contrast to Maastricht everything is on a voluntary basis. So if you sign up for a student nation you are obliged to do nothing. That's really good.
About the weather: There is no snow, all the strees are covered with grit in the form of little stones. Temperatures are roughly the same like at home, maybe 2 degrees centigrade less. Some smaller streets have a thick ice cover. Some photos within the next fews day. I still have to buy mysself a bike...
Uppsala: Just Wait And See
First blog entry in the new year and I'm busy with organizing my stay in Uppsala. The funny thing is that except for choosing the right clothes and packing my suitcase there is not much to organize.
All in all, I filled out two or three forms in November with my address, the courses that I want to take and the favored accomodation. A few weeks later I received the official "Letter of Admittance". By mid December I got the welcome package of the university, which said that a buddy is going to contact me about 2 weeks before departure. So far, I didn't receive any email or phone call from this buddy.
All other information (i.e. where my room actually is, whether I can take the courses I chose and so on) will be provided upon arrival, says the welcome package.
So in the meantime there is Google Earth, my personal reconnaissance tool. Unfortunately, Uppsala is not available in high-definition satellite images, but still all the street names are displayed. So a quick look at the Swedish Lidl website reveals where the local store is and Google Earth shows that it is approximately 2.5 kilometers away from my most-likely room location.
The people of Uppsala (how do you call them, Uppsalaners?) or better the students are said to go around by bike, like in Maastricht, even during Winter time. So either I take my bike with me (Germanwings wants to have 25 euro for that) or I buy a used (stolen?!?) one there. Let's wait and see...
By the way: Stockholm started testing a congestion charge today.