Hellowizz In Norway

Je me suis maintenant installee en Norvege, et je travaille a Trondheim. Si tu es un etudiant de l'UCL et que tu recherches des info sur Trondheim, la NTNU, la vie en Norvege,.... n'hesites pas a me contacter via facebook et a me poser toutes les questions qui te passent par la tete! J'espere que je pourrai t'aider a te preparer pour cette gande aventure qu'est l'Erasmus! Ne laisse pas de commentaire sur ce blog, je n'y vais pas assez souvent que pour pouvoir te repondre a temps!

Now that i've nearly finish, I'm going to tell you on what I've worked on it this 2 last month...

I have a summer job in Agder Energi, a company producing and selling environmentally friendly energy. They already have a lot of hydropower plants, but they are developping a wind department and plan to install some wind farm in Norway!

So my job was to predict the amount of wind and of energy available on two of the potential site. As I told you at the beginning of the summer, they send John (another student) and me to follow a course to learn how to use the CFD tool used for the model of the site. Then when we came back of these 3 days of course, we had 2 days to learn by ourself how to use another program doing the same as the first one but with some other mathematics behind it. And after that short week of formation, the real challenging part of the job began... Here was the task :
Now that you know how to use both of the program, you must use them to create flow models and predict the power available on 2 of our potentiel sites. We can then compare the results between the two prgrams... After only a few day discovering each program, we were not quiet sure that we would reach the goal!!!

But by trying, discovering, asking help to people more experimented, we learned a lot, and now, we are able to do it!! :p

Of course, we also had some interaction with some other part of the project development. We have been manipulating data from the meteorological mast installed on the site, we went out on a site to change some material on one of the mast (nice hiking again to reach the mast!), we faced some challenges regarding the constraints imposed by the design of the turbine (like the maximum of turbulence that a turbine can support) and we had to sort out at which place we can install turbine without risk of destroying it after a short time due to unadapted conditions,... But I'm affraid that you are already lost and borred about what I try to explain with easy words when it's much more complicated!!

What was really nice, it's that this summer, they recruited 10 students to work with them on the wind projects. All the others were Norwegian, and we were all studying different things (electricity, mechanics, environment, economics, statistics,...). But the company needed help in all the part of the project! Most of the people working usually in Agder Energi were on holidays, so we had a lot of freedom in our work : the task was given, and we had to reach it by our own, we didn't had a specialist with us all the time to orientate our reflexion or to help us on each single problem... We had then a lot of autonomy and responsabilities... it was cool!!
In Norway, most of the company are also working in "flexi time". It means that you are supposed to work 7,5 hours per day, but you don't have timetable, you can work 10 hours during two days, then take a day off,... As long as you work enough hours at the end of the month and that the job is done, it's ok for them! That's the secret of how I managed to travel so much this summer!! :D
The company is also situated just in front of the sea. All the sunny days, we have then been to the beach for lunch, eating on the sand, in the sun! I even went once swimming, but I've been attacked by a gellyfish, so it has been my only swimming lunch break!! :D

I still have one more week working there. I'm going to show to my "boss" all what we have done this summer, and teach him how to use the program we used. Then, we will have a big web conference on wednesday where we are going to present our results in front of specialist coming from Norway, Denmark and Brasil who are going to help us for the interpretation of the results...

So as you have maybe understood, it has been a really interesting summer job, I have learned A LOT!! And I'm interested in this domain, so I think I'll keep an eye on these kind of companies....

One more weekend travelling! Some of you must really have some doubts about the summer job I told you I have!! But I'm still working! Don't worry! and I'll explain you soon what I'm doing :) but first... the Hardengavidda!!!

Last friday, alarm clock early in the morning... difficult for me to wake up early, I have hopefully finished my backpack (late) yesterday evening, but I still need to buy a little bit of food before to take the bus in the centrum... Hurry up, don't be late for the bus, there is only one today, and i'll have a lot of time to sleep in the bus!! I'm finally in advance for the bus, and it's sunny outside, so i take a little nap in the sun while waiting the bus driver... He finally arrives, and I'm on the way to Haukeli! I want to look at the landscape but, unfortunatelly, after 3minuts, I fall asleep! ;-) i finally wake up close to where i have to change of bus, and the landscape is wonderfull, high mountains, steep cliffs, small villages in the valley, spots of snow, ... waw!! I quit the bus in Haukeli, smaller than a village, a camping, a motel, a tourist info office, some tents with some souvenirs shop, and a bus stop!! I spend one hour waiting the second bus, sunbathing and reading in the grass next to the river...

The second bus finally arrive, Thomas is in this one, we just have 30minuts more to drive and we arrive in Haukeliseter!
There is not much over there... a big cabin, and then a lake, and some mountains... perfect for a hiking weekend! But we will not spend the weekend at the cabin, which is reaaaaaaaally expensive!! We just rent there a canoë for the afternoon and we go to explore the lake and the possibilities for setting the tent!
The weather forecast told us a lot of rain for this weekend, so we cannot put the tent in one of these really flat and soft dry swomps, their are not going to stay dry much longer!! We finally find a nice place, we go back to the cabin to transfer our backpack in the canoë, we then paddle back to the camping place to drop our material and finally back again to the cabin to give back the canoë!
When we arrive at the cabin, their have heated the sauna, which is accessible to all the residents... but there are so many residents, their cannot realise that we are not part of them, and we take also a relaxing moment in the sauna! When we begin to melt, we jump in the cold lake (13° last time their measured the temperature...) and we walk back to our packpacks! It's already getting late and we still have to set up the tent and cook our dinner! We manage to do all of this before the sunset, and without being eaten by mosquitos!
The Norwegian mountains are full of mosquitos, it's crazy! Hopefully, this time (not like when Seb came...) we have the mosquito repealant, and its effect is amazing!! You can see a cloud of mosquito staying wisely at 50cm from you, then a brave one dare to approach, he land on your skin, and trun imediatly back to the cloud without biting you!! :D

Saturday morning, when we wake up ... rain, heavy rain... so we wait it to be a bit more clam to go hikking. The sky gets finally a bit more blue, and we go on our hike, toward the summit of .... We begin our walk by following a trak along the lake, then we reach another lake, and we take a lunch break under a shinning sun in a wonderfull landscape! After the break, it's time to quit the path, and climb, climb, climb... along a river. The summit is on the other side of the river. We are supposed to cross it, and it's suppose to be always possible to cross it at a safe place, anytime in the year... But we walked along the river up to the lake where the rivers comes from, and I wouldn't had crossed this river in any point!! It was maybe due to the heavy rain of the night, but the flow looked a bit strong to cross easily!! However, during the trip, we fill our bottles with the water from the rivers, and it tastes much better than down at the cabin! Real fresh natural pure mountain water!
Anyway, when we arrived at the begining of the river, it was getting late, and some clouds where arriving on us... it was time to go back down in the valley! We took another path, met some sheeps staying there for the summer, and had some wonderfull landscape all along the way back!

As the cabin was on the way back to the tent, we came again there to have a sauna (again!) and take a shower... It's really welcome after a walk of 8 hours!! Nobody noticed we are not sleeping there and that we are not supposed to be there, some are even already used to see us around! :D

New night at the tent, the mosquito are still too shy to attack us, and we can cook outside, in a cloud of mosquitos staying just away enough from us!!

Sunday morning, my muscles are painfull... The walk of yesterday and the night sleeping nearly on the ground killed me!!! I will have to train of the next hiking trips!! We pack the tent and close our backpack, and we walk back to the cabin! We leave our bags there, and go for a short walk on the other side of the valley, it's more flat than yesterday, there are more lakes, we even walk in some snow! but i'm exhausted and we don't go too far from the cabin!

It's finally time to take the bus back, as usual, I sleep... but i'm finally really happy to find my bed back at home and have a good resting night!!

This weekend, I went back to Trondheim at Thomas place!! After a loooooong trip by train (but i managed to sleep quiet well :), i arrived early saturday morning, brining with me the sun of Kristiansand!
The program of the weekend was full... We had to take a revange on a cabin that i haven't found last semester... FOSENKOIA!!

Another couple of student (Damien and Anna) were suposed to go to the same cabin on friday and we were going to join them on saturday, but friday evening, they came back without having seen this ghost cabin that half of the students do not found... Anna was exhausted from the friday trip to have a second try imediatly, but Damien joined us to find it!! And equiped with maps, compas and GPS, we brake a record and found this cabin in only 2hours walking!! But it's really not an easy one! Even with all the material, it's easy to go to much north and get lost in the mountains, the swomps, the forest,... The cabin is hidden until the last moment, but this time, we had a really nice weather and we were more than motivated to find it!!

We arrived then for lunch, and after a tea, we went to climb the Munken mountain, at 500meters above the fjord, with a nice view on Trondheim! We came back to the cabin by another path, had a nap in the sun next to a lake on the way, and finally arrived back at the cabin at dinner time!
The evening hasn't been really long, even with the sun still up in the sky around 11pm, we were exhausted by the trip and went to sleep right after dinner!

We walked back to Trondheim in the afternoon, not by the way that we took to come, but going on the top of the montains which were on the way. From the top, it was possible to see the cabin! And while going down from the mountain, I found the place where we get lost last winter!! Even without 1meterof snow, even if it was half foggy when we where there last semester, i reconized the place!!! :D And we were not close to the cabin yet!!

While back at home, shower and dinner, and we gave the key of Fosenkoia to another student who was going there on monday... She had a GPS but she didn't know how did it worked, an she didn't had any map!! So we showed her how it works and gave her our map... Maybe it helped them, we don't know yet if they reached it!!

On Monday, we planed our next trip to the Hardengavidda and we perpared a big pzza dinner for all the "dinausorus of Moholt"! There are still a few erasmus from last year who are still there for summer job, and we shared the dinner with Barto, Eva, Cris, Damien, Anna, Maru, Michele, and Marcus, THomas new flatmate, only new student in the middle of all of us! We made a pizza experiment (only one hopefully...) with Browncheese... hmmmm... special... but we also tasted a brazilian dessert pizza with banana, sooooooo good but unfortunatelly we were all already done!!

We finished the evening in the basement... it's so strange to go there and not to reconize anybody, it was full of new students freshly arrived for the summer courses! But the basement atmosphere was still there :)

And finally today is the day back to Kristiansand... I'm in the train all the day and i have the computer with me to work a bit so you are lucky because i also have enough time to add some fresh news!!

Now, the rythm should be a bit more calm, I haven't planed anything for the next two weeks, no visitors, no trip... Maybe i'll finally find a bit of time next weekend to visit Kristiansand!!

Sebastien has just left on thursday afternoon, and on friday really early in the morning, Thomas was arriving! My agenda of visitors and trips is quiet full this summer... :D
On the afternoon, we left from the centrum to go to the "Slakk festival", a weekend at John's summer house with many of his friends coming from all around Norway for the occasion! The summer house belongs to his family and is situated on Ny Hellesund, a little archipelago at 30min by bus and 15min by ferry from Kristiansand. And the cabin in immediatly on the shore, like most of the cabins on this islands... We stayed there until saturady evening, for a really nice time! There are many things to do over there!! We had a barbecue, went kayaking around the neighbouring islands, sailing on John's soling, went fishing some crabs by night and ate them the next day, and between all of that, sunbathing and jump in the sea between the gelyfish!!! A really nice place and really nice weekend!!

We came back earlier than everybody else to have time on sunday to visit Kristiansand... sightseen from the island behind the harbourg, old city, ice cream on the harbourg,...

One more nice weekend!!