Monday, 13. July 2009, 16:04:41
Events
Last week, I was in Kraków for a conference on Spintronics. Actually it was entitled Fifth International School and Conference on Spintronics and Quantum Information Technology. The program was VERY dense, with lectures and talks starting at 9:00 and lasting until 18:00 or even 21:30 on two days. But I got to meet a bunch of interesting people, I got to walk around in Kraków a little, and I probably even learned something 
Kraków is quite nice at any rate. It offers an old city center that spreads medieval flair, some nice parks, and a LOT of churches. Seriously, this must be the most religious place on earth or something. All this results in a LOT of tourists too. I always thought Salzburg was a tourist place, but Kraków seems to be even more popular!
Luckily, I had some hours to spare on Sunday before my plane left for Norway. I met up with some people I met at the conference and we visited the castle. It's quite a nice and big one actually, worth to see! But so is Kraków in general!
Thursday, 9. July 2009, 15:50:40
Natur, photography, Events
From May 31st till June 4th, my group organized a conference at a quite exotic and remote place: the arctic archipelago of Svalbard (in German better known as "Spitzbergen"). I had been looking forward to this event for quite some time and I was really excited to get a glimpse of this piece of arctic wilderness!
The flight itself turned out to be quite nice in fact. We had to take a plane from Oslo and we had a short stop in Tromsø. I had a hard time not looking out of the window constantly because the landscapes of northern Norway were just too amazing to look at! A little later, the plane started its descent and we were flying in over Isfjorden, the biggest fjord of Svalbard. Countless snow covered mountain peaks (mathematically speaking they were in fact quite countable...) lined the fjord that was still covered by ice along the coast.
A little later (including a short welcome and introduction as well as the warning to not leave the settlements alone due to the danger of polar bears) we already found ourselves in a nice and comfy hotel and had our first experience with the local culture: Back in the days when people on Svalbard were spending their time digging for coal in mines, they started taking off their shoes whenever they went inside. And the people of Svalbard still hold on to this tradition, which is why there is a big shoe rack at the entrance of the hotel. We put our luggage in our rooms and went out for a first exploratory tour through Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard. Speaking of "local culture": it is pretty much the same as on the Norwegian main land. One does not have to search long to find a 7 eleven shop and the like! Even the houses look pretty much the same as in the rest of Norway, even though the temperatures are more severe. On the other hand, I spotted what has to be the northernmost miniramp on this planet.
The next day, the conference started as planned, breakfast, talks, lunch and more talks. The talks were around 20 minutes each and in general rather hard to follow - but I suppose that is what you can expect as a first year PhD candidate among some of the best people in the field. In the evening, a bus took us further inside the Adventdalen to a place called Svalbard Villmarkssenter ("svalbard wilderness center"). The owner of the place showed us a lot of photos and talked about his experiences in his almost 30 years living on Svalbard. They offer dogsledge tours lasting up to two weeks in spring though nothing but complete wildness. Sounded quite interesting, plus we got served Reindeer broth 
Outside again, I took in the fantastic scenery and took some pictures.
Later that day we went for a (couple of) beer in "Svalbar", one of the three bars in Longyearbyen. We even saw one of those cute arctic reindeer running around in the city. When we got back into the hotel, Yaroslav, Matthieu and I played a round of Carambol until 2:30 in the morning. My actual plan for that day was to got to bed early. But when the sun does not set at all but keeps on shining through the windows an everything pretty much looks exactly the same as during day one just doesn't really think about going to bed...
The next day was the highlight of the whole trip: a several hour lasting boat trip on the Isfjorden and into some of its sidearms. This was definitely something very special. We were really lucky with the weather and so we got to see plenty of what Spitsbergen got its name from: pointy mountain summits. We saw a lot of birds that come after the winter and have a good time in the arctic cool of Svalbard (in fact I spent at least two hours altogether to get a good shot of an Arctic Fulmar ("Eissturmvogel"). Mission accomplished, I hope! We also got to see a couple of seals, but only from further away. The plan would have been to go onshore at Pyramiden, an abandoned Russian settlement. Unfortunately, there was still too much ice around so there was no way of getting all the way to the place. But then again, I got to see my first Iceberg, so hey! When we got back to Longyearbyen, I was super tired but also super happy. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have been part of this and to experience a little of one of the last true wilderness regions on this planet.
Despite my tiredness and all my intentions to not go to bed late AGAIN, I went out for beers again. But I don't regret a bit of it: We were sitting outside another bar, having beers at midnight with the sun warming our faces. Let me tell you that this is something special! Not many places offer a midnight outside beer with the sun shining down on you in the middle of an arctic scenery. This is one of them Oh, and did I mention that those guys have seal skins hanging on the walls and as table cloths!? (If it wasn't for the midnight sun, this must keep absolutely everybody happy!)
The next day was a full conference day again, with talks in the morning and in the afternoon. In the evening we had a very nice dinner (the food was absolutely fantastic at our hotel) and after that I went out once more. The following day, it was already time to say goodbye. Daniel and I went for a walk through Longyearbyen, trying to take in the magic of this place one last time.
Sunday, 5. July 2009, 15:56:09
summer, Trondheim, Skateboarden
The last couple of days, Luka, Fabien, and I spent a lot of our spare time in Svartlamon, close to the harbor in Trondheim. The skate hall is closed for summer now, so the all brand new miniramp is a fantastic spot to work on one's skating abilites, hang out, and have the occasional BBQ.
Last time I took my camera gear with me and I got to try my new Elinchrom Skyports for the first time. Those small things are nothing but radio triggers, that now enable me to trigger my flash units remotely via radio transmission. Neat!
The fantastic thing about that, however, is that it is 100% reliable, unlike the optical triggering I have been using so far. There always had to be a clear line of sight between the camera and the flashes and the distance over which the flashes could be triggered was limited to about 10m to 20m, depending on ambient light levels. Not having to worry whether my flashes actually fire or not for a change is a HUGE boost in usability. So now I can use artificial light as much as 100m away from the camera and through walls and the like! If I wish, that is
Thursday, 2. July 2009, 17:28:19
photography, summer, Trondheim
Summer finally came to Trondheim! After a whole month with below average temperatures and a lot of clouds and rain, we are now having a bit of a "heat wave". For a whole week we have had nothing but sunshine and daily highs of 25°C to 28°C.
Needless to say, I was spending A LOT of time on the beach, the harbor, and at the magnificent brand new miniramp they built in Svartlamon (I finally managed to do a rock to fakie by the way - pictures will follow soon!). One of those warm summer days, we went to a small place called Sjøbadet which is somewhat a private open air bath in the harbor. Normally one has to pay to get in but in the evening hours it's fine. It's really not much more than a bigger wooden terrace with a jumping tower thingy. Anyway, was nice to relax there after some skating and the sea water is not half as bad for swimming as one might expect from a place as far north as Northern Alaska!
Check out the photos, hope they carry some of the nice summer atmosphere!Speaking of photos: I got my new Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens and I like it! All above mentioned photos were taken with it.
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