7-fjellsturen

26 May 2008 3 Comments

by Alessandroin Travels Tags: , , , ,

There is a town in the world where once every year almost 5000 people are waking up with only one desire: climb up 7 mountains before the day is over. The name of this town? Bergen.

I was one of those crazy people who managed to finish the so called “7-fjellsturen”. My equipment was just a backpack with a camera, a jacket, a bottle of water, and some sandwiches, but what I needed the most was a lot of motivation and adrenaline.

I started at 9:00 and finished at 23:00, walking for about 35Km and going up for about 2400m in total.

7-fjellsturen map

I am exhausted, stiff, and aching, but it was worth to do it. The weather was perfect, with clear sky and mild temperature. I never enjoyed the nature that much, and at the end of the day I really felt part of it. Now I am left with a diploma, a very exclusive t-shirt, and a lot of good memories…

I want to thank Synnøve, for being the best company I could desire for this trip, and Francesca, for giving me a bar of chocolate when I needed sugars to go on.

First semester almost over…

20 May 2008 No Comments

by Alessandroin Motors, Personal Life, Photography

It is not really a news that I open this post saying that I did not have so much time to write and bla bla bla… But it is actually the truth. My first semester at the University is almost over. I did not touch that much my research project, but I had a lot to do anyway.

I took three courses, the first was Category Theory, the “theory of arrows” as the professor defined it, abstract mathematics for humans… The second was Norwegian Level 1, pretty self-explanatory, and the third was Theory of Science and Ethics, a very interesting course about possible ethical problems of scientific research. In the latter I had to explain my research plan in about 300 words comprehensible by “a guy on the street”. It seemed trivial at the beginning, but believe me, it was not. At the end I reached a good compromise between details and understandability, maybe I will upload it here as well, at least some of my friends will understand what I do in my life. :)

I have been also teaching assistant for Programming II, a course about basic/intermediate Java staff. I was mainly preparing some mandatory assignment and relative solutions, taking care of the organization of the students into groups, and last but not least doing some system administration to create user accounts, something that took so (too) much time. It was really strange to be at the same time a student and a teaching assistant.

I had some little trip at least. During Easter I visited Sognefjord and slept in Selseng, Sogn og Fjordane. Incredible experience there: we had an outdoor jacuzzi with 40C inside the water, and -20 in the air… To complete the atmosphere we had clear sky, full moon, mountains covered by snow all around, beer, and very nice company… almost a perfect night. I have been also in Lindås, Nordhordaland, with the Department of Computer Science. We had the research school there, a series of seminars mainly given by PhD or Post-Doc students. The social event was canoe, this was the first time for me.

I had the chance to try my new waterproof camera. Yes, the Canon EOS is great, but I wanted a point and shoot camera for extreme situations, so I bought a new Olympus 1030SW: waterproof, shockproof, crushproof, freezeproof… I can do almost everything with it! But I also bought two new Canon objectives, an EFS 17-55mm f/2.8 and an EF 50mm f/1.8, together with a new Sigma 530 flash and a Gorilla Pod SLR, just to avoid that my reflex camera becomes jealous. ;)

You probably saw an improvement in the quality of the pictures, don’t you? At least I hope so… :)

What else? Well, next Sunday I will climb all the 7 mountains surrounding Bergen in one day. It is an annual event, called “7 fjellstur” (literally the 7 mountains trip). I am training a bit more this week to be in shape for the event. Let’s see what happens…

As always, pictures will follow.