Jani Bizjak

I was preparing to go to sleep. Before I went to the bathroom I gave a quick look out of the window and what a sight. Northern lights, a bit dim but still noticeable from my dorm room despite all the lights on the parking lot below. When I saw them I took my camera with light speed and took couple of shots. Here is a taste of it. My only regret is that I didn’t go with other guys out of the city lights to watch them. I wasn’t expecting them this early in the summer (there is a bit of horizon still visible at this hour).

Today we had an academic workshop class at university. It was an information class for Erasmus students, where they told us basic information that we’ll need while studying here. After this class we went to another building to get our LTU cards. This are something like Slovenian student’s cards except here you can actually enter university with it. If I’m not mistaken, here you can come to university at 3 am in the morning, unlock it with the card and study or do whatever… There is only one problem with this cards, they took our pictures on the spot (in front of a desk) with web-cam (that couldn’t be HD) so we are all weird on this photos now.

After we got the LTU cards we (me, roommate and some friends) went to the city. The crown princess of Sweden was coming to Lulea on an old boat (buoyancy operated aquatic transport). The ship is a remake of 18th century Swedish East Indiaman. It’s the largest sailing wooden ship in the world.



When the ship came close to the harbour it fired few cannon shots. I managed to get a picture of it, although the sun was just behind the ship so I had terrible lighting conditions. I think Nejc managed to film the event so you can probably check it out on his blog when he’ll post it.



The sailors on the ship were all dressed in period clothing and when the ship docked they began to sing (in English) some pirate song. It was really cool to see. The crew was also manning the sails and running all over the place.



When ship finally docked the princess came off the ship and to the main stage on land. Where they (city officials) told something in Swedish. Later she spoke 3 words (I was actually expecting a speech) and then she laid some memorial stone on the ground. After that she went back to the ship. She was there just to look good for the photos, I think.



Almost forgot; this time I went to the city with bike it took me around 15 minutes which is remarkably faster than walking (1h).

Today I’ve been working on blog some more. I’ve almost finished gallery, you can’t enlarge photos yet, but hopefully I’ll manage to do that tomorrow.

On the other news I’ve finally managed to buy a bike. I’ve got it from some Swedish guy for 500 SEK. He said he’ll buy it back in December when I’m going home, so total price will be cheaper still. The bike is basic with only 1 gear but it has a light (which will come in handy in few months) and I got a bike lock for free. It’s a good bike for price although I’ll probably struggle with it when it comes to slopes, thankfully there aren’t that many around here.

When I came home I met my new roommate. He’s from France so I’ll probably be able to buy another bridge or a river (internal joke).

The days up here are getting short really fast. Now you can barely see horizon at the darkest of the night and the sunset is well before 9pm already. This morning (or rather middle of night) the sky was coloured with really nice blue gradient. Exposure was around 10s, so the picture looks much lighter than it was in reality, but the sky is approximately the same colour, although I don’t know where those concentric circles came from.



At around 11am I and my only (for now) roommate, whose name I finally know, went to the university where we had “get to know each other” picnic. Well it wasn’t really picnic for say … When we were to go outside it started to rain so we sat in the lobby and talked, while too many people were eating salads (come on, you don’t eat salad on picnic :) ). After about an hour the sky cleared so we were able to go outside. We went on a nearby field where we played some (Swedish) games.

Oh yeah, and for socializing part, I found out there are really a lot of Germans here with Erasmus and I met another Slovenian. It was quite funny actually as I didn’t know he was Slovenian and all of a sudden someone says something to me in Slovenian, I must have looked confused because everyone laughed then and he repeated sentence in English, it turns out we actually go to the same faculty in Slovenia.



Swedes up here at university that are taking care of us exchange students. Look at the hair :) .


Later this evening another Slovenian, this one I know, came here. He's name is Nejc.