First Visit Downtown to Goteborg

Well, Sture had to go to a meeting of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science yesterday (Yes, he is one those people who vote on who gets the Nobel prize in Chemistry.), So, I got a chance to try the public transport to University. I was a bit inept at paying my bus fare but was aided greatly by the fact that there does not seem to be any Swedish educated person who does not speak reasonable English, even bus drivers! I got off the bus downtown because I wanted to do a bit of shopping, but the electronics store that I wanted to shop at was closed. So, I turned the rest of the mile long uphill walk to the University into a bit of a photo shoot. Here are a few of the photos

Here is a sculpture of Poseidon in the middle of the Goteborg theatre complex.
Here is what the path looked like as I walking up the long hill to the University. There is a bicycle path to the left, and a footpath to the right. It is interesting how they have laid down concrete pads so that things weren't quite so slippery (It is very wet here.) and so that service vehicle can use the path without tearing up the cobblestones.

Here is the side view of the Swedish version of an ATM.
This is a statue of Victor Rydberg, a famous Swedish poet of the 1880s. According to Sture, he wrote some stirring stuff. I couldn't quite extract from Sture why he was depicted with a sword in hand.

How many Chemistry Departments have their own public street (named after the Chemistry discipline) leading to their front door? Kemi - Chemistry, vagen - road


I had my first class yesterday. It was structured into two parts: a general, sales pitch oriented general public lecture to which all were invited, and a discussion of special projects which are to be the basis of student assessment with the students and their supervisors (who were also invited). I had thought that most of the students were to be undergraduate science majors. It turns out that all but one are post-graduate students, primarily in engineering. Anyway, the public lecture went very well, and in the special projects discussion I was almost too STUNNED for words. All but one (the undergraduate) had a clearly articulated project in mind. It must be great to teach University in the Swedish system. Anyway, I think I am really going to enjoy teaching this course and am glad that I put so much time in preparing the materials.

Sture and I went on another walk in his backyard forest yesterday. This time in about 45 minutes we gathered enough blueberries for the four of us to have on top of our ice cream after Lena served up some delicious chicken curry last night.