I arrived in Trondheim in mid-October, with plenty of time before starting my internship project. I had planned some days off to get to know the city and make some hikes. At that point, the weather was not that nice, it was raining a lot, even by Dutch standards. But under the Norwegian motto: "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing," I started exploring the city and visited Bymarka (a natural reserve in the mountains which lies directly next to the city).

Friendly

The city is nice and remarkably clean, and the Norwegians are very decent people. In a manner of speaking, you can take a pedestrian crossing with your eyes closed in Trondheim, something I strongly discourage doing in the Netherlands. And even though the Norwegians say about themselves: “We are only friendly during hikes or when being drunk,” I believe the Norwegian people are friendly and helpful.

The hikes in Bymarka and some cross country skiing tours were fantastic. The nature out there and the views from the mountains are beautiful, especially with the snow. When being in Norway, you also need to do a cabin trip, it is part of the 'Norway experience'. My first cabin trip, four days/three nights, was around New Year's Eve. These cabins don’t have electricity, running water or heating. So back to basics (see main picture, ed.).

Getting water from a water stream close to the cabin, using candles and headlights for some light, and heating the cabin by building a fire in the stove. From my own experience, bring some firelighters to the cabin. When we arrived at the cabin it was -11 degrees inside, so you don’t want to spend a lot of time getting the fire going.

Expensive booze

Besides doing sports and outdoor activities, it is nice to go out to Samfundet, the student society of Trondheim, or the pubs or clubs in the city center. However, be aware that everything is a bit more expensive here than in the Netherlands, especially alcoholic drinks.

My internship was at the department of Electrical Engineering of the NTNU, more specifically, at the Engineering Cybernetics group. Here I did a project intending to compensate for the friction in a DC motor by including a friction model in the controller design. The credits I will get for this internship are the last credits I need to complete my master's in Mechanical Engineering at the Dynamics & Control research group.