Helsinki Part 1

I spent a weekend in Helsinki, Finland back in October (better late than never) before the snow started.

It seems that best way to get to Helsinki from Sweden is via a giant cruise ship. They're often referred to as booze cruises because all of the alcohol is tax free. My friend and I hid in our room for the trip.

There is a very strange age-limit rule for these ships. If you take the ship over one night and come back the next night (spending only a few hours in Helsinki) you need to be 21 or have your guardian with you. If you spend a night in a hotel in Helsinki, you only need to be 18... So we spent a night in Helsinki.

Finland claims to be the home of Santa (Canada claims the same thing...) and the cruise line we went with is the official searcher of Santa Claus.



Our room. It was pretty wavy on the way there. The boat left Stockholm in the evening and did not get into Helsinki until the next morning.



We got off the ship to find snow. It hadn't snowed yet in Uppsala so neither or us was particularly prepared. I could have done with some warmer clothing.



I found a Canadian flag in Helsinki!



Helsinki Cathedral - The snow did make everything really pretty.



We took a boat to Suomenlinna (Finnish) or Sveaborg (Swedish), an old sea fortress where people still live. It was very pretty albeit very windy.



Augustin Ehrensvärd's Burial Monument - He designed the fortress.



A fun part of the outside wall.



There was Hobbit houses!



More Hobbit houses!



Even more!



Very pretty but cold.



Looking out from the fortress.



Still at the fortress.



At the fortress.



More pictures of Helsinki tomorrow.

Exams

I wrote my first big exam on Monday. (Somehow I avoided them by having projects instead.)

At UVic you either write your exam in a classroom (often with small desks and uncomfortable chairs) or in the gym (big, drafty, bigger tables, and uncomfortable chairs).

At Uppsala, they have exam halls dedicated for exam writing. The one I was in held about 500 people (we weren't even close to full even though there were several classes taking exams.)  We had nice big desks and comfy chairs (cushions!) And there was a conveniently located clock that I could actually read. There were also bathrooms in the exam hall so you could get up to use them whenever you needed to. A light turned on when they were all in use. It was also warmer than the UVic gym.

After the exam, I was talking with a Swede and she said she thought that the exam was long. Coming from UVic, I didn't think so at all. We had 12 questions and 5 hours to write it. At UVic, I imagine the test would have had the same number of questions but we would have been given only 3 hours to write it. Although 5 hours is a long time to sit and write an exam, it was nice not having to rush through it.

Also, while at UVic we are allowed a one page formula sheet (if anything) at Uppsala you get this:



A 503 page book of every formula, constant, and unit you could ever need. It has every piece of data you could imagine for all of the elements (densities, binding energies, properties of radioactive nuclei...), well-organized formula in basically every area of physics, mathematical formula (basic derivatives, integrals, Taylor series, Fourier, geometric formulae...), the history of the elements, information on famous physicists, and important physics and engineering events. My only questions is: why doesn't the rest of the world use it? Apparently their is also a complete mathematics version that you also often get to use.

Last but not least, if you fail the exam you get an automatic re-write. They really want you to pass here.

More posts to come...