Hi there and Happy Easter!
I’ll willingly admit that the fact that it’s Easter almost passed me by completely. We don’t get a nice Easter Break with days off school here. There might be some puns about eggs going around, and some candy on offer in the grocery store, but that’s about it.

I suddenly realized it is already about three weeks since I left Canada. The days are long but the weeks are short? I’m back in San Diego and almost halfway through this my last quarter at UCSD. My head fills with thoughts when I write that, and at some point I’ll sit down and gather my thoughts on this, but until that happens, here are some photos and text about the last part of my Canada spring break and a little about what I’m doing this quarter.

Whistler.
A legendary place for anyone who has been skiing for a bit and a place that seems to be pictured in any ski-magazine you pick up. I took the bus from Vancouver, which took less than two hours, and checked in to the hotel I had booked. It was a very chic “pod-hotel” where instead of a room, each guest gets a small 2×1.5x1m “pod” with a mattress, clothes hooks, a shelf and power outlets. Not much but just enough. Bathrooms and ski storage was shared with the other guests and there was a restaurant at the hotel. Though I didn’t try that one actually, because Whistler had more than you might ever need in terms of restaurants and cafes, plenty of vegan options, and every well known outdoor brand seemed to have its own store in the village. There was several spas, gyms, yoga studios, plenty of shopping, basically anything you could ask for if you don’t like skiing but have a bit (read: quite a lot) of money to spend. I ended up going to the grocery store most of the days buying hummus and crackers that I ate outside in the sunshine for breakfast and lunch. Oh the life of a traveller on a budget. 

Whistler Mountain itself was awesome. Just across a small valley is Blackcomb Mountain and the two are connected by a gondola that takes about 15 minutes and connects two ski systems to one – Whistler-Blackcomb. It’s huge. It’s so big that you could spend several days skiing without having to take the same slope twice, and all the kids in the ski school needs to have trackers on them during lessons in case they get lost. 

Even though the slopes that were unprepared could have used some more snow (many of them felt more like mogul downhill runs than skiable slopes) my overall impression of the skiing was really good. If you got of the gondola at the very top, put on your skis and pushed off you could travel from high alpine terrain and cold snow and about 17 minutes later arrive down in the sherbet-like slush down in Whistler Village without having to use your ski poles at all.

My favorite run was the Blackcomb Glacier. Taking a T-bar lift almost to the top and hoisting your skis onto your shoulder, walking the last 50 vertical meters or so, you stood atop a slope stretching over the whole valley. At the bottom of the glacier there was an ice cave. Having just finished a course about ice, of course I just had to go in and stod for a long time with my chin in my hand and just stared. Like swirling blue marble, massive and surprisingly warm to the touch. Beautiful.

I do also have to make a comment on how friendly the Canadians are on the slopes. Having skied mostly in Riksgränsen (a very small place in northern Sweden) where you don’t really get any lines for the lifts, or in the Alps where queuing can get a bit disorderly and you might get an elbow or two aimed at your sides, standing in line for the lifts was almost ridiculously well organized in Canada. There was always clear signs and ropes put up, zipper merging happened seamlessly without anyone being told what to do, and there were even “sniffle stations” where they gave out free tissues to blow your nose before getting on the lift, so as to avoid annoying your fellow passengers with your sniffles. There were even signs reminding skiers about not smoking on the mountain, and to please avoid foul language. Like I said, Canada is well organized.

After four days in Whistler I headed back to Vancouver and spent two days exploring downtown, went to a concert and an art museum, and did a hike outside town, before I boarded a plane to San Diego late on a Monday evening. 10 hours later I found myself in a classroom at Scripps and spring quarter 2019 had officially kicked off.

This quarter I’m taking four classes again, at least for now (I might reduce that to three, we’ll see). One course is about satellites and remote sensing, two are about observational techniques and instruments used in physical oceanography, and one is an engineering course called “Design for Development” where we are paired with a local community or NGO and tasked with helping them solve a problem. I chose that one in an attempt to revive my engineering skills. So far, all the courses are interesting and a fun mix between theory and practice. In addition to filling my days with school work, I’m also working one day a week in the lab where I can to get some dirt under my nails doing everything from stripping cables to cleaning transducers that are being refurbished. I volunteer at the Aquarium from time to time, and have also managed to join the UCSD sailing team. (I you might have guessed, I won’t have any troubles filling my days before I go back to Sweden.) The sailing season is almost over, and there are no more competitions left, so pretty much anyone can join the team and just sail for fun. I have sailed a little bit before and I know how to handle a Laser, but sailing FJ’s with two people and two sails is something completely new. The boats (FJ’s) are about 4.5 meters long and if you’re a newbie you get to be “crew”, sitting in the front mainly trying to redistribute the weight in the boat to make it as straight in the water as possible. It involves a lot of moving around fast on slippery surfaces and my legs and arms are covered in bruises from falling into things. But it’s fun and I’m learning a lot, not the least a bunch of sailing terms in English. When you’re asked if you know how to for example tie a bowline you have answer maybe, and when they show you what it is you can say: “of course I know how to tie a PÅLSTEK”, and  “paaaaulstekkkk” is what you get in return. Quite funny. Bruise-producing and a little head-spinning with all the new words, but I am enjoying it.

Now I’ll get back to studying for a bit, before I’ll take a guitar-playing break, making the most of the fact that my housemates are at Coachella this weekend and I have the whole house to myself. 

As always, thank you for reading and take care!