First Afternoon in Sweden

I had decided that the best way to try to accommodate the 9 hours difference in time zones was immersion. So, I resolved to try to stay awake until dark. That being the case, Sture and I went on up to the University. Firstly, Sture kindly offered to share a part of his office with me for duration of my visit. Then he took me out for lunch. I wish I could tell you about the wonderfully well balanced, vegetarian meal that I had, but in point of fact I had a large pork medallion with boiled potatoes with mushroom sauce.

It was just as well that I did go to school with Sture. The fellow who was installing the software on the computers in the computer lab where I am giving the course was having trouble getting it to work from the files that I had sent him. One of the files that I had sent him was incomplete. After about an hour spend diagnosing the problem, I am pretty sure that we have resolved matters there. He is going to install the software again on a “real” machine as we were playing around with a “virtual” environment on his computer. I’ll then check things early Monday morning.

I then went to the Chemistry afternoon tea and renewed a few old acquaintances and was introduced to a number of new (to me) staff. Apparently, my reputation preceded me: I am known as the Python man. I am not sure that is what I want engraved on my tombstone!

We then went to a seminar on basis functions for QM calculations for 5 atom molecules. I dozed off a couple of times, but I think in that one instance I will be forgiven.

After the seminar Sture drove us home to eat at 6, since they were going out to play mixed doubles tennis that evening. Lena served up a delicious fish stew with salmon, white fish, prawns, snow peas, and red capsicum in a cream sauce: it was quite delicious. Sydney also ate dinner with us. At the moment he is working with the elderly as a visitor.

After Lena and Sture had left for their tennis, I held out until about 8:30 by which time it was dark. I fell asleep quite quickly and woke at 1:30 and the 3:30 when I got up. After sorting a few things out with my possessions, I then started drafting these blog entries.