#lifeindalarna

[guttatheviking]

Sunset in Sweden

Recently, we had quite a lot of days with amazing weather with bright sun and less clouds. It is starting to get cold and the daylight is reducing every day, when you are here you might want to grab any opportunity you get to spend more time in the sun outdoors and sunset or sunrise is so beautiful especially with landscape trees changing colours. A few of us went on a photoshoot to capture sunset near a lake. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

[guttatheviking]

Locus - Home Sweet Home

If you are a student at Dalarna University in Borlänge they is no better place to live.

The coolest part about living at locus is not that it has a gym, sauna, study room or the ping pong (Table Tennis) table that I love playing. Well! It is the people living here that make it so special. You get to meet students from all over the world. Learn about different culture and tasty food of different cuisines. You never get bored, there is always something you can do or someone to talk too.

Let me introduce some of them. :)

Those are my colleagues Mazen and Shazib from Iraq and Pakistan before going to Festival Salute.

This is my Finnish friend Marianne with delicious cake on her birthday.

Galina and Camille from Germany and France dressed up on Halloween.

Italian Chef Fabio experimenting on Italian cuisine.

Sanne a fellow blogger from Netherland.

My friends from Tourism programme.

This is the beautiful Lake Runn in Falun in the back, along with bunch of my neighbours.

And finally my blogger family in Sweden. 

Well! Not everything is good at anyplace, be prepared. There maybe someone who loves your food, the food in the fridge tends to get disappeared sometimes. If you are really unlucky parts of your bike or the bike itself might vanish into the woods. 😉 Fortunately I was the less unlucky guy. Hope I didn't scare you, it is rare that things go missing so don't worry. Ahh! I just remembered a quote from one of the ESES graduate in the Solar Bible (Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes by Duffie). Here you go.

A tip for those of you applying to Tunabyggen for housing "Have Patience". They are very slow when it comes to responding to mails and apply as soon as possible so you can get a room before arriving here. 

I do miss my cozy room back in India, mom's delicious food. Gosh! my motorcycle, I miss going on a long drive with friends. But Well! Locus and Borlänge have there charm and mysterious ways of making you feel at home. Its just been three months since I arrived here but it feels like I have stayed here for more than a year now. 

Here is link to my friend Laëtitia's blog to know more about accommodation: http://www.ayearinsweden.com/accommodation/

My room was a big surprise for me when I arrived here, since Tunabyggen had no photos of accommodation they provide. It was rather a good surprise for me not so much for my friend though. 

Before I forget, this is the picture of my room when it is neat and tidy. ^_^

Next week, I have something special for you and will introduce you to my best buddies who are responsible for running this blog so beautifully.

[guttatheviking]

A day with Swedes!

Last week was pretty special.

I had an opportunity to meet my Instagram friend Lisa Ask and her husband Thomas in Falun.

Who would have ever thought Instagram could connect people. It was such a pleasure to meet the Swedish couple. 

I met Lisa last year in Instagram while searching about Dalarna University and Life in Dalarna especially about Borlänge and Falun. She was so generous to provide some information about life in Sweden.

It was so kind of them to come and pick me up from the university. Then we went to their home in Falun. Once we reached, Lisa took me around there beautiful house. 

After that we sat down for some delicious Swedish Fish soup that Lisa made and had Fika (Knowing that my dad worked in Unilever, she brought some Lipton tea for me). It was inspiring to here their stories how Thomas became Bridge Inspector from Shoe Maker and I also got some insight of Swedish tradition. 

After Lunch we had a walk around Falun. Though the weather was not at its best, the old town still looked so spectacular. 

The secret behind the red colour of the houses you see in most part of Sweden, this red colour (Copper-oxide) is a byproduct of the copper mine in Falun. 

This building was built in 1800's and still stands so rigid. Simply amazing. 

This is the last mechanical pump in Falun. Love these heritage sites especially when they are related to mechanical things.

It was interesting to know most of the land in Falun is made up of landing filling from mining waste. 

We went to Barockträdgården, the place where mining engineers lived before. But it became dark by the time we reached, I hope to visit there sometime again during day.

This picture of glass house was from the same place. It was good to see this glass house working in practical as I just studied about it in Passive Solar lecture by Matt the previous day. 

I can’t wait to me their entire family and visit their summer cottage up north in Sweden next to a lake. 

Well! The day cant end without a selfie. ;)

Thank you Lisa and Thomas again for an amazing day. 

[guttatheviking]

Get Lost!

Yeah get lost! You heard me right. The best thing that can happen to you in Borlänge.

Last week I went to buy a bike from a local who lived 4 km up north. My friend accompanied me, we had to walk for an hour to reach the place called Kvarnsveden. We found the place with the help of few locals.

I test drove the bike, I loved it. The owner of the bike was so kind and humble, he gave me a discount when he heard that this was my first bike in Sweden. I promised him that next time I meet him I would speak in swedish. 

This was in Kvarnsveden just before we took off.

We decided not to use gps on our way back home. That was one of the best decisions we took.

And off-course we got LOST. :) We discovered so many beautiful parts of Borlänge which we would have not seen if we had not got lost.

We found a small valley with beautiful trees and golden leaves, at the end of the road there was a very big mansion. We had to turn back and drive uphill again. 

On the way back we heard a stream of water through the woods. We followed the sound and we landed up at this spot. 

So beautiful was the view of the Dala river. 

We followed the stream and found a Dam where there was a hydro power turbine generating electricity.

There were small wooden bridges across small streams of the river. 

We found an arch bridge where we finally decided to go back to main lane back to home. Then we realised we drove 4 km across the river in the wrong direction. We took another way back from the bridge. We ended up at the place where festival salute took place from there we knew our way back home. 

It was an adventurous way to discover Borlänge and I would suggest you to do something like this if you get some spare time during your studies here at Dalarna University.