Text chunk-post about me and Halifax

Warning: All the dry text comes here, and in the next post all the photos.. 

I have been here in Halifax for a little more than a month now, and I very much enjoy it. I arrived the 26th of August, had about a week to settle in, and then my classes began. Here's some thoughts and facts about my stay here - feel free to skip to the parts (if any) you find interesting. ;)

A little about where I live: Halifax is in Nova Scotia, on the far South-East cost of Canada. It's a very "lagom"-sized city for me: not too big and not too small. There is quite a lot of green, trees and parks here and there, and a lot of cute wooden houses, some beautiful and majestic stone houses from the x00's, and also quite a lot of ugly, square-shaped concrete buildings. I'm staying at a YMCA International House - usually in my experience the YMCAs are hostels, but this one rents out rooms primarily for a longer time. There are about 30 other students here, mostly international, and we're sharing bathrooms, kitchen and a common room. 

I have my own room on the corner of the building, with one window out to the park across the street and one window to the blank wall of the neighbouring building, so I have quite a lot of light and practically no-one can look in. Pictures will probably come at some point when I have stowed away all my stuff in the drawers... (The location of the YMCA is great - 1/2 minute to the nearest park, 7 minutes to the campus where I have one of my classes, 15 minutes to walk to the other (bigger) campus, 5 minutes to the nearest grocery stores and 20 minutes to the superstores (enormous grocery stores), 10 minute bike ride to the bigger park/forest, 1 minute to the main street with bars, shops, libraries, 10 minutes to the downtown with other bars and 15-20 minutes to the waterfront (great to walk a long the waterfront), etc.) 

Oh, and by the way - the weather has mostly been amazing here! A few gray days now and then, some heavy and some fog-like rain, but mostly sun. During the daytime it's still t-shirt warm outside in the sun. Not at all the windy, gray, rainy city I was fearing before I came!

About what I'm doing here: I'm on exchange from my university in Gothenburg, and I'm staying here until Christmas. I'm in my third year of studying in Sweden now - in the summer of 2014 my plan is to have a bachelor's degree in Environmental Sciences with a sociological perspective and in Human Ecology. In this I also try to put as much learning about behaviour and psychology as possible. Here in Halifax I'm taking five courses at Dalhousie University. (Which is called full-time, but it's a lot more than full-time with human ecology in Sweden... These past three weeks I've been studying about 50-60 hours a week to keep up with all my readings and assignments.) It's a lot, but it's very, very interesting. It's so fascinating how my courses' themes intertwine and touch and all the interconnections I'm finding here and there and everywhere. The courses I'm taking are:
- Introduction to psychology and neuroscience
- Community design (a city planning-class with a focus on living, local communities)
- The mind and the machine - introduction to cognitive science (a philosophy course)
- Enterprise sustainability 
- Environmental problem solving

The remaining time of the week I basically spend with nice people, salsa, nature and learning. With some friends here I've been going on a hike every Sunday, taking the bus to a new place every time. We've been to a beautiful lake called Long Lake (the area looks a lot like Scandinavia), to the cliffs of Herring's Cove (lots of big, splashing waves coming in from the sea and possibilities of rock climbing), and last weekend we did a combined study- and swimming hike to a place called William's lake. Next weekend we have a day off because of Thanksgiving, and I'm going with a group from the YMCA on a road trip to see some of the wonderful nature areas that Nova Scotia have to show. Very much looking forward to it! 

Afternoons with good weather I often do my readings in the Public Gardens, the park across the street from where I live. I'm also frequently visiting a park/forest here called Point Pleasant Park - it's somewhat like Bygdøy in Oslo. Last time I was there I was doing some school work, and I was visited by a small squirrel. It ate from my hand, even sat on it, and came back several times during the time I spent there. Therapy for animal abstinence-Signe... Oh yeah, and I started learning salsa! It's a lot of fun, and I'm enjoying it a lot. 

During my time here I have also been on adventures in the YMCA building, been swimming in the pool here (there's a sports centre downstairs that we who live here can use for free), been trying my first yoga class (the classes downstairs are also free), tried to balance on a slack line (so fun! I really want to try it more), saved a mouse from the kitchen (that would otherwise have been killed, and released it into the park), started the fire alarm (and learned that the kitchen door really has to be closed when someone's cooking), bought a bike (love it!), played table top games, had second breakfast on Bilbo's birthday (so much good food and such nice people!), tried local wine from Nova Scotia (white, sweet, good!), fed ducks in the park in secret, dared to go the Thursday salsa night alone to find people to practice my salsa with (some of you might know me well enough to know how much of my courage I had to conjure to actually do that... It was great, though! Met some of the people I dance with in my salsa classes and some other nice people, and I had a great time), visited the Farmer's Market (I wish the had a similar in Gothenburg/Oslo! I have to look more into what already exists there.), watched some episodes of Star Trek Voyager (now I have almost never ending supplies of science fiction series to enjoy!), fallen asleep while reading (repeatedly), been so amazed during talks that I couldn't stop smiling, become disappointed with Canada, become impressed with Canada, been ashamed of Norway (& Sweden), been proud of Norway (& Sweden), drawn monsters and squirrels, stressed, calmed down, stressed again, calmed down again, and generally enjoyed life.

Through a school assignment called "Interviewing a problem solver" I had a great conversation with a woman called Ruth Gamberg, from the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax - it was so inspiring! With her I went to my first "Lunch and Learn" here in Halifax, hopefully the first of many to come. This one was about saving energy in homes. It's very inspiring and interesting to learn also in areas outside of school, and I take every opportunity I can get. I have for example been to a film screening of the movie Blackfish followed by a panel talk about orcas/killer whales in captivity, and to a very inspiring one-day conference about sustainable and local fashion (Sow to Sew), with participants from all over Canada, the US and Europe. Hopefully I can do some volunteering at the Ecology Action Centre - they seem to be having a lot of interesting projects going on. 

During my time here I also try take the chance as often as possible to speak to people from the local student associations and other organizations here - I'm getting a lot of inspiration and ideas for the student association we started up in Gothenburg in 2012: Handels Students for Sustainability (Handels/Handelshögskolan is the faculty I'm studying at in Gothenburg). This way a lot of my time is spent on school releated issues even outside of my study-time, but I guess that's what happens when you're studying that which really interests you...