Saturday morning we had class - no rest for the weary! Clement, Dator, and Angie all taught their last lectures: 1. Space Biology (Clement), 2. The Arts & Space (Dator), and 3. Spacecraft Structures & Testing (Bukley). In Space Biology we learned that antibiotics are less effective in space. We also saw a lot of pictures and videos of animals adapting to space: spiders making webs, baby chicks floating around in zero-g, newborn fish learning to swim, birds trying to fly, etc. Angie's class was cool because she talked about my job - structural analysis! I took a picture during her presentation to send to my work team back home (see below). After the 3 classes, Angie told us about our exam which is a week from Monday. I'm really glad that we only have one more week of lectures because I am looking forward to the more interactive parts of the summer. There are 63 lectures in total and some are starting to get repetitive. The test will be 7 short answers and 1 essay. We have 4 hours to take the test. We will only be tested on high-level topics/concepts, so it shouldn't be too bad. This coming week we have study time on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Saturday night was our second cultural night! This week's presenters were Japan, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, and the UK! I love Japan! They showed a hilarious
video about different types of bowing. Portugal showed a tourism video - makes me want to go there! Greece showed pictures from all over Greece. Totally reminded me of our honeymoon only 3 months ago! We saw pics of Athens, Olympia, and Oia - Mitch and I visited all of those places and more! Belgium and the UK did trivia questions. Learned a lot from the
Belgium video and
UK video. After the show, we sampled food from the 5 countries. I had Queen Victoria's sponge cake, sushi (mmmm), sweet rice from Portugal, and moussaka (pic below)!! Belgium had run out of chocolates by the time I got there. :-) After all the yummy food was consumed, we all danced the night away. I love eating, dancing and learning about other cultures, so cultural night is far and away my favorite part of SSP!
Sunday I woke up at 9:30 and had brunch at Mensa (cafeteria). Then I headed out with 7 other friends for an epic hiking day! We walked to the city center and then took a bus out to the north side of the city. We hiked the
Schöckl. The trail was pretty much straight up at first. It took 3 hours to get to the top. We saw lots of cows, sheep, and llamas on the way. Once we were at the top we enjoyed some great views from 1400 meters. It was approx 1000 meters of elevation gain (3280 feet). The air was crisp and cool. Nice breeze, little light sprinkles of rain at one point - nothing major. Lunch on top the hill was fantastic!!! Had a big dumpling in goulash sauce with mushrooms. Then the 8 of us split a huge dessert called "Kaiserschremmen" which is a sliced up pancake sprinkled with powdered sugar and plum sauce. It was outrageously good. Then we all had capuccino and started the walk down. We came down a shorter route down the backside. Took an hour to get down. Then we took a bus back to Graz. I fell asleep on the bus! There are lots of
hiking pictures on Facebook but here are a few:
So we only had a 1.5-day weekend. I feel like we're back in class way too soon! This week (week 4) we start Department Activities! We have 12 sessions in our department over the next 3 weeks. I am in the Space Policy and Law Department. My 1st choice was business but evidently 1/2 of SSP signed up for it and they could only take about 23 people. So I ended up with my second choice. I think it will still be good.
Saturday night was our second cultural night! This week's presenters were Japan, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, and the UK! I love Japan! They showed a hilarious video about different types of bowing. Portugal showed a tourism video - makes me want to go there! Greece showed pictures from all over Greece. Totally reminded me of our honeymoon only 3 months ago! We saw pics of Athens, Olympia, and Oia - Mitch and I visited all of those places and more! Belgium and the UK did trivia questions. Learned a lot from the Belgium video and UK video. After the show, we sampled food from the 5 countries. I had Queen Victoria's sponge cake, sushi (mmmm), sweet rice from Portugal, and moussaka (pic below)!! Belgium had run out of chocolates by the time I got there. :-) After all the yummy food was consumed, we all danced the night away. I love eating, dancing and learning about other cultures, so cultural night is far and away my favorite part of SSP!
Sunday I woke up at 9:30 and had brunch at Mensa (cafeteria). Then I headed out with 7 other friends for an epic hiking day! We walked to the city center and then took a bus out to the north side of the city. We hiked the Schöckl. The trail was pretty much straight up at first. It took 3 hours to get to the top. We saw lots of cows, sheep, and llamas on the way. Once we were at the top we enjoyed some great views from 1400 meters. It was approx 1000 meters of elevation gain (3280 feet). The air was crisp and cool. Nice breeze, little light sprinkles of rain at one point - nothing major. Lunch on top the hill was fantastic!!! Had a big dumpling in goulash sauce with mushrooms. Then the 8 of us split a huge dessert called "Kaiserschremmen" which is a sliced up pancake sprinkled with powdered sugar and plum sauce. It was outrageously good. Then we all had capuccino and started the walk down. We came down a shorter route down the backside. Took an hour to get down. Then we took a bus back to Graz. I fell asleep on the bus! There are lots of hiking pictures on Facebook but here are a few:
So we only had a 1.5-day weekend. I feel like we're back in class way too soon! This week (week 4) we start Department Activities! We have 12 sessions in our department over the next 3 weeks. I am in the Space Policy and Law Department. My 1st choice was business but evidently 1/2 of SSP signed up for it and they could only take about 23 people. So I ended up with my second choice. I think it will still be good.
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