In Finland

What's up? I still have more than half an hour to my flight to Porto (my third and last one, after Helsinki - Oslo - Madrid) and I have already both went through security and ate seven onion rings, so I still have a lot of time to write this post until heading to the gate. I can finish watching Straight Outta Compton for the second time during the flight or in the four hours I still have to take in a train from Porto to Abrantes. I want my bed already.

So, about Finland, I have to talk about the language first and I think this sums it up perfectly: Suomi (both the language and the country, like Portugali) is so fucked up that if you read it backwards, it still resembles Finnish. I got to know some words already, like moi (bye), kiitos (thank you), juusto (cheese, important one), io (yes), ei (no), yhksi, kaksi, colme, nelia, viisi (one, two, three, four five); I didn't check up the spelling because regardless of its fucked-upness, Finnish is read as it is written so I should have nailed it.

I loved Helsinki. Like, the city center is small and of course it doesn't have as much to see as Copenhagen or Stockholm, for example, but the ensemble of green spaces, sea islands and urban areas (with the vanguardist architecture that is present throughout the whole Scand... Nordic countries) is absolutely marvellous. And the weather was great until today (uff), in opposition to when I was in Denmark and Sweden. I really recommend everybody to go to Helsinki in the summer, and I hope to comeback both there and also in the winter to go to Lapland meet Santa.

We've also went to Merikarvia, to Hanna's parents summer house, and to Tallin. The first one is quite like Barragem do Castelo do Bode, where my grandparents have a house and so I know it since I was a kid. We went by boat to this island (Hanna wanted one with noboby else there because it's Finland, people go all naked to sauna but can't socialise with each other when being dress) to cook some pancakes, reading and chilling out. It was nice. Close to Helsinki I've also been in two islands, Suomenlinna and Seurasaari, which I both recommend as well: going by ferry to the first one, it is bigger and has a church, a castle and resembles a bit the Shire from Lord of the Rings, while for the latter needs no more than crossing a bridge close to the Botanical Garden. Seurasaari has this open air museum with historical houses and buildings taken from its native sites and moved/reconstructed in the island. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see it properly.

About Tallinn, it was nice but could have been better if we hadn't miss the 7:30 ferry (only 10€ and 2h each trip via Tallink). We had to take the 13h30 as the 10h30 was already fully booked and therefore we stayed no longer than 7h there. It was pretty cool anyway though, the Old City has a lot of interesting places for sightseeing and learning about this young country's long history. We had dinner in this Irish place called St. Patrick's and it wasn't too expensive (yeah, Tallin ain't that cheap for a Eastern country to be honest).

I don't have as much to say in this post as in the previous ones because this time I was with Hanna and so I've talked with her about my doubts and thoughts about the places where we've been. I usually write more about my experiences by myself, as I have no one to share them with in the moment. Hanna's parents were super nice to me, and the good thing about human relations in the North is that if people seem to like you, they really do and that's very important for me. Hanna's friends as well but considering their average age of 28, we would go drinking somewhere and then at around 21h, 22h they'd be like "oh, I am almost 30, I gotta go back home to sleep early and go to work".

Things with Hanna moved a bit forward, I guess. We assumed a relationship, which basically doesn't change anything among us but it makes things way easier to explain to the others. Anyway, she's still in Hamburg and me in Lisbon and so I don't want to assume a compromise like this; she lives alone since she's 18, got engaged in 2012 and is already 28 but I'm still 22 and financially dependent for at least one more year. And while I acknowledge her situation, she acknowledges mine too. It would be nice if she'd come here to work this year and I've established some contacts already so let's see how it works out. Anyway, if I do go to Copenhagen to attend that PhD in Science Communication we'd be way closer. I've emailed Prof. Pedersen once again but he's on vacation till the 27th so I'll do it again on that day. We get along really well even though we have some distinct tastes in pointless stuff, but we also do in crucial ones sometimes. She may be the one but only time will tell.

That's all, folks. 45min to close the gate to I think I'll just head there. I already feel at home in Spain so I can already say it's good to be back; even though I am really determined to make a living in the Nordics, they are not perfect (and neither is no one) and I will always be a proud Southern.

Um bem-haja,

Pedro Mendes

Malmö and Stockholm

So, three days have passed by and I'm leaving Sweden in less than eight hours already. It hasn't been as long as the time I've spent in Copenhagen but anyway this is the end of another stage so let's write again.

My Monday was spent waking around Copenhagen's Little Mermaid site. The statue itself is indeed disappointing and not that cool as it seems - although emblematic nevertheless - but the surroundings are pretty cool: there's this fortress in the middle of a star-shaped lake, a park really close by and on the way to Little Mermaid on foot one can notice the Royal Palace.

I have then returned home to have lunch (and make dinner as well) and to pack. Also, I have to mention that was the day I officially did the stupidiest thing in my life (so far, of course): I had a cup of juice on my laptop which fell to the sofa and also a bit for my shirt. As I was cooking a pizza on the oven, I decided to put my shirt there to dry a bit; as it didn't work, I decided to turn on the oven. Yup, like my nigga Nas says in his Halftime hit, "rest in peace yo, I'm out".

After packing, I went to the Central Station to cash out my Rejsekort (I hope I nailed it this time) and get a ticket to Malmö, which I didn't because the queue was big af. Some nice Danish (I know, this is too vague) told me to go to the airport instead and get the train over there instead, which I did and successfully got some of the money I had on the card back and paid the rest in cash - although I've kept 1 DKK which I just remembered I forgot to use to tip the tour guides here in Stockholm and mock them. Still haven't got it on my account though; on the other hand, the last 20% of my Erasmus scholarship have finally arrived.

So, I'm back in Malmö. After leaving my lugagge in some locker in the station, I went wandering around mostly for the places I've been in November: close to the coast and in the garden nearby. Didn't have time to go to Trianglen, the more urbanized area, this time; well, I actually could have done it as the bus to come to Stockholm ended up being 30min late. Anyway, I took a longer route and I didn't turn any map - both physical or virtual - or asked anyone for directions and this is cool because my orientation isn't usually very reliable. This time it was great in my beloved Malmö: if I'm ever to live in Copenhagen, the third biggest Swedish city will be my resting and retiring place. Bikes and people jogging everywhere, beautiful and modern architecture, lots of green spaces in this Coimbra-size cozy and nice city.

The bus left at 22h40 and I had my first problem when entering the bus: it was almost full so I had to take the last seat in the middle of the last row - the one with no one ahead of me. Or at least that's what was supposed to be but after our first stop in Lund, we realized that the bus was overbooked due to these dudes who entered and made the non-English speaker driver check our tickets not once, but twice. They ended up traveling seated or laying on the floor of the corridor, which I don't even know if it's legal. I've already filled my complaint.

The voyage was more bearable than what I initially thought and there already be clarity in the sky at 4am (it's midnight as I'm writing this and it's still not totally dark) I went to sleep some hours at my Portuguese host, another really cool guy called Luís. I've done two free tours around the city and maybe due to the weather, Stockholm seemed to me too monochromatic (all in yellow). But the Old Town tour was more interesting than the first one in Söder-whatever and I then went to this 7/4 celebration with some American friends of Luís - and apparently there was this woman with an heavy metal shirt which had been pointed out as it was a "Christian celebration", which made his American friend feel at home in her own words. Disgusting.

I then went to have dinner with a Portuguese friend who comes here every once per month for working. We've discussed about how Swedish immigration policy and their political correctness "dictatorship" regarding the way foreigners are seen by the society is harming the country; some "no-police" zones are beginning to arise and as Luís says, if they all come to Stockholm there will obviously be a lot of homeless people on the metro begging. Integration is way more than just allowing people to come in, and if they don't want to be integrated then they might as well be kicked out. I'm very pro-multiculturalism but my (and our) European values have to be above anything else in our continent. Of course, I am talking only about "regular" immigrants, not war refugees: those shall be accepted anyway but we can place them in the interior as well where everyone will benefit from it.

About today, I did another general tour in the morning around the city main sites (Queen's street, King's garden, Nobel place, so on) and then went home to buy 4 hamburgers for 50 kr and save some more money as travelling is taking me a lot. I slept for a while and I then went to this Living Museum with an exposition about how propaganda was and is used to control the people and society mostly focused on Nazi Germany and the USSR. It will be till mid-August I believe. I headed to the Medieval Museum afterwards and spent 2h30 there.

I've already been in Europe's greatest museums but this one gotta be the most well-organized and structured ever. You can learn a lot about Stockholm, how it was founded, how people lived, what did they do, how did it evolved, alongside with all the background behind its discovery - it was meant to be just a random parking lot for the parliament. What amazed me the most, though, was the fact that they explained how they made the discoveries via osteopathy, carbon datation, face reconstruction and all those techniques. Just Nordic countries things, I think.

Well, gotta figure out how to get to the central station, pack and sleep a couple of hours. Back to you in Finland!

4th European Conference for Science Journalists

So, here I am, sitting on the couch of my cool Portuguese host in Copenhagen after arriving on Monday for a conference. I'll be in Scandinavia until the 18th so in the meantime I'll write here about what's going on.

So, I got the first great news while still in Portugal: the day before, I received an email stating that I was included on the travel grants list, meaning that they reimbursed me for the trip to Copenhagen and also from the one from Helsinki back to Portugal. As I'm going in a really low budget and I don't mean to overload my parents, this is great.

The conference took place in three places, all closely located: the Concert Hall, the South University of Copenhagen campus and the IT University - some kind of new age architecture, the coolest I've ever been and where I got a locker for the whole week for asking in the reception about it. All of this in the area of DR Byen.

The first day was essentially assisting to this session on EU living labs (not that interesting) and then some reception where I met Mar, Roser (two Span... catalan girls) and Max, a British dude who works for Guardian. I was the youngest and probably the only student among the participants, which was curious when people were talking and in the middle of the conversation "yeah and then my son/husband/wife (...)" and I would slowly start acknowledging it.

I stayed at a friend's place during the conference, in Høje Taastrup, like one hour away by train + metro. He's older than 25 (I don't know his real age but here in Denmark they throw you cinnamon if you're still single at that age and they've already done it with him) and lives with his fiancée, Nikki, which I fooled by speaking Danish at the doorbell this one time after coming from the supermarket where my "godaften" wasn't good enough to do the same with the cashier.

So, on Tuesday the day was about how to properly communicate and defend integrity (one core value press seems to be forgetting these days), then some video-making session after lunch where I met Thom, also a Brit, and also people from Nature telling that we should never aim to catch every audienc. Before dinner the talk I assisted was about how to make media talk about things which can influentiate politics (the focus was on world hunger), which I'll be back to in a bit.

There was just some reception by night that day and then on the following morning we started adressing the climate change topic (the main theme of this conference) and how it's ridiculous that climate change advocates and deniers have the same "power" in media - for it to be proportional, we should have debates not 1 to 1 but 99 scientists to 1 skeptical. I went to this EU press release after lunch regarding some research and science comission and/or council related to Moedas' comissionary which was pretty complex and confuse, basically EU in a nutshell. We then had this workshop about what we think about the way climate change is being communicated in media (I personally believe that being too alarmist leads to a skeptic public). After that, there was this really cool magazine as an example as an alternative way in media (https://www.substanzmagazin.de/) and I went to another press release, this time about conspiracy theories (CT) on media (there's this projet which will even have this kind of a conference in Lisbon in september which focus on how CT influenciate and have influenced society).

The coolest talks took place on Thursday, starting by the panel sessions where Shawn Otto and Mike Galsworthy focused on the manipulation in both USA and UK, respectively, about science in media - showing once again its power and how it's important to relate both fields. Went to Niels Bohr institute after lunch, where was interesting to learn about the story of the place and Bohr itself (and how Einstein would ask him for cigarettes after his doctor forbidding him) and also this project in Greenland to study ice-melting. The last session I've attented was about new technique to spread science and I've even made a pitch alongside Roser and Thom, where we focused on how young people didn't have much voice in this conference - true that I didn't apply to present anything as so far I have nothing but I've seen some tweets of other people complaining about this so it felt pertinent and maybe we'll present it in Toulouse next year. It's not about old vs young people though, but how we all benefit for listening to all and different ideas.

By night, we went to Christiania for this Science and Cocktails evening (some kind of an expensive PhD), where the physicist Lawrence Krauss gave a talk about how the Universe exists by chance. Didn't like very much the way he talked about Higgs and gravitational waves as if they are already considered as facts, neither how he didn't have that much empiristic data to base himself but no doubt he's an astonishing communicator. After that we went to a local café to drink something.

The next day I went to an Hindenburg masterclass, this audio software for journalists which isn't very useful for me but still worth it anyway. I then had lunch in the meat harbour with Mar, Roser and Thom and after they left we went for this Digital Playground where I should go back tomorrow and sponsored by Olympus with visual illusions and experiences. The final farewell took place at the sky bar of this huge 23-floor hotel, and the drinks were free for us! I then went to my new host, Paulo, a really cool Portuguese guy and his Danish girlfriend which says I have a Jutlandic Danish accent (still not Copenhagen but at least closer than Lisbon). Today the day was spent going to this American event with crafted beer and USA flags with some friends of Paulo he met in meet-ups and I then went to Tivoli - it's cool but if I couldn't had make it for free with Paulo's card, it's just worthless to pay 120 (18€ ) just for enter.

Anyway, here I am now heading to sleep. In the meantime I've sent an email to this Danish professor I've met in the conference who told me there's a PhD on Science communication here in Copenhagen. I had already put aside the idea of continue studying but this can be a great way to enter the country and the state really supports you a lot in these programs. We'll see.

Vi sis,

Pedro