The First Days

We have been in Finland for a few days now, but so far we have been too busy to post something to our blog. This will change. For now there is a report of the first visit of our trip written by Thomas Krebs. Reports of the other visits will follow soon.


Lappeenranta Technical University

The first “working” day of our trip took us to Lapperaanta University of Technology. After a good night’s sleep and a modest breakfast a bus took us from the hostel to the grounds of the university, which is located beautifully at the shores of Saimaa lake in the Finnish woods. The program started with a welcome note from Vesa Karvonen, who is the director of the Center for Separation Technology, an institution comparable to the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology in the Netherlands.  After this, Remko and professors from the Chemical Engineering Department gave presentations to provide an overview of the research projects in their groups. Important research areas in Lapperaanta are membrane science and chromatography for separation of product and waste streams from the forest and mining industry, as well as the development of Capillary Electrophoresis methods for monitoring of food and beverage quality. It was immediately obvious that there is a large overlap in the research topics covered by our group and the groups from Lapperaanta, and cooperation between the groups will probably arise. We were then taken on a tour through the labs of the department. The labs were very recently renovated and supplied with lots of new equipment, which made some of us slightly jealous. After lunch the program continued with presentations from PhD students from both Wageningen and Lapperaanta, where many of the topics covered in the morning session were discussed in more detail. As a strange incident, slides from presentations of several speakers disappeared after being copied to the computer of the lecture hall, which gave some presenters the chance to display their improvisation skills. The scientific program ended with a second tour through another section of the university labs. 

Together with the professors and students from our host groups we then walked to a cottage by the lake, where dinner and a sauna party were awaiting us! After a long day everybody was eager for dinner and drinks. To burn off some calories, we went outside and played Mölkky, a typical Finnish game, which maybe can described as a mix of bowling and boule. Our hosts did not expect that this simple game will awake so much enthusiasm and competitive spirit in order to be the first to get 50 points, and it took some time before we got to the Sauna. The Sauna turned out to be awesome, even though some people claimed they would not make it out of there alive. Our Finnish hosts took some joy of ramping up the temperature and seeing us sweat. Fortunately, there was a lake nearby where we could jump in and cool off. The water was ice-cold, the last ice had only melted two weeks ago. Still, most people were brave enough to run into the water, and then run out again as fast as they could. This procedure was repeated several times, as it was a lot of fun. The sauna experience culminated in the practicing of Finnish birthday songs while sitting in the sauna, as there were two to-be birthday childs at the party, Mari, one of the professors from Lapperaanta, and Jacqueline from our group! We spent the evening until midnight sitting together chatting with our Finnish hosts, thereby discussing topics such as what the shower head next to the sink in our hostels should actually be used for. At midnight it was time to sing and give birthday wishes to Mari and Jacqueline. Shortly after that it was, sadly enough, time to leave Laaperaanta University and to say goodbye to our great hosts. The bus took us then back to our hostel, where nobody had trouble sleeping after such a long, but awesome day! 

The FPE Mölky champion