Tjenamors!
Now
I'm finished with all theory for obtaining a PPL
(Private Pilot License)! Two weeks ago we had nine exams in one day
in school - and I passed them all, some with a 100% score and some
just on the 80% pass mark... This meant I had 1½ week of basically
free time, except that had to take the official exams for
Transportstyrelsen as well. I did that alone in Uppsala on Monday
last week so that I could spend some days in Uppsala meeting friends
and then stay in Falun for most of my short holiday. The offical
exams also went well – which made me very relieved since every
failed exam would have cost me another 570 SEK.
In
Falun I also met a lot of friends, having a really good time! Since
I'm planning to go to Japan this Christmas holiday I have to save a
lot of money why this probably was my last visit before Christmas. I
returned to Ljungbyhed on Sunday leaving home at 09:30 and arriving
around 22:00 after a long trip by bus, another bus, train, commuter
train and car... Looking forward to five consecutive weeks of only
flying, everything felt good then, but a nasty surprise was waiting
for me to go to sleep...
I
woke up in the early morning on Monday, being thirsty and feeling
itchy. Scratching my back a small (0.5 cm) bug falls off and when I
stamp on it, it explodes and a pool of blood appears. Terrified I
return to my bed and checks it for more bugs. I soon find more than
10 of them, and my bedsheet is literally covered with blood stains.
Looking in the mirror my back is covered in mosquite bite looking
rashes (utslag). While hoping I'm dreaming or something I quickly
carry all bedsheets to the laundry room and wash them in 95 degrees
with excessive detergent. Back in my room I check the walls and kill
another five or so bugs. I google them and soon confirm what I
suspected – that they are bedbugs (vägglöss), a plague my brother
suffered earlier this year and I've heard is a common problem in
student corridors. Somehow I manage to fall asleep again on a new
bedsheet for an hour until my alarm clock sounds. Later I call the
landlady and she calls Anticimex (the major Swedish pest control
company. Anticimex actually means ”anti-bedbugs”).
Bedbugs
are quite persistent pests, so on Monday and Tuesday I, the Anticimex
worker and the caretaker did the following things to get rid of them:
threw away and burned the bed and mattress, along with all splines
(lister) near the bed, put all stuff (rucksacks, books, a sleeping
bag, all shoes etc.) that had been lying beneath the bed or on the
floor in the sauna at 90 degrees for 4 hours, washed most clothes at
60 degrees and poured poison on the whole floor and on the new bed.
Hopefully – and only hopefully – are they gone now... Preliminary, I declare myself winner of this war with the bedbugs.
Unfortunately,
autumn has got a firm grip on Ljungbyhed and the weather this week
has been really bad and unreliable why I've only flown on Monday,
while the last three days were cancelled for everybody. Hopefully
this is not how the whole of October will be, or it will a very
boring and frustrating month. By the way I'm now halfway to obtaining
my PPL having flown soon 25 hours.
Photos
and videos:
In
Uppsala I went to Laser Game! We lost... (Kanpei Hayashi's photo)
In
Falun we homemade pizza! It was nice! (Misaki Arihama's photo)
A
cool video taken from the nosewheel of a 747.
When
we practice landings, we always aim to land within a specified area
(at the beginning of the runway), and if we are about to overshoot
that area we must always do a ”go around” (give full throttle and
cancel the landing). This pilot seems to have forgot that fundamental
part of his training.
