Our field site is a 2 hour hike up the mountain. Getting faster and easier as the days pass and our muscles harden.

Check out this site which shows the station where we live. Our field site is in the distant mountains, in the center of the picture.

Our team is 4 this year. B., from the Netherlands, C. from France, L. the Brit and me, the American. Our international nature leads to intersting discussions of words, languages and meanings. For example, we had a lengthy discussion of what trash is called each of our native languages, British English being separated from American English. We also attempted to clarify the differences between the English words puffy and fluffy. We weren't very succesful.

And thus pass our days. Trying to get as much work done, with equipment and experiments that are sensitive to light level, moisture, wind, and temperature, and these conditions varying by the hour on the mountain.

Meals are fun too. We do our own cooking, and our own shopping in a little grocery store, just a kilometer down the road from the station. We've come home with some interesting Swedish products, not ever exactly sure of what we're buying. (A fruit goop we thought was juice, but is meant to be mixed with milk as an after school snack for children.) The trip to the grocery store is eventful too, on discarded Swedish Army bicycles, built no later than 1960, brightly painted, weighing at least 25 pounds a piece, and little or no breaking mechanisms to boot.

Shaping up to be a fun summer. No mosquitos yet!