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TL;DR
I traveled to Umeå, Sweden, to attend the ESWW Congress and present my research work. I was hoping to see the auroras, but I couldn't because of the bad weather. It seems it's difficult to find local Swedish food in Sweden!
I'm writing these words from the comfort of my home back in Spain, but this last week of October, I traveled near the Arctic Circle: I was in Umeå, a city in the North of Sweden, to attend the European Space Weather Week (ESWW) Congress. It's an international congress celebrated every year in a different European city, where the main topic is, you guessed it, space weather research and its subvariants.
I presented two of my research works there: a deep learning-based framework to detect and track solar filaments, and a long-term study of the magnetism in the polar regions of the Sun.
Me presenting my work
The travel was long. I traveled with my colleagues from the Space Weather Research group at the University of Alcalá. It was our first visit to Sweden and especially our first trip to a place so high in latitude, so we were really excited and hoping to see the auroras!! (Perhaps it was our main motivation to go in there :P). Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and most of us didn't see any (me included, D:), but some lucky ones could see one, or a hint of one, since only on a few occasions the clouds left small clearings.
I was surprised because, even with cloudy weather and in the middle of the city's light pollution, those faint auroras were seen! You can check some photos made by participants here.
Another thing I like to do in my travels is to taste the local food. This time, however, I was surprised by how difficult it was to find local food restaurants in Sweden (or at least in Umeå). Most (if not all) restaurants offer burgers, and you can find Mediterranean and Asian restaurants everywhere, but not local Swedish food. It seems like a joke, but some locals told us that it's not so easy to find Swedish restaurants in Sweden. The easiest way is in an IKEA store! The food you find in any IKEA around the world is, basically, typical Swedish food. In the end, I think the only local food I was able to eat was smoked fish, some delicious berries, and fresh cheese. I liked the berries the most. Also, it's easy to find vegetarian options in any place.
Anyways, although I couldn't see any aurora, it was a nice experience overall. I got to spend a week with my colleagues and meet new and old faces.
Thanks for your time reading these lines!