One month from today I will be on a plane bound for Denver International, after bouncing through Frankfurt. The feeling of 'bigness' that precedes and proceeds a significant change in my life has begun to creep into my mind. 30 days remain and I've never been busier in my life. My blog trail has sputtered considerably, but I may catch up some of the stories one day.
Before I stop procrastinating, I do have a short tale to relate that I cannot pass up: the Scandinavian lawn game 'Kubb.' It reminds me of bocce (Italian lawn bowling) and has been likened to a combination of horseshoes, chess, and bowling (see Wikipedia article). Two sides (1-6 players ea.) face each other with a field of wooden blocks in between. Five blocks (~3x3x6 in.) standing on end, spaced about 18 in. apart, mark the 'line' of one side, while a complementary row, placed 20 or so feet away, delineates the other. In the middle of the field, a taller, thicker block, the 'king,' stands. There are six wooden sticks, broom handle-width, cut to ~10 in., that the players on one side toss and attempt to knock over the other side's five blocks. The sticks must be thrown with their ends pointing at the blocks (no 'log-roll' style), which makes for great target practise. Once a player knocks over a block, the offended side must toss it into the middle (without knocking over the 'king'). When the shooting sticks change sides, the player(s) must hit the stranded block from their own line before attempting any of the other side's pieces. When all the blocks are knocked down on one side, the attacking team waits a turn and then tries to knock down the king piece. Once the mighty wooden monarch falls, the victor is declared. It's a really fun game that can get quite heated, especially when your shooting stick bounces just around the opponent's block for the eighth straight time (during my first game). Amazing what entertainment 21 pieces of wood (add 4 boundary stakes) can provide.
I played this game last weekend with an American student friend on my time and against 2 German friends. The USA lost 5-0. Embarrassing (but what fun!).
Happy Memorial Day, people of the States!
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
On Bicycles...
Today I became the 2907th person to ride my bicycle past an electronic sign keeping track of this statistic. I love this city (and country) for its deep and dedicated bike culture. In my habitual romantic outlook on life, I see a societal undercurrent of cycling being the 'purer' breed of transportation. Bike racks abound, shops do booming business, and there are more bike paths than roads, since every road has its own bike-only lane.
The affection for two-wheel (or sometimes three-wheel) mobility is more subtly apparent in the relationship between motorists and cyclists. In my own adventures on the streets of America, car drivers frequently harangue and even molest the bicycle-bound. There's mutual fault, since I've seen plenty of cyclists arrogantly filling up half or more of the vehicle lane. Yet, no clear idea of "who started it" is ever offered; only insults and too-often gory accidents echo the question. Blame is counterproductive anyway, but this dangerous reality makes the disparity between the U.S. and e.g. Copenhagen clearer to see.
Here, bicyclists are given incredible leeway. There are times when auto drivers honk, rev their engines, or narrowly miss clobbering the offending rider, but the majority of cases favor the cyclist. It helps that nearly everyone has a bike, and that brings to the fore the greatest reason for this cultural difference. Due in part to the sprawling urbaniverses (and suburbaniverses) that make up our continental geography, we Americans love our cars. Furthermore, the last five or so generations (guessing?) have, on average, made the automobile part of their personal identities. These factors (and others I don't want to cogitate about because I'm hungry and haven't blogged in forever so I want to write some of these thoughts down) have set up today's American car-centered lives. Of course there are exceptions, but I write in generalities to stave off a repetative stress disorder.
Maybe someday we will ride more bikes. I would love to see that day. I think I will abandon my efforts to institute a public bike share program on my college campus (for entirely different reasons I won't elaborate on at this time), but continue to promote the healthy, efficient, and fun habit of bicycling. Before I sign off, here's a picture of the bike I've been riding all over eastern Sjælland (Copenhagen, Lynby, Roskilde, etc...):
I bought this bike about two weeks into my stay here. It cost 600 DKK (~$100).
When I get back to Golden, I think I may try to build my own "errand bike," inspired by the picture below:
A large wooden crate or box can sit on the platform. I could haul around my groceries, books, camping gear, guitar, and a fair amount of any junk (even people!).
The affection for two-wheel (or sometimes three-wheel) mobility is more subtly apparent in the relationship between motorists and cyclists. In my own adventures on the streets of America, car drivers frequently harangue and even molest the bicycle-bound. There's mutual fault, since I've seen plenty of cyclists arrogantly filling up half or more of the vehicle lane. Yet, no clear idea of "who started it" is ever offered; only insults and too-often gory accidents echo the question. Blame is counterproductive anyway, but this dangerous reality makes the disparity between the U.S. and e.g. Copenhagen clearer to see.
Here, bicyclists are given incredible leeway. There are times when auto drivers honk, rev their engines, or narrowly miss clobbering the offending rider, but the majority of cases favor the cyclist. It helps that nearly everyone has a bike, and that brings to the fore the greatest reason for this cultural difference. Due in part to the sprawling urbaniverses (and suburbaniverses) that make up our continental geography, we Americans love our cars. Furthermore, the last five or so generations (guessing?) have, on average, made the automobile part of their personal identities. These factors (and others I don't want to cogitate about because I'm hungry and haven't blogged in forever so I want to write some of these thoughts down) have set up today's American car-centered lives. Of course there are exceptions, but I write in generalities to stave off a repetative stress disorder.
Maybe someday we will ride more bikes. I would love to see that day. I think I will abandon my efforts to institute a public bike share program on my college campus (for entirely different reasons I won't elaborate on at this time), but continue to promote the healthy, efficient, and fun habit of bicycling. Before I sign off, here's a picture of the bike I've been riding all over eastern Sjælland (Copenhagen, Lynby, Roskilde, etc...):
I bought this bike about two weeks into my stay here. It cost 600 DKK (~$100).
When I get back to Golden, I think I may try to build my own "errand bike," inspired by the picture below:
A large wooden crate or box can sit on the platform. I could haul around my groceries, books, camping gear, guitar, and a fair amount of any junk (even people!).
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Bring Out the City Bikes, Five Days of Påske, The Life of a Scientist
Godt Påske everyone! It's a sunny and clear Easter afternoon from København!
So much time has passed since I last wrote and I have forgotten many things I wanted to write. Research has ramped up to a new level and I'm finding myself less motivated to pause and blog. The mood just hasn't taken me recently.
Spring has come full force, evidenced most recently to me by the appearance of the København Cykler (city bikes) for tourists and citizens alike. These simple sturdy bicycles come out in April and disappear around October. It's a cool system where you slide a 20 kr coin into a box on the handlebars and a chain at the other end of the box slides out. The rider takes the bike around town and, when finished, finds an empty chain slot and gets the coin back. Free city bikes! I've been working with students on campus back home to get a similar program going, but interest really hasn't built for it yet. I think it has to do mostly with the hilly Golden landscape and the preference for cars over all other transportation modes. Perhaps someday bikes will carry more cultural weight in America...
On a related note, I was riding my bicycle to the train station about a week ago and was handed free food by a smiling woman standing on a street corner. She and several dozen others were passing out brown bags containing rolls to all the pedaling folk as they passed by on the bike lanes. And so I was introduced to "Vi cykler arbejde!" meaning "We bike to work." It's a month-long campaign and I'm hoping to snag some more free baked goods this week!
Denmark today is a dominantly secular nation. There are many churches around town, mostly Lutheran, though I've found several Roman Catholic and even a Baptist one. A Mormon temple sits three blocks from my apartment. Yet, congregations are small and some of the churches hold services once a month. Even with the relatively large population of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern nations, I have yet to see any mosques or even a hint of Islamic worship places. In fact, other than all the Arabic (I think) script I see in my neighborhood, on grocery stores, restaurants, and barber shops, the only advertisement for Muslims I've glimpsed was a small store selling "Islamic dress," printed in English. Going back to the Christian influence, something of a juxtaposition with the agnostic majority are all the Danish flags being flown half-mast for Good Friday. I've only ever seen that ritual connected with memorializing the deaths of politicians, military casualties, and other famous people. Jesus Christ, VIP in Denmark, for one day only.
While actually practicing religion seems to be rare, religious holidays are taken to the max. Easter, for instance, is five days long. Starting (Maundy) Thursday, many Danes don't go back to work till the follwing Tuesday. There's Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Second Easter (Monday). Most shops shut down, though some of the grocery stores, which are regularly closed on Sundays, are open, so there appears to be no uniformity to the holiday-taking. At Risø, most of the technicians left Friday, April 3 and won't be back till Tuesday (4/14). That's all well and good for them, but the safety rules at the lab prevent anyone from working with the furnaces, presses, polishers, and other various (and expensive) equipment unless they're in there. Here, like mismatched gears, the '9-3 regular-drop-it-all-and-scoot' work day (technicians) grinds up against the '?-? gotta-get-this-done-by-Monday-why-does-this-machine-hate-me' schedule (scientists). Such fun! Jesting aside, I really am enjoying the hustle and constantly shifting timelines that go with real-world R&D. I think I'm going to like doing this for a living.
So much time has passed since I last wrote and I have forgotten many things I wanted to write. Research has ramped up to a new level and I'm finding myself less motivated to pause and blog. The mood just hasn't taken me recently.
Spring has come full force, evidenced most recently to me by the appearance of the København Cykler (city bikes) for tourists and citizens alike. These simple sturdy bicycles come out in April and disappear around October. It's a cool system where you slide a 20 kr coin into a box on the handlebars and a chain at the other end of the box slides out. The rider takes the bike around town and, when finished, finds an empty chain slot and gets the coin back. Free city bikes! I've been working with students on campus back home to get a similar program going, but interest really hasn't built for it yet. I think it has to do mostly with the hilly Golden landscape and the preference for cars over all other transportation modes. Perhaps someday bikes will carry more cultural weight in America...
On a related note, I was riding my bicycle to the train station about a week ago and was handed free food by a smiling woman standing on a street corner. She and several dozen others were passing out brown bags containing rolls to all the pedaling folk as they passed by on the bike lanes. And so I was introduced to "Vi cykler arbejde!" meaning "We bike to work." It's a month-long campaign and I'm hoping to snag some more free baked goods this week!
Denmark today is a dominantly secular nation. There are many churches around town, mostly Lutheran, though I've found several Roman Catholic and even a Baptist one. A Mormon temple sits three blocks from my apartment. Yet, congregations are small and some of the churches hold services once a month. Even with the relatively large population of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern nations, I have yet to see any mosques or even a hint of Islamic worship places. In fact, other than all the Arabic (I think) script I see in my neighborhood, on grocery stores, restaurants, and barber shops, the only advertisement for Muslims I've glimpsed was a small store selling "Islamic dress," printed in English. Going back to the Christian influence, something of a juxtaposition with the agnostic majority are all the Danish flags being flown half-mast for Good Friday. I've only ever seen that ritual connected with memorializing the deaths of politicians, military casualties, and other famous people. Jesus Christ, VIP in Denmark, for one day only.
While actually practicing religion seems to be rare, religious holidays are taken to the max. Easter, for instance, is five days long. Starting (Maundy) Thursday, many Danes don't go back to work till the follwing Tuesday. There's Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Second Easter (Monday). Most shops shut down, though some of the grocery stores, which are regularly closed on Sundays, are open, so there appears to be no uniformity to the holiday-taking. At Risø, most of the technicians left Friday, April 3 and won't be back till Tuesday (4/14). That's all well and good for them, but the safety rules at the lab prevent anyone from working with the furnaces, presses, polishers, and other various (and expensive) equipment unless they're in there. Here, like mismatched gears, the '9-3 regular-drop-it-all-and-scoot' work day (technicians) grinds up against the '?-? gotta-get-this-done-by-Monday-why-does-this-machine-hate-me' schedule (scientists). Such fun! Jesting aside, I really am enjoying the hustle and constantly shifting timelines that go with real-world R&D. I think I'm going to like doing this for a living.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Fredag Bar, Enigmatic Heiko, Excess Modifiers, Nørrebronx
I've been feeling uninspired to write lately. Thankfully, the drought is over! There have been some upslopes on the adventure pulse this month, and today, because I've found blogging much more interesting than studying the defect theory of ceramics, I'm finally sitting down to relate them to you, Dear Reader.
Fredag bar every week at Risø continues to provide chances for bettering my pool skills, spectating the intense fooseball tourneys, linguistic smörgåsbord (a Swedish word actually), and enjoying beer cheaper than Coors Light (à la bartender) and many times tastier. This past Friday, a Swedish woman living in Göteborg (midwestern coastal city) scolded us for complaining of the sleety high-wind weather of Thursday eve. I rode my bike home in that storm for 5 minutes, got thoroughly drenched (with the help of a city bus spraying gutter water like a tidal wave) and cold, despite my warm bundling, so I was a bit ruffled by her admonition. But, when she told us that in Göteborg wintertime, temperatures rarely get over -15 ˚C and the sun is up from 9-2, we all shut up. Which was good, because we were in the middle of a heated pool game. It was an international match--U.S.-China v. Sweden-India. Whenever Corin (the Swede) missed a shot, her "Queen's English" turned into a rapid-fire stream of Swedish curses. When I sank the 8 ball for the win, she was especially vocal. No hard feelings at Fredag bar though; we're all mild-mannered scientists.
I made some friends at the International Church of Copenhagen a couple weeks ago. We're mostly foreign students studying abroad and fall into the 20 and 30-somethings category. I find a lot of common ground to revel on with them, and am excited to see what adventures come our way this spring. Tentatively, I'll be going to Iceland in June with some of them, and maybe down to Berlin in the nearer future.
To make sure I get work done this afternoon, I've decided to split up the description of this group of friends I've merged into, and present one or two of these wonderful people here each post. Today, I give you Heiko Schluter. His origins are still a mystery to me because whenever we talk, I get so wrapped up in the deep and interesting dialogue that I've not yet fount out most of the basics. His surname sounds German to me, though I'm not positive. His accent is so similar to mine that he could be a midwest U.S. suburbanite. All this mystery I plan to solve at some point. Facebook stalking has proved inconclusive, as he's more ascetic with his profile than I am.
His stories have been rivetting. Heiko's life (the slices of which I've heard so far) has been beyond cool. He lived on St. Croix for 10 years, where his brother had moved after hurricane Hugo, to help residents rebuild. There, the Schluter I know honed his painting abilities (his job) and designed boats (his hobby). He also dabbled in biodiesel production out of his home. We chatted about eneryg policy, history, literature, religion, science, flying fish, building catamarans, rescuing buildings from monsoons, and the theories of Sanskrit scholars. His painting is very impressive. He works mostly in acrylic from what I've seen on Facebook (an album of an exhibition featuring his work) and fills his creations with resonating vibrancy, exacting perspective, and meticulous detail.
Heiko Schluter. Next post, David Tiprigan.
-----
My København neighborhood, Nørrebro, has been infamous for gang presence in recent years. Hells Angels biker gangs (no joke) have been squaring off with the ambiguous 'Immigrant' gangs for drug trafficking power, or so the natives say. While it's true there is a high concentration of non-Danes living in Nørrebro, dominantly Arabs as I've learned (evidenced by the 'Starbucks-like' density of kebab houses and birka-clad women), I have yet to witness any hostilities beyond a few heckling youths in my end of town. Actually, I am at the 'end' of it. Across the street, not 30 meters from my window, is the neighborhood of Frederiksberg, a decidedly wealthier part of the city containing no ruckus and abundant in pram-pushing new mothers.
Nevertheless, Nørrebro's reputation for being the 'seedy side' of København has been the inspiration for recent comical commentary by my lighthearted Spanish roommate, Fernando. "We are living in 'Nørrebronx,' my friend."
The humor is dark in light of the recent shootings and civilian casualties in parts of København. Nørrebro was one of the scenes, but no where near me, or I'm just completely oblivious. I've seen a few cop cars, ambulances, and news stations vans in hot pursuit, but I've heard no gunshots and seen no arrests. I think it's such a big issue because these violent events haven't happened hardly at all here. Fernando and Kristian have told me about the history of immigration tension in København and Denmark at-large. Many political refugees from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations were taken in by the Danish government decades ago. Since then, the numbers have increased, and two generations have grown up Danish citizens. Minimal integration (fault of both the immigrants and the government) has contributed to cultural stress and to a degree of societal polarization. And, like any other unmixing mix of vastly different peoples, violence is the speediest and loudest voice of the strain.
In what I assume to be reaction to the killings and injuries, I rode past a anti-violence protest march today. The hundred and fifty or so members, shepherded by several motorcycle-mounted police officers, slowly made their way across the Nørrebrogade bridge as I biked home into southeast Nørrebro. The banner at the front displayed a gun painted over by the universal 'No!' symbol of a circle slashed by a line. Black behind red. The words were simple and big: Våben Nej Tak (Violence No Thanks). At the flank, a couple teenagers unfurled a second banner saying: Liv Ja Tak (Life Yes Thanks). Concisely profound.
Fredag bar every week at Risø continues to provide chances for bettering my pool skills, spectating the intense fooseball tourneys, linguistic smörgåsbord (a Swedish word actually), and enjoying beer cheaper than Coors Light (à la bartender) and many times tastier. This past Friday, a Swedish woman living in Göteborg (midwestern coastal city) scolded us for complaining of the sleety high-wind weather of Thursday eve. I rode my bike home in that storm for 5 minutes, got thoroughly drenched (with the help of a city bus spraying gutter water like a tidal wave) and cold, despite my warm bundling, so I was a bit ruffled by her admonition. But, when she told us that in Göteborg wintertime, temperatures rarely get over -15 ˚C and the sun is up from 9-2, we all shut up. Which was good, because we were in the middle of a heated pool game. It was an international match--U.S.-China v. Sweden-India. Whenever Corin (the Swede) missed a shot, her "Queen's English" turned into a rapid-fire stream of Swedish curses. When I sank the 8 ball for the win, she was especially vocal. No hard feelings at Fredag bar though; we're all mild-mannered scientists.
I made some friends at the International Church of Copenhagen a couple weeks ago. We're mostly foreign students studying abroad and fall into the 20 and 30-somethings category. I find a lot of common ground to revel on with them, and am excited to see what adventures come our way this spring. Tentatively, I'll be going to Iceland in June with some of them, and maybe down to Berlin in the nearer future.
To make sure I get work done this afternoon, I've decided to split up the description of this group of friends I've merged into, and present one or two of these wonderful people here each post. Today, I give you Heiko Schluter. His origins are still a mystery to me because whenever we talk, I get so wrapped up in the deep and interesting dialogue that I've not yet fount out most of the basics. His surname sounds German to me, though I'm not positive. His accent is so similar to mine that he could be a midwest U.S. suburbanite. All this mystery I plan to solve at some point. Facebook stalking has proved inconclusive, as he's more ascetic with his profile than I am.
His stories have been rivetting. Heiko's life (the slices of which I've heard so far) has been beyond cool. He lived on St. Croix for 10 years, where his brother had moved after hurricane Hugo, to help residents rebuild. There, the Schluter I know honed his painting abilities (his job) and designed boats (his hobby). He also dabbled in biodiesel production out of his home. We chatted about eneryg policy, history, literature, religion, science, flying fish, building catamarans, rescuing buildings from monsoons, and the theories of Sanskrit scholars. His painting is very impressive. He works mostly in acrylic from what I've seen on Facebook (an album of an exhibition featuring his work) and fills his creations with resonating vibrancy, exacting perspective, and meticulous detail.
Heiko Schluter. Next post, David Tiprigan.
-----
Nevertheless, Nørrebro's reputation for being the 'seedy side' of København has been the inspiration for recent comical commentary by my lighthearted Spanish roommate, Fernando. "We are living in 'Nørrebronx,' my friend."
The humor is dark in light of the recent shootings and civilian casualties in parts of København. Nørrebro was one of the scenes, but no where near me, or I'm just completely oblivious. I've seen a few cop cars, ambulances, and news stations vans in hot pursuit, but I've heard no gunshots and seen no arrests. I think it's such a big issue because these violent events haven't happened hardly at all here. Fernando and Kristian have told me about the history of immigration tension in København and Denmark at-large. Many political refugees from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations were taken in by the Danish government decades ago. Since then, the numbers have increased, and two generations have grown up Danish citizens. Minimal integration (fault of both the immigrants and the government) has contributed to cultural stress and to a degree of societal polarization. And, like any other unmixing mix of vastly different peoples, violence is the speediest and loudest voice of the strain.
In what I assume to be reaction to the killings and injuries, I rode past a anti-violence protest march today. The hundred and fifty or so members, shepherded by several motorcycle-mounted police officers, slowly made their way across the Nørrebrogade bridge as I biked home into southeast Nørrebro. The banner at the front displayed a gun painted over by the universal 'No!' symbol of a circle slashed by a line. Black behind red. The words were simple and big: Våben Nej Tak (Violence No Thanks). At the flank, a couple teenagers unfurled a second banner saying: Liv Ja Tak (Life Yes Thanks). Concisely profound.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Snowing Thick, Quirky Sciencing, Pay To Dispose Your 'Private' Waste Publicly
(ahem)
A post mingled with a few just-barely-not-crude topics...
The eminent infinite complexity (the EIC, or "ike" forthwith), that is Earth's Nature, deigned to bestow a bit 'o home on me today, in the form of an all-day (so far) snowstorm. Ths is the first white, wet, coldness that hasn't evaporated by 10am; in fact it's still patching over each footprint, wheel rut, and drain cover as I type. Looks a bit like Colorado out there today...beautiful.
Without the courtesy of a segway, I'd like to mention a detail of the labwork I've been doing recently. In quick summary I'm taking very fine ceramic powders and pressing them uniaxially (like one of those can crushers mounted on walls) into pill-size pellets, about the width of my middle finger. They must be as dense as possible, and for that we have a more powerful machine called an isostatic press. Covering my bases, all this means is an equal force exerted on the pellet from all sides, tops, and bottoms, simultaneously. Any air jammed inside the structure is evicted this way. Evacuated, actually, and to ease this trapped this trace atmosphere's exit, the pellets must be vacuumed sealed before going in the isostatic press. Naturally. A vacuum pump's easy to come by here at the lab, but what to seal the pellets in before transport to yon machine?
Hmmm...
How 'bout a condom, says brilliant scientist?* Of course! Why didn't I think of that? A 'rubber' is a great way to keep _____ sealed inside!**
So, Dear Reader, at this multi-million kroner, government funded, PhD-filled research facility, a critical step in fabricating high tech ceramic test samples comes down to a 15 cent condom. Awesome! Does this whole situation crack you up like it does me? Maybe I'm just very strange, but hardly anyone I talk to about this fact finds it even mildly amusing. A shame. I think it's hilarious.
Again, without segway, the last item on my writeabout list is the state of Danish public restrooms. When I left for Denmark, I had already heard of there being a general lack of these pit stops available in European countries (this is also the case for drinking fountains, but see Jan. 16 post for why that is so, at least in DK). Out of all the farewells I received from friends and family, the most humorous was to compile a tally of all the coin-operated toilets I ran into during my travels (you know who you are that suggested this). I've neglected that light-hearted duty, but the obervation stands in my mind after repeated scenarios where I need to go and there's no decent going to be gotten for miles around. Not in grocery stores, malls, or train stations anyhow. Occasionally a restaurant will have them, with varying shades of vandalism. At Roskilde train station you have to put in a 2 kroner coin to get in the door. This measure prevents all the honest bums from getting in and sleeping the cold nights away, or the rambunctious youths with sharpies, spray paint, and bottomless dictionaries of bad puns and sick jokes. I found a McDonald's right next to Nørreport station (deep downtown Kbh) with the same fixup. There I was fortunate enough to see the 'changing of the change,' in which an employee empties the handle-mounted box of coins and resets the lock.
The water closets (so they're labeled) actually on the trains are free, so that's a bonus.
The takehome lesson on this final topic is that planning your bathroom stops (as well as you can) along with your trip agenda is the best strategy.
Peace to you.
*I haven't asked yet who came up with this idea. It's the first time I've seen it.
**This sentence should be a 'Mad-Libs' staple.
A post mingled with a few just-barely-not-crude topics...
The eminent infinite complexity (the EIC, or "ike" forthwith), that is Earth's Nature, deigned to bestow a bit 'o home on me today, in the form of an all-day (so far) snowstorm. Ths is the first white, wet, coldness that hasn't evaporated by 10am; in fact it's still patching over each footprint, wheel rut, and drain cover as I type. Looks a bit like Colorado out there today...beautiful.
Without the courtesy of a segway, I'd like to mention a detail of the labwork I've been doing recently. In quick summary I'm taking very fine ceramic powders and pressing them uniaxially (like one of those can crushers mounted on walls) into pill-size pellets, about the width of my middle finger. They must be as dense as possible, and for that we have a more powerful machine called an isostatic press. Covering my bases, all this means is an equal force exerted on the pellet from all sides, tops, and bottoms, simultaneously. Any air jammed inside the structure is evicted this way. Evacuated, actually, and to ease this trapped this trace atmosphere's exit, the pellets must be vacuumed sealed before going in the isostatic press. Naturally. A vacuum pump's easy to come by here at the lab, but what to seal the pellets in before transport to yon machine?
Hmmm...
How 'bout a condom, says brilliant scientist?* Of course! Why didn't I think of that? A 'rubber' is a great way to keep _____ sealed inside!**
So, Dear Reader, at this multi-million kroner, government funded, PhD-filled research facility, a critical step in fabricating high tech ceramic test samples comes down to a 15 cent condom. Awesome! Does this whole situation crack you up like it does me? Maybe I'm just very strange, but hardly anyone I talk to about this fact finds it even mildly amusing. A shame. I think it's hilarious.
Again, without segway, the last item on my writeabout list is the state of Danish public restrooms. When I left for Denmark, I had already heard of there being a general lack of these pit stops available in European countries (this is also the case for drinking fountains, but see Jan. 16 post for why that is so, at least in DK). Out of all the farewells I received from friends and family, the most humorous was to compile a tally of all the coin-operated toilets I ran into during my travels (you know who you are that suggested this). I've neglected that light-hearted duty, but the obervation stands in my mind after repeated scenarios where I need to go and there's no decent going to be gotten for miles around. Not in grocery stores, malls, or train stations anyhow. Occasionally a restaurant will have them, with varying shades of vandalism. At Roskilde train station you have to put in a 2 kroner coin to get in the door. This measure prevents all the honest bums from getting in and sleeping the cold nights away, or the rambunctious youths with sharpies, spray paint, and bottomless dictionaries of bad puns and sick jokes. I found a McDonald's right next to Nørreport station (deep downtown Kbh) with the same fixup. There I was fortunate enough to see the 'changing of the change,' in which an employee empties the handle-mounted box of coins and resets the lock.
The water closets (so they're labeled) actually on the trains are free, so that's a bonus.
The takehome lesson on this final topic is that planning your bathroom stops (as well as you can) along with your trip agenda is the best strategy.
Peace to you.
*I haven't asked yet who came up with this idea. It's the first time I've seen it.
**This sentence should be a 'Mad-Libs' staple.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Sunny Sunday, 'Bad' vibrations, Telmore, Skype Critically Acclaimed!
It's been sunny today. The clouds here hang low and move fast across the airspace, and the brightness level is always changing. Gold fades to grey and streaks back into brilliant yellow again in seconds. After a week of nothing but dull wet wool-colored sky, it's a nice reprieve.
My work at Risø is intensifying. I'm finding myself humbled each day by how little I know, and how smart all these people are here. I don't like spending most of my work week reading this paper and that thesis, but I've accepted that's how it's got to be for now, maybe even for the next couple months. I'm in sponge mode, full gear.
I've so far found the Danish weekend party scene to last till 4 or 5am. At my old apartment on Voldgården, Peter and Laurids would be out till at least this hour (I wasn't there long enough to experience a party at our residence). Last night, my upstairs neighbors put on American rap music and electronica till these wee hours, and so I didn't get much sleep. I thought about making some noise of my own, but gave up and passed out around 2. When I woke again at 4, to renewed volume from above, I nearly lost it, but was too tired to care. What a night!
I got a cell phone for local use here, from a Danish internet-based phone company, Telmore. The payments amount to $18/month and with a six month plan (convenient for my time here) the phone itself cost $0.17. Sweet deal, though I don't have many people to call yet. There's a party at Copenhagen Business School this week, and one of my new friends here invited me, so maybe my phonebook will grow. I haven't yet figured out how to navigate all its functions; my Danish still isn't very good, and I don't have the energy or time to type the user manual into Google translator. For now, I'm ride the learning curve.
I miss you all back in CO and the States (and others of you in far-off places...like Australia). The mountains, snow, and English advertisements come to mind first. Thank God for Skype. It's been a real blessing to talk for so cheap (0.13 DKK/minute) to friends and family the States. Fellow Skype users, my online name is rorschachfish. For those of you in Colorado, or those willing to take some long-distance charges, my Skype local number is 303-731-5088. You can call this number and pay what you normally would calling any other 303 number, and it comes straight to my computer. So give me a ring sometime, I'd love to hear from you. Just keep in mind your 3pm is my 11pm, but I'll pick up if I can! I think my answering machine's in English, but I'm not sure...
The sun is setting and its dimming rays glint off the third and fourth-floor windows across the street. My first full month here is nearly over. New adventures tomorrow!
Adios and much Love to you all.
My work at Risø is intensifying. I'm finding myself humbled each day by how little I know, and how smart all these people are here. I don't like spending most of my work week reading this paper and that thesis, but I've accepted that's how it's got to be for now, maybe even for the next couple months. I'm in sponge mode, full gear.
I've so far found the Danish weekend party scene to last till 4 or 5am. At my old apartment on Voldgården, Peter and Laurids would be out till at least this hour (I wasn't there long enough to experience a party at our residence). Last night, my upstairs neighbors put on American rap music and electronica till these wee hours, and so I didn't get much sleep. I thought about making some noise of my own, but gave up and passed out around 2. When I woke again at 4, to renewed volume from above, I nearly lost it, but was too tired to care. What a night!
I got a cell phone for local use here, from a Danish internet-based phone company, Telmore. The payments amount to $18/month and with a six month plan (convenient for my time here) the phone itself cost $0.17. Sweet deal, though I don't have many people to call yet. There's a party at Copenhagen Business School this week, and one of my new friends here invited me, so maybe my phonebook will grow. I haven't yet figured out how to navigate all its functions; my Danish still isn't very good, and I don't have the energy or time to type the user manual into Google translator. For now, I'm ride the learning curve.
I miss you all back in CO and the States (and others of you in far-off places...like Australia). The mountains, snow, and English advertisements come to mind first. Thank God for Skype. It's been a real blessing to talk for so cheap (0.13 DKK/minute) to friends and family the States. Fellow Skype users, my online name is rorschachfish. For those of you in Colorado, or those willing to take some long-distance charges, my Skype local number is 303-731-5088. You can call this number and pay what you normally would calling any other 303 number, and it comes straight to my computer. So give me a ring sometime, I'd love to hear from you. Just keep in mind your 3pm is my 11pm, but I'll pick up if I can! I think my answering machine's in English, but I'm not sure...
The sun is setting and its dimming rays glint off the third and fourth-floor windows across the street. My first full month here is nearly over. New adventures tomorrow!
Adios and much Love to you all.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Danish First Floors, Bicycle Streets, Moving Again
I imagine once my stream-of-consciousness peters out here tonight, this post won't qualify as short, but if you hate long blog posts, just take comfort in this, Dear Reader: it could be a lot longer if I wasn't so lazy!
Some interesting features I have found in Denmark (I call them 'features' because I have no better word for them, and, to write 'things' is terribly trite):
The Danes count building floors starting with 'ground' or 'zero' as what Americans would think of as the 'first' floor. So, the 'second' floor in an U.S. building would be the 'first' floor in Denmark. Perhaps this is true elsewhere in Europe and the world? I'd not be surprised to find out America is the only country with a system like it has (e.g. holding to the Imperial (British) system of units and measures as opposed to metric). Cogitation aside, this change caused me some confusion the first time I got directions to find an office on the first floor of a building last week.
Secondly, the fact there are raised bicycle lanes running between the pedestrian walks and streets in nearly all parts of the Danish cities (the ones I've been in anyway: Roskilde, København, Århus) is really very awesome. It's like a cyclist's own street. These bike paths are set at a height greater than the road, but less than the sidewalk. The elevated plane with its well-weathered borders actually makes me feel safer, more contained than I feel riding on the same level as cars or people. I suppose this feeling comes out of my desires to see order and neatness in a lot of life, and to have thorough organization. I don't think it's OCD (I'm quite uninformed on that condition), but maybe it's my equally inherent laziness that combats true obsessiveness. Simply put: if I don't find order and organization quickly or relatively easily, I usually just give up and stop caring, perhaps to return and tackle the task later.
Anyway...I moved into a spare room in a downtown København flat owned by a Danish doctor and lived in by his son Laurids (say it: Laord-ss and swallow the 'd') and Peter, Laurids' friend. I took my stuff down from Risø in a couple trips. The room has a backwards 'L' shape, enclosed with white-painted concrete walls, a wood panel floor and a plaster ceiling with an obscure rectangular hole shooting upwards into darkness and the fourth through sixth floors. A floor-to-ceiling window that opens two different ways depending on the handle's position overlooks a triangular courtyard where the residents' bikes and the trash bins sit. I'm living on the third floor (Danish third) of a good-sized apartment building on Christianshavn, the small oblong island that rides up alongside København central with a couple hundred meters of water between. My street is Voldgården if you'd like to look it up (the zip code, which goes before the city, is 1412; Google Maps'll pick it out right quick).
I'd say to mail me some letters telling me how much you miss me, Dear Reader, but, alas, after two nights living in my island-bound room, I heard back on another apartment lead. This one's in Nørrebro, a region of København to the northwest of center, about 10 minutes' bike ride from the main train station, Hovedbanegård (meaning roughly 'main station'). I hadn't expected to get contacted by this other landlord. In the variable sieve of my memory I didn't pay enough attention to the detail that he'd be telling me by Tuesday (20 January) if he found me the best choice for the room. I had thought it was to be Monday (19) at the latest. So! I am moving again! I lose my deposit to my current roommates, and I'm paying 1000 kroner/month more, but I gain some nice benefits.
First off, my Nørrebro room is three times larger! The L-room I'm in now; it's a mere 6 square meters. if I lie down across the widest portion, I can't stretch out fully. For the visual learner (like me), imagine a letter 'L' whose base is thicker than it is long. This geometry leaves only one place to put the bed, running parallel to the 'L's vertical spine, nestled in the corner of that 'thickened base.' As for the bed itself, we found the frame on a dumpster dive. It's a single-person rig that's just wide enough to let me lie on my back and long enough that my toes come to rest on the wooden footboard as my scalp touches the head piece. No mattress. When I arrived with my belongings, it was the only piece of furniture. Why would I even take this small, bare room? All my other leads hadn't contacted me back (not including the one that did two days later), and Svaleholm charges about double my rent for this place. I decided to wing it. It happened that my roommates are kind Danish guys, and they lent me a mattress, pillow, and sleeping bag to cover me during the cold København nights. One of them (Peter) even gave me a lamp to plug into the lone socket. All together, it was quite a shift from the well-furnished farmhouse near Risø. To make matters even better, when I reassembled the refuse bed frame, I found some of the screws missing. While I was able to get it into a whole piece of work, I had to use screws from the foot and head boards. Even then, I may have discovered why it was all trashed in the first place--it wobbles, even with the transplanted screws. Definitely not a bed to be used roughly! I have slept on it now for a week and it hasn't fallen down. Oh, what fun!
Second, third, and fourth real quick. The new room is furnished with bed, couch, and desk. The apartment has its own washing facilities (I pay 17.5 kroner per wash here at Voldgården). Finally, it's closer to the train depot (Nørrebro station) where I need to get to classes at DTU (they start next week), and a connection down to Hovedbanegård (often abbreviated to København H) for my ride out to Risø.
To make this long post not so long, I am moving Saturday, another adventure to close out an action-packed January. What a way to spend the first days of 2009!
For those of you I relayed my Vodgården address to, I'll let you know my new-new address soon, and the rest of you will get a (hopefully) more permanent one.
That's enough for tonight.
Until some undetermined future time! Hej og godnat.
Some interesting features I have found in Denmark (I call them 'features' because I have no better word for them, and, to write 'things' is terribly trite):
The Danes count building floors starting with 'ground' or 'zero' as what Americans would think of as the 'first' floor. So, the 'second' floor in an U.S. building would be the 'first' floor in Denmark. Perhaps this is true elsewhere in Europe and the world? I'd not be surprised to find out America is the only country with a system like it has (e.g. holding to the Imperial (British) system of units and measures as opposed to metric). Cogitation aside, this change caused me some confusion the first time I got directions to find an office on the first floor of a building last week.
Secondly, the fact there are raised bicycle lanes running between the pedestrian walks and streets in nearly all parts of the Danish cities (the ones I've been in anyway: Roskilde, København, Århus) is really very awesome. It's like a cyclist's own street. These bike paths are set at a height greater than the road, but less than the sidewalk. The elevated plane with its well-weathered borders actually makes me feel safer, more contained than I feel riding on the same level as cars or people. I suppose this feeling comes out of my desires to see order and neatness in a lot of life, and to have thorough organization. I don't think it's OCD (I'm quite uninformed on that condition), but maybe it's my equally inherent laziness that combats true obsessiveness. Simply put: if I don't find order and organization quickly or relatively easily, I usually just give up and stop caring, perhaps to return and tackle the task later.
Anyway...I moved into a spare room in a downtown København flat owned by a Danish doctor and lived in by his son Laurids (say it: Laord-ss and swallow the 'd') and Peter, Laurids' friend. I took my stuff down from Risø in a couple trips. The room has a backwards 'L' shape, enclosed with white-painted concrete walls, a wood panel floor and a plaster ceiling with an obscure rectangular hole shooting upwards into darkness and the fourth through sixth floors. A floor-to-ceiling window that opens two different ways depending on the handle's position overlooks a triangular courtyard where the residents' bikes and the trash bins sit. I'm living on the third floor (Danish third) of a good-sized apartment building on Christianshavn, the small oblong island that rides up alongside København central with a couple hundred meters of water between. My street is Voldgården if you'd like to look it up (the zip code, which goes before the city, is 1412; Google Maps'll pick it out right quick).
I'd say to mail me some letters telling me how much you miss me, Dear Reader, but, alas, after two nights living in my island-bound room, I heard back on another apartment lead. This one's in Nørrebro, a region of København to the northwest of center, about 10 minutes' bike ride from the main train station, Hovedbanegård (meaning roughly 'main station'). I hadn't expected to get contacted by this other landlord. In the variable sieve of my memory I didn't pay enough attention to the detail that he'd be telling me by Tuesday (20 January) if he found me the best choice for the room. I had thought it was to be Monday (19) at the latest. So! I am moving again! I lose my deposit to my current roommates, and I'm paying 1000 kroner/month more, but I gain some nice benefits.
First off, my Nørrebro room is three times larger! The L-room I'm in now; it's a mere 6 square meters. if I lie down across the widest portion, I can't stretch out fully. For the visual learner (like me), imagine a letter 'L' whose base is thicker than it is long. This geometry leaves only one place to put the bed, running parallel to the 'L's vertical spine, nestled in the corner of that 'thickened base.' As for the bed itself, we found the frame on a dumpster dive. It's a single-person rig that's just wide enough to let me lie on my back and long enough that my toes come to rest on the wooden footboard as my scalp touches the head piece. No mattress. When I arrived with my belongings, it was the only piece of furniture. Why would I even take this small, bare room? All my other leads hadn't contacted me back (not including the one that did two days later), and Svaleholm charges about double my rent for this place. I decided to wing it. It happened that my roommates are kind Danish guys, and they lent me a mattress, pillow, and sleeping bag to cover me during the cold København nights. One of them (Peter) even gave me a lamp to plug into the lone socket. All together, it was quite a shift from the well-furnished farmhouse near Risø. To make matters even better, when I reassembled the refuse bed frame, I found some of the screws missing. While I was able to get it into a whole piece of work, I had to use screws from the foot and head boards. Even then, I may have discovered why it was all trashed in the first place--it wobbles, even with the transplanted screws. Definitely not a bed to be used roughly! I have slept on it now for a week and it hasn't fallen down. Oh, what fun!
Second, third, and fourth real quick. The new room is furnished with bed, couch, and desk. The apartment has its own washing facilities (I pay 17.5 kroner per wash here at Voldgården). Finally, it's closer to the train depot (Nørrebro station) where I need to get to classes at DTU (they start next week), and a connection down to Hovedbanegård (often abbreviated to København H) for my ride out to Risø.
To make this long post not so long, I am moving Saturday, another adventure to close out an action-packed January. What a way to spend the first days of 2009!
For those of you I relayed my Vodgården address to, I'll let you know my new-new address soon, and the rest of you will get a (hopefully) more permanent one.
That's enough for tonight.
Until some undetermined future time! Hej og godnat.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Denmark: Round 2, Jet Lag, First Full Day
Hello Dear Reader and goddag! I have returned to Denmark, and have begun blogging again after a lengthy hiatus. My writer's block (blogger-block) has been forcefully thrown aside by the need to keep you informed of my adventures! So, with some introduction to start...
I flew from Denver to Frankfurt non-stop, and non-sleep, starting Sunday, January 11, and ending up in Germany about lunchtime January 12. I estimate my total REM time aboard the two-deck jumbo to have been no more than two hours total. Credit goes to the (Indian?) family with two toddlers in the row behind mine. Ah, what a true test of patience and good manners!
Blearily navigating my way through Customs, and explaining the presence of my alarm clock and flashlight to German security, I caught my connecting flight into Copenhagen (I like the look of "København" better, personally) without any hassle. I had to get on a bus that shuttled a load of us Denmark-bound passengers out onto the tarmac, where our plane waited, and we climbed the set of rolling stairs to board. The briskness of the foggy German Monday was refreshing after the hot and cramped plane-ride.
The plane arrived on time in a clear-skyed Copenhagen. As I disembarked, I thought about the service I've received while flying throughout my life, and I've concluded Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) provides the best. These people are very polite, observant, and seem to have unshakable cheer and uncrackable patience. Lufthansa (my carrier from Denver to Frankfurt) comes in a close second.
After picking up my checked bag I made my way into the airport's main building to find the train ticket office. The Copenhagen airport is very beautiful, full of glass and color and winding, swirling designs in everything from staircases to chairs. There are reclining armchairs lining some of the concourse walls for the weary traveler to rest in between or after flights, a feature my jet-lagged body sorely wished to enjoy, but declined in favor of getting to my final destination with all haste.
I found the train ticket booth and bought a ride to Roskilde, the city where I am living (for now), and where Risø, Denmark's National Sustainable Energy Laboratory, is located. I am glad nearly every Dane speaks or understands English, for while I can read it in fair fashion, I cannot pronounce it correct enough to be useful, yet. I made it to the correct platform, looking for "Roskilde" on the view screen and boarded. I thought I would be fine all the way to Roskilde, but it turned out the train first stopped in Copenhagen Train Station. Here it stopped and everyone who did not want to go right back to the airport had to get off and transfer. By the time I found someone to ask, I had two minutes and had to be two platforms over. I think I looked like an overburdened Sherpa with my bags slung across my back and front, running up one escalator and (carefully) running down the other one, getting onto the right train connection 30 seconds before departure. Phew! A good thing too as the next one would come an hour later. The station is very nice, but I was anxious to get to Roskilde before it got too late.
Upon arrival in the mid-island town, I grabbed some cash and a cab to the home of Anne and Klaus Hauch, about 1 mile from the train station. They are a very nice, young couple, with a 9 month-old son, Jacob. This little tot is real easy to like. He has to touch and eat everything within reach, and he stares curiously at any new object (i.e. me), but he's also very pleasant and he loves his Lego bricks! I'm staying with them till January 16, and then I'll move into the Risø-DTU Guest House. My new home will be closer to work, but I'll have to cook for myself and I won't get to learn as much about Danish culture and family life, so I'm a bit sad be leaving so soon. Free meals and lodging is great!
I had not originally intended to spend any time with a Danish family, but when there was a scheduling mix-up with the Guest House people, I found myself homeless in Denmark for four days and nights. My boss, Mogens Mogensen, put me in touch with Anne, a post-doc researcher at Risø, and she agreed to put me up in a guest room for the week--very nice of her indeed. I have learned a lot from them about Danish customs, history, and language. I'm still real rubbish when it comes to remembering pronunciations (a real hindrance is that, like most native speakers, the Danish don't enunciate very well), but I'm getting there.
So far at this house, I've accompanied Anne on a grocery run, using bicycles (I rode Klaus') and towing the food home in a small trailer bin attached to my seat by a bar, running behind me on wheels. Klaus' birthday was today (January 13), and I heard, though I cannot remember, the Danish version of "Happy Birthday." Klaus' parents are visiting today also, having driven the 130 km from the city of Odense (say: 'Ooln-suh' while swallowing the 'l' a bit). They speak very little English, but are happy to trade expressions and learn new ones. Klaus is quite a cook, and we've had several great meals. When they don't know the English word for a vegetable, food, dish, etc..., they look it up in their Dansk-Engelsk dictionary and tell me. I've never had 'jordskok' before, but it's called 'Jerusalem artichoke' in English, looks somewhat like a mushroom, and has the consistency of a radish, though it tastes like a potato. Yes, very good food! In our dinner conversations we've been over Danish driving laws, what Americans eat on New Year's Eve (Klaus' father thought maybe we all ate 'Big Macs'), Danish history, food, a bit of politics, and all sorts of descriptions about the Rocky Mountains, Denver, and Colorado. Klaus works as a math teacher at a university that trains teachers, so we talked about the Danish education system and its comparison to those in America. Jacob is perpetually either at the dinner table or playing on a toy-filled blanket next to it. He cannot yet walk or talk, but he scoots himself between our legs, tries to eat our toes (or slippers), and often grabs the attention of one or more of us. Cute kid.
I flew from Denver to Frankfurt non-stop, and non-sleep, starting Sunday, January 11, and ending up in Germany about lunchtime January 12. I estimate my total REM time aboard the two-deck jumbo to have been no more than two hours total. Credit goes to the (Indian?) family with two toddlers in the row behind mine. Ah, what a true test of patience and good manners!
Blearily navigating my way through Customs, and explaining the presence of my alarm clock and flashlight to German security, I caught my connecting flight into Copenhagen (I like the look of "København" better, personally) without any hassle. I had to get on a bus that shuttled a load of us Denmark-bound passengers out onto the tarmac, where our plane waited, and we climbed the set of rolling stairs to board. The briskness of the foggy German Monday was refreshing after the hot and cramped plane-ride.
The plane arrived on time in a clear-skyed Copenhagen. As I disembarked, I thought about the service I've received while flying throughout my life, and I've concluded Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) provides the best. These people are very polite, observant, and seem to have unshakable cheer and uncrackable patience. Lufthansa (my carrier from Denver to Frankfurt) comes in a close second.
After picking up my checked bag I made my way into the airport's main building to find the train ticket office. The Copenhagen airport is very beautiful, full of glass and color and winding, swirling designs in everything from staircases to chairs. There are reclining armchairs lining some of the concourse walls for the weary traveler to rest in between or after flights, a feature my jet-lagged body sorely wished to enjoy, but declined in favor of getting to my final destination with all haste.
I found the train ticket booth and bought a ride to Roskilde, the city where I am living (for now), and where Risø, Denmark's National Sustainable Energy Laboratory, is located. I am glad nearly every Dane speaks or understands English, for while I can read it in fair fashion, I cannot pronounce it correct enough to be useful, yet. I made it to the correct platform, looking for "Roskilde" on the view screen and boarded. I thought I would be fine all the way to Roskilde, but it turned out the train first stopped in Copenhagen Train Station. Here it stopped and everyone who did not want to go right back to the airport had to get off and transfer. By the time I found someone to ask, I had two minutes and had to be two platforms over. I think I looked like an overburdened Sherpa with my bags slung across my back and front, running up one escalator and (carefully) running down the other one, getting onto the right train connection 30 seconds before departure. Phew! A good thing too as the next one would come an hour later. The station is very nice, but I was anxious to get to Roskilde before it got too late.
Upon arrival in the mid-island town, I grabbed some cash and a cab to the home of Anne and Klaus Hauch, about 1 mile from the train station. They are a very nice, young couple, with a 9 month-old son, Jacob. This little tot is real easy to like. He has to touch and eat everything within reach, and he stares curiously at any new object (i.e. me), but he's also very pleasant and he loves his Lego bricks! I'm staying with them till January 16, and then I'll move into the Risø-DTU Guest House. My new home will be closer to work, but I'll have to cook for myself and I won't get to learn as much about Danish culture and family life, so I'm a bit sad be leaving so soon. Free meals and lodging is great!
I had not originally intended to spend any time with a Danish family, but when there was a scheduling mix-up with the Guest House people, I found myself homeless in Denmark for four days and nights. My boss, Mogens Mogensen, put me in touch with Anne, a post-doc researcher at Risø, and she agreed to put me up in a guest room for the week--very nice of her indeed. I have learned a lot from them about Danish customs, history, and language. I'm still real rubbish when it comes to remembering pronunciations (a real hindrance is that, like most native speakers, the Danish don't enunciate very well), but I'm getting there.
So far at this house, I've accompanied Anne on a grocery run, using bicycles (I rode Klaus') and towing the food home in a small trailer bin attached to my seat by a bar, running behind me on wheels. Klaus' birthday was today (January 13), and I heard, though I cannot remember, the Danish version of "Happy Birthday." Klaus' parents are visiting today also, having driven the 130 km from the city of Odense (say: 'Ooln-suh' while swallowing the 'l' a bit). They speak very little English, but are happy to trade expressions and learn new ones. Klaus is quite a cook, and we've had several great meals. When they don't know the English word for a vegetable, food, dish, etc..., they look it up in their Dansk-Engelsk dictionary and tell me. I've never had 'jordskok' before, but it's called 'Jerusalem artichoke' in English, looks somewhat like a mushroom, and has the consistency of a radish, though it tastes like a potato. Yes, very good food! In our dinner conversations we've been over Danish driving laws, what Americans eat on New Year's Eve (Klaus' father thought maybe we all ate 'Big Macs'), Danish history, food, a bit of politics, and all sorts of descriptions about the Rocky Mountains, Denver, and Colorado. Klaus works as a math teacher at a university that trains teachers, so we talked about the Danish education system and its comparison to those in America. Jacob is perpetually either at the dinner table or playing on a toy-filled blanket next to it. He cannot yet walk or talk, but he scoots himself between our legs, tries to eat our toes (or slippers), and often grabs the attention of one or more of us. Cute kid.
Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø
I went into work with Anne today. We rode the bicycles the 6 km (~4 miles) to Risø. Even though we left at 7:45 am, it was still predawn. At least, I think so, for I never saw the sky today. Fog and low-hanging clouds was the forecast and it held. I don't mind, really, the countryside is still quite beautiful and the town is very nice. Bike paths are built like separate, miniature highways running along the car roads. Except for the small side streets, every roadway has them. In town, cyclists even have their own set of traffic lights to obey at intersections. While it had rained during the night, the air was merely damp on our way up to Risø. It felt about as cold as a Colorado winter, and I'm glad I came plenty prepared for winter weather. Anne tells me ice and snow are rare; mostly it's wet, windy, and dim during Denmark winters. I've been told the worst part of the cold season has passed, and the days are about seven hours long now.
We arrived at Risø around 8:15 and I got my guest badge. I'll soon have a more permanent ID with a picture, and access will be easier. Anne showed me around some of the facilities (I'd been given much the same tour when I visited back in August 08), and I met some of the other 'early birds' (it's typical to arrive around 9am). Mogens was already there though, and we talked briefly about my initial duties here at Risø, i.e. getting safety and liability paperwork, lab tours, my office set up, a network password, and so on.
The rest of the day was occupied with a workshop on hydrocarbon fuels. This event consisted of nine half-hour presentations by scientists and PhD students working at Risø, all within the Fuel Cells and Solid State Chemistry department. We heard about hydrocarbon and hydrogen fuel production, systems integration, economic considerations, modeling, electrochemistry, and materials research. Much of it directly related to my work here, so I kept fairly good notes throughout the day. As with everything Risø-DTU is involve in, sustainability is a major factor, from basic design to system and market integration. This idea gets a lot of attention in Demark, coming out in mandates from their government, initiatives in companies (e.g. Vestas, DONG Energy, Haldor Topsoe), and all over academia. If you, Dear Reader, are not informed, Risø was originally founded by Physicist Niels Bohr in 1958, as a nuclear power research facility. It has long since shifted track to renewable and sustainable energy technologies, and the fuel cells division (where I am) is only a small part. Researchers here also work on fusion, wind, biomass, and solar, among others. So, yes, sustainability and renewability are two buzz words going around everywhere.
The talks were spread out by several coffee breaks (the Danish are religious about this custom) and a catered lunch in the cafeteria. The food was much the same as the fare I ate back in August, at Fulgsøcentret, and I made acquaintances over bites of fish and bread with several other people in the workshop group. Most of us are Danish, though there is another American, Chris, whom I met last time, a few Asian-looking fellows, and an Indian man named Shital. In all we numbered about 20 or so, I didn't count.
Tomorrow I will go with Anne in a Risø-rented car to DTU (Technical University of Denmark, the academic institution financially and legally linked to the government lab Risø). Many of the people from today's workshop will be there. The occasion is a two-day conference on renewable energy, and there will be more intensive and longer presentations on solar, wind, biomass, and energy storage. People are coming from around the world to attend and talk. A woman from NREL is scheduled to speak about the Colorado lab's wind program. I may attend that one. The schedule is largely a free-for-all in the reservation department, so I guess it's just "show up and listen."
That's enough for one day! I'll write more soon, so take care Dear Reader.
Afsked og godnat! (meaning farewell and goodnight. I had typed it as 'Afskend' back in August, but I was wrong, so, AFSKED!)
We arrived at Risø around 8:15 and I got my guest badge. I'll soon have a more permanent ID with a picture, and access will be easier. Anne showed me around some of the facilities (I'd been given much the same tour when I visited back in August 08), and I met some of the other 'early birds' (it's typical to arrive around 9am). Mogens was already there though, and we talked briefly about my initial duties here at Risø, i.e. getting safety and liability paperwork, lab tours, my office set up, a network password, and so on.
The rest of the day was occupied with a workshop on hydrocarbon fuels. This event consisted of nine half-hour presentations by scientists and PhD students working at Risø, all within the Fuel Cells and Solid State Chemistry department. We heard about hydrocarbon and hydrogen fuel production, systems integration, economic considerations, modeling, electrochemistry, and materials research. Much of it directly related to my work here, so I kept fairly good notes throughout the day. As with everything Risø-DTU is involve in, sustainability is a major factor, from basic design to system and market integration. This idea gets a lot of attention in Demark, coming out in mandates from their government, initiatives in companies (e.g. Vestas, DONG Energy, Haldor Topsoe), and all over academia. If you, Dear Reader, are not informed, Risø was originally founded by Physicist Niels Bohr in 1958, as a nuclear power research facility. It has long since shifted track to renewable and sustainable energy technologies, and the fuel cells division (where I am) is only a small part. Researchers here also work on fusion, wind, biomass, and solar, among others. So, yes, sustainability and renewability are two buzz words going around everywhere.
The talks were spread out by several coffee breaks (the Danish are religious about this custom) and a catered lunch in the cafeteria. The food was much the same as the fare I ate back in August, at Fulgsøcentret, and I made acquaintances over bites of fish and bread with several other people in the workshop group. Most of us are Danish, though there is another American, Chris, whom I met last time, a few Asian-looking fellows, and an Indian man named Shital. In all we numbered about 20 or so, I didn't count.
Tomorrow I will go with Anne in a Risø-rented car to DTU (Technical University of Denmark, the academic institution financially and legally linked to the government lab Risø). Many of the people from today's workshop will be there. The occasion is a two-day conference on renewable energy, and there will be more intensive and longer presentations on solar, wind, biomass, and energy storage. People are coming from around the world to attend and talk. A woman from NREL is scheduled to speak about the Colorado lab's wind program. I may attend that one. The schedule is largely a free-for-all in the reservation department, so I guess it's just "show up and listen."
That's enough for one day! I'll write more soon, so take care Dear Reader.
Afsked og godnat! (meaning farewell and goodnight. I had typed it as 'Afskend' back in August, but I was wrong, so, AFSKED!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)