Denmark: Two Days Gone, One Remains...

[Composed 8/20]

It's Wednesday night, about 10:30 now, and I'm too wiped to write separate posts about the last two days. So, I'll combine in summary about what's been happening here lately on Jutland.

First of all, the weather here puts Colorado's strangeness to the test. It rained seven different times today, and in between each short storm were bright sunshine and rolling, low-hanging clouds. It's been like this most of the time I've been here. Denmark is wet wet wet.

The last few nights have been filled with raging football games in the gym. The Spanish kids and the Finnish guy are the best players, oh, and the Russian too, he has a kick that bruises bones (with the ball). He's like Chuck Norris, only shorter, with less expression, and smokes cigarettes like a chimney. Despite the overwhelming talent in comparison to my elementary skills, I had a lot of fun being the silly American. Actually, there were three of us dumb Yanks playing, and we didn't too all that bad in the end (I assisted one goal). The stuff these guys do with their feet and body weight; it looks like dancing. Yeah, so those matches are great workouts and by the end, we're all sweaty and tired.

I notice when I go to wetter climes I sweat a LOT more when I work out then when I'm in Colorado or a drier environment. I wonder if my body is adapted to a dry climate, so when I go somewhere wetter, I pump out more perspiration as a habit; as if my body actually has some sort of adaptive powers...weird! Maybe that's not the reason, but there's got be some reason why I perspire so much more in wetter environments. Maybe evaporation is restricted by the amount of water in the air? But, I notice the Danish, Spanish, and other students who come from similarly wet environments aren't as sweaty. Hmmmmm.....

Well, enough talk of sweaty guys, the wind program is winding down. Yesterday we spent all the daylight hours touring Siemens Wind Power factories, hearing lectures on wind power grid connections, eating lunch in their canteen, and busing over to Dong Energy (Denmark's largest power company) for more lectures, tours, and bad food. The Danish have an obsession with the sandwich. The other students noticed this fact too: the Danes have dozens of different sandwich types, maybe even hundreds. Most of them involve either eggs or fish of some variety. Apparently the ones we had while at Dong weren't very good, because about half our group (so I heard) got a little sick later that night. Not me, so I guess I'm lucky. After a 2+ hour bus ride back to Fuglsøcentret, a bunch of us played more football, going until almost 11pm (starting around 9). I tried to crash around midnight, but two of the Italians, Alessandro and Francesca, roped me into a couple of pool games with the Malay student, Yeow. I hit my pillow hard at around 1:30am.

Today was packed with work, more than usual. Several representatives from Siemens, Vestas, and the Engineering College at Århus were present in the main event hall to supervise us while we worked in our groups on the case study project. Our task: find a way to improve the cost effectiveness of a certain turbine design. The turbine in question was designed about 10 years ago, but, due to high production costs, the design was abandoned and only a few of them are in use across the country. The project has been a real challenge for several reasons. 1) I'm the only native English speaker in my group, so a lot of my ideas require circumlocutional explanations. 2) It's a very very open-ended task, with no clear answer, just like real life! 3) The company reps are expecting a professional solution in a timely manner. 4) I'm totally new to nearly all the science behind this technology (Mechanical and Electrical Engineering are the fields here). Facing all of this, I'm having a great time. I think my team will have a good solution by tomorrow evening, when our poster's due. The only drawback is my flight home is before the poster session on Friday morning. I feel bad, but chaning my flights would cost me more than the original price for them, in extra fees. Bottom line, we're going to work our butts off tomorrow to get this project hammered out--we have some good conceptual ideas and our main task tomorrow is to get real numbers to back them up.

I'm off to play pool and commune with the other students. Enjoy your Wednesday afternoons, your Thursday mornings, and your non-Danish weather my friends! Until next post, afskend!

Denmark: High In the Sky

Sunday! Usually a day of rest in the U.S., that is not so here at the summer school. After the party last night (see the previous post), we all woke far too early this morning for a 7:30am breakfast and an 8am bus ride to a real working Vestas wind turbine. It was part of a wind 'farm,' set up on the property of a wheat farm (one of the farmers was out turning over the wheat clippings with a big machine; up a row and down another, back and forth). There were evergreens and oak trees ringing the field, and other turbines could be seen all around, off into the distance of the flattened landscape.

The turbine we visited is still in operation, though its design model was discontinued some ten years ago due to production costs being too high. It's 60 meters tall (to the nacelle, the motors and generator hub connected to the rotor) and the rotor blades are each 30 meters long. In groups of two, we ascended the inside of the tower in a small cage lift that wobbles and shakes if you even shift your weight a little. It's not that it's old and rickety, it's that there is only one thin cable holding it between top and bottom. You have to hold a button down and up to make it move. I went up with one of the other American students, Amy, and when we reached the nacelle, one of the Danish technicians was there to show us around. Beneath the main generator and rotor shaft chamber, there are two huge plastic and metal cubes holding 600 liters of water each. These are to dampen any vibrational motion caused by wind buffeting the tower or any mechanical shaking from the generator components. Up in the nacelle we looked at the yaw and pitch mechanisms, the main shaft chamber, the generator, and the transformer (all huge machines in a room about 8 meters by 4 meters. The highlight of the tower climb was being able to poke our heads out the top access hatch and take pictures from 60 meters high. We could see many many farms rolling into the distance, and many wind turbines dotting the land. Off to the east was the sea, about 10 km away, and, to the south we could see where they were Vestas workers were erecting a new wind turbine. This one will be the largest in the region, standing over 100 meters high to the nacelle and have blades that are 50 meters long.

We ate lunch at the turbine and then got back on the bus and traveled to a wind turbine blade factory, operated by a competing company, Siemens. You may have heard of this company because they have many industries from medical science to petroleum/fossil fuel refinement to information technology, and, for our visit, wind. The factory is in the northern part of Jutland (the part of Denmark connected to Germany that sticks out of mainland Europe like a thumb), close to the town of Ållborg. Two company engineers gave us some background information on the components and fabrication process of the wind blades, via powerpoint. They showed us some videos of how they test the blades for fatigue and extreme stress conditions. I thought this was the coolest video I've seen yet. They build a blade, fix it to a stand so it sticks out parallel to the ground, and attach a large clamp with a motor on it to the middle. This motor controls a shaft which has a swining weight attached to it. As the motor runs and the shaft turns, the weight flips around the shaft axis. Eventually, the whole blade is bending up and down and up and down, oscillating at its 'natural' frequency. They make it bounce 2 million times and call this treatment equivalent to 20 years of wind abuse. The guys said when one of these things snaps, it makes a sound like a cannon. I believe it; these things are giant pieces of fiber glass and epoxy, at lengths of 20 meters to 52 meters.

We were next taken to the production plants outside the office buildings. We were not allowed to take pictures (sorry guys), but the plant was amazing! As usual, the Danish are very meticulous about workplace safety, cleanliness, and order. They also have a neat, patented process for inserting the gallons and gallons of epoxy into the fiberglass and balsa wood frame. They build the frame in two pieces, a top and a bottom. Then they place both sides in a mold, with plastic bags lining the hollow interior. They pump down the mold to a vacuum and then flood the chamber with epoxy. After it cures, they pull the plastic out and you have a long hollow and very strong turbine blade. Next they paint it. We wanted to see the painting process, but, because it's a Sunday in Summer, that part of production was not in operation (they have a strange attitude towards days off here). I thought it was weird that they use balsa wood, the same light material found in those toy airplanes. But, apparently it's much cheaper than carbon fiber and holds up well enough to sell 7,000 turbines. We asked the technicians about carbon fiber and they said when (not if) the turbine blades get to 150 meters or so in length, it will become cost effective to use it, because the blades must be light enough so as not to overload the tower.

We returned from Ållborg to Fuglsøcentret around dinner time and, after eating, some of us went to the beach. I took my first swim in the Baltic Sea in my gym shorts. It was about as cold as Clear Creek in the beginning of the run-off season, cold enough to make me inhale a little sharply when I first submerged myself. The water is remarkably less salty than I expected; more of a hint than a sharp taste on the tongue. The sand is gray and there are many different colored rocks on the shoreline along with abundant sea weed and algae. I also found out, up close and personally, that Denmark has jellyfish. They are not deadly, but I swam right into one. It felt like a fragile sheet of plastic wrap brushing across my skin. Even as I type this, I can still feel the a little of the burning itchiness all over my abdomen and arms. One of the Danish students, Martin, assured me of the sting's mildness and said it would probably go away in a few hours. My skin turned red and bumpy, though I think I'll be just fine tomorrow. I cut my swim short after the stinging incident and skipped a few rocks before heading back to the center with the other students.

Some of us organized a futbol game in the gymnasium about an hour after the swim and I played until late with a dozen of them. I was the worst guy out there, but I still had a lot of fun. It's a great sport, even indoors. I actually scored one goal before the end.

Now, I'm sitting here at 12:15 on the morning of August 18. I have so much more to tell, but I am exhausted. I'm off to grab another beer and then to bed. Tomorrow I'll get back to the other days and tell you all about the other days (their posts will appear in order of day though, so look backwards).

Afskend!

Denmark: A Day In Århus - Not Long Enough

[Composed 8/16 - 8/18]

Saturday morning, 8/16, after my brief late-night post at the hostel:

My watch alarm doesn't work, but I woke up at the right time anyway. I ordered breakfast when I checked in, and it cost me about $12 extra. The place, called 'City Sleep-In,' was quite nice, though the decor was a little strange: some cross of a children's hospital and a modern art museum. Internet cost me another $12 (paid online) and that's how I wrote the short post called 'Checking In - Backtrack Later.' My laptop battery did eventually die and, without a charger, I had to wait until the next evening to rejuice it.

After checking out, I wandered over to the main shopping street, near the train station (it reminded me a lot of the 16th Street Mall in Denver). Århus is the second largest city in Denmark, after Copenhagen; Wikipedia quotes the population at around 1.2 million, so it's comparable to Denver in size as well. The most striking feature of Århus (and the rest of Denmark) to me is the staggering amount of bicycles. They are everywhere! I took some photos of the rows upon rows upon rows of them in many places throughout the city. They also have a public bicycle system where a person can insert a 20 DKK coin into a slot on the handle bar. This motion pops out a locking mechanism, which is chained to a pole, thereby releasing the bicycle. The bikes are usually single-speed, having solid-rubber tires, and a simple, solid aluminum frame in a design that fits all sizes. The wheel spokes are covered with flat circular plates, further distinguishing them from other bikes (which is great, since every Danish citizen has at least one if not two of their own). The seats are adjustable, but cannot be totally removed and the parts are quite unique-looking compared to other bikes. For instance, to brake, you pedal backwards, eliminating any chance of brake theft. Overall, the bikes are very undesirable to steal and so they stay in the city and stay on the roads. I am really interested in this stuff because I'm working to start one on the CSM campus. The dynamics of the program and the design will have to be different in one obvious area: landscape. Golden and Århus are very different terrain types, with the former having a lot of hills, and the latter none to speak of.

I met up with some of the other students wandering the sites and grouped together for the rest of the day. It was fortunate I made it to Århus from Risø because this day happened to be the one free day where the summer school participants were bussed to the city and allowed to explore it all day. I mostly hung out with some of the Spanish students and continued to ask questions about saying this or that or another word in their language and practiced talking to them.

It took our group some time to find enough public bikes for all of us, so we walked most of the day. We visited a historical district first, called 'Dan Gamle By' (the old village which Århus grew out of). There was a student rate to get into the town, but I'd forgotten my Mines ID at Fuglsøcentret. I borrowed one of the other student's alternative school IDs (no picture) and convinced the cashier I was an American student studying at the University of Bologna in Italy, for Political Sciences. The town felt just like touring the Old West towns, with people in costume doing the jobs of the day, and telling tourists about what life was like several hundred years ago. I took a bunch of pictures and even caught sight of a two Danish people getting married and taking a carriage ride though the old town. What was strange was seeing the old buildings (originals I believe) and the cobblestone streets in the foreground, and a 15-story modern building about 1 km away on the horizon.

We left the city to find some lunch and stopped in a grocery store first. I bought some fruit, beer, water, and an avocado. You can drink in public in Denmark (I may have mentioned that fact already) and the fruit/veggie combo made for a cheap meal. An interesting feature of the grocery were the electronic price indicators. Each shelf, each section, each bin of items had a small RFID with LED display tag attached to it and the prices were updated automatically by computers in the store, another example of the high living standard in Denmark. We headed back to the main shopping thoroughfare and found the McDonald's. The Spanish kids bought food, but I ate my grocery items and just sat and talked, using my room key to disembowl my avocado.

The sites in Århus are many and varied. From street performers to prostitutes (quite obvious the previous evening when I arrived from the train to the hostel), modern architecture to ancient buildings, paved highways to cobblestone roads, the city is very beautiful and full of surprises. One of the most incredible was visiting St. Clement's Cathedral, only a few hundred meters from the shopping mall area. The Spanish students explained to me how this church was 'moderate' by European standards, but it was definitely the largest religious structure I had ever seen, dwarfing anything in Colorado (though, that's not really a cathedral hotspot in the U.S., so my 'awe' isn't that special). The inside was astounding. I was right up close to original frescos dating back to the 15th century, walking on the tombs of Danish people buried in the 1400's. The cathedral was built in the time span of 1200 - 1250 AD and 'converted' from Catholic to Protestant in the 1500's. This conversion meant many of the icons and frescos were dismantled and painted over. A few of the originals survived or were uncovered, but all the stained glass windows were removed and replaced with plain glass about 500 years ago. We were allowed cameras, so I have some good shots of the interior.

Our final journey of the day took us on one of the hundreds of bicycle paths past the Baltic Sea shoreline and up into the main city park where the Danish Royal Family's Summer Vacation House is located (they're technically a Kingdom still, but only in title). The shoreline was nice in this area because the city had made it into a narrow sort of park. From the highway to the water was about 50 meters and in that space were a couple walking paths, a bicycle road, and a wide swath of grass ending abruptly in the rocky, mossy beach. We watched ships come and go, and took a brief rest on the grass in the sun (the weather was unusually nice this day).

We rode our bikes up into the park (actually had to pedal harder on the slight rise) and took pictures of the Royal Summer Home and some of its many gardens. Around dinner time we rode back into the city, parked our bikes, and walked to get some food on the mall. We stopped in a pizza/falafel restaurant. In Denmark, these places are the equivalent of Burger Kings or Wendy's: they are everywhere and they are cheap. They are mostly run by Middle Eastern folks, who mix these cuisines in interesting ways. The best part is, next to the grocery stores, it's the cheapest food in Denmark (so the natives say) and actually not too bad for you. I had a pita shwarma that tasted great and we split a pizza called 'quatro satrino,' which had artichokes, shrimp, ham, and mushrooms on it. A very unique thing for me, an American, but apparently it happens all over the place in Europe. After dinner we took a bus from the Århus train station back to Fuglsøcentret, all with sore feet and full cameras.

We had a party this evening, in one of the common rooms at the dormitory facility. Several of the students had been planning it since Wednesday, and had been going around asking for monetary contributions so they could buy the alcohol and food we wanted. It ended up costing each of us 60 DKK, which translates to about $12 at the best exchange rate. Two of the Spaniards made Sangria (very good Sangria), there were some bottles of vodka, tequila, and several crates of beer. One of the students, an Iranian guy named Merhdad who has lived in Denmark for 8 years, brought his mixing table and served as DJ for the evening, playing us a lot of popular techno mixes while we partied. We played cards and learned new games from some of the Danish students. One of the Americans started a game of King's Cup; I wrote down the rules. It went rather slowly with the language barrier, but I think everyone had a good time with it.

I crashed into bed around 1:30am, but not before outlining this post (finished two days later).

Denmark: Checking In, Backtrack Later

[Composed 8/16]

It's 12:39 am and I have had one crazy day! I am writing from the quiet common room of a hostel in Århus. I won't be writing long, since I am very tired and the internet here is not free. Here's a summary of today's (8/15) events. I will be back tomorrow to write about the missing days in between posts. I have to be quick tonight; my battery is about to die.

I asked the school director for one day off to visit Risø National Laboratory, a famous Danish research center in the city of Roskilde. From the summer school in Fuglsøcentret to Roskilde turned out to be 3+ hours of buses and a taxi. A side note to travelers: Don't take Danish taxis unless you absolutely have to. It cost me 146 DKK (~$30) for a 10 km ride that took 8 minutes.

My Risø escapade marked my first solo traveling inside Europe (I don't count the plane from Copenhagen to Århus because I didn't have to use maps, ask for directions, or practice my Danish). The purpose was to visit a professor named Mogens Mogensen, which is pronounced somewhat like the english word 'moans' while swallowing the 'oa' part into more of an 'uh.' I found him to be a very pleasant 60-year-old Danish man with a thick accent and a dedicated attention to detail. My advisor at Mines, Nigel Sammes, is good friends with Mogens and set up the meeting for me. Our conversations floated through the topics of history, language, culture, and science. He told me how Risø was founded by the physicist Niels Bohr and that it was celebrating its 50th anniversary in two weeks (I will miss it...shame). I also found out I have a wonderful opportunity to merge my Masters pursuit at Mines with Mogens' work in fuel cells at Risø. To make tonight's story shorter (battery = 5 %), if all goes well in the next few months, I will be studying/working with Mogens in Denmark for up to 6 months! I will attend classes at DTU, near Copenhagen, live in the city, and commute to Risø for research. I hope this plan works out, because I've only been here 5 days and I really really really really really love it here.

I met an American PhD student, Chris, working at Risø now and we talked for a while about what it's like in Denmark as a student and a foreign worker (4 % ... AH! Type faster!!!). During our conversation, I decided I'd be adventurous and scrap my original return plans to Fuglsøcentret. Since we at the summer school were allowed the next day (today now) free to wander Århus, I quickly made plans to end up in that city instead and find a place to stay the night. Chris helped me out by finding maps and online Danish travel resources (they have very good websites: check out http://www.rejseplanen.dk/bin/query.exe/en you probably don't know any Danish names, but use some of the ones I have written about and see how thoroughly helpful the system is in getting you to your destination).

Okay okay, I want to write more, but 2 % on the meter means I have little time left. I bid you all a good night (good afternoon for you!) and I will be back ASAP to write more (yes Sean, I have lots of stories, BE PATIENT!).

Afskend!

Denmark: Jason Bourne Is My Inspiration

[Composed 8/13 - 8/14]

So it has been another good day (8/13). This time I spent it at Fuglsøcentret, hearing lectures on the control systems for a turbine and the integration of a turbine system into the national and global energy markets. These lectures ran from 9am to 3pm, with a 1 hour lunch in the dining room in between. During every lecture so far, the speaker has given at least 1, sometimes up to 3 five to ten-minute breaks for us to get coffee, chat, stretch, and use the restrooms. I wish classes in America worked like this, giving little breaks here and there to break any monotony. I felt most like this during these lectures because the speakers were not very interesting and they bogged us down with lots of equations and complex explanations, all the while working to make their Danish-accented English understandable.

Outside the lecture hall, I had another day full of cultural mixing and learning. I found out the 'urinal game' played in the U.S. is also here in Europe. In some of the men's bathrooms, there are no dividers between the urinals and when you stand at one, and another guy comes in, he always goes to the one farthest away if he can help it. Germans, Spaniards, Italians, the lot; they all play the same game.

On a more interesting note, during one of the coffee breaks we had, a few of us started talking about the quality of life in the Scandinavian countries. While Norway has a very high standard of living, they also have the highest suicide rate among young people (18 - 30). One of the students, Andre (from Poland) told us how in Norway, drinking is the pass-time, and the liquor stores are run by the state. To curb the massive amount of drinking going on, apparently the state only allows them to be open some 5 hours a day and there cannot be any two stores within 5 km of each other.

One of the Danish students, Helle, had her birthday today. We had a cake and sang Happy Birthday (mostly in English) to her. The cake was shaped and colored like a smiling person lying down and, according to Danish tradition dating back to Viking times (so we wer told), to cut the cake Helle took the knife and slit the 'throat' of the cake person. While she did this, we were told to scream a battle cry of sorts. I thought it all very odd, but this is an old Danish custom.


I am learning more and more of the languages around me. The Spanish students are the easiest to learn from, for me, because I took 4 years of it in high school. They keep talking to each other and I keep listening and imitating. I also make rudimentary conversations and they are very nice and willing to correct me. I have been trying to learn some Italian, Portugese, and Danish as well. I am sometimes reminded of the movie character Jason Bourne as I try to learn the languages. I'm not certain why that image is in my head, but I think about all the times he switches from English to German to Russian to Spanish and back and forth and I sort of feel like I'm vaguely connected to that mysterious American internatioanl hitman...except for the radically cool and awesome traits of course.

I ended my day by playing pool and drinking free beers with the other students in one of the center's common rooms. We exchanged mores stories about our travels to Fuglsøcentret and what education is like in each of our countries. I tried to learn som Finnish from Joonas, but that language is quite difficult. The words are long and describe many things at once.

I finished this post on the 17th, very very tardy. But, onto the next one!