Put a yule on it and call it christmas

Merry christmas and/or happy holidays to all!

I meant to take more pictures of the christmas set up in Denmark but I'll just post a few here today. One thing that was pretty funny was that the grocery stores managed to acquire a "yule" (christmas) version of almost every product - yule beer, yule sausage, yule cookies, yule paté! Yule tea pictured at left.

 This is the view from the christmas ferris wheel - you can see the Fjord off in the distance and the christmas lights on the town hall below.

 

Here I am hangin' on the christmas wheel in front of one of Aalborg's churches.

Christmas train! This was an adventure with a few of my group mates that involved riding a really old train about a half an hour out into the middle of nowhere to spend about an hour freezing cold at a "christmas market" that was actually mostly selling christmas trees. The train was pretty cool though, and as you can see in the picture above the Danish babies were at their best. They usually wear little colorful one-piece rompers, and it's pretty adorable.

Christmas lights in one of the squares in Aalborg.

I wish I could post some pictures of the sunny spanish christmas I've enjoyed, but those will have to wait until I'm back in the 'borg. Needless to say I enjoyed a local beer and tapas earlier today in a t-shirt, followed by a delicious (and extremely filling) christmas day lunch/dinner. I've been dusting off the old spanish so to end I will say, feliz navidad a todos!!

Lots of love to everyone who has been reading the blog, I really love hearing from you and I appreciate you taking the time to follow along on my adventure here!

Bike commute

Here's a little video I made of my bike ride to school. It's pretty shaky due to a lazy mount on the front of my bicycle, but hopefully gives a little picture of what cycling here is like.

You do have to be aware, but you also don't really have to interact with cars - which makes a HUGE difference! The risk of being hit my a moving car is almost eliminated. To turn left you do a "danish left" where you go straight through the intersection, stop at the other side, swivel around 90 degrees, and wait for the next light. I love it. Another great thing for safety is no free turns on right here - for anyone! And I think my favorite thing is that both cars and bicycles get a yellow light before the light turns green - how practical! That way if say you are going straight and cars in the lane to your left are turning right, you are probably already through the intersection before they turn. Drivers generally seem to be very aware here. One thing that is not nice is that mopeds are allowed on the bicycle tracks! They come racing by these narrow lanes, which is not ideal, but also doesn't happen much.

just a note

The past week has been pretty intense, working at the group room from 10 am until 10 or 11 or 12 at night trying to get a good draft of the project to our supervisor. Yesterday we officially went on "break", although we still have some work to do.

Here's what its looked like:

Most of the other international students have gone home now. I remember this feeling from a few times in college when I was the last to leave for a break - kind of lonely, especially knowing that everyone else gets to go home and celebrate christmas* with their families. But since I've been so busy it still felt nice to sleep in and relax today, wondering around the streets crowded with christmas shoppers.

I'm a bit behind on posts so hopefully I'll have another tonight or tomorrow. Saturday morning (4:45 AM taxi!) as some of you may know I'm making a little trip to Spain, where I hope to see my long lost friend, the sun.

*I've gotten so used to saying "happy holidays" that it does feel kind of nice here to go ahead and throw out a jolly "merry christmas!" (or "god jul" - yes my danish is really coming along!) It seems pretty acceptable here, and with the exception of a few muslim friends, it seems the Danes are pretty into christmas.

Hope you all are winding down the week and getting ready to enjoy some holiday fun!

Reader Requests: Part 2

I think this request came from Caroline - asking for some pictures of cool bikes. These aren't so much cool bikes as they are just little bike scenes. (btw I'm still open to reader requests if you've got any burning questions) 

These photos are mostly from my two trips to Copenhagen so far, enjoy!

 

Who's that dude and why is there a huge box on the front of his bike? Oh that's just the bicycle mailman, nbd.

Slow beer? Sounds interesting....

 Univeristy of Copenhagen campus, back in the "fall" days

Just a little bike party.

Red bikes go faster, I've heard.

Easy home entry solution - pull up your bike, scale the vine, pop in the window

Wow someone must have been working late on their group project! All that empty space is bike parking that is full up by 10 every morning.

Things that are fun

Things that are fun may include but are not limited to:

- birthday cake, or cakes for any occasion, or actually lets make that any desserts for any occasion
- festive dips (dippin!)
- shreddin' the pow
- partying like it's 1999 or actually any year
- hiking around in the mountains and/or baking in the sun
- hanging out on the guest bed with the lovell crew watching some Ina or some ten ten
- chattin
- lots of other stuff

Things that are not fun:

- Riding your bike in the pouring rain with hurricane-esque headwinds and semi-flat tires in the dark in the cold with your glasses on
- Realizing you've made a bit of a "time management error" and have to come up with a thesis question, devise a methodology, locate sources, and produce a proposal in addition to completing an overview of transportation modeling approaches and mode choice decision research, all within the next 30 hours.

Today's tally: 0/8 on list 1, 2/2 on list two. Whoops!

CPH

I went to Copenhagen for the second time this past weekend. It seems like a very cool city, though like all of Denmark it might be more fun with a Danish salary. Denmark is known for cool design, and Copenhagen has got lots. A lot of cool modern architecture mixed with historic cool architecture, fun-looking shops, hipster window displays, cozy cafes, and much more.

A few highlights:

Saturday night I went out to dinner with "Cousin Ida", who is actually the cousin of my roommate Tia's mom and good friend of tha Pegsta, Ingrid. Anyway, I like referring to her as Cousin Ida and she has certainly welcomed me like I was a cousin! First we stopped by a very cozy little brewpub with rotating taps and sampled some tasty Danish brews - it was quite a treat to try something different from the Carlsberg (or worse) that I've been drinking regularly in the 'borg. Then off to a tiny restaurant in a funkier part of town (from what I was told), where we ordered the two person menu - a bunch of small plates of whatever they've made that night.  It was very fun and tasty - and to me - danish, alhough Cousin Ida told me that many danish wouldn't even recognize the things we were eating. Some of the plates I remember... beets with creme freche, poached egg with capers and couscous, white fish with crunchy toasted onions and dill, beef, thinly sliced root vegetable with mussles, root vegetables in brown butter... and some other things I don't remember.

Sunday we went to the Louisiana Museum - a bit outside of town but a beautiful setting for a museum, right on the water look across to Sweden. The grounds are an attraction in themselves; see the Calder piece and view above. The Klee and Cobra exhibit was also very interesting though. A big theme of the exhibit was the inspiration these artists drew from children, which I thought provided some food for thought.

Then of course there was a lot of walking around, as there is any time you're in a new city. I tried some of the toasted sweet almonds, which you can smell wafting up the main pedestrian street - the longest in Europe.

The weather was a mixture of sun, rain, freezing cold, hail.... so below are a few pictures of one of the sunny moments, in the park/castle near the hostel, in the latin quarter of town. You can always click the photos to see a larger version. You may notice that with the arrival of the new camera I've been doing some "experimenting", with mixed results :)

Another highlight was thanks to my good friend Amy Chamb, who provided some great recommendations from her many visits - but most important was her suggestion to visit Sank Peder's Bageri. It was so bomb we went there twice in one day. A few photos and the surrounding area below.

I have a lot more pictures so I'll post some more in another post or set up a way to make a gallery or something. For now I'll end with me chillin Danish style.

"it snowd"

I think that's the message that was on a little postcard that Myra (pretty sure it was her) left under my parent's door one time when we were little and it had snowed a bit in Portland. As I recall it also had a drawing of a tiger. Not sure where that came into play, but anyway.

It snowd a bit in Aalborg this weekend, as you can see in the picture below it is just a dusting. That's the area near the university campus that is in the center of town where the planning dept is moving/has moved. Guess there will plenty more snow coming down the pipeline... 

More posts coming soon on a recent trip to Copenhagen and a few other topics.

The mean streets of Aalborg

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well it's 6:30 AM PST so I guess any of you on the west coast are getting that oven turned on and setting to work!! Or sleeping in and enjoying a day off of work...

I've already had thanksgiving AND thanksgiving leftovers, if you can imagine that. I'm friends with an American girl who lives right above me (over my exact room, actually) and so the two of us decided to team up to prepare thanksgiving for our flatmates. She and her flatmates did the hardest part - the turkey and stuffing - along with mashed potatoes, cornbread, and gravy, while I made (with help from the roomies) sweet potatoes, bread rolls, my traditional brussel sprouts with bacon, and of course an apple pie.

Normally I'm really only in charge of the brussel sprouts and maybe some easy popovers, so I had to ask Pegsta for some preparation advice to get everything squared away. I didn't really allow enough time to do everything so in the end it was quite a flurry of peeling, chopping, and cooking, but I think it was a success. You can see my haphazard lattice work (with preamade crust) above.

Here's the gang:

 Kate, my fellow American, is on the front left there. Ervis the Albanian is heading up the table on the other end, and my other roomates are too busy getting to the food to smile for the picture. I didn't capture too much of the action as I was pretty flustered by all of the last-minute cooking activity, but here I am showing off the pie.



In the end it was really a nice way to celebrate Thanksgiving - the food was REALLY good and otherwise it was nice and low key - we talked about our holiday traditions in our countries of origin, and gobbled away. I'm pretty far from home here, but it was fun to get to bring a piece of it over to share. I think Thanksgiving is one of the best traditions we have in a country as diverse, divided, and distracted as the US can be.

Still, I'll be thinking of everyone at home today, especially in Portland. I'll miss the annual game of beer pong, and seeing all of my school friends and other loved ones, but most of all I'll miss hanging out with myzeey and byrno and tha pegsta all day in the Lovell kitchen. Thank goodness for Skype!

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

(not) fitting in

As great as my Danish is... it really only takes me so far. How far? As we've covered previously, it takes me this far:

"hej"
"hej"
"tak"

That's great for the grocery store (really great), but what about when I need to do something crazy, like ask a question? At least so far, every salesperson or clerk I've encountered speaks English really well. So I pretty much know I'm safe. But it still feels weird to transition from the introductory "hej" "hej" exchange, where everything is cruising along like maybe i'm a normal danish person, to suddenly just busting out the ole 'merican. Like, is there any protocol on how to make that transition? Today I went to the post office, and the lady was like "hej" and I was like "hej! .....umm... so I've been tracking this package online and it says they tried to deliver it today but I wasn't there so I can I give you the confirmation number?" The woman didn't miss a beat though so I guess that's just how it's done here.

Actually the more I think about it, the more I think the problem is that "Hi" and "Hej" sound exactly the same. Otherwise I could send a warning signal, like if they said "Bonjour" and I responded with "Hi!" they'd know, OK we got an english speaker comin in hot. Maybe I should be responding to "hey" with something more like "Howdy-do-dee!" or "What's really good?" (said in the myra way, hehe).

Halfway home

I guess I've been here about 12 weeks, and I have 12 weeks left.

Time is going by pretty quickly. Now that classes are finished I have been either "working from home" (that game  again...) or going to our group room to work on the group project during the week. The group room is much closer than the main campus, but it's still hard to gear up to get on the bike when you know the return will be in the dark/cold.

I have a feeling the rest of the time will go even faster - our group project is probably going to take over most of december, then it looks like my parents will be coming in January (!!!!!!) and then I'll pretty much be wrapping up here. I leave here February 6th, then I'll have two nights back in Seattle before heading to Sun Valley for Amy and Johnny's wedding and what should be a good pomona reunion.

Speaking of pomona reunion...  ;)

Reader requests part 1: Dark days

Since most of the other suggestions would be much better accompanied by pictures, and I'm waiting for a special birthday present to arrive, which will launch a new photo-intensive phase over here, I guess I'll start this exciting reader-inspired series (not too late to add ideas!) with a note in response to Mary's question about the length of the day, and the required coping mechanisms.

It's getting dark now around 4:30,* but to be honest it often feels like it never got to be day in the first place. There has been low-hanging cloud cover for the past... 2...3... weeks? I tried to take a picture but it looked misleadingly bright, and I don't want anyone to mistakenly think it is remotely so. I know I've been known to throw around comments about how much I love the weather in the PNW, and how much I love rain, and all that, and so I guess I should be having a ball. But I think its just too dark here (and no pitter patter of rain to sooth the soul - just cold and dark). It's hard to be motivated to do anything, outside or inside the house. Still, the center of town is still a nice place for a stroll, and the christmas decorations are coming out in full force, so I've gotta up my effort to get out and about. I'll have a post on christmas soon (that will be a photo series).

As far as coping mechanisms, I think I mentioned this before, but the Danes do drink a lot. Despite some formidable barriers - to name a few: 1) the cheapest beer is sold in individual cans/bottles which are annoying to carry 2) medium quality beer is about $8 for 6 cans and is not a huge step up fromt he cheapest beer 3) actual good tasting beer appears to exist but is also sold in individual units and is prohibitively expensive 4) beer on tap at a pub run $6 - $10 for a half liter, in face of all the obstacles, the danes really seem to take it down.

Mayhem ensues. For example, one of the first weekends I was here I was taking the bus from a party back to the center to go "out", around 12 or 1. There were a bunch of young drunk danish people on the bus, and after someone started singing a song they all knew, next thing you know the whole bus is belting this song out loud, one of them has commandeered the bus driver's microphone, and you are wondering if you're on a regular city bus or if you've accidentally gotten on someone's privately chartered party bus. Woo HOOO!! (Sidenote to Seattle bus riders - imagine if the 358 were to collide with the danish party bus experience - now that could be crazy!)

* Actually it's 4pm right now and it's getting dark :(

** It's 4:36 now and it is officially dark.

Seeking inspiration

Hello readers,

I have a lot of ideas for blog posts but I'm having trouble mustering up the enthusiasm right now. Anything you'd like to hear/see more about? I hope to write a bit about my trip to Copenhagen last weekend soon. Also when I get a new camera I'm hoping I'll be inspired to do more regular photo blogs (phlogs?)

Otherwise it is a bit of a buzzkill that it really feels like winter here - what happened to fall!? I think it was one day long. But don't worry I'm doing my best to cram in some fall spirit by making bread, carving a pumpkin, and I just got a butternut squash and hazelnuts for some future projects :) Maybe I can make some type of alcoholic fall beverage to fill the hole I'm feeling. (any suggestions?)

In the meantime here is a photo of the view from my friend Bissam's place, where she hosted a dinner for some of the planning folk last week. Her apartment has a great room on the top with a big kitchen, tv, speakers, foosball, etc. You can use it any time or you can pay a bit to reserve it for parties and so on. Quite a nice feature!

Bisnap

Last weekend I was planning to go to Skagen, a town and beach at the Northern tip of Denmark that seems to towards the top of list of "things to do in Northern Denmark". 

However after a bit of planning delay there were no more rental cars available, so in the end I went with my classmate (and groupmate) and another friend to a closer beach, Bisnap, via bus. It is said to be the most beautiful beach in Denmark! There was a pretty cool path running along the beach from the town where the harbor is to the beach itself, though it took a bit of wandering through town, some fields, and finally past an electrified fence to find it.

Unirun

I guess it's been about a week since the Unirun - on one of the warmest days since I've been here, a few hundred people gathered in the middle of campus to run a little tour around. My classmate (and project mate) Zuzanna and I were tempted to skip the race and head straight for a beer, but in the end we did both :)

In the background are some representatives from what I gather to be the danish military. They were giving away free hats! 

Overall it was pretty fun, and since doing the race forced me to buy running shoes, I'm hoping I will be inspired to keep running even as the weather cools down here....

Notes from month 1

I have a few more detailed post ideas in my head but I'm feeling a bit lazy so here I present a potpourri for now.

Bikes: I have one now! It works pretty well, although with more or less one gear I'm a little slow on the hills. I know everyone says Denmark is flat, but actually the area around Aalborg is actually a bit hilly. Some type of mineral deposit I believe. The ride to campus is about 20 or 25 minutes, 6 kilometers. It is uphill on the way, but a nice cruise down. I hope I keep my motivation up as the colder weather grabs hold...

As far as the planning side goes: I want to take more pictures one day when I have more time so I can get into the nitty gritty of the bicycle infrastructure here. For now I will just say that I can ride the whole way to campus, which is out in the countryside a bit, on dedicated cycle track. It generally runs on both sides of the street when in town, though I've noticed further afield in the countryside it is more trail like, with two way track on one side of the road, separated by a few feet of greenery. (Nerd note: I wish I knew more about how the Right of Way allocation works here!! It's so great that there is enough space on the side of the road to allow for the separated path). Another favorite feature is a little device I ride by on the way to campus that told me today I was the 400-something-th bike to pass by, and noted my speed (I'll keep that to myself). Wow!

Back to the weather: It was actually sunny here this past weekend! And it wasn't windy, which makes a huge difference. I enjoyed the sun on saturday with a bbq in the park with a bunch of other international students. You can buy little tin portable grill devices for about $6, so its pretty nice for assembling a large group. Sunday I left Aalborg for the first time since arriving to check out the beach - pictures to come! (Nerd note: There was a trail all along the beach that went in front of what looked to be very nice homes. Wondering property ownership at the coast works here - any easements necessary!?)

But we were told it is the last of summer, and it seems to be true.

Buses: The bus system here is quite interesting! (Nerd note: I love transit!!) Buses seem to run frequently and for the most part on time. The bus I take to campus has about 10-15 headways all day and is quite crowded all day as well. One thing that the folks over at the Seattle Transit Blog would love is the steep penalty for cash fare - $18 DKK (or about $3.25) for cash payment, compared to $2 with a 10-ride ticket. I think its less with a monthly pass. You have an hour transfer. Boarding through the front, pay as you enter, exit through the rear two doors. I hope to do a more detailed post on this topic, with pictures, as well.

Classes: Still happening. Some good, some bad. Don't really feel like elaborating much on that for the moment.

Home: We had a very very quiet french roommate, living here with the four girls. He was on some sort of weird schedule where he was here April - October, instead of normal semester times, so in any case he's gone and we've got an Albanian guy who most recently lived in Spain and Italy as his replacement. He seems to be much more social, and is cooking us dinner tonight! I don't have many photos uploaded but there is one of my room. I don't remember if I've said this already, but my room is huge and ready for visitors!! It's nice and cozy and light. I have two more windows, looking out to the intersection, not pictured here.


It's kind of hard to believe a month has gone by. Feels like a long time in some ways, and a short time in others.

Thanks for all the comments and readings! 

Regarding mail

For anyone interested in sending some snail mail, my address is:

Briana Lovell
Boulevarden 38, 3 th
9000 Aalborg, Denmark

In related news, I think I have figured out why USPS is going broke. A stamp here - this for within Denmark, which is just larger than Maryland, btw - costs $1.50. I don't know (yet) how much the rates go up from there, but when you consider that the maximum distance this $1.50 could send your mail is 600 km, compared to about 3,600 km in the US, the standard $0.44 for a letter look like quite a bargain.

In non-related news, I have a bit of a cold now. I slept for about 12 hours last night, drank some Emergen-C and skipped class to rest up today, so hopefully that will do the trick. I still did a short run since I didn't go at all this weekend :/

Tomorrow we have a bus excursion for one of the planning classes, so that should be neat. The weather here is pretty similar to what it looks like in Seattle - mid 60's with some sun and some showers.

Group Project, Part I

Just a short note regarding the group project, which from what I understand will be quite a massive undertaking, likely to require late nights in our "group room" and potentially to strain personal relationships (though they say we can mitigate this risk by developing a "group contract" to establish mutual expectations).

I've got a group, and a topic! Last week we had a few rounds of attempted group making, with the goal being to form 5 groups of 5 people each, each with a topic of interest to the involved group members. I've never done a group "assignment" this way, where it is more or less the whole class standing around a room with a list of topics, trying to figure out how to make it work. We had some facilitation from our program director, and in the end I think things came out really well. I'm in a group with 4 other people, a german girl, czech girl, french guy, and danish guy, all of whom seem very capable and interesting. Our topic area is roughly "bicycling and copenhagen". From here we need to "clearly define the question" (thanks branden!) and identify some specific research questions for further study.

I think a lot has been written on the physical infrastructure, so it wouldn't be too interesting to catalogue these interventions (cycle track, sidewalk markings, etc). However it could be interesting to pick a comparable city that has struggled to increase cycling, and propose a strategic approach based on the success of cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Or it could be interesting to look at some of the more social aspects - is there a relationship between cycling and safety, or vibrancy? I'm hoping this will require some field work, i.e. trips to Copenhagen and/or Amsterdam :)

Any suggestions?

Fitting in

As some of you may know, one of the things I found challenging when studying abroad in Ecuador was the fact that I was obviously a foreigner, and a visibly American one at that. I dressed differently from the locals, and aside from that there just aren't many Ecuadorians with hair as light as mine (which is not even that light). I was constantly aware of the feeling of "standing out", and our program directors made sure to remind us about all the stereotypes that come along with being easily identified as American.

Well welcome to Denmark, me. Now, I am not the most danish-looking person around, by any means, but I'm feeling like I can blend in pretty well here (I packed as "europeanly" as possible). As you will see, whether this feeling is justified or representative of reality is up for debate, given the weakness of the evidence I provide here. For starters, here's how I demonstrate my "acting danish" skills at the grocery store, which is my #1 accomplishment:

Clerk: "Hej"
Me: "Hi!" (Note - they sound the same)
Clerk: "Something I don't understand in danish but sounds like numbers"
Me: (Check the screen to see how much I owe, give appropriate amount to clerk)
Me: "Tak!" (Translation: thanks!)

For whatever reason, this whole exchange makes me feel pretty proud. From the moment the clerk tells me the total in danish, I'm thinking oh yeah, they totally think I'm danish. (Of course, at this point all I've done is say "Hi" exactly the way I say it in the US.) Then the real kicker is the "tak" at the end. It's a beautiful thing, because even if my pronunciation is a bit off, I've clearly signaled the end of the interaction so there is really no potential for follow up.*

*Except for the one time the clerk did follow up by asking if I wanted the receipt, which luckily she was holding in her hand, so after a moment of confusion I was able to shake my head no* and, once again, complete the interaction without revealing my non-nativeness.

*Is it possible that I do not actually know the word for "no" in danish?

Accomplishment #2 (if you can even call it that) is that one evening when I was at "international night" at the university pub in town, which is typically packed with international students and hardly any danish people, a danish girl started speaking to me in danish. Niice.

However at the end of the day, there is some evidence that I am not looking mega danish, because I have been appraised by 3 or 4 other international students, who were surprised that I was American, but they did not suggest that I looked danish. Several of them said "maybe french" or "definitely not American". To which I say, "D'accord"

Classes vs. Bikes

Well it's almost the end of the first week of classes. (Labor day is, it will come as no surprise, not celebrated here.)

I have to say, it's been interesting. In a normal quarter or semester in the US, the first day of class you get a syllabus, go over it, and maybe even take a stab at discussing the readings that were assigned for the day, but really only one or two people actually read because, come on, it's the first day of class.

Here, things are set up differently. At least for my program, the first week has basically consisted of one extremely complex and difficult to understand introduction to a lecture series on "the philosophy of science"(relationship to urban planning: unknown at this time) which was bright and early Monday morning, and the rest has been more of a "learning how to learn" type of deal. It is an introduction to the teaching approach at Aalborg University, which they call PBL, or Problem Based Learning, and apparently they consider it to be one of the most complex subjects in the history of this great planet.

As it turns out, PBL really just means "Doing a large research project, with a problem or question as its focus, in a group".

We've probably spent about 20 hours now "brainstorming" on various topics (various may not be the correct word because in fact the topics have been almost identical to each other) with some brief lectures on "how to brainstorm" interspersed throughout the day.

Maybe I'm just a bit tired from 7 nearly consecutive hours of brainstorming, or maybe some of the class has in fact been quite boring and unnecessary. I don't want to seem too negative, because in the end the people in the program are great, and the project itself will be a wonderful and challenging experience. All this to say that after feeling a bit frustrated at the end of today, I found my mental health easily restored by hopping on one of the free City Bikes located on campus, riding through the countryside to the center city where I live, enjoying the fresh fall air, and even a bit of sun(!!) It is so cool to see so many people out riding bikes (even more than in Portland!) and to let my inner transportation-planning-nerd soak up the details of the bicycle infrastructure here. (Pictures and a post on that to come at some point.)

So, bike wins.

Aalborg - a few photos

The photos taken from higher up are from my windows, the others are streets nearby. My apartment is 38 Boulevarden, along one of the main (and cute!) streets through Aalborg. It is above a cafe called Cafe Luna, which I have yet to visit.

PS. It should be pretty easy to comment on posts, you can just use anonymous and leave your name in the post. I'm not going to beg for comments like I did with my ecuador blog, but do know that I appreciate any thoughts you feel like sharing, and so I know that I have some readers! 

More posts to come soon on the people I've met, my program, some planning topics of interest, the city, the funny things that happen when you really don't know what's going on in a new country, the drunk danes, etc!

48 Hours in Reykjavik, Iceland

I'm falling a bit behind here already so I will just touch on Iceland before I post about Aalborg (long story short, it is pretty awesome!)

Sunday

7 a.m.
1.) BLUE LAGOON

From the Reykjavik airport, shuttles are available to the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa that is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland. I was on the same flight over as a friend from the UW planning program, so together we hopped on the bus to the lagoon, enjoyed some free wireless, and then went into let it soak. We even enjoyed a beer at the swim up bar in the afternoon (or maybe it was the after11am, I don't remember...). It was very relaxing, though by the end the fact that neither of us had slept on the flight the night before started to set in. So we caught a shuttle to our hostel in Reykjavik.

5 p.m.
2.) REST FOR THE WEARY

The newly-opened KEX Hostel turned out to be a welcome surprise. The cozy interior included a bar/cafe, lounging areas, and many a traveler taking a break from the gray weather to read or do some computing. After getting into our rooms, we visited the bar for a beverage and dining recommendations, and then headed out.

6 p.m.
3) NOURISHMENT

After wandering the main street and evaluating the options, we ended up at Prikid, supposedly the oldest restaurant in Reykjavik. In the end it had many american options, but we did our best to find something Icelandic. I had breaded fish that arrived with a hearty side of garlic butter, already melting around to coat the meal. After 48 hours awake, some emotional moments, and a flight across the atlantic, I didn't feel bad.

8 p.m.
4) TIRED OF THIS FORMAT

This NYT "48 hours" format is actually pretty exhausting, so I'm just going to say we went to bed around 8 and totally crashed, the next day Anne left to head towards her semester in Groningen, in the Netherlands, and I had breakfast at the hostel, wandered around the city, and the met up (by chance!) with a spanish guy in the Real Estate program at UW, who I had met once in Seattle. We ate some dinner at the hostel (A very hearty salad with cod! Yum.) and then once again I turned in early for a 4 am wake-up to begin my travels to Aalborg. A few pictures below. I think all the pictures get bigger if you click on them.

The Greenlake of Reykjavik

$5 grocery store lunch; Iceland was generally really expensive