then and now

Well, it's hard to believe that I am here at the Copenhagen airport waiting to board my return flight to Seattle. These past 5 months have gone so fast that it really doesn't feel right to be leaving already. I do plan to write several more posts in the future on some topics I haven't covered yet when I return, on some of my observations about places I traveled, about urban planning, and about the experience on a personal level. 

For now I will just say that it has been a truly incredible experience and I never could have hoped for everything to work out so well - I had amazing roommates (and a huge room!), an extremely fun project group that I really grew close to and shared so many laughs with, and many other classmates and friends along the way, as well as the chance to visit Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Czech Rep, and Germany, to show Aalborg and Copenhagen to my family, and so much more. I have had so much amazing fortune in all of my life so far, and this experience has been one more piece of the puzzle that has helped to shaped me as a (hopefully continually) growing person.

I'm sorry I don't have a better version of this link, but it's a scene from Paris je t'aime that my mom  sent me a while ago. I felt that I had one of these moments on my recent trip, sitting in a cozy cafe in Berlin, a huge city in a country I'd never been to, all by myself. Outside were snow-covered bicycles and the bustle of a big city. I truly felt the sentiment she describes here (though I hope I could do it with a better french accent...) of feeling very alone, but also more alive than ever; a feeling and confidence that I hope will remain with me for a long time.

I feel like now I have to deal with a lot of change yet again - I remember crying the entire flight from Seattle to Iceland in August, and the return journey won't be much easier. It is always hard to leave people and places that you love, especially when you know that though the people will always be in your life, it will never be the same as it was when you left. I'm always reminded of the day I left pomona and I saw that Jordan M-Z had written a quote from the grateful dead on the whiteboard of his room: "Such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be there". Though it was short, I'm so so glad that I came.

At least I can be thankful that I have really great friends wherever I go to welcome me back when I come home, and new friends that will welcome me to their homes wherever I go next.

Thanks to all of you that have been following along on this adventure!

Leaving seattle in August.

 Departing from Copenhagen... today

back to bree

Thanks to the lovells for the guest post!

I have a lot to update on in the time since then - taking and passing our final exam, filling the remaining days with last minute shopping, last aalborg tourism moments, last group activities, and of course some (actually a lot....) of celebrating. Mixed in with the fun, unfortunately, were also some hard goodbyes.

Now I am on a short short trip from Aalborg to Prague, Prague to Berlin, Berlin to Hamburg, and then back to Aalborg before my flight on the 6th. So far it has been really incredible, but of course because of the time constraints much much too short. I'm looking at more as a "scoping" trip to see how long I'll need to come back and really see more of Czech Rep and Germany. Since my train to Hamburg leaves in an hour, I will sign off for now. But if it has wireless, I hope to post some pictures!

And by the way Europe is having a "cold freeze" right now - no better way to see a city than in 20 degree weather! At least no better way to see a city's cafés...

<3 bree

Guest Post: Seven Days in Denmark

I'm so happy to introduce a guest post from the Lovells on their recent trip! Hope you like it and feel free to leave a comment!


With just seven days to enjoy Denmark with our “Lovell-y” daughters in the thick of winter, we kept it moving.  It was a joyful moment when Briana realized that the girl she noticed walking by in the baggage claim area of the Aalborg airport not only looked a lot like Myra, but was Myra!   Yes, it’s fine with us to imagine that her vision of what a  week together would bring was instantly elevated to a higher level.  Palling around with the “rents” and Myzee – looking good!  Our corner room at the somewhat dated Park Hotel was everything we needed – including a view down the quaint street to Briana’s corner room just a couple of blocks away.  Bree hosted a warm and welcoming happy hour in her sweet room which we followed up with a delicious meal in town – the first of many truly outstanding meals in Denmark.  Aalborg was a delightful small town full of beautiful old buildings, nice parks, huge fjord, pedestrian streets, great cafes and last but not least, a lot of nice local brew!  Though cold outside, the Danish “hygge” (like coziness) was forever present inside – think warm, tasteful Danish design and LOTS of candles that burned not only at night, but all day, every day, everywhere.  Yep, I’m going to candle up for sure.  Seeing Aalborg, seeing the life Briana had created for herself there in Aalborg, walking on the beach at the most northern tip of Denmark, enjoying the local scene ... all highlights of the first few days. 

We took the train to Copenhagen and spent the last few days there.  What a beautiful city FULL of people on bikes!!!!!   Whoa ... bikes everywhere!  Even more than I remember seeing in Amsterdam.  Not like here, where people are clad in rain wear, helmets, neon etc.  Just ordinary people dressed in mostly black outfits (along with some fancy boots and high heels) getting to and from home, work, shopping etc. on very ordinary bikes.  Certainly makes me realize that though Portland may be a “biking” city by U.S. standards,  we are not even on the charts compared to Copenhagen.  We joined the fray of cyclists and rode out of the city center to the Bella Sky hotel – part of a redevelopment zone.  By redevelopment zone, we’re talking about some of the most wild and contemporary architecture you can imagine.  Unbelievable!  Check it out if you want:http://inhabitat.com/denmarks-new-bella-sky-hotel-boasts-a-stunning-green-interior/ We also had the pleasure of two evenings with “cousin Ida” (mentioned in Briana’s earlier posts) - a thoroughly delightful cousin of our friend Ingrid.  She was most welcoming and made visiting Copenhagen feel really special.

It’s hard to summarize a fun-filled week in just a few paragraphs.  I’ve never written on a blog before, so I hope it isn’t too long or boring!  We had a fantastic visit in Denmark with Bree and Myra.  The outside temp was pretty cold, but the warmth of our time together more than made up for it.  We loved it.  We totally loved it.

Surprise!

Well as some of you may know, there was a special surprise about my parent's visit this past week - it also included my sister! It was a very well-executed surprise and certainly made the visit even more special. It's been quite a while since our whole family has taken a trip anywhere all together, and it turns out that it's really a lot of fun. I had just been emailing with Myra about what she was doing for the three day weekend and so on, and was under the impression that she didn't have enough vacation at her new job to make the trip. When I went to the airport to meet my parents, I waved hello and waiting for the bags to arrive after entering the baggage claim area (not the strictest security at AAL lufthaven...) While I was standing there, a girl who looked a lot like Myra walked by, but I couldn't really get a good glimpse of her. I was kind of in disbelief, trying to get another look and looking back at mom to see what was going on. And there was Myra!!

Anyway, we had a really really great week together which you will hear more about in an upcoming guest post (!!) and maybe a later post from me as well. Just wanted to touch down on the blog space briefly since it's been a little while. 

Our final exam is today, which will conclude the academics for the semester. That leaves me with about a week in Aalborg, a week travelling, and then two weeks from today I will be back in Seattle. It's really only now starting to hit me that the time is near an end. I will definitely be emotional when I leave, but I also have a lot to look forward to when I return, in Seattle and then in Sun Valley where I will get to see many of my best college buddies, witness the marriage of two friends, and of course do some boppin on the slopes.

Timeline

One week: parents here!
Two weeks: final exam, project finished!
Three weeks: ski trip and traveling in Germany/Italy/Prague
Four weeks: back in the US

As you can imagine, the next month is going to fly by. I really can't believe that in four weeks I'll be boarding (and, thanks to the time difference, deboarding) a plane to the US. I'll be doing my best to up the frequency of posts as it begins.

In the meantime, here is the previously mentioned notes from childhood, though I was a bit confused as the tiger is clearly a separate message from the "it snowd"

Storm brewing...

The weather in Aalborg has been pretty crappy for a while now - windy, rainy, stormy - with no major incidents, warnings or fear. So when a classmate warned that we should go home early before the storm tonight, I took immediate interest.

I usually keep up to speed on this website - http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/index/danmark/byvejr_danmark.htm?by=9000 which is predicting some pretty knarly winds tonight. According to the google translation of one article, western and northern Jutland can expect wind gusts of hurricane force! And in England, the same storm has already taken two lives. (Also, who knew the Seattle times provided up-to-the-minute coverage of windstorms in England!)

It is pret-tay, pret-tay stormy out now, and getting worse later tonight from what I've heard. 

To 2012!

First of all, happy new year to everyone! I had a great trip to spain, and came back to the 'borg for a nice evening over at the apartment of one of my groupmates. I enjoyed some German and Danish NYE traditions including Bleigießen, watching "Dinner for One", watching the queen speak at midnight, and enjoying a near-constant stream of fireworks set off by people all around the city (which I guess is legal here).

As for the end of 2011, I just have to appreciate how lucky I am to have so much fun and love in my life.* I saw a good contingent of my college buddies and shredded some pow on a trip to San Francisco and Tahoe, made many weekend trips to Anacortes and had some ultimate times with my wonderful friends in Seattle, had a pretty amazing backpacking trip to Mt. Rainier, and of course journeyed off to Denmark for the present adventure. They say time flies when you're having fun, so I guess this past year I have had a LOT of fun!

2012 holds a lot of uncertainty (NCRTNT?) for me, and undoubtedly some challenges as I attempt to write a thesis, finish my masters program, and seek gainful employment in a pretty crappy economy. However it pans out, though, I know I will have lots of love (LOL as the pegsta likes to say) and lots of fun along the way thanks to the truly amazing people that I have in my life.** Anyway, before I get too carried away with the corniness, I would just like to say that I hope you all had a great year, and here's to another one to come!

Happy New Year!!

View from the Alahambra in Granada, Spain

* I guess that's just logical, being the product of Peggy FUNsten and Byrne LOVEll 

** I don't know if it's having a blog, being away from the holidays, or too much Glogg but I seem to be getting awfully sentimental lately!

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.