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"