Week 8 - Autumn Break

This week DTU had their autumn break and we had no classes for the entire week. I had tossed around the idea of traveling somewhere as far as Spain or Italy which I'm sure would have been amazing, but I had no one to go with. I also had a lot of school work that had piled up, most of which was reading, so I didn't want to be away for the whole week. I decided to look into taking a day trip somewhere in Denmark or Sweden and discovered a place called Møns Klint which are white cliffs on one of the islands south of Zealand. I invited a number of others, but only Matt was able to join me. I was glad for his company as we embarked on our adventure. In order to get there we had to take a couple of trains, a couple of buses, and then walk the last 7 kilometers. Halfway through the walk we thought we'd try hitch hiking because neither of us had tried it before and we didn't really know how much further the park was. To our surprise within in about 5 minutes someone turned around and offered us a ride. To our even greater surprise the woman driving had her daughter and mother with her and still stopped to pick us guys up. We were certainly grateful for the ride though. Once we arrived Matt and I descended the hundreds of steps to reach the Baltic sea. We walked along the shore which was composed of medium sized smooth black rocks. I stood in the sea for a moment before we ascended back up to the top of the cliffs. The view was much better as we walked along the top and took pictures. Once we had thoroughly seen the sights we walked back the same way we came and tried to hitchhike, but without success. There was a small town where the bus would pick us up and we had to wait so we backtracked to the candy shop we had seen on our way. They had many candies to choose from and all were made at their shop. Matt and I both planned to get some to take back home to the U.S. if we could keep from eating it. The journey from here was not as much of an adventure as before, but there was a satisfying feeling that crept over me as we made our home and I reflected on a day well spent.

 




I had to get back to school work Wednesday and started it by meeting with Kapser, one of my classmates, to discuss our upcoming presentations for our biosensors course. I stuck around the library until it was time for my life group and we started going through Proverbs this week. On my way home I met Andy again at the same store I had seen him in front of and this time I was able to ask some more questions to learn more about him. I was genuinely interested in getting to know him and our conversation lasted quite a bit longer than last week. Thursday I made some headway on the reading I was behind on, but took a movie break before applying for some jobs. Friday I looked forward to a birthday party and dinner for Ruth, one of my friends from church. She actually lives above the church in the apartments there and that's where we had the pre-dinner party. Friends had prepared all sorts of foods including two kinds of Danish cakes and various cupcakes. My favorite was actually the rolls that Ruth made, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy the cakes. We were going to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner and I'm glad we decided to walk because that gave us some time to digest all the food we had just eaten. I also had the opportunity to talk with Marshall, one of the others that lives above the church, about graduate school. I found out that Ruth works at the restaurant and knowing that we were coming they had set up a long table in a side room just for us. We ordered three giant sampler platters so we could try nearly every dish they served. The Ethiopian way to eat is to use a soft, sponge-like, sour pancake to scoop up the other food. It was quite an experience and the servers surprised us all with a cake. I'm pretty sure Ruth had a good birthday and I was glad to be part of it. Saturday was another dinner party, but this time with some classmates from my medical imaging course. I brought things to make oven baked French fries and monster cookies that I had made just before coming. The other guys cooked salmon, home-made ravioli, and a Spanish omelet. I think I was in a food making mood this week because I let my neighbors know I was making Swedish pancakes Sunday morning and served a couple of them before going to church. I helped with the ushers as usual. After the service the young adults group was going to make pizza and then spend some time in prayer and worship. I helped gather the ingredients for the pizza and prepared the toppings. I enjoyed the pizza, but the prayer and worship were even better. I made it home in time to Skype with my parents and then clean my kitchen to end my autumn break.

Week 7 - Culture Night

Mondays are good day for Matt, Maggie and I to meet for either our signal processing course or our brain computer interface project because none of us have classes. This week it happened to the BCI project and we reviewed the computer code from a previous BCI project that we are modifying.  I think it really helped to discuss it and put our brains together in order to figure out how each part worked. Maggie started making a flow chart as we discussed it so we could show our supervisor that we understood it. Later I took care of my laundry, but this time instead of walking back to my apartment I checked out the "free stuff" room. I don't know what it's actually called, but just as the name implies it's a room where people leave free things that they don't need, but don't want to throw away. Most of it is clothing and the room was an absolute mess in my opinion. I went ahead and organized some of it and after I put my clothes in the dryer I decided to organize the rest. I don't think it will stay organized too long, but at least some people will have an easier time finding things. I actually found a few things for myself in the process of sorting through everything. After all that I went shopping, but forgot my wallet so I bought just a couple things with the change I had. The coins are worth and used more here in Denmark, but I didn't have much change at the time. Before dinner I enjoyed the opportunity to Skype with my sister Laura. I don't think we've ever Skyped before and during my time here we had only messaged each other a few times on Facebook. It's pretty amazing how easy it is to communicate with people so far away. I sometimes wonder if I've taken for granted the ability to communicate like this. Of course I didn't think of this until afterward, but during the conversation we mostly talked about the new things we were both experiencing. I look forward to seeing her smiling face in person when I come home for Christmas. Then for dinner I decided to make tortillas and looked up a recipe online. They turned out pretty well and I added chicken, cheese and peppers.  Wednesday seems to be the time when I'm in the library a lot, but it makes sense since I'm already at DTU and bike into Copenhagen in the evening for my life group. This time I came prepared with a liter of chocolate milk to fuel  my work the whole afternoon. Eventually it was time to meet with my life group and apart from the usual things we discussed the book of Philemon. On my way home I met a man named Andy just outside a grocery store I stopped at. He asked me a lot of questions and we talked about the differences between the U.S. and Denmark. I did get to ask him a few questions, but felt like he probably knew more about me than I knew about him in the end. Thursday my team for medical imaging worked well and we accomplished what was assigned quickly. Finishing a little early was good because I had planned to make some of the food for a dinner with my neighbors. I picked up some ingredients on the way home and started preparing the vegetables for corn cheese chowder, but then I realized I was missing a couple things. After getting those, everything else went smoothly and we enjoyed dinner together. We had more than enough food and stored the leftovers for later.

I had really been looking forward to Friday night because nearly all of Copenhagen was celebrating Culture Night. I bought my culture pass which gave me free transportation and entrance into all the events before taking the train into Copenhagen. I met some friends from my intro week group and then some of their friends. We started by going up the round tower which was attached to an old Church. The only thing I insisted on going to was an American Halloween event which included s'mores and pumpkin carving. I was the only one that carved a pumpkin, but we all made s'mores. Later we took a ferry to opera house and went on a self-guided tour. It was pretty impressive. Some of our group really wanted to go to the zoo because they had heard it was open just like a lot of the other places that were open tonight that would normally not be. So we planned our route and made our way there, but it took a while. We almost gave up hope, but then we found the main entrance and explored the entire zoo in the dark. Half of the animals were already inside for the night, but of those that were inside we got to see some of them. I won't forget how the glasses of everyone in our group fogged up immediately when we entered the reptile and amphibian house. We were glad it was warm though because the temperature was dropping outside.
















Nearly all of us were hungry after walking around all night so we got some food at a pizza and kebab shop. They had recently opened and they offered free drinks not to mention I was offered a free kebab when they were out of what I ordered. When we were finished we parted ways and I tried to figure out which train to take since the trains had switched to the night train schedule at this point. The trains don't go to all the usual stops so I looked at my map which included the schedule. There weren't any trains going to the closest station to my place, but I decided to go to a station where a lot of buses usually pass through. However, when I got off the train I realized there were only a few buses and none to get me closer to my home. I found out I could have taken a certain bus from Copenhagen, but would have to take the train back there first. So I just decided to walk home since I knew the way, but it took a very, very long time. I was tired and my feet were sore from walking, but I eventually made it home and went to sleep quickly.  On Sunday I had to bike in rain to church. Perhaps I've gotten used to Denmark because I didn't mind since I had a change of clothes. Later that night I Skyped with my parents and told them about all the things that had happened this week.

Week 6 - Keeping it Fresh

This Monday I had some fun searching through my apartment junk yard. It’s not really a junk yard, but it’s a fenced in area where people put things that won’t fit into the dumpsters. Sometimes I see people taking things from there so I thought I would check it out. Most of it was worn out or broken furniture of all shapes and sizes, but I was excited when I found some hex wrenches. They were slightly damaged, but I found more than a full set and I had been thinking about buying some so I considered my searching a success. Tuesday I finished up the first report for our signals processing course and submitted it. Then Matt, Maggie and I had lunch with Kaj-Åge, the primary contact between DTU and our adviser back at Purdue. He wanted to meet us in person and to see how our transition was going, but wasn’t able to until now. Having finished the first report, we were given the second report for our signals processing course which would be due in about three weeks and started exploring ways to accomplish the tasks we were assigned. Afterward I looked forward to playing Ultimate Frisbee with some of my friends as we had been doing each week. We may not have many more days with suitable weather. Wednesday morning we had the opportunity to meet with one of the two developers of the brain computer interface system that we were working off of for our senior design project. This was especially helpful because she showed us how the MATLAB code worked and provided us with a copy of the code to work with. I appreciated how well she explained things and how willing she was to help our group branch off of her project. I was able to make it to the prayer group meeting again this week and afterward Grace, one of the others in the group, and I decided to go to IKEA to study instead of working in the library. We reasoned it was a good idea because both of us were going into Copenhagen later and both of us needed to study. Grace is also from the USA and is here for one semester as well. Not having my laptop with me, I had to print some things and was planning to read through some journal articles so I went to the library briefly before biking to IKEA. Grace took a bus and we met there so the timing worked out well. We both had some coffee and worked off and on, but chatted intermittently and I enjoyed getting to know her. About the time we were getting tired of working we met Kim, a mutual friend of ours, and strolled through IKEA marveling at all the Scandinavian designs. We parted ways and I biked to my life group where we had dinner and discussed Psalm chapter 1. I was looking forward to discussing the psalm and we had a good time together. Thursday seemed rather ordinary until our group meeting with Marcia and Allison. Jeremy, my BME adviser, surprised us by joining in on this meeting. I had worked frequently with him last year when I was on the board for the biomedical engineering society and I enjoyed hearing his usual upbeat, enthusiastic voice. He’s also the main reason we were able to come study in Denmark as the first BMEs from Purdue. Another highlight of the evening was when Steffen, one of my neighbors, I decided to eat and serve apples with peanut butter and cheese to our other neighbors. Though we served it separately, Steffen and I both tried the peanut and cheese combined on the apple, but we agreed it was best kept separate. Friday night was the first time the Danish and international young adults’ group at the Christian Center had an event together. Normally the Danish group meets every other Friday and the international group meets less often. We had a service of sorts in both Danish and English and then a good time getting to know each other afterward. Among other firsts, I finally made it to the fitness room at my apartment on Saturday and actually applied for some jobs. My arms will be sore for the first half of the week. On Sunday I helped with the other ushers at the Christian center and since it was the first Sunday of the month I also helped serve communion. As I’ve probably mentioned it’s a simple job, but needs to be done by someone. I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve. After the service I bought ingredients with Jessy, the international young adults’ group leader, for Swedish pancakes which I had planned to make for the group. The only complication was that the special induction stove top didn’t work so we resorted to using two plug-in burners. It was fun making all those pancakes and Joseph, one of the guys who lives at the church, took over after I had made about two thirds of them so that I could eat some too.