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.