Last Few Days; Farewell, Hipster Haven

As my days in Copenhagen started dwindling down, I became more and more conscious of both how much I had accomplished in a mere six weeks - but at the same time, I also came to the realization that there was so much I still had yet to do. Although my personal and cultural experiences in Copenhagen had been pretty far-reaching, I wished I could have been able to stay for just a while longer. After all, I had really just gotten to know my fellow students, and I wished I had more time to continue  building my friendships with them. I had also become accustomed to the culture of Denmark and the independence of living in a big city, and I assumed that going home after becoming so used to my European lifestyle would be a huge shock.

On Wednesday, a guest lecturer visited our class to explain what sort of qualities an investor might look for when considering whether or not to invest in a cleantech company. He then gave a number of examples of cleantech companies that the firm that he worked for had decided to invest in. After lunch, the class went to a lecture by a representative of the Municipality of Copenhagen who described a number of the sustainable projects that the city was involved in. However, the man mistakenly chose to give his lecture outside; the day was beautiful by Danish standards, and a lot of people in the class found it hard to concentrate on the lecture at hand. Afterward, we continued the lecture back at the Municipality of Copenhagen's Center for Environment, but I was supremely tired from how busy the past few days had been and started nodding off a few times. Once we were finished for the day, I headed to Paludan to write the last of the postcards and finish a country position paper due the next day, then headed back to Hoffmans. Later in the evening, after I had finished all my work, I headed over to Sara's place and we watched Memento (which we'd been talking about watching since we met). I was blown away by how good the movie was; I had been a Christopher Nolan fan before, but watching Memento increased my respect for him a hundredfold.

The next day, I woke up early to head to Paludan with Albert and work on the paper on LiqTech that was due the next day. However, only about an hour into working on it I received an e-mail saying that class had been cancelled for the day. The extra day was definitely a help; I spent nearly the entire day working on the paper. In that time I saw Kelsey, David, Jared, Philip, and few other girls from Gronjords (Charlie and Audrey), as well as a friend of Sara's named Meredith whom I'd been introduced to the day before. After finishing the paper, I felt extreme relief and went back to my kollegium to enjoy a bit of rest and grab dinner before I headed back into town where I hung out with Philip, Kelsey, and Ellen for a bit. then, we all met up with a ton of other DIS people at a more central location and had a great night. By far, it was one of the best nights I had spent while in Copenhagen.

Our last day in class was spent working on a group exercise on which each person in the class represented a country and was responsible for bargaining with other classmates to develop a clean energy strategy that would reduce emissions across the board in Europe during the next 50 years. The exercise was a fun and interactive way to finish off the session, and it clearly left me and my classmates feeling satisfied with everything we had learned in the class. Right after class was finished, I headed straight back to my room and began packing all my things (which took a lot longer than I expected). After finishing off everything in the fridge, I headed over to Gronjords for one last visit. There, I met up with Kelsey, David, and a Danish girl from the kollegium who was friend of David's. We all headed downtown to meet up with Dustin, Charlie, Audrey, Caroline, Ilya, and a few other people and said our goodbyes. Then, we headed into Copenhagen's old meat-packing district - an area of town that was much less sketchy than it sounded. Although it had been a very low-class part of town in Copenhagen's industrial past, in more recent years it had been converted into a more cultured area filled with cafes and bars. We spent a good deal of time there, then eventually said farewell and parted ways.

The next morning was supposed to be the day of my big flight back to the States; however, buying metro passes that would take me to the airport proved much harder than I'd imagined (the machines didn't accept either my credit card or my debit card), and the mix-up caused me to be LITERALLY a minute late for the baggage check for my flight. The Delta representatives I talked to did all they could to help, but overall the staff weren't very accommodating and I ended up having to switch my flight to the day afterward (a change that both me and my family weren't happy about). In the meantime, I said my goodbyes to Jill, Katie, and Ashley, hung with Allison and Courtney before their flight left, and chilled with Albert for a bit. Thankfully, when I found myself with nothing to do, Max called me and told me that he and Sam had found lodging at a hostel near the DIS buildings and that I'd be welcome to crash there for the night. I tried heading downtown to meet up with them, but a torrential downpour appeared out of nowhere and I quickly became stuck in the middle of it. Thankfully a kind convenience store owner gave me a few garbage bags to cover myself and my baggage in, and as soon as the storm subsided I found Max and headed to the hostel. There I met Sam and David as well, and we all played a few games of pool and darts before I headed in for the night. The next day, I woke up early and made it to my flight in plenty of time - and after a brief layover in Atlanta I arrived safely in Cincinnati, where I was met by my parents.

So now that the time's come for me to wrap up my blogging at last, I'd like to end by saying that I left Europe with very few regrets. True, I may not have had gotten to see all the sights that Copenhagen had to offer or gotten to know the people I spent time with as well as I may have wanted to (after all, my time in Denmark was rather brief), but I made the most of the opportunities that were presented to me and learned a lot both in and out of the classroom. Several years ago I never would have dreamt of spending a month and a half in Europe completely on my own, and now that I've conquered Copenhagen I feel like I could deal with anything I might face back home. Right now I've got my sights set firmly on the future and look forward to a great next semester, but I'll never forget my experiences abroad. Farewell, Copenhagen. It's been real.

Back to the Grind

Returning to Denmark after spending an entire week hopping from hotel to hotel and visiting cleantech companies every day was definitely a relief; by the very end of the study tour I had started falling asleep on public transportation and I was more than ready for a break. I had become accustomed to Copenhagen's culture, atmosphere, geography, and transit system - so my return seemed like a homecoming of sorts. 

The first weekend back passed in a flash, however; not only did I have plenty of work to catch up on, I also tried to fit in a bit of sightseeing. On Saturday, after I got up early and starting work on a paper with Albert at Paludan, we both went on a tour of the main factory of Carlsberg (Denmark's oldest and most esteemed brewery). The tour wasn't quite what we had expected, but it was cool nonetheless; we got to see the world's largest collection of unopened beer bottles from around the globe, went through a museum chronicling Carlsberg's history, got a glance at the processes of malting and brewing, saw the Carlsberg founder's personal sculpture garden, and visited the stables nearby. We also happened to see a couple girls from our class (named Nicole and Krista) after the tour. After chatting with them for a while, we headed back downtown to see if any shops were open (sadly they weren't), and headed back to Hoffmans. Later in the night, everyone from Hoffmans went out and chilled downtown for a while, but Jared, Courtney, and I all felt hella tired and quickly called it a night.

The following day, I spent the majority of my time working on my Statkraft paper at Paludan; I happened to see Sara, Eszter, Albert, and Kelsey there too, who were all working on papers as well. Later in the night, I went back to my place to get some reading done for the next day's class, made dinner, and crashed.

Boats in the Copenhagen Canals

The next day was very eventful; we spent the entire class period working on a group exercise that modeled the European energy and emissions situation using Lego bricks (which was fitting, since Lego was founded in Denmark and is still the main toy company there today). The objective of the exercise was to reconstruct the European energy grid to reduce both emissions and energy consumption by the year 2020. However, my group (which represented Southern Europe) did pretty poorly since we put way too much emphasis on reducing energy consumption form heating costs rather than from transportation - but it was a learning experience, after all. The exercise ran from 10 AM until 6 PM though (or 10:00 through 18:00 in European time), which killed most of the time I could have spent on sightseeing or getting other work done. After class I did explore the city and got some window-shopping done with Albert and Kelsey; after that, I wrote up some postcards to friends back in the States, then headed back to Hoffmans to get dinner and do some work.

The Rundetårn ("Round Tower") in Copenhagen

Tuesday was spent entirely at a field study to a lab called Risø, which is Denmark's National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy. A number of the people in the class didn't show up for the field study, however, because they didn't get the memo from our instructor about where to meet. We first received a few lectures by Ph.D. students interning at Risø, who explained to us about what sort of projects they were working on. The primary focus of most of the research was the development of resistant fuel cells that could convert existing hydrocarbon fuel into electrical energy in a more sustainable way than by existing methods. One of the students, originally from Germany, gave an excellent presentation that everyone in the class enjoyed (although the girls in the class were also captivated by the guy's charm and good looks). Afterward, a few Risø workers gave us a tour of the labs and afterward showed us a house they had built that was closely monitored by computers to provide the greatest energy efficiency. They also showed us a number of renewable-energy-producing windmills, ranging from early models built in the 90s to the most recently developed windmill technology. After we all returned, I went and visited Christianshavn with Albert, Philip, Alec, and a few others from our class; then, after getting some work done back at the kollegium, I went over to Keops (Alec's kollegium) to wish him a happy birthday. His girlfriend had baked a cake (which was delicious), but sadly nobody else showed up since Keops was a bit out of the way. The two of us hung out for a bit, then while waiting for the night bus to pick me up I met a Middle-Eastern foreign exchange student who had come to Copenhagen to work on his thesis. I helped him get his bearings, he thanked me profusely, and I finally returned to Hoffmans.

A Windmill at Risø

Norwegian Excursion (Part 2)

After spending a few days in Norway, it quickly became apparent how different the country's culture was - despite the fact that it was just a few kilometers north of Denmark. Although Denmark has a very prevalent biking culture, we rarely saw people on bikes in urban areas of Norway. Also, with a drinking age of 16 and no open container laws, Denmark had a very liberal alcohol policy; meanwhile, Norway had a drinking age of 20 (with an additional 3 years needed for purchasing hard liquor). Even these small details made a significant cultural difference that was immediately noticeable.

On Wednesday, the class went on a hiking trip high in the mountains near Voss - which was definitely the most eventful experience of the entire study tour. A guide took us along a rugged mountain trail that wound past a number of sheep-herding communities, while explaining to us about about how fjords are formed, how gin is distilled from juniper berries found in the Norwegian countryside, and why indigenous lemming populations dwindle from drowning each year. The class found the last topic hilarious and constantly joked about finding lemmings in the mountain streams - although we didn't see a single lemming during the entire hike. It was incredible that the high mountain areas were still covered in snow in parts, and since all of the streams were fed from fresh meltwater we all drank freely from them. Also, we encountered a ton of sheep throughout the excursion - some of which followed us bleating for the entire time. After the hike, we all headed back to Voss, grabbed ice cream, and hopped on a train to Bergen (a harbor town on the West coast of Norway). After getting settled, I went with Albert, Kelsey, and a couple other girls from our class to browse around and grab dinner from a local fish market before heading in for the night.

The First Mile Marker on Our Hike

The next day, the class headed first to the Bergen Aquarium, where we got to see a lot of local sea life and handle a few snakes. Afterward, we grabbed lunch and then witnessed a presentation by the community of Bergen (known as the "Bergen Kommune") about what the city was doing to promote sustainability. The presenters also brought in a few scientists who described the processes influencing rising sea levels - which was extremely interesting. Then, we went back to the fish market to grab dinner again before I wandered around the city with Kelsey, Ellen, Ivy, and Wilson. After browsing around for a while, buying some hand-knitted hats and sweaters, and checking out a local military fortress, we tried looking for a place where a public celebration Norway's midsummer festival was supposed to be held. This festival (known as Sankthansaften) was supposed to be one of Norway's largest national holidays, but we only managed to find a few people barbecuing and chilling at a small public park overlooking the water. We hung out there for a while, then traveled back to the hotel where we met up with a few other people from our class. We all hung out in the lobby, and Ivy played a few tunes on piano while me and a few others sang along. Afterward, I discovered that both Jason and I were locked out of our rooms - so we hung out in the hallway exchanging music on our laptops before Sam came back and let the two of us into our hotel room (where Jason also crashed for the night).

Mountain Sheep at Voss

Friday, the entire class went to a local restaurant in Bryggen (the main wharf along the Bergen harbor) where we ate a traditional Norwegian lunch consisting of fish soup and a grilled moose wrap. Afterward, we all headed to the Bergen science center; it was essentially an interactive museum aimed at educating Norwegian children about a variety of scientific issues (ranging from renewable energy to space travel). Although the subject matter was rather simple and clearly designed for a younger audience, we all had fun - especially riding on a bike-powered centrifuge. However, the study tour was winding down and many of us (myself included) were exhausted from all the activities that had been planned. As soon as we hopped on our flight back to Copenhagen, I fell asleep and didn't wake until the plane had landed. It was later in the evening by the time we arrived, so I immediately went back to Hoffmans, made a quick dinner, and went to bed.

Me and Kelsey Posing with a Moose at Bryggen

Norwegian Excursion (Part 1)

The morning after spending the night at Gronjords, Albert and I headed straight back to Hoffmans on the Metro. After I quickly finished my packing for the upcoming trip, I headed back downtown with Albert to Rådhuspladsen (Copenhagen's town hall square) where we met up with the rest of our class. A quick bus ride then took all of us to the ferry that would transport us to Norway. Although I expected the ferry to be fairly modest, it turned out that the ship was a huge cruise liner - complete with hot tubs, a cafe, several restaurants and bars, and a general store where you could buy everything from shoes to chocolate duty free.  I spent the rest of the day exploring, then eventually grabbed dinner from a massive buffet (the seafood was excellent), chatted with my classmates, and worked on a presentation for the next day with a girl from my class named Ellen before heading to bed in my cabin.

A Deckside View of Our Cruise Ship

The next morning, I woke up early to try to see a few fjords from the deck of the ship; sadly, it was too foggy to see anything much so I headed back to bed. After waking up a second time, I grabbed brunch and quickly packed everything to prepare for our arrival in Oslo. Immediately after arriving, we settled into a hotel room (I roomed with Sam and Albert, who would be my roommates for the rest of the trip) and then grabbed lunch before heading to visit a state-owned Norwegian company called Statkraft that provides renewable energy solutions. They presented to us for a while on what their company does; afterward, I headed to a Viking ship museum with a group of classmates, which wasn't quite as epic as I expected but was still pretty sick nonetheless. Then, we all headed back to Oslo, explored, and grabbed dinner from a local pizza place. Afterward I went out with Sam, Albert, and Kelsey; we found a local bar and we met a Norwegian DJ who told us all about the house music scene in both Scandinavia and the US before heading back to the hotel.

The Main Floor of the Cruise Ship to Oslo

The next day, the class went to visit a company called CICERO - a research center that investigates climate change issues. Afterward, me and a few other people (Sam, Max, and Jason) went to visit the Nobel Peace Prize museum before heading to another lecture by another cleantech company called Mitt Klima. AFterward, we went back to the hotel, grabbing our bags, and hopped on a train bound for Voss (a small mountain resort known for its excellent hiking and skiing). After getting off the train, we all got on a bus that would take us the rest of the way; however, though we thought the ride would be only an hour or so, when we got on the bus driver immediately announced that the trip would be a total of FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS. It was one hell of a ride, but I powered through it by chatting with Ivy for most of the time. The ride was also made tolerable by the awe-inspiring view of several mountain fjords. Once we arrived in Voss, we immediately settled into a new hotel (which was ten times better than the last one) and I went with Sam and Albert to seek out food. Sadly, few places were open so we had to resort to eating at a 7-Eleven (yes, there are 7-Elevens all over Europe). Then, we went back to the room and talked for a while before heading to bed.