Adventures in Copenhagen

Quite a bit has happened since the last post. In the middle of finishing up the 4th of 7 lab reports. Next week I have the final 3 labs (Pump systems, heat transfer, and packed bed absorption) which could get a little hectic.

Tuesday night a big group of us went to the F.C. Copenhagen soccer game and it was a blast. We were able to pick up some jerseys at the local merchandiser and had a great time at the game. The home team won 6-0 so it was definitely an exciting game!

On wednesday I went into Copenhagen and played beach Ultimate at Amager Strand. The beach was beautiful and they had a separate 'sports' beach where it was only open to people playing volleyball or ultimate. At the practice I was invited to go to a beach tournament in Germany on the 25th and 26th of July. I'm super excited, but am worried that I won't be able to go because of the labs that will be due on Monday. We'll see what happens.

This weekend is still up in the air, no real plans but I'm sure something

fun will come up.

First Experience with Ultimate in Denmark

Today was a pretty good day. After a frustrating start to the Batch Distillation Lab we were able to get the apparatus running smoothly and obtained what I think are good results (further analysis will need to be performed to check them though). After lab though was probably the highlight of my time at DTU so far, I was able to go to a practice for a club team in Copenhagen (Flying Circus) the practice was pretty good, did a good plyo warm up, followed by 3 man marker drill, then a form of the huck drill, and finally and O/D drill. After that we divided up into teams and played. Unfortunately I was handling quite a bit but it was good to play a some-what competitive game of Ultimate while abroad. On thursday they play beach ultimate so I'm hoping that I can figure out the bus system well enough to make it out there.

Pretty pumped that I found a group of people to play with while I'm here.

Ohh yeah here is a picture of the train stop that is about a 20 minute walk from campus and from there you can get to pretty much anywhere in Denmark.

First Week of Labs

It has been a while since my last update. It is hard to believe that I have already been here for 10 days seems like I just got to Copenhagen yesterday. I have had the opportunity to meet most of the other students taking the lab class at DTU there are about 30-40 of us in all with all but 5 from Virginia Tech. There are 4 people from Case Western Reserve and then there is me. I was nervous when I found out that I would be partnered with a Virginia Tech student because they only receive a pass/fail for this class where I receive a grade that counts towards my GPA. Luckily my partner (Aaron) is an extremely diligent worker and I'm now more worried about me not letting him down with my work.

So far we have done two labs, flow through a packed column and filtration. The set ups are very impressive, seeing them I'm interested in how they would compare to the Units of Operations labs at Purdue. The labs are pretty intense and are definitely no cook book recipe. The writing of the lab reports has taken a little longer than I thought they would but I'm confident that after we get our first to back it will give insight to what the grader (from Virginia Tech) wants and make writing them a lot easier. This week our two labs are Batch Distillation and Distillation through bubble cap trays. I'm hoping that they won't be too bad.

That is about all the school work talk I can stand for now. I've been playing quite a bit of soccer with the other students here and forgot how much fun it is. Friday night we all hung out together and watched two of the guys successfully complete a bet of drinking 10 Irish car bombs in 1 hour. Saturday was a pretty lazy day for me, I spent a good portion exploring Lyngby and getting groceries. Today has been spent polishing up a lab report and getting ready for lab on monday. I'm hoping on monday to figure out the train system well enough so I can go to an Ultimate practice for one of the local Copenhagen teams, we'll see if I figure it out or not.

Below is a picture of my room definitely and improvement over the dorms at purdue (this is for you mom).

First Weekend

The first weekend in Denmark has been a blast. On Saturday I went to a beach (Charlottenlund). One thing I was suprised by was that the beaches were grass (very well kept and very short, but there was only sand for about 2 feet before the water, this may have just been because it was high tide but I found it kind of a nice change. There was no scalding hot sand to worry about before getting in the water and also sand didn't get everywhere which usually happens when you go to the beach.

Saturday night a group of us went out to a sports bar, it was a great time we ended up staying quite late and learned a few new drinking games from the bartender.

The next morning I had to meet up with the group for a tour of rural Denmark. We rode an hour out to what used to be the Summer House for the King and Queen of Denmark, there was a beautiful garden and it was amazing how a house from the 1600's still looked pretty nice.

After a tour of the house and grounds we had some lunch and then proceeded to an attraction that was one of the 'back in time' villages. The idea was to trace the history of Denmark back from the stone age to around the 1400's. There were exhibits all over the place and it was nice to walk around for a while. The highlights for me was the bog of sacrifice and the Gladiator battles.

Tomorrow we get our introduction to the course work. I'm a little nervous because I think that I am the only one who will receive an actual grade and not just a pass/fail so it might be difficult to remain focused while others are off enjoying their summer.

I'll hope to put up another post sometime this week to update how the course is going.

Arrival!

Got to Lyngby with no problems, the only problem the whole time was the shuttle to O'hare, there was some pretty bad traffic on 65 that made us a bit late but since the shuttle left Purdue at 3pm and my flight didn't leave until 10pm I wasn't too worried.

Before getting on the plane I popped a few tylenol PM in hopes of getting some sleep and also preventing my ankle from swelling. Needless to say sleep didn't come too easy but there was pretty good food on the flight and my ankle didn't swell up too much. Riding the trains and the bus to campus was a little intimidating but the locals were very helpful and made the trip very easy. Upon arriving I found that our houses look more like shipping containers or trailers.

There are 9 people to each shipping container where everyone has their own room with a desk, bed/couch, and a wardrobe. Also there is a communal bathrooms, washer/dryer, and kitchen/dining room. The Kitchen was a bit of a mess, but I'm not too sure if I will really be cooking that much.

One shock is the change in currency, a loaf of bread costs 25 Krones (about $4.50) and not only the conversion the money truly looks like monopoly money to me.

I think that now I will probably try and catch up on some sleep. I think tomorrow a group is going to the beach which should be quite a good time. Not sure if there will be any big celebrating for 4th of July but I'm sure there will be something.

Getting Ready to Depart

My flight for Copenhagen leaves in about 11 hours. Super excited but also pretty nervous that something super crazy is going to happen and I'll get stuck in some random country. I'm hoping that I didn't pack too much stuff and also that I'm not forgetting anything. Probably the most comforting advice I received was that as long as I have my passport and a credit card I can pretty much get anything else. I think I'll go through all the stuff I packed one last time and try and get rid of some of the stuff so that I won't be the typical over packing traveler.

Well next time I update I'll be in a different country and hopefully made it to the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, Denmark.