Monday, February 28, 2011
Italian Pizza
On saturday we had a community dinner at our Collegium. There were about 20 of us, mostly from my collegium and friends from elsewhere that were friends of ours. Sandro who lives in my Collegium is from Sicily and made us some authentic Italian pizzas. There were several types. First a plain margarita pizza (sauce, and sliced mozzarella), there was also others like it but with sliced salami or sliced ham on top. We also had two "New York" style pizzas, they were the basic margarita with french fries, sliced mini hot dogs and ham on top. We had two which I would call "authentic" flavor pizzas. These were a margarita with, peas, mushrooms, black olives, hard boiled egg, and ham on top. It is quite a combination, but it was surprisingly well balanced and tasted quite good. For dessert one of the french girls made an apple, pear pie with an open top covered with some poppy seeds. That was really really good, and it was complimented by a kiwi quiche. I know the later sounds odd but it was more like a custard than a quiche and it was also baked like an open faced pie. Also we had a plain chocolate cake. All in all it was a very successful dinner and we are planing to have a french dinner next weekend... Out of all of us there were about a dozen from France... It was also interesting because Marco the other Italian from our collegium (From Modena) said that the "authentic" pizza is nothing like what he would get back at home, just so show that pizza from northern to southern Italy is very different. Eventually we will also have an Austrian meal and perhaps even an American one. I am not sure what I am going to do yet, but everyone wants me to do hamburgers, so maybe I will do that or some other food on the grill when the weather is nice out. If you have any suggestions feel free, I would like to represent the US well...
Curling
Last week I learned how to play the sport of curling. The Aalborg Curling Klub hosts free practices for curling for students of all abilities every wednesday night and every other friday. For those of you who do not know what curling is because it is not played much outside of Canada/ Scandinavia, it is a sport much like shuffleboard but on ice.
If you have never seen curling either in the Olympics or on a visit to Canada, it is played on an ice rink. Two teams of four players compete to score the most amount of points in 10 ends. An end is when both teams throw all 8 stones down the ice. The stones are thrown from the start to towards the "house," which is a series of concentric circles at the other end of the rink. The team with the closest stone at the end of the end will get points, one for each stone in the house that is closer than any stone that the other team has in the house. Each team has a Captain, who directs the thrower about where he should aim, and acts as a defensive sweeper. There is also a thrower who initially pushes off and sends the stone on its way across the ice. They are famous for being very loud to inspire the remaining two players who are the sweepers. Their job is to correct for inaccuracies in the throw by sweeping more or less. Every player should however know how to play all positions because traditionally each person throws two stones so everyone plays all positions.The name of the game is called curling because when you throw the stone you are supposed to spin it slightly so that it travels on a curved path or "curls." Now the next bit is going to be a bit "mathy" and "nerdy." This is okay because I am both of those things... and it helps to explain why the game is fun/interesting. If you could careless skip to the paragraph after...
Any who, despite what one may assume the stone does not travel on a perfectly symmetrical parabolic curve. Instead the apex of the curve is much closer to the house than to the start. The reason the stone curls is because of the resistance to angular velocity caused by the friction on the ice. In other words as the stone spins it pushes off the ice in the direction of rotation causing it to not travel in a straight line. However, when the stone is initially released it has a greater forward velocity, therefore its momentum pushes it forwards faster which means the effect of the rotation on the ice is less. When the stone slows down it curves much more because it is noticing a greater effect due to the angular velocity caused by rotation. This allows a skilled thrower to slide his/her stone around and behind those of their opponents. The sweepers aid in this process because sweeping melts the surface, therefore if you sweep in front of the stone it will travel further but it will also curl less because, again there will be less friction which means it is harder for it to change direction. In curling friction is both a curse and a blessing...
So I played curling on wednesday and friday. Wednesday was really fun but there were so many people we got little playing time in. On friday there were not as many people so we could play a lot. In fact one of the senior members of the club played on my team because there were only seven on my lane. We were talking a lot and he was teaching us about strategy and such since the rest of us had just learned on tuesday. Apparently I had some talent however, because he invited me to join the club at a little train camp/practice competition in Arhus this coming saturday. Additionally he invited me to practice with the club on wednesday because the other lanes are rented by a private company so there is not free curling for students but club members have some space reserved every day so that will be fun. Curling along with ping pong add to the list of sports that I did not play in the US nor are necessarily readily available but are popular here in Denmark.
If you have never seen curling either in the Olympics or on a visit to Canada, it is played on an ice rink. Two teams of four players compete to score the most amount of points in 10 ends. An end is when both teams throw all 8 stones down the ice. The stones are thrown from the start to towards the "house," which is a series of concentric circles at the other end of the rink. The team with the closest stone at the end of the end will get points, one for each stone in the house that is closer than any stone that the other team has in the house. Each team has a Captain, who directs the thrower about where he should aim, and acts as a defensive sweeper. There is also a thrower who initially pushes off and sends the stone on its way across the ice. They are famous for being very loud to inspire the remaining two players who are the sweepers. Their job is to correct for inaccuracies in the throw by sweeping more or less. Every player should however know how to play all positions because traditionally each person throws two stones so everyone plays all positions.The name of the game is called curling because when you throw the stone you are supposed to spin it slightly so that it travels on a curved path or "curls." Now the next bit is going to be a bit "mathy" and "nerdy." This is okay because I am both of those things... and it helps to explain why the game is fun/interesting. If you could careless skip to the paragraph after...
Any who, despite what one may assume the stone does not travel on a perfectly symmetrical parabolic curve. Instead the apex of the curve is much closer to the house than to the start. The reason the stone curls is because of the resistance to angular velocity caused by the friction on the ice. In other words as the stone spins it pushes off the ice in the direction of rotation causing it to not travel in a straight line. However, when the stone is initially released it has a greater forward velocity, therefore its momentum pushes it forwards faster which means the effect of the rotation on the ice is less. When the stone slows down it curves much more because it is noticing a greater effect due to the angular velocity caused by rotation. This allows a skilled thrower to slide his/her stone around and behind those of their opponents. The sweepers aid in this process because sweeping melts the surface, therefore if you sweep in front of the stone it will travel further but it will also curl less because, again there will be less friction which means it is harder for it to change direction. In curling friction is both a curse and a blessing...
So I played curling on wednesday and friday. Wednesday was really fun but there were so many people we got little playing time in. On friday there were not as many people so we could play a lot. In fact one of the senior members of the club played on my team because there were only seven on my lane. We were talking a lot and he was teaching us about strategy and such since the rest of us had just learned on tuesday. Apparently I had some talent however, because he invited me to join the club at a little train camp/practice competition in Arhus this coming saturday. Additionally he invited me to practice with the club on wednesday because the other lanes are rented by a private company so there is not free curling for students but club members have some space reserved every day so that will be fun. Curling along with ping pong add to the list of sports that I did not play in the US nor are necessarily readily available but are popular here in Denmark.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Ping Pong
So here in Denmark I have been playing a lot of table games(aka ping pong, foosball, pool etc). They are very popular and almost every collegium has at least one of them. Ours has two ping pong and foosball (called table football by many) Unfortunately our collegium charges 5 kr for one game of foosball(11 balls = first to 6 wins...) So it is played less often here. However we go to other collegiums to visit friends and play on their tables. And the Energy Engineering building on campus has a kitchen and a room with a foosball table in the building with all the project group rooms so that is pretty nice. However our collegium supplies paddles- although their condition is questionable... so recently there has been a lot of ping pong play happening. In fact I would estimate that since saturday night I have played between 15-20 hours of ping pong and probably 5 hours of foosball...So you could say I am hooked. But it is nice to have so many people to play with and many of them are quite skilled. For instance it is more or less assumed that if you are french you are good at ping pong... because this holds true in my collegium. My skills have vastly improved in the past few days and perhaps when I return I will challenge tiffy- even though I know she will destroy me... However if I keep up this amount of ping pong play I think when I return to the US I may make a table. I figure some ply wood and two saw horses with a net in the middle should do the trick. Or maybe Aaron will find something on Free Cycle...
Hamburger Recipe
Ingredients:
1 lb of ground beef
1 small onion
1 large clove of garlic
1 small or 1/2 large habenero pepper
3 table spoons of pepperoni
3 strips of bacon
2 table spoons of grated Parmesan cheese
~2 tablespoons of butter
Cumin
Chili Powder
Salt
Cayenne Pepper
Chili pepper flakes
Slice onion into thin disks and then quarter them. Cook with butter in small frying pan on low heat in order to caramelize, cover with a lid. Cut the bacon into 1 cm wide strips and cook on low heat in a large frying pan (Big enough for cooking 4 hamburgers). Mince the garlic, habenero, and pepperoni. Once the bacon is mostly cooked remove from the pan but keep the grease in and keep the pan on low heat. Mince the bacon really small and combine with the garlic, habenero and pepperoni. When the onion start to go from translucent back to golden brown pour out on the cutting board but the pan on low heat. Mince the onion really small and return to the small frying pan along with the bacon, garlic, habenero, and pepperoni. Add a little bit of salt, chili pepper flakes, and cayenne pepper (per own personal liking), and then a healthy amount of cumin and chili powder say between 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of each. Cook on low heat for about 5 minutes mixing frequently so the spices are well mixed together. In a large plastic bowl add the ground beef and the Parmesan cheese. Then add everything from the small frying pan. Turn up the heat on the large pan to medium but it should still be warm from cooking the bacon. Mix the ingredients together and then pack together four patties. Cook in the large pan that is coated with a little bacon grease until desired. Enjoy.
A few notes:
You could add an egg to try to make the meat stick together but mine held up fine without it. Despite the amount of pepper I used(I had the seedy end of a large habenero) the burgers were not very spicy because the meat and bun take care of the heat. I would not change the amount heat on mine to make it more or less hot because I thought it was perfect and nice burger with a little zing to it. If you have any recommendations or other burger recipes for me to try I would love to give it a go.
1 lb of ground beef
1 small onion
1 large clove of garlic
1 small or 1/2 large habenero pepper
3 table spoons of pepperoni
3 strips of bacon
2 table spoons of grated Parmesan cheese
~2 tablespoons of butter
Cumin
Chili Powder
Salt
Cayenne Pepper
Chili pepper flakes
Slice onion into thin disks and then quarter them. Cook with butter in small frying pan on low heat in order to caramelize, cover with a lid. Cut the bacon into 1 cm wide strips and cook on low heat in a large frying pan (Big enough for cooking 4 hamburgers). Mince the garlic, habenero, and pepperoni. Once the bacon is mostly cooked remove from the pan but keep the grease in and keep the pan on low heat. Mince the bacon really small and combine with the garlic, habenero and pepperoni. When the onion start to go from translucent back to golden brown pour out on the cutting board but the pan on low heat. Mince the onion really small and return to the small frying pan along with the bacon, garlic, habenero, and pepperoni. Add a little bit of salt, chili pepper flakes, and cayenne pepper (per own personal liking), and then a healthy amount of cumin and chili powder say between 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of each. Cook on low heat for about 5 minutes mixing frequently so the spices are well mixed together. In a large plastic bowl add the ground beef and the Parmesan cheese. Then add everything from the small frying pan. Turn up the heat on the large pan to medium but it should still be warm from cooking the bacon. Mix the ingredients together and then pack together four patties. Cook in the large pan that is coated with a little bacon grease until desired. Enjoy.
A few notes:
You could add an egg to try to make the meat stick together but mine held up fine without it. Despite the amount of pepper I used(I had the seedy end of a large habenero) the burgers were not very spicy because the meat and bun take care of the heat. I would not change the amount heat on mine to make it more or less hot because I thought it was perfect and nice burger with a little zing to it. If you have any recommendations or other burger recipes for me to try I would love to give it a go.
Arhus and the old city
Since I will be doing more interesting things on the weekend I may start to write a short summary of the week on thursday and then account for the weekend on monday. I am trying to figure out the best way to schedule this with my own schedule. Last week was a full week of classes. Currently I am taking four classes: Combustion and the Environment (lots of Chemistry :-( ), Aerodynamics (All about wind turbines :-D ), C Programming, and ISCAN (Introduction to Scadinavia, a culture course...). ISCAN was the alternative to the language course which I opted not to take because everyone in my collegium who was here last semester told me it was horrible and that they all dropped it and the ones who didnt say they learned very little Danish. And I am picking up a few danish sayings here and there just by listening to people talking so I am happy with that. Danish is to some extent similar to english when it is written on paper and a lot of words are spelled the same of phonetically spelled the same for example "rice" is "ris." However the way many danish words are spelled does not translate to how one would think they are pronounced which is why it is so hard to learn to speak it.
On Saturday I got up early to catch a train to the second largest city in Denmark, Arhus. Unfortunately at 7:30 when was ready to leave my apartment I released the buses were not running so I ran most to the 6k from when collegium to the train station. The train system is nice and relatively simple here in Denmark as well as the rest of Europe. You buy a ticket and that ticket is good all day (Until 4am the next morning). You can then ride the train as much or as little as you want. The train ride was about an hour and twenty mins rolling through snow covered danish countryside. Most of Denmark is agricultural land so it was mostly farms with a few larger towns and cities and a lot of wind turbines dotting the landscape. It snowed about 5 inches last week which is pretty huge for Denmark especially because it already snowed in December. In fact the last two years have been the coldest and snowiest Denmark has been in a long time. Yesterday for example it was -16.5 C in the morning which is the coldest it has been any day in February since 1999.
Arhus was very nice and much like a bigger version of Aalborg. The train station is also a huge mall which was interesting and it exits to the a long pedestrian street. At the other end of the pedestrian street is a massive church as well as a cluster of about 15 smaller pedestrian streets surrounding a canal that cuts through the city. Arhus is on the east coast of Jutland and like Copenhagen has canals for transportation through the city. Our destination in Arhus was a place called the "Old City."
Denmark has not fought in any major world wars since losing alongside Napoleon in Waterloo. (They were one of the world super powers at the time) As a result its cities have not been bombed, and still contain many of the beautiful old buildings from hundreds of year ago. So the Danish government collected these buildings and moved them to one location in Arhus to set up an attraction similar to plymoth plantation/ sturbridge village. There are employees dressed in regalia of the time that you can interact with. However since it is the off season they were mostly inside the buildings. But we found a few at the old Danish bakery where we purchased some classic Danish pastries. Although I have to say either the lack of actors roaming around or the fact that the buildings were truely authentic made it seem more real then Sturbridge etc. Many of the houses were like mini museum exhibits showing off some part of danish culture. They ranged in age from 1500s to 1900s. I did take a lot of pictures but unfortunately I still do not have my camera cable so when I get it I will upload to facebook and some to my blog.
After we left the old city we were free to roam Arhus take the train elsewhere or return home. The people I was with decided to roam the pedestrian streets for a while shopping. Afterwards we ate lunch a danish "chain" restuarant. (Jensens Boefhus). It is a semi chain because there is one in all the major cities so not like McDonalds however for the most part there is one of those is every city as well, no more no less. With maybe the exception of Copenhagen. We were all pretty tired so we took the train home and I watched the sunset over the countryside and took some pretty cool pictures of the turbines with a pink/blue background.
I know this is long but I have one other thing to mention. I made some truely epic hamburgers. I am gonna make another post with the recipe. Please feel free to experiment with it and tell me if I can improve it in anyway because these were really good...
On Saturday I got up early to catch a train to the second largest city in Denmark, Arhus. Unfortunately at 7:30 when was ready to leave my apartment I released the buses were not running so I ran most to the 6k from when collegium to the train station. The train system is nice and relatively simple here in Denmark as well as the rest of Europe. You buy a ticket and that ticket is good all day (Until 4am the next morning). You can then ride the train as much or as little as you want. The train ride was about an hour and twenty mins rolling through snow covered danish countryside. Most of Denmark is agricultural land so it was mostly farms with a few larger towns and cities and a lot of wind turbines dotting the landscape. It snowed about 5 inches last week which is pretty huge for Denmark especially because it already snowed in December. In fact the last two years have been the coldest and snowiest Denmark has been in a long time. Yesterday for example it was -16.5 C in the morning which is the coldest it has been any day in February since 1999.
Arhus was very nice and much like a bigger version of Aalborg. The train station is also a huge mall which was interesting and it exits to the a long pedestrian street. At the other end of the pedestrian street is a massive church as well as a cluster of about 15 smaller pedestrian streets surrounding a canal that cuts through the city. Arhus is on the east coast of Jutland and like Copenhagen has canals for transportation through the city. Our destination in Arhus was a place called the "Old City."
Denmark has not fought in any major world wars since losing alongside Napoleon in Waterloo. (They were one of the world super powers at the time) As a result its cities have not been bombed, and still contain many of the beautiful old buildings from hundreds of year ago. So the Danish government collected these buildings and moved them to one location in Arhus to set up an attraction similar to plymoth plantation/ sturbridge village. There are employees dressed in regalia of the time that you can interact with. However since it is the off season they were mostly inside the buildings. But we found a few at the old Danish bakery where we purchased some classic Danish pastries. Although I have to say either the lack of actors roaming around or the fact that the buildings were truely authentic made it seem more real then Sturbridge etc. Many of the houses were like mini museum exhibits showing off some part of danish culture. They ranged in age from 1500s to 1900s. I did take a lot of pictures but unfortunately I still do not have my camera cable so when I get it I will upload to facebook and some to my blog.
After we left the old city we were free to roam Arhus take the train elsewhere or return home. The people I was with decided to roam the pedestrian streets for a while shopping. Afterwards we ate lunch a danish "chain" restuarant. (Jensens Boefhus). It is a semi chain because there is one in all the major cities so not like McDonalds however for the most part there is one of those is every city as well, no more no less. With maybe the exception of Copenhagen. We were all pretty tired so we took the train home and I watched the sunset over the countryside and took some pretty cool pictures of the turbines with a pink/blue background.
I know this is long but I have one other thing to mention. I made some truely epic hamburgers. I am gonna make another post with the recipe. Please feel free to experiment with it and tell me if I can improve it in anyway because these were really good...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Beginning of week 3
I do not have a ton to say so this will be a short post. Next week I have my first real full week of classes. On Wednesday night if I have time I may go curling (yep that's right that silly sport the Canadians love) with some people from my collegium. Next saturday I have plans to visit the city of Arhus. It is the second largest city in Denmark and has a section called the "old city." The old city is a collection of houses that range in age from 50 to around 500 years old that have been brought together as a living museum of sorts. Denmark has managed to stay out of most of the wars during the 19th and 20th centuries which has preserved it and prevented historic building from being destroyed. This means that many cities have old cobble stone roads- there are a few even in Aalborg with traditional small cozy Danish homes. So we will take the train to Arhus and spend the day there.
Another benefit of living in an international collegium is the food. I have been doing my best to watch and see all the different types of food being prepared in the community kitchen that is shared by all the residents of my collegium. I have even enjoyed eating some of them. For instance tonight I ate with a bunch of the french residents who were eating galettes which are salty crepes as well as regular sweet crepes for desert. The galettes were filled with egg, onion, ham, cheese etc.. and then we had the sweet crepes for desert. So now I just need to star writing down the recipes for these so I can make them myself. Tomorrow I have 8 hours of class starting at 8:15 so that will be fun...
Another benefit of living in an international collegium is the food. I have been doing my best to watch and see all the different types of food being prepared in the community kitchen that is shared by all the residents of my collegium. I have even enjoyed eating some of them. For instance tonight I ate with a bunch of the french residents who were eating galettes which are salty crepes as well as regular sweet crepes for desert. The galettes were filled with egg, onion, ham, cheese etc.. and then we had the sweet crepes for desert. So now I just need to star writing down the recipes for these so I can make them myself. Tomorrow I have 8 hours of class starting at 8:15 so that will be fun...
Friday, February 11, 2011
2 weeks
I have been in Denmark for two weeks now. I have been acclimated to the time change as well as many of the lifestyle changes of living in Denmark. For instance unlike at home most stores close at 5:30 sharp and therefore you need to do grocery shopping etc much earlier in the day unlike in Burlington where Price Chopper is open 24/7.
This week I had a few more classes and my project group was finalized. Here at Aalborg there is a semester long project that students work in small groups to complete. Each group is given their own room to work on the project and store materials as well as do regular work in along with a key so you can bring your computer and leave it behind when you go to lectures etc. Also the groups have an adviser who is usually a faculty of the school or a professional in the field that the project focuses on. Our adviser is the professor for Aerodynamics a class that I found out is almost entirely designed around wind turbines. This is very handy because the project my group is working on is designing a VAWT or Vertical Axis Wind Turbine. These are different from what most people associate as wind turbines because those are HAWT or Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines. Although mathematically HAWTs have potential to be more efficient than VAWTs due to Betz's Principle there is a potential for small because they make less noise, look more attractive and can fit into small places that HAWTs could not. I will not go too in depth on the project but that is what my team and I have to do. In the end we will conduct lab tests most likely using CFD computational fluid dynamics and build a model and use a CCWT continuous circuit wind tunnel to test the model and then we will use that data to write the conclusion to our report which will be in the range of 80-100 pages. We have already gone to the library to find books although most are 20-30 years old but theory is unchanged just the technology is different. The project is due at the end of May and we will defend it (Like a thesis) in June and then we will be done... !
The classes I had this week were Aerodynamics and C Programming. I am interested in C because it will be nice to learn some programming as it is essential for most engineers to write or find someone who can write programs for various applications. Tomorrow at 10am (uggggh) I have a 4 hour language bath in Danish and starting next week I will take an intro to Danish class for 8 weeks. Other than that my only other class until late march is Combustion and the Environment. However when I am not in class I will be working on the project so my week will be busy. I will hopefully be able to travel on weekends because I have no classes on Fridays...
I have to say I was very tired Monday morning. I stayed up an watched the Super Bowl (Thank god the Packers won!!) The game did not start until 12:30 my time and at half time 2:30 I planned on going to be but this did not happen and I ended up not falling asleep until I knew the Packers had put big Ben in his place. The game was very interesting to watch. We could not find a stream from the US with out paying for it however we did get a Norwegian channel that was showing the game. However they do not have advertisements here so during the commercial breaks there would be a Sports Center like commentary of the game (talking heads...) However there were 5 commentators, 4 white Norwegians and one black American... So the Norwegians would talk to each other and laugh in Norwegian and when they had a question they would ask the "expert" (the black guy..) and they would ask him in decent english and then he would talk. However the rest of the time (most of the time) he would just sit there awkwardly no really sure what was going on. And when he did say stuff he said some things that were incorrect which was also hilarious to the Americans in the room watching the game (however the other international students hardly noticed...) So that was pretty funny addition they video called some other guy who was supposed to be some expert and when he was talking he kept stumbling on his words and he called Ben Rothlesburger, Ben Rothenburger which was really funny and by the end he was just laughing at himself which made it all the better. Also I have to say I am not sure if you experienced this at home but the camera work was horrendous. They kept using awkward camera angles and they would cut to the camera before the guy was focused so he would be zooming in and out and moving the camera around really fast which was ridiculous. Also for a while they did not have the little lines that they add for the first down which made the game more tedious to watch. Luckily because the broadcast was done by fox during the game the commentators were American and so the game was announced in English... All in all it was quite an event, we even made some "American" food for the game including spinach and artichoke dip, cupcakes, and chicken wings.
During the week I also met my buddy Rebecca. She is very nice and together we walked around with a few other people she knew and one of the girls who worked for the tourist center in Aalborg pointed out some places to go. It was very good because it allowed me to connect where I had been and have a better mental map of the city. I also bought my cell phone and some things from my room at Ikea (which had the exact same floor plan as the one in Avon, MA which was nice because it was easy to find things when I remembered where they were... There was one difference. There was no section where you could by the frozen meatballs, gravy and lignonberry sauce however you can order it upstairs at the cafe. My guess for why they dont sell it here is that you can find food like it at the super markets, but to be honest I would buy it anyways at Ikea because they are really good...
Yesterday I made chili for dinner. I had bought all the ingredients I needed but some friends from my Collegium wanted in so they contributed themselves and a few extra ingredients. I found Habanero Peppers at the Fotex near the Campus (major score!!!) so I added then to the chili, but it turned out to be not too hot because I only added 2 peppers so next time I am gonna use 4 and when I eat the left overs I may add some raw Habanero to it. The chili was quite good, maybe not as good as dad's but for my first time ever and I did not even use a recipe nor did I have a good variety of beans(Regular supermarkets only have Baked Beans and nicer ones like Fotex only had kidney and baked beans... plus the cans were in Danish so it was hard to know if the tomatoes were crushed, whole, or in sauce form so I got one of each...) so I was more than satisfied. I also made baked ziti earlier in the week so I have been eating quite well...
I will try to write more frequently because I realised that this is getting very long and I have more to tell for the future so you may notice many short blogs instead on long ones like this. Well I have a get together with my friends tonight at 8:00 so I need do some work and make dinner. My next message will most likely be on Sunday(From now on I will try to commit myself to certain days when I will write the blog... we will see how it goes...)
This week I had a few more classes and my project group was finalized. Here at Aalborg there is a semester long project that students work in small groups to complete. Each group is given their own room to work on the project and store materials as well as do regular work in along with a key so you can bring your computer and leave it behind when you go to lectures etc. Also the groups have an adviser who is usually a faculty of the school or a professional in the field that the project focuses on. Our adviser is the professor for Aerodynamics a class that I found out is almost entirely designed around wind turbines. This is very handy because the project my group is working on is designing a VAWT or Vertical Axis Wind Turbine. These are different from what most people associate as wind turbines because those are HAWT or Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines. Although mathematically HAWTs have potential to be more efficient than VAWTs due to Betz's Principle there is a potential for small because they make less noise, look more attractive and can fit into small places that HAWTs could not. I will not go too in depth on the project but that is what my team and I have to do. In the end we will conduct lab tests most likely using CFD computational fluid dynamics and build a model and use a CCWT continuous circuit wind tunnel to test the model and then we will use that data to write the conclusion to our report which will be in the range of 80-100 pages. We have already gone to the library to find books although most are 20-30 years old but theory is unchanged just the technology is different. The project is due at the end of May and we will defend it (Like a thesis) in June and then we will be done... !
The classes I had this week were Aerodynamics and C Programming. I am interested in C because it will be nice to learn some programming as it is essential for most engineers to write or find someone who can write programs for various applications. Tomorrow at 10am (uggggh) I have a 4 hour language bath in Danish and starting next week I will take an intro to Danish class for 8 weeks. Other than that my only other class until late march is Combustion and the Environment. However when I am not in class I will be working on the project so my week will be busy. I will hopefully be able to travel on weekends because I have no classes on Fridays...
I have to say I was very tired Monday morning. I stayed up an watched the Super Bowl (Thank god the Packers won!!) The game did not start until 12:30 my time and at half time 2:30 I planned on going to be but this did not happen and I ended up not falling asleep until I knew the Packers had put big Ben in his place. The game was very interesting to watch. We could not find a stream from the US with out paying for it however we did get a Norwegian channel that was showing the game. However they do not have advertisements here so during the commercial breaks there would be a Sports Center like commentary of the game (talking heads...) However there were 5 commentators, 4 white Norwegians and one black American... So the Norwegians would talk to each other and laugh in Norwegian and when they had a question they would ask the "expert" (the black guy..) and they would ask him in decent english and then he would talk. However the rest of the time (most of the time) he would just sit there awkwardly no really sure what was going on. And when he did say stuff he said some things that were incorrect which was also hilarious to the Americans in the room watching the game (however the other international students hardly noticed...) So that was pretty funny addition they video called some other guy who was supposed to be some expert and when he was talking he kept stumbling on his words and he called Ben Rothlesburger, Ben Rothenburger which was really funny and by the end he was just laughing at himself which made it all the better. Also I have to say I am not sure if you experienced this at home but the camera work was horrendous. They kept using awkward camera angles and they would cut to the camera before the guy was focused so he would be zooming in and out and moving the camera around really fast which was ridiculous. Also for a while they did not have the little lines that they add for the first down which made the game more tedious to watch. Luckily because the broadcast was done by fox during the game the commentators were American and so the game was announced in English... All in all it was quite an event, we even made some "American" food for the game including spinach and artichoke dip, cupcakes, and chicken wings.
During the week I also met my buddy Rebecca. She is very nice and together we walked around with a few other people she knew and one of the girls who worked for the tourist center in Aalborg pointed out some places to go. It was very good because it allowed me to connect where I had been and have a better mental map of the city. I also bought my cell phone and some things from my room at Ikea (which had the exact same floor plan as the one in Avon, MA which was nice because it was easy to find things when I remembered where they were... There was one difference. There was no section where you could by the frozen meatballs, gravy and lignonberry sauce however you can order it upstairs at the cafe. My guess for why they dont sell it here is that you can find food like it at the super markets, but to be honest I would buy it anyways at Ikea because they are really good...
Yesterday I made chili for dinner. I had bought all the ingredients I needed but some friends from my Collegium wanted in so they contributed themselves and a few extra ingredients. I found Habanero Peppers at the Fotex near the Campus (major score!!!) so I added then to the chili, but it turned out to be not too hot because I only added 2 peppers so next time I am gonna use 4 and when I eat the left overs I may add some raw Habanero to it. The chili was quite good, maybe not as good as dad's but for my first time ever and I did not even use a recipe nor did I have a good variety of beans(Regular supermarkets only have Baked Beans and nicer ones like Fotex only had kidney and baked beans... plus the cans were in Danish so it was hard to know if the tomatoes were crushed, whole, or in sauce form so I got one of each...) so I was more than satisfied. I also made baked ziti earlier in the week so I have been eating quite well...
I will try to write more frequently because I realised that this is getting very long and I have more to tell for the future so you may notice many short blogs instead on long ones like this. Well I have a get together with my friends tonight at 8:00 so I need do some work and make dinner. My next message will most likely be on Sunday(From now on I will try to commit myself to certain days when I will write the blog... we will see how it goes...)
Friday, February 4, 2011
Bus Strike
Hello again,
It has been some time since I wrote last. I have started to settle into a routine of sorts but I know that will change soon once I start traveling. I still have yet to buy a cell phone or a camera cable. Although I sorta like not having a cell phone. I will get one next week though I just need to go down town when the stores are open and tomorrow I am going grocery shopping so I will not have time. Unlike in the US stores are closed on Sundays and also close early on weekdays most stores are closed by 6pm. However bars and clubs on the other hand will stay open until 7 or 8 am on the weekends so you see where the priorities are for the Danes. I have now attended one class. They do it very differently here than in the US. my class was 4 hours but broken into a 50 min lecture 10 min break 50 min lecture then 2 hours to work on the homework in my project group. Each project group has its own room with desks and chairs and we all get keys to our room which is nice for leaving project stuff on campus. We work together on our assignments and also on the project which is where most of my credits is put in. Additionally during the homework time the professor comes around to the rooms and helps us with the homework if we are stuck. Also my class this week had only 10 students which is nice, the program here is pretty big but at the same time broken up so it is really small.
Yesterday I had planned to do some shopping down town but unfortunately the employees for the buses were on strike. Apparently the unions arranged so that one day a year they could go on strike without getting in trouble so that they can make changes to anything they feel necessary. So when I needed to go down town (which is 5k from where I live...) I decided to buddy up with some friends and get a taxi. Unfortunately this took a long time because the taxis were over booked due to the clack of buses but we eventually made it. I spent the evening down town and then walked/jogged back to my place which took around 30-40 mins. However I had already gone on a run earlier that was 5.5k. I saw the sun for the first time in a week so I was inspired to run yesterday. Overall I walked/ran around 12k (8 miles) yesterday...
I have met most of the people who live in my collegium (its like a dorm full of apartments/studios) and it is nice to have people around all the time to hang out with or make dinner with. My collegium is has about 25-30 Danes, 4 Americans(myself included and including a girl who grew up in NY but now lives in Qatar), several Italians, 3 Austrians, a Portuguese, Greek, Polish, a lot of French. So we are a diverse bunch. I also know many people who live elsewhere including Mexico, Nigeria, China, Korea, Australia and more from some of the other countries already mentioned.
If you have any questions feel free to comment. Also If there is somewhere that you know that I should travel to please inform me. I hope to travel to many countries and if there is somewhere special that you know to be worthwhile visiting I would love to check it out.
It has been some time since I wrote last. I have started to settle into a routine of sorts but I know that will change soon once I start traveling. I still have yet to buy a cell phone or a camera cable. Although I sorta like not having a cell phone. I will get one next week though I just need to go down town when the stores are open and tomorrow I am going grocery shopping so I will not have time. Unlike in the US stores are closed on Sundays and also close early on weekdays most stores are closed by 6pm. However bars and clubs on the other hand will stay open until 7 or 8 am on the weekends so you see where the priorities are for the Danes. I have now attended one class. They do it very differently here than in the US. my class was 4 hours but broken into a 50 min lecture 10 min break 50 min lecture then 2 hours to work on the homework in my project group. Each project group has its own room with desks and chairs and we all get keys to our room which is nice for leaving project stuff on campus. We work together on our assignments and also on the project which is where most of my credits is put in. Additionally during the homework time the professor comes around to the rooms and helps us with the homework if we are stuck. Also my class this week had only 10 students which is nice, the program here is pretty big but at the same time broken up so it is really small.
Yesterday I had planned to do some shopping down town but unfortunately the employees for the buses were on strike. Apparently the unions arranged so that one day a year they could go on strike without getting in trouble so that they can make changes to anything they feel necessary. So when I needed to go down town (which is 5k from where I live...) I decided to buddy up with some friends and get a taxi. Unfortunately this took a long time because the taxis were over booked due to the clack of buses but we eventually made it. I spent the evening down town and then walked/jogged back to my place which took around 30-40 mins. However I had already gone on a run earlier that was 5.5k. I saw the sun for the first time in a week so I was inspired to run yesterday. Overall I walked/ran around 12k (8 miles) yesterday...
I have met most of the people who live in my collegium (its like a dorm full of apartments/studios) and it is nice to have people around all the time to hang out with or make dinner with. My collegium is has about 25-30 Danes, 4 Americans(myself included and including a girl who grew up in NY but now lives in Qatar), several Italians, 3 Austrians, a Portuguese, Greek, Polish, a lot of French. So we are a diverse bunch. I also know many people who live elsewhere including Mexico, Nigeria, China, Korea, Australia and more from some of the other countries already mentioned.
If you have any questions feel free to comment. Also If there is somewhere that you know that I should travel to please inform me. I hope to travel to many countries and if there is somewhere special that you know to be worthwhile visiting I would love to check it out.
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