A bit more about my project, my life in kbh

I thought I would talk for a bit about my project.

First I will describe further the place where my project partners and I work. From previous entries, you know that I work at a museum called Frilandsmuseet or "The Open Air Museum". This is a place where families, school children, and senior citizens go to see what parts of Denmark looked like in the last couple of centuries. So the museum consists of original houses, farms, and other constructions all spread out over 86 acres with gardens, animals, and ponds in between.

There are many cool things about this museum, not the least of which is free admission. But another cool thing is that they hold special events for children during the holidays. Last week, we were around during the Easter events. I include here a picture of the children and their parents making decorative cut-outs. In a nearby room there were people dressed up in garb from the Danish 1800s and they were cooking food from a recipe book that looked really old. Everywhere there were children and their parents walking around. Especially popular were the geese that waddled in the dooryard and the stilts for everyone to try. I had not tried walking on stilts for maybe 15 years and gave it a go. I guess I did ok, but it took a while to get the hang of.

Back to my project. This museum has a program that was developed a couple years ago called Mulighedernes Land (Land of Possibilities). Basically it is a virtual role playing game that uses the museum grounds as the playing field. Participants choose which character they want to be and then they use a gps-equipped cell phone that gives them location-specific information. Where they go determines what happens in the story. Based on the story development, the group makes decisions about where to go next. The goal is for a the character to 'make it in life' in the 19th century. This program is for children of roughly all ages. Actually some adults have tried it and liked it, but it was really designed for the kids.

Anyway....

Our project is to create a teambuilding program for businesses that uses the gps technology. The museum's goal is to expand its use of the gps cellphone technology and to bring in some more money by attracting a wider audience to the museum. Shown right is our sponsor showing us how the gps cell phones work. If my partners look less than enthused, it is because it was a candid shot. We really like going around the museum and learning about everything. Most of all we like it when our sponsor comes to visit. His name is Klaus and he very excited and energetic.

I hope you can get an idea of what our project is like from what I have told you. If you have any questions or whatever just make it a comment to this post and I will get around to responding. I will leave you this time with something that I saw the other day. From these pictures you cannot hear the music being played in the streets or smell the bread being baked in a shop nearby, but you can imagine. It all brightened my mood a bit.

The start of a routine

Today, my group partners and I took the train and then a bus to our project site at the Open Air Museum, Frilandmuseet, north of Copenhagen. We met the man in charge of our project, Klaus, from the Danish National Museum IT department. After introductions, we went over the project for a while and then went for a tour of part of the museum outside. Then it started snowing. However, the snow flakes were not flakes at all but more like pellets. In fact they looked like those white moisture holding things that you see in store-bought soil. They eventually became normal flakes. Anyway, it was also really windy. I put a picture here of the view from where we waited for the bus to come get us. Such dreary weather would normally motivate one to just go home stay warm, but we had other plans.


Since discovering what I call the Turkish part of the city, I have not been able to resist going there every day for food at lunchtime. The others decided to come along and so the three of us had Turkish food for lunch. Specifically, I had Adana kebap (a spicy stick-less meat kebob on rice) which was so very very good. I think I was full for about 9 hours afterward.

Not much else has happened recently. I am just excited about the project and working at the museum. In time I will take some more pictures of the place.

I think I am getting used to living here in KBH. I feel comfortable getting around, buying food, learning Danish, and exploring. I feel less like a tourist and more like an inhabitant. Maybe it is because I have seen many other foreigners living here, or maybe I am just turning into a Copenhagener.

Arrival in Copenhagen: a friendly city

I did not do the responsible thing and gather all my Denmark information before departing.
For spring break I had spent a very relaxing week in Turkey with a close friend. Distracted by the 70° sunny weather and the rich warm Turkish culture, I had not given too much thought to my upcoming trip to Denmark.

My flight was 2 hours and 45 minutes from Istanbul to Copenhagen. I gained an hour from the time zone change and felt great when I stepped off the plane. Inside the terminal, however, I realized that the next hour or two would be very difficult. I knew the address of the place I would be staying in Copenhagen, but I had forgotten to review the instructions for how to get there from the airport. I suddenly felt a rush of dread. I had never traveled around Boston without a friend or a distinct plan for how I would get from place to place. Copenhagen, apart from being significantly bigger than Boston, presented the obvious disadvantage of being completely unfamiliar.

I set my luggage down, took a deep breath, and spent a couple minutes just looking around. I noted the where the trains, buses, cabs, ATM, and information desk were. I went to the ATM and withdrew some cash. Then I went to the information desk and asked what was the best way to my address. It was suggested that I take the bus. I could tell about my adventures figuring out the bus system, but it is kind of a long story. Anyway, with some help I figured it out and eventually ended up at my apartment. Once inside I set my things down and plopped myself down in a comfy chair. I closed my eyes and relaxed.

When I saw the familiar faces of my friends from WPI, I felt great. It is hard to describe the feeling but I think it is easy to imagine. For some reason, not seeing friends for a while and then seeing them again in a new and foreign place is just enchanting. The moment had arrived. We all got a tour of the nearby area. There were already obvious differences between Copenhagen and any city in the States. For the city as large as it is and the nearby streets as large as they are, there was very little noise and very little traffic. Car traffic anyway. There are bicycles everywhere. They come in all shapes and sizes for every kind of person. There are the bikes with the baskets for the shoppers, baby seats for the mothers and fathers, wagon attachments for the toddlers, speedy bikes for the racers, old fashioned bikes for the old fashioned, and motor bikes for less physically active.

So hopefully you can get a picture of what the city is like here. It is clean, polite, quiet, and full of history. I have had almost a week to enjoy it and not have to focus on my project. Oh yeah my project. I will talk more about that later. This week has been orientation week. We attended Danish classes every morning this week and took tours of different parts of the city in the afternoon. As you can imagine it has been 'the life'. Wednesday, we went to the Danish Parliment and met with the environmental spokesperson of the Socialist Peoples' Party. She was awesome and very inspiring. She was saying how Denmark has a long way to go environmentally. Thinking about the USA made me want to cry. Friday, we went finished off the orientation week by going to dinner to a Turkish restaurant. The irony is, I was in Turkey last week. It was a nice meal and it was fun to exchange some Turkish words with the waiter. Oh also there was some belly dancing. No wonder the restaurant was so crowded.

The next day, we went to the site of our project to see it. It was closed, but still it was awesome to finally arrive at the place we had read so much about and seen in pictures. Our project is to develop a teambuilding program for businesses at the Open Air Museum (Frilandsmuseet) that incorporates the history of the museum and the use of gps-equipped cell phones. On Monday, we will go back to the museum in the morning to meet with the person in charge of the project. We are all looking forward to it. The museum is in a small town that is just lovely and fun to walk around in. So maybe we will do that if we have time later on (and it's not too cold).

More news soon.

Cimbom!!!!

I will tell about this day backwards.

I thought for a moment, trying to remember from my flashcards how to ask for someone to take our picture. I remembered and turned to the gentleman standing behind me who had been joyously rooting for Galatasaray along with everyone else. (I made sure nothing exciting was happening in the game at that moment.) By then everyone around me knew I was American because I had been talking a little with Pınar. They had asked me where I was from, if I had ever been to a Galatasaray match before, if I know any Turkish, etc fln. Anyway the man happily agreed to take our picture.


The match was awesome and it was mostly because of the fans. Shortly after the game began, the man standing in front of Pınar turned around and asked her if she could see. She said yes but he scooched himself over and offered for her to stand in a free space next to him where the view was much better. Later some room was made for me too. Another man I stood next to offered me a cigarette. The girl over my right shoulder was friendly and we chatted for a bit. The atmosphere was incredible. Fans were chanting and Pınar was translating the chants for me. Although one chant in particular was obvious: "sarı! kırmızı! şampiyon! Cimbombom!!!" (yellow! red! champion! Galatasaray!)



I have been a fan of Galatasaray for about a year. There came a time where after hanging out with Turkish people so much I needed to pick a Turkish team to root for. All my friends root for different teams and so with nothing else to go on I just picked the team with the nicest colors. I included a video clip that is not particularly interesting, but it gives an idea of what it was like to be at the game. Here is a video of the goals of the match. Cimbom defeated Kayserispor 2-0.

The scene in and near the stadium was just a blur of yellow and red. Thousands of happy and determined people were walking every which way. Even as we drove near the venue, the streets were crowded with yellow and red clad people. We were driving from a fancy restaurant where we had enjoyed kebobs and Turkish food in other forms. Before that, we spent a lot of time at Dolmabahçe palace.Dolmabahçe is a palace. It happens to be the place where Atatürk lived and died. It is most grand. The walls and ceilings of just about every room are covered with gold leaf. The interior is filled with statues, oriental carpets, carvings, chandeliers, and those sorts of things. We wanted to just walk in and look around, but tours were mandatory. So we took an English tour. The guide was a friendly Turkish lady. At one point she said in Turkish to her friend that she was very tired and not in the mood for giving a tour. Still, it was a pleasant and very informative experience.


Going out and about today was highly necessary because the weather was marvelous. In the morning, the beauty of the day made it hard to resist going outside and taking some pictures.