Polaris

It's been mostly cloudy since we've been here, but tonight is a clear night, so I went outside to look at the sky, until the cold chased me inside for some hot tea. One thing that's kind of neat is that Polaris, or the north star, is quite a bit higher in the sky than it is in Lawrence. Since Polaris is almost directly over the north pole, the angle that it makes with the horizon is nearly equal to one's latitude. (There's a good diagram of why this is here.) In Lawrence, we're at about 39° N, whereas in Lyngby we're at about 55.5° N. Brenda tells me that if you hold a fist at arm's length, it subtends about 10°, so Polaris is about a fist and a half higher here. It really is noticeable.

Mars is pretty as well.

Wheels, Phase I

Distances to the grocery stores, school, and work are a bit farther than we anticipated, and it seems to be quite common here to ride in the snow and rain and cold, so today we went down to Copenhagen to buy some used bikes. Unfortunately, the store we went to did not have any used bikes in Logan's size, so we just got bikes for Diane and Kyle. They then rode them back home, while Logan and I got back on public transport. We got some good leads on where to find a reasonably-priced bike for Logan, and we'll eventually get one for me as well.

A better blog

I still plan to post from time to time, but Diane seems to be doing a better job than I am. Her blog is at http://dianeindenmark.webs.com.

A Sunday Walk

Today we went for a walk in a forest just east of here called Jægersborg Dyrehave. It's been cold and snowy here lately, and there were a lot of kids sledding and ice skating, as well as grown-ups biking (!), cross-country skiing, and horseback riding. When we first went into the park, Logan declared it to be the "best place in the whole world." We didn't have sleds or ice skates, so we walked to the Eremitage Palace.


We knew that the palace was closed for the winter, but were hoping to find a place that sells hot chocolate. No such luck, but we did see a couple of herds of deer.