A different type of rainbow

We saw this rainbow this evening. I did a little poking around on the internet, and it seems to be a circumzenithal arc.

A sabbatical from my sabbatical

Although it's wonderful to have time off from teaching and service responsibilities to do some research, I am not interacting professionally with anyone in Denmark and so am a bit isolated. However, I am fortunate to be able to take advantage of my European vantage point to visit a collaborator in Valencia, Spain. (I say fortunate both because my collaborator is willing to deal with me for a couple of weeks, and Kyle is willing to single-parent for a couple of weeks. Muchas gracias to both of you!)

I was here once before for a Sweet Summer Sabbatical in the summer of 2006. At that time we started a project that has now been published. I also had a blog of sorts, which has some pictures of Valencia and my impressions of the city at that time. We also spent time in Germany that summer, because both Kyle and I had meetings there.

I will collect stories and take pictures for a future post over the next couple of weeks. I will just note for now that I am staying in what seems to be a very nice dorm in the city center in a building that used to be a palace, and am currently passing time until dinner becomes available at 8:00.

A little history

The flags are at half-mast until noon today in Denmark, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Nazi occupation of this country.

Spring break

Last week was spring break. Since we haven't been any farther than Copenhagen for two and a half months, we decided it was time to get out of town for a few days. We started on Tuesday by taking a bus north to the town of Helsingør. One of this city's claims to fame is that it is home to Kronborg Castle, which is the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet.


After looking around the castle and grabbing some lunch in town, we hopped on a ferry to Helsingborg, Sweden. There, we toured around a bit. Probably the most interesting thing we saw was Kärnan, a tower which is the only piece remaining of a Danish castle that used to be here.

The next day, we took a train to Höör, Sweden, where Kyle's Mother's pen-pal Marianne and her partner Åke live.
We had a very nice visit, and the girls had a great time playing with their dogs.


I've posted a few more pictures here.

Home Sweet Home

A while back, I posted the floor plan for the university apartment that we're staying in. Now, I have finally gotten around to taking some pictures of the inside and outside of the apartment we're staying in. the above picture is actually our back yard - we will eventually have some nice outdoor meals at that table, although clearly not yet. More pictures can be found at this link.

A trip to the pharmacy

I occasionally get headaches, so I like to have some ibuprofen around. I forgot to bring some from the US, so I went out today to get some. Since such things cannot be purchased in grocery stores in Denmark, I went to an apotek.

At the apotek, it took some time to find the ibuprofen, but eventually I did, behind a locked glass door on a cabinet. It was clear that to get help one needed to take a number, but what appeared to be the number-producing machine had two buttons on it with descriptions that I couldn't figure out without a dictionary. So, I did what I've gotten in the habit of doing and asked a friendly-looking person if he spoke English, and after confirming that he did (they always do, so far), asked which button to push (the second one, since I didn't have a prescription to fill).

When my number came up, I asked the pharmacist if she spoke English (she did, with hardly any accent), and asked for some ibuprofen. She told me that they are currently having a "campaign" to discourage people from using ibuprofen because it can cause stomach problems. This took several minutes. She recommended that I buy paracetamol, which doesn't cause stomach problems, which I did. I'll have to look it up, but I assume it's fine.

All in all a pleasant, but significantly more complicated experience than in the US.

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.