1:Odense (Oh-den-sah) on the middle island, Funen.
2:Aarhus (oh-hoos) on the mainland, Jutland, almost directly above Odense.
University labs, ROBODAYS and the night in Odense
On the first day we drove to the University of Southern Denmark and visited a researcher/prof there. After the beautiful facilities (think Ikea again:white, black and natural wood colors with lots of light and open space), the lecture was fascinating. It was a very research based institute and they work with various types of cells(including human embryonic stem cells...this was one of the first places to do that work!) Had lunch there, and then drove to Robodays.
Not gonna lie, Robodays sounded really lame. It was awesome. When I hear "robot" I think R2D2 or erector sets. No way, here are the highlights:
Keepon: a dancing yellow robot reminiscent of a Peeps who uses a camera to respond to the movement of children. It is used to study Autism as well as synchronization in children.
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RoBlood: Detects where your veins are using various imaging techniques (kind of blurry, but the blue is where your veins are), a robotic arm is being invented which will take your blood.
HGV: like the little cleaning robotos in WALL-E, it follow a yellow or blue line and can delviver equpment, pick up a trash etc.
A pocket GPS which vibrates, for blind people
That night we....
....walked around Odense, it was similair to Copenhagen but seemed more down to earth. It was very busy and full of robodays stuff.
....stayed in a hostel (super small rooms! I should have taken a picture. My bed pulled out like a trundle bed and it felt like I was at a sleepover again, but it made for zero floor space)
...had a great dinner with some wine
....went to the symphony orchestra (It was great, I've never been before. We were behind the orchestra and I can't fighure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing)
....discovered a bar with some live jazz music and no cover (best part!) and played some games at the table.
A Great Breakfast, The Business Side of Things, Pigs and the Most-Beautiful-Hostel-in-the-World
So the next morning we got up and had a fantastic breakfast. I got to try all those things the host family keep talking about The Danish "rugbrot" (which is this dense, heavry rye bread) with butter and a thin slice of chocolate (EVERYONE has that here. I never thought I'd say this, but I didn't like it), jam and brie, muesli with yogurt, pate (um no.)...
We also got to hear about the business aspect of biotech start-up companies and about funding, patents etc.
Skjyby ("Sky-bue")!!!!!!COOLEST PART OF THE TRIP!!!!!!! We got to go into the basement and see them practice on pigs!!!! They were doing endoscopy and usign cameras to practice surgery. Then they cut open one right in front of us to practice this new technique which uses an electrode to cauterize and cut at the same time. It took a really long time and the fat is really thick, but once they got through it reallyw as hollow, they could just stick their hands it. It smelled awful though.
We did a sacvenger hunt around Aarhus: this city was less reminiscent of CPH than Odense, even though if was closer in size. It was more modern than either of the other two. We lost.
Drove to the hostel (photo above). It was gorgeous.
Visited a german bunker and had a campfire with wine, s'mores (marshamllows, digestive biscuits and that thin breakfast chocolate) and bread )made by wrapping dough around a stick and putting it over the fire)
ARoS, Roaming and Ice Cream
The next morning we packed up and went back into Aarhus where we got to go to the museum there (just opened in 2004). It is really nice and we got a tour. I loved so many works there (one of my favorite places in Denmark so far) but here are the big impact ones:
A detail shot of "Marilyn" a photorealism painting that was the most impressive piece I have ever seen. It was a compeltely different technique that I have had no exposure to.
Huge. Really creepy. But really cool at the same time. he wasn't allowed to be upstairs because of fire proof issues so instead he is in the basement surrounded by sprinklers.
Might be offensive: this a horse. It made me nausesous (and not much does) especialyl when you see the cross sections with hair and horse meat. Also: an installation art in the basement (9 rooms, each representing a part of Dante's Divine Comedy). One room has a daylight cycle in 8 mins. Another had a huge sculpture connected to the internet. There was a randomely pulsing light. It turns out that everytime a star in the universe dies, the info goes over the internet and the light pulses.
We walked around the city for the rest of the day (I BOUGHT BOOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and ended the day with some danish ice cream at ParadIS (chain or organic, freshly made every morning). I am utterly fascinated by the ice cream flavors they have here and I'm considering making a list in the side column...but that might be a little obsessive. Anyways here they had: Milk (not vanilla) ice cream with chocolate, greek yogurt flavor with honey, elder flower sorbet, passion fruit sorbet, chocolate-nougat, Licorice, Ferrero Rocher (need I say anythinge else?), hazelnut and then the typical ones.
We came home. I can't believe how much it felt like home when we drove into Frue Plads.
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