Good thing Don Quixote isn't around...

"Now look, your grace," Said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind."

"Obviously," replied Don Quixote, "you don't know much about adventure."

-Miguel de Cervantes , Don Quixote

Today I played tour guide to one of my friend's friends, confusing I know, but Triin had class so she asked me if I could show her friend, Isabel, around the city.  While on our city tour we came across this ship:

Thankfully there was a nice Danish man who could tell us what it was for.  This ship is for building the offshore wind turbine fields.  Which as soon as I got home I started doing a little research on.  First off this ship is called the Pacific Orca.  It is currently the largest ship of its kind.  It can carry parts for 12 wind turbines.  Also the ship has six jack-up legs that fasten to the seabed while it is working.  The ship has 111 single cabins for the crew.  Although you can't really see how big the ship is it is actually 527.9 ft long.  If you want to read more about the ship here is a good website:

see the ship actually lifts out of the water to build the wind turbines. 

Denmark was actually a pioneer of wind power in the 1970's.  Today 50% of the wind turbines around the world are produced by Danish manufacturers such as Vestas and Siemens Wind Power.   

Not only does Denmark have a lot of onshore wind turbines they also have a huge number of offshore wind farms.  

This video is of Horns Rev 2, or Horns Reef 2.  When inaugurated in 2009 it was the largest offshore wind farm in the world.  It is located 19 miles off the Westernmost point of Denmark in the North Sea.  The wind farm has 91 wind turbines.  Horns Rev 2 is also the first offshore wind farm to have an accommodation platform named Poseidon.  Poseidon has 24 rooms, a gym, kitchen, dining room, laundry room, and a study room (not quite sure what a study room would be used for since I would think these guys don't exactly have tests to study for or anything.) Also the video is just pretty.  

So I know this post isn't that exciting for most of you but I can promise that for at least the next week my father will be watching youtube videos of wind turbines being built offshore, so this post I guess is only for him, but hopefully the rest of you will feel slightly more knowledgeable about wind turbines or at the very least you watched a pretty video of windmills hanging out in the water.

Culture, Birthdays, and Construction...

"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots."

- Marcus Garvey

This week has been pretty eventful.  Not the eventful of doing crazy new and exciting things everyday, but the eventful of everyday life with close friends.  Monday was Niklas' Birthday.  We began a tradition, if you can call a tradition something you have now done twice, of bringing a cake to the birthday person and singing to them at 12:00 on their birthday.  So we did that and then Monday night we actually had a real birthday party.

I received a frantic sleep deprived phone call from my friend Seonaid asking me to make the cake, and I have to say I was pretty proud of myself.

Also it is a Danish tradition to decorate everything with Danish flags for birthdays.

 These two, in the above photo, are Niklas' roommates two lovely Danes: Philip and Mikkel, another side note Mikkel is applying to study abroad in Madison so I will still be able to see a beautiful blond Dane even when I leave here.

 Then on Tuesday Kate and I went back to the National Museum.  If you can recall Kate and I went to the museum one of the first days of being here.  However after attending a Nordic Mythology lecture in which my professor showed about 20 photos of things we should have seen at the National Museum that we didn't we figured we should go back.  Lo and behold there was an entire floor that we didn't know existed, that held everything that my teacher told us we should see.

Also on the way to the museum we were able to see some of the Queen's horses being exercised.   

 So in the museum we saw a few interesting things.  The first being this:

So to my hunting friends, what is this? The sign said an elk, but doesn't it look more like a moose with the horns?

 And then there was this animal that just looks awesome and has an awesome name:

 And then we found the dead people, otherwise known as mummys.  This first mummy is a women with a two year old child next to her.

 This is the Trundholm Sun Chariot, actually this is a replica the real one is on loan to London, it is dated to 1800 to 1600 BC.  This artifact is interesting because it was made somewhere by the Danube River, which means that the early Danes traded with people of that area.

 Real Viking helmets, except not really worn for fighting only for looking pretty.

I will say it again, I am pretty sure Dr. Seuss came to Denmark to make up some of his stories.  These are lur an ancient Danish instrument.

 This is the Gundestrup Cauldron, I just think it would make an awesome punch bowl.

 And then there was an exhibit on Native Americans, Denmark seems to have a fascination with Native Americans it is slightly strange.  I don't know if you can see the title under Pow Wow but it says, "We Dance. We're Alive" Right, so I am sure that's exactly what Native Americans say all the time.

 I could have also bought an awesome t-shirt, but I resisted, it was tough but I managed.

 I have been doing really well here about eating well and not eating out.  However on Tuesday when we left the museum it was pouring rain so Kate and I decided just to get some KFC and sit and relax inside Scandinavia's largest mall, Fields.  It was delicious by the way, but it would have been made 10x better if Denmark had Ranch.

Also on Tuesday work began on an empty lot next to my building.  These pictures were taken when I was happy about seeing Caterpillar equipment because it made me feel like my dad was near.  Now however I truly despise this backhoe because it likes to begin work right outside my window at 7:00 AM!

I also finally was able to take a photo of a John Deere Tractor, side note why is a tractor pulling a boat?

 And finally we come to the culture part.  Friday night Copenhagen had a city wide Kulturnatten, or culture night.  It was this amazing night where the entire city came to life.  There were thousands of people going through the streets, the gardens were lit up with hundreds of lanterns and twinkle lights, and there were so many places that I would have never been allowed into if not for this night.

The first thing we did was climb the Rundetaarn, also lit up.

 This tower is one of the only medieval buildings left in the city.  The main building is a church, when it was first built the attic of the church was used as the library for the university.  The tower was built for astronomy.  Also interesting fact, the tower does not have steps, it has a very steep ramp going all the way up.  This way the king could just ride his horse up the tower and he didn't have to walk, and people say my generation is lazy.

 And even thought the picture is really bad I had to share, because it was a marching band of postmen, how amazing is that?

 Then we were able to tour the Odd Fellows Palace, in which we had to wear these beautiful blue booties.  The palace was were the movie The Royal Affair actually took place.  Now the palace is the lodge of the Odd Fellows Society.

 And this is the Queen's Garage, no big deal.

 Then what says Danish Culture better than a Medieval Times, with knights fighting and fire throwers?

I thought this was a caramel apple when I bought it, and was super super excited, but then I ate it.  It turned out to be an apple covered in melted sugar and cinnamon.  Still pretty good, but not as good as a caramel apple and impossible to eat without getting all over your face.(note to Katie, I love the hat and everyone here wants one.)

 After the strange Medieval Times experience we toured the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful and lit up.  After that we were able to tour the Royal Guard Barracks.  I really wanted to take a photo in the fighter jet, but apparently it was only for little kids.

And finally we went to Christiansborg Palace, which is currently the home of the Danish Parliament.  We however went under the building.  Christiansborg was built on the site of the original castle built by Bishop Absalon, the founder of Copenhagen.  So we toured the ruins under the Palace, it is amazing that something built in 1167 can still be around and look so strong.    

 It was a really good night and I am really glad that I went, but now I am here all alone.  That is every other exchange student has gone on a trip since next week is our fall break.  I however are staying here because... I am going to Italy!!!!!!!! In November, but I decided to stay here over the break so that I could go there later.  I am so excited! So far I have bought tickets to tour the Vatican and then to see the Last Supper painting in Milan.  When I came here I told people in my snooty voice that I could always go to Western Europe when I was older but I was definitely kidding myself!  I want to go to Rome now, and now I am.

Random Denmark Facts

- Denmark is made up of 444 islands, only 76 are inhabited.  

- Denmark has no public drinking laws or closed container laws, so you seem people all over the place drinking

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Beer, Bites, and Ships...

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline.  It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

- Frank Zappa

I have been missing fall in Wisconsin.  Here the weather has just been cold and rainy, but the leaves are finally starting to change color and fall!  Last week some friends and I decided to go and visit Carlsberg Brewery.

These photos were on the beautiful walk there.

 Carlsberg was founded in 1847 by J.C. Jacobsen.  The company was named Carlsberg after Jacobsen's son Carl and berg (which means hill) because the brewery was built on pretty much the only hill in Copenhagen.

 This is the original brewery location.  The beer is now brewed outside of Copenhagen, and this is now a visitor's center and museum.

 Carlsberg now also owns and brews Tuborg.

Along with the price of admission you received two beer coupons.  I drank about half of this and decided it wasn't worth it.  I will never be a beer drinker.

 J.C. Jacobsen was an avid art collector and philanthropist.  His art collection is now housed in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek which is in Copenhagen.  He also commissioned and donated the Little Mermaid statue to the city of Copenhagen.  This is a smaller model version of the one in the harbor.

 Any guesses what this is? If you guessed breathalyzer you got it correct! I am not kidding, the funny thing is that you need to pay to use it.  What drunk person is going to bother paying to see if they are drunk?

 The Carlsberg Company's logos include and elephant, swastika, and a 12 pointed star.  The swastika is obviously no longer used, but still remains on some of the buildings and statues.  The swastika was not used because the company supported the Nazi Regime, but because before the Nazis stole it, the symbol meant good luck or strength.

 Carlsberg also has draft horses.  I was a little upset by this fact at first thinking that they just copied Budweiser until I found out that Budweiser was not formed until 30 years after Carlsberg.  Kate, one of my friends, was very excited to see the horses since she competes on the UW-Madison Equestrian Team.  The horse was not so excited to see her and tried to take a bite out of her boob.  She has teeth marks, that's how hard it bit her.  I of course found this hilarious.

 This is the original gate into the Carlsberg Brewery and you can see the 12 pointed star on top.  Jacobsen not only started the brewery but he also started a laboratory to scientifically figure out problems related to brewing.  The species of yeast used to make pale beer, Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis, was isolated by Jacobsen.  The concept of pH was also developed here.

Danish road signs are not exactly helpful, they just kind of point in a general direction even if that means pointing through a building.

 This is the elephant gate.  There are four elephants for Jacobsen's four children and each elephant has an initial on it. Since the gate was built the elephant has been a symbol of Carlsberg.  The brewery even began selling the Elephant Beer in 1955.  

 I imagine that the two statues in the balcony are supposed to be Jacobsen and his wife, but I actually have no idea.

And then we ate pizza (I feel like I could end every story with that).

 And found this store, with marshmallows, which are apparently a "true American tradition"

 Since I only have four hours of class a week I have been improving my cooking skills, on Friday night I attempted to make eggplant parmigiana.  It was actually pretty good.

 Then on Saturday my Nordic Mythology class took a field trip to the Viking Ship Museum.  The museum houses five viking ships that were deliberately sunk around the year 1070.

 The coolest part of the museum is that they have actually built replicas of all five of the ships.  With these replicas historians have sailed most of the shipping routes the Vikings are thought to have used just to study how the people on board would have lived and if the ships could possibly have gone as far as historians believed.

 Also there were tepees, not quite sure why, but there were. 

The museum was expanded in 1990 and during excavation  9 more ships were uncovered including the longest warship ever found, at 39 yards (36 meters).  These new ships are currently being treated so that the wood doesn't further deteriorate.  

Random Denmark Facts:

- During the Dark Ages Vikings made up an elite force of soldiers known as the Varangian Guard and worked as the personal bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperors   

- The vikings settled Canada about year 1000.  The settled in parts of Greenland and Canada.  They called this land Vinland.  The Vikings did not think of this land as a "new world", they just thought it was an extension of their homeland.