Student Project Perspectives

Jeremy Chapman

Class of 2009

Major: Aerospace Engineering

Project Center: Copenhagen, Denmark

Jeremy Chapman

Previous Blogs

Monday, March 31, 2008

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.

First Day on the Project

Last week, my group partners and I took the train and then a bus to our project site at the Open Air Museum, Frilandsmuseet, 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.

Week 1: 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.