Paternity Leave

Today I walked to DTU for the first time. It's a nice walk, just over a mile and through a quaint part of Lyngby (pronounced Loong-booh) with parks and such. I met my contact, Jan Rossmeisl at 11:30, and we went to lunch with some of his colleagues. Lunch was a sort of buffet where you prepared your own Smørrebrød, a danish type of open face sandwich on a heavy Danish Rugbrod (translates as Rye Bread, but not really much like rye) that you eat with a fork and knife, for the most part. Jan commented that "I find that typically when things remain a regional specialty, there is a good reason."

During lunch, I spent some time getting to know Jan and a few of his colleagues. Jan has four children, ages 1, 3, 6, and 13. Jan explained to me that the financial and time burden of having children, even with a busy career, was ameliorated by the Danish government's requirement of at least a year's worth of maternity/paternity leave (which apparently is divvied up between the couple as they see fit). Furthermore, he explained that the government also heavily subsidized child care, providing 66% of the cost. I was impressed by this, to say the least.

We also talked a little about work and about what I was doing with respect to CO2 electroreduction, but mostly he told me about the university. Apparently the layout corresponds to a 2-D cartesian coordinate system (i. e. x-y) with the first digit of each building number corresponding to its respective quadrant. We also stopped by a large hall filled with prospective high school students and exhibits about the university. There were several interesting-looking exhibits (including a huge model of the DNA double helix) but I was kind of in the dark as to what was going on, not speaking Danish.

Upon returning, I met some more folks from CaMD (the center for atomic-scale materials design) and talked with Jan a little more about electrochemical scaling relations in the CO2 reduction pathway. After getting set up on the network, I started working a little on implementing the new transition-state search algorithm that Andy had suggested I look at during my trip. By the end of the day, I'd written a script that replicated the results of the NEB calculation on the ASE web page, but it still needs quite a bit of work before it will run efficiently.

Legos in the Freezer

So I decided it might be fun and useful to keep a journal of my stay here in Denmark. These entries won't be very well put-together, but I figured jotting down summaries of my experiences here will be sufficient.

On my first flight from SFO to LHR (London), I met a charming woman who conscripted me into her pre-flight ritual of wiping down our tray tables with a wet-wipe. Some time after we'd taken off, she took out a sheet of staff paper, set a violin/piano duet up, and soon after was accosted with questions from me about her life and music. Turns out she was a piano teacher and composer who specialized in "jazzeltic," a fusion of jazz and celtic music. You can check her duo out here and listen to a few samples: http://coastsidevideo.com/sites/Colyn-Shauna/pages/Colyn-Shauna--Astronomer-091011-Coastside-Video-512x.html

Anyway, I slept on the entirety of the flight from London to Copenhagen, but when I woke up, I noticed that people weren't speaking English anymore. This was when the fact that I spoke almost zero danish really started to hit home. I struggled a little riding the trains home, not understanding that I had to ride a separate set of trains to get to Lyngby from the central Kobenhavn H station, but made it with a little help from one of the conductors.

Upon arriving at Lyngby station, I wandered around for a little while looking for my hotel and again was forced to ask for directions (I've really underestimated how much I depend on google maps via my phone at home), and was again helped by a friendly dane with impeccable English. There was some confusion at the hotel about my room, but we sorted it out and I finally was able to put my luggage down.

After getting settled and relieving my major internet withdrawal, I decided it'd be a good idea to eat something, considering I hadn't since the London flight. Unfortunately, the supermarket next to the hotel was closed, so I settled for a falafel I found a couple of blocks down.

After waking up the next morning, I took a short journey to the Netto grocery store a few blocks away and bought some groceries. I noted that, in the freezer, next to a large selection of sausages, were a similarly large and varied selection of legos. I also purchased a kilogram of nutella.

In general, I find the experience of purchasing things here to be a little like trying to execute a computer program. You expect something to go wrong, and when nothing does, you feel a little like a thief who's successfully plundered something.

Anyway, I'm leaving here soon to walk to the campus of DTU and meet with my contact here, Jan Rossmeisl, so I'll conclude this for now. More updates to come!

-joey