Adventures in Copenhagen

Hello! Although this blog originally began as a travel journal of sorts for my semester abroad in Japan, I thought I'd expand it to include my month-long research trip to Copenhagen. Here's a bit of background!

The Centre for Geogenetics is a world-renowned ancient DNA facility, and a ton of high-profile research papers dealing with ancient samples have come out of the lab. Here's an example, with a quote from the head of CGG, Eske Willerslev. CGG is home to multiple "research groups", each with a different focus. Thanks to my advisor's collaborations with Eske, I've gotten the opportunity to work with some ancient Siberian dogs, as well as learn some new techniques and get to see another ancient lab. I arrived on July 12th (ie yesterday), and will be living here until August 12th. In that time, I have a lot of research to do, but I hope to balance it with plenty of sightseeing. :)

My arrival was pretty uneventful - I flew to Copenhagen via Chicago and London. The total trip took about 17 hours, including a few long layovers. I did see something neat at the Chicago airport, though - pictures from IGB! The Institute for Genomic Biology is where the ancient lab is at the University of Illinois. There are a lot of really powerful microscopes at IGB, and so they made a gallery of some of the cool images that come out of the microscopy labs.

Saturday I mostly spent settling in - after finding my hotel, it was already 4 pm. It's an extended stay hotel, and they serve breakfast 7 days a week and dinner on weeknights. As much as I'd like to cook, it's so expensive to live in Copenhagen I figured that letting someone else handle my meals wouldn't be a bad idea. It's a little older, but really not bad. I have wi-fi, a hot shower and big windows, so I can't complain! My window overlooks a large courtyard with a lot of other apartments and hotel rooms - it feels like I'm an observer of a lot of other peoples' lives, which is an interesting feeling. There's no air conditioning, but that's really common in Denmark. So far, the temperature hasn't been above the mid-seventies, and it's supposed to stay that way through August! I never thought I'd say this, but I'm almost missing the Texas heat. Almost.

On Sunday I jump-started my trip by being trained in the ancient lab! I met Nathan, a post-doc in the lab group I'm working with, at 9:30, and we spent the rest of the day training. It's not quite as bad as it sounds - he took a very leisurely approach, so we spent probably less than half the time in lab. He and Randi, a graduate student at CGG, took me to lunch at a really cool foodie market at Norreport Station, which is one of the larger stations in Copenhagen. There, we had some amazing pizza (see above!). So far the food has been pretty good here, though I'm not sure I've had any authentic Danish meals yet.

Today, I'm meeting with Tom Gilbert, the head of the lab group and the owner of the Siberian dog samples, to figure out the plan for my stay. I think a lot of different people are involved, since the summer is a popular time to go on vacation! I've heard that when it's sunny, everyone just takes time off from work and goes on vacation because the sun comes out so rarely.

Hopefully I'll have some more sightseeing photos for you in the next few days. This last picture is of the park I cut through on my way to the lab - the Danish really believe in green spaces everywhere! :) Take care!
-Kelsey