Erasmus.Denmark.Send(”me”)

Home

I am back home. Monday we finished the project and started packing a very small bit. Tuesday was the day. Our plan was to leave on tuesday at 8 in the evening. I got up at 1 at noon, because i was going to drive all night. We started packing our stuff. Clothes, drinks, electronics, radio, computer, server. Then we also needed to clean our flat, remove the feet from the ceiling, mop the floor, clean the dishes and make dinner. After all this, it was time to put the last things in the car. The car was really packed full. I never saw it that full, the backseats were full untill the headrests of the front seats.  As was the trunk of the car. We didn’t really meet our schedule, because we finished at 9:20. Then it was time to hand over our keys to our buddy Esben, and to say goodbye to the remaining erasmus people Albert, Genis, Dana and Pawel. In the end we left at 10 in the evening for our trip home. At that time I felt good, everything was packed, everything was in the car, i was relieved. The trip went well, on the most places in germany you are allowed to drive unlimited speed between 8 in the evening and 6 in the morning, so we could drive on quite good. At 4 we were driving for 6 hours, and had 2 earlyer stops, i really needed a rest. After a power-nap till 4:30 i was ready to plow on. We reached the Belgian border around 6 and we got stuck in a traffic jam shortly after. I already started to hate the damn traffic in belgium again. luckily it only took about 15-25 minutes. If we would have arrived 1 hour later, we would’ve been stuck for an hour. I dropped off jago at his place at 7 and got home at 7:30. After saying Hi, i really needed some sleep.

Project Finished

The project is finished. The presentation is done, the grade is known.

Monday the 23rd of June we had to do our presentation.  The jury consisted of our two project teachers and one external person. It took about 30 minutes including the demonstration of the website. after a few questions then, I was asked to go outside and wait for my grade. When they called me back in they told me they were very satisfied with my work, and they gave me a “Big 10″. it is a 10, but they said it was very close to 12, which would be an A in ECTS grades. so now i got a B, which - after all - isn’t bad at all either.

I’m happy that the project is finished. But not happy that Erasmus, Denmark is finished.

Copenhagen

From the 17th early morning till the 18th in the evening we visited Copenhagen. We started with waking up 1 hour to late, so we left at 7 in stead of 6 in the morning. We (Jago, me & Gintare) drove to Copenhagen with a small detour of 300km to the Møns klint. This cliff with a top height of 143m is really the most amazing part of nature in Denmark. after a few stairs upwards we got a very nice view of the sea and the cliffs. After this we decided to have a look at the sea, so this was another load of stairs to go down and up again.

After another session of driving danish roads at speed we made it till Copenhagen around 15:00. Before we went to the hotel we visited the Elephant Gate. This was in the industry zone, at the Carlsberg Brewery. Around 15:30 we then made it till the hotel. We could park close to the hotel and the rooms were quite nice. Around 16:30 we then took the car to visit the outside of Copenhagen. We first attended a church with a very nice tower, but it was closed for Restoration, so we could only see the outside. After attending the marketplace we went to Christiania. The hippy town inside Copenhagen. This hippy town really looks funny. everywhere is graffiti, the roads are mostly sand and there are no cars inside. In the town is a nice weed smell and you can see a lot of hippies and youngsters hanging around. This was certainly a point to visit in Copenhagen. After hippy town and some dinner we went to see the famous “Little Mermaid“. It seemed she got dressed in a little bit of White paint by some vandals, which made it maybe a little more interesting. I cant see the specialty in this thing, it is just a small statue on a rock, completely outside the center of Copenhagen. Nothing special really…

After an hour rest in the hotel we went to town again to see some nightlife (on a tuesday evening). Walking through the main street was nice, there were still quite alot of people (students) outside around midnight. In Herning you are completely alond outside after 22:00. There were very much light advertisements on the buildings. We visited a bar and after went to bed around 2. In the morning we started our Copenhagen visiting part 2 after breakfast and checking out in the hotel. At 11:30 we were in the “Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek” museum. A museum with art from Ancient Egypt, Greece and the roman empire, the ancient Mediterranean and a painting collection of France and Denmark. After running around in this museum for one and a half hours, we decided it was enough, it seemed you could be there for a whole day if you wanted to see everything. For me the Greek and Egyptian things were the most interesting, we skipped the French and Danish painting. The second day we moved solely by foot. We went from the museum to Nyhavn via the old stock exchange. Nyhavn looked nice but not so amazing as it looks on the pictures. Just a nice place. Besides the special colors of the buildings, Denmark really doesn’t know a thing about architecture. (Churches is something different, but houses…). From Nyhavn we walked to the Royal Palace and the Marble Church. From across the water we could also see the Opera House which looked quite new. We were at the church at 14, but there was a guided tour till the top of the church at 15, so we went for lunch and came back to the church at 15. It was nice to have an overview over Copenhagen from a tower. it also was clear how small Copenhagen really is. No high tower buildings at all. Besides churches the only high tower was from the attraction park Tivoli. This is an attraction park in the middle of Copenhagen. Really strange place to have an attraction park

At 16 we had to walk through the main street back to the car which was parked at the hotel because Gintare had her bus to Vilnius (Lithuania) at 17:40. At 16:50 we finally made it till the car, and at 17:10 the bus arrived at the meeting point were we were waiting with the car and the luggage. Putting my love on the bus is really not a nice thing to do, but besides the thoughts of missing her, there are also the great thoughts of having her, and the ones that I will meet her again in July and August in Vilnius.

We went back home after dinner and at the big bridge between Fyn and Sjælland we stopped at both sides to look from the bottom. we were there now anyway so why not stop and have a look in stead of just driving home. I had seen the one side before, with my parents, but now i saw the other side too. it was nice to visit.

Around 23:30 we arrived at Birk again, well, not at birk, it is now known as Empty Birk. Only a few students are still here. Our last week started as well…

All pictures are on my picture blog

today = deadline - 2days

2 days is what we have left for our project. the deadline is 12th of june, at 12 o’clock. The website itself is “finished”. With “finished” i mean i did what i could in the given time, and fixed all the minor details that had to be fixed. The idea of the E-Learning portal was to create a portal that was more usable. I think the usable part is accomplished. The most interesting parts for me would be the youtube alike video option, so that teachers could upload videos which later could be published. but i never came up to that point. it seems like a project on its own. what i have now is all the basic e-learning portal functions. In the end thats still quite alot of code and functions.

• creating users
• editing/deleting users
• creating usergroups
• editing/deleting groups
  • Adding users to groups
  • searching for users
• Create course
• Edit/delete course
  • Edit course name/description
  • create new page
  • edit/delete page
  • create new announcement
  • edit/delete announcement
  • set course access rights

Thats the basic of the Admin panel. All together 32 PHP pages, and 21 stylesheets. Quite some hours of work. The PHP of the admin panel is all together 3489 rules of code :P.

In the upcomming 2 days i will be writing on my report. I’ll be happy when it is the 12th, so i have some free time again. something i could really use right now…

Disaster party

The last big party happened, last week. In lukasz flat. Some people were already at home like chris, meriem and odile but still it was a great party. Lukasz borrowed my radio for some decent sound and he made a collection of the most know crappy funny and great songs. Based on that and alot of drinks, this party just couldn’t go wrong. On top of that, lukazs has one of the biggest rooms, so there was alot of place inside to dance. Outside there was a fire and some benches. All together the party was very good. And on the Gabry Ponte - Geordie song, everybody started jumping and shouting as usual:

Mingus B-Day

Last saturday we celebrated Mingaile her 66th birthday (since she blew the 22 candles for 3 times) and it was a new way of celebrating a birthday. Not in a small room with a load of people and frigdes full of drinks (fyi, there is nothing wrong with this kind of parties) but it was an outdoor event with not so much people and a very nice camp fire. Now we could sing and shout as loud as we wanted, because the closest ppl were a 100m away, so it was ok.

Sitting around the campfire, some songs on a guitar, some singing and shouting, some dancing around the campfire. It was a great party.

pictures and pictures and pictures

An update on the complaint of our last party:

I really have no idea why the neighbours complained about noise in the hallway…

Goodbye old fridge/Hello new fridge party

Last week we could feel something was wrong with our fridge, the milk was going bad in 2 days, and with the warm weather, it was nearly cooling anything at all. after a temperature check our fridge was broken, so we mailed the school and on friday someone came to check it. one hour later we got an email that a new fridge had been ordered, which then was delivered on monday. since we had alot of beers and cocktails, and now a working fridge, we wanted to do a party. Thursday would be the only possible date because on friday (today) Meriem and Odile left us. They are now back to France. So yesterday it was the goodbye old fridge/Hello new fridge party! for the event we had done some silly decoration which was quite funny to make. feet all over the room. the fridge crossed my whole room on the cieling and left dirty steps.

The party started quite early, around 7 we had a cooking party first organised by Meriem. the idea was to cook something from your home country and then come together to taste all dishes. It was a very nice idea, and the food was very good. we used a classroom for this occasion, and Me and jago made fries in the classroom which was quite funny.

At 21:30 the doors in our room opened for party :P, at 11 there were quite some people but it really got started at 12. Jago was serving 2 different kinds of cocktails, the famous Mojitos and a self made Baleys with vanilla ice and cocomilk. Besides that there were the (again) famous Belgian beers who filled the fridge till the top. And what did a party need more than drinks? Music! the combination of the load of drinks and the loud music on my stereo really seemed to hit it off and the party was really crazy, everybody was jumping around and singing (screaming). I had never seen such a party in such a small room. But it was great. Almost everybody was at the party. It was really the last party all together. and I never expected it would have been such a nice party :). At 4 the last ones left our flat. I was exhausted but happy

A word of apology for our neighbours though. the rooms in birk are small so the party, dancing and screaming was also partially in the hallway. But for this one last time, it should be ok… right? In the morning we got a nice email from Ingrid, our erasmus contact person.

Dear exchange students

I am sorry to have to tell you that I have received a complaint because some of you were having a party last night and were very noisy!

Please keep the partying and the party noise indoors during the week and please also have an understanding for the students who are reading for exams and/or writing their bachelor projects.

Otherwise, have a nice weekend and remember to keep the noise down – thanks!

Best regards,

UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS

Institute of Business and Technology

Ingrid Billesø

International Relations Assistant

pictures of the party!

Project stress enlightened

Alot to do around our project last week and this week. Last week wednesday we got an email about our exam. The deadline would be the 27th of may, and the presentation would be the 3rd of june. This was no good news for us, because we counted on a deadline around the 10-15th of june. This was how our planning was made (and approved) because officially we have to stay here till the 15th of june. So on our meeting on thursday I asked Ulrich to see if there wasnt any possiblity to make these deadlines at least 1 week later, because if not we would have a half finished project, and we would be here for 2 more weeks with nothing to do. Ulrich would look into it. It was possible and the deadline would be the 3rd of june and the presentation the 10th of june. Problem was that the 2 catalonian guys had to be able to do it 1 week later too. But they have an exam at home so they leave the 6th of june. So 2 days ago we got an email the original dates would be used. This was bad news for our projects because this 1 week could make a world of difference. Then a second problem came in. Ethics, at home.

There would be an examen of Ethics at home, the 16th of june. This exam is not much a real exam. We had to make a paper about the ethical side of IT related technology/errors/… the deadline for this paper was 15th of may. The exam would consits of showing our poster to the teacher and giving a 5 minute long explenation together with it. Since most of the Erasmus students wouldn’t be home by then, I asked the head of teachers if there was any possibilty to move this ethics exam, and if this exam was strictly nescesarry for Erasmus students, since it was only a 5minute deal…

At the meeting with Ulrigh today i asked if there was no other option in chaning the date. I saw Mathieu, a french guy, his deadline was the 16th of june, and his presentation the 23rd. So i asked maybe we could do our project presentation on the same day. Ulrigh thought it was ok, so he would look into it.

Project stress was raising…

We could only move the date if it was ok for all the teachers, and if ethics was on a different date, later than that one.  When i came back from the meeting, the good news started. Our teacher informed us that the Ethics exam for erasmus students had been cancelled. Perfect! In the afternoon we got an email of our danish exam manager. She told us it was ok to do the exam the 23rd of june. I never expected it to work out like this, i hoped it would, but i saw only a small chance. But it worked! Now we will have to hand in the project around the 12th of june. Thats 15 days later than the first date. We can breathe again…

The project itself is going good, I am making good progress. Since it is PHP there is not much new in code. The big challenge here is to make the usability work. With so many functions, pages and options, it is far from easy.

My project, live, here. Not so much to see probably, because most functions are in the Admin section. you can log in with username: Testuser pass: test still not much to see but ok

BBQ Days

2 BBQ’s in 2 days. The weather is great in Denmark right now. We came back from Belgium with some great weather. Tuesday in the evening we had our the first BBQ in Birk. It wasn’t supposed to be a big BBQ, just some people from Birk and a few girls from Agro. It was a nice evening. Though when the sun goes down in Denmark it becomes quite cold. In the night it can be 8 degrees colder than in Belgium at night. (15 vs 7deg). So we ended not to late. Still some project work to do since last week i wasnt able to do anything.

The next day there was a BBQ in Agroskolen. Around 15 we arrived to make fire. In agro is a beach volleyball stand, a big trampoline, and some comfortable benches. The perfect stuff for a warm and sunny afternoon. After some volley we had a decent fire around 16:30 so we started … uh … something between lunch and dinner. It was a very nice BBQ i must say. A nice place to be, the Agro garden. We played volleyball untill 7 or something. So that was time to go home and do some project work. On friday in the afternoon, denise requested revenge for “Team Germany” so we played another game agains them. Though the result for them remained the same

Tourists in Belgium

Since mondaynoon I am back in Denmark. As you know I went to Belgium with Gintare for one week, so here is a little report of how it was

We left at 3Am on tuesdaymorning, and arrived home around 13:00. The weather was nice for driving, only some rain in Denmark in the beginning and at home also some rain. First noticable difference in Belgium was the spring. All trees were covered in green leaves, the grass was growing fast again, bushes were full of leaves and flowers. Whilst in Denmark the spring still had to come, all trees still naked….

So the first day we met some of my friends in a bar in my town (Dendermonde). We went to bed early that evening, cos we were all really tired. The next day, wednesday, we went to Ghent. This was the only city that I knew myself, I studied there for 3 years, so i knew where to be. But apart from shops, I didn’t visit any of the touristic buildings in this city. So for me it was a tourist feeling as well as for Gintare. First we visited school since i could park my car there for free. then we took the tram into the city. We visited the Cathedral, the Belfry, Graslei and the Gravensteen . Gravensteen is a castle of the middle ages, in the middle of the city. Actually when i list these things here, i realise what a boring country Denmark can be for this kind of things. We had a great time in Ghent and the weather was good. It rained several times but only for like 5 minutes. Later we had sun again so that was perfect. On top of the Belfry was one of the best moments. In the middle of the city at a high tower you really had a nice view. After a belgian waffle, we could go home pleased (and tired).

Thursday: Party Day. We were still quite tired of our trip, and we got up quite late this day. This day we went to Antwerp. In Antwerp is a 572m long tunnel under the river. And this tunnel is only for pedestrians.Once we were our of the tunnel we were in the city center. Because we were running out of time we only visited the market place and the cathedral, after we ran around a lil bit in the city center. Then around 19 we went to collect a dutch friend of me, who was comming to Antwep by train for the party of the evening: A State Of Trance 350! The doors opened at 19 and the DJ’s started at 20, which is very very early. There was a limit of 2000 people. We were guessing it would be easy to get in so early. At 19:45 we arrived and oh fuck, there was a serious line of people waiting!. Around 20:30 we got in, and the place was already packed. Never seen such a big crowd so early at a party! (Armin has the secret recipe). In the end the party was for free so it was ok. The music was good but a bit to hard for me, not like the usual A State of Trance episodes. I was trying to save myself, cos if you start dancing at 20, you never make it till 2. After some great names and good music, Nic Chagall came up. And Damn he was good! After an hour of good party, It was Armins turn. He was also playing harder than usual but still good tunes. The party was a success. Still I got tired early, so before Markus Schulz turned up, we left the party. We got home around 3:30.

Friday, we needed some sleep, so again we got up quite late. So late that the big trips we still had planned would be not so usefull to do this day. So on friday we went shopping to a Beer Shop and a “normal” supermarket. This took more time than normal, and I discovered we have our own beer brand of our City. I had no idea… In the evening we walked around in my city, because i figured it would be stupid to see all the big cities and not attend my own city, although mine isnt so big, its just nice to show it.

Some sleep later it was Saturday. This day we went to Brussels. We got up early, jumped on the train and went to Brussels. Because we wanted to see alot we were there at 9:30. We started with the Cathedral, then we ran around a bit in brussels streets, went to the market square to get some map of brussels and the metro system. Brussels, just like antwerp, is a city I never really visited before. I did once, when i was a child… but thats not the same :). Once we got ourselves informed, and saw about 4 marriages on the marked square we went to see Manneke Pis. This tiny statue (58cm) is probably the most known symbol of Brussels. He is being dressed up all the time and had almost 1000 costumes. When we attended him he had a golf suit on, and the golfers who were celebrating a birthday I think, were handing out free beers. After our beer we went to a church close to Manneke pis. Nice but small. After this it was time to go visit “the real thing”. The Atomium is like the Eifel tower. One high building to have a nice view on the city. Although the Atomium is quite out of the center, its nice to be up there. There were really alot of people there and the sun was converting the waiting hall into an oven. 2 hours later we were back. Next up: The kings Castle and the Court House. After a nice walk around the kings castle, with a nice garden, we went to the court house From where we had a great view on the city because it is like you are on the balcony above the city. the court house itself was being restaurated so it wasnt so interesting to see it like this. After a dinner in Quick, we had not so much time left. We would have liked to visit the kings garden. It opened at day until 16 and opened again in the evening from 20 till 22. It was 20:40 when we left Quick and took the metro to the closest station. When we arrived there it was already 21:30. And we discovered there was a 30min walk to this garden, so we decided to take the metro to the Atomium once more (which was only 2 stops anymore) to see it by night. We had to be back in the station at 22:40 cos then was our last train home. The atomium by night was very very nice. My camera ran out of batteries so i dont have any picture of it, so you’ll have to trust me on this one. We got back in the station at 22:30, happy, tired, and it was clear you need 2 or 3 more days to see the most important things in Brussels. Once at home around 23:30 we went directly to bed.

The last day was there: Sunday. We planned to do not much on Sunday but since we did the shoppings on friday, we had to visit the beach and Bruges on sunday. We went to Bruges by car, and for 2.5eur we could park the car next to the station and get a free bus for me and all my passengers to the city center. That was very well organised. Once at the marked square it was already 13:00. There we went to the Belfry. In this one there was no elevator like in Ghent. So we had to do the 366 steps ourselves. I must say it was nice to do, because once at the top the interesting things come, like the clockwork, the bells and the view from the top ofcourse. After running down and taking some pictures, some person started playing on the belfry, so we ran back up to watch it from the tower itself. In the end we did about 600 stairs. It was a good training :P. After the belfry we visited some church nearby, and the nearby town square. After this we went to the beach in Blankenberge. Apart from laying in the sand we didnt realy do alot there. But it was nice to be there because the weather was realy perfect for the second day on a row. At 18:30 we left and headed home. Big trouble on the roads. A few million people at the beach, and they all wanted to get home. The highway was blocked, and we had to drive on the smaller roads to get home. Even the smaller roads were full of Dutch people, following their GPS. I don’t know why whe have so much dutch peole at our beach, they have alot more beach themselves, but ok. In the end we were home at 21:30 in stead of 19:30. Actually we planned to make it an easy day, and be home around 18:00. So at 21:30 i visited my grandmother, because we were leaving very soon. when we got home from here, we went to visit my other grandparents, again to say goodbye. In the end we were at home and ready to start packing at 22:30. Originally we planned to leave around 3. but I guessed if we started packing at 22:30, it would be very late to go to bed for just 1 or 2 hours. So we decided to pack and just leave without sleep. Packing, and arranging everything in the car a lot of time. We were ready to go at 0:30. Finally! Once at jagos place, tossed him in the car and left, off to denmark. During the trip I was very tired. we pulled over 3 times for a little nap. In the end we were in denmark at 11 in the morning. I still had Belgian seasand in my shoes and hair, but it was ok. In the end it was a very busy trip. The busiest week in my life I think. but it was a great trip. I was glad to be back in Denmark as well, back “home”.

Pictures of the trip