I'm back!! Come see me in the library!

Hey everyone, this is my last day in Denmark and it rained, rained, and rained.

The Danish have a saying, "There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices."

We started the day at the National Museum.  It was absolutely fabulous.  I honestly thought it was better than some of the Smithsonian museums.  It was a great learning experiences.  They have whole classes come visit and they have a whole section set up as hands on exhibits for kids.  This room is set up as an old classroom.

If you remember Hans Christian Anderson's story, The Princess and the Pea.  The Prince's mother wants to test all the princes prospective brides to see if they are real princess.  She does this by putting a pea under a whole bunch of mattresses to see how the princess sleeps...

 Read the story in the library if you want to know the whole story, but in the end the prince puts the pea in his treasure room.  This is the pea that has been saved for several hundred years in the treasure room.

Students work together to build a brick wall in the children's museum.

In the afternoon, we went to Sweden on the train over the Oresund bridge.  We found out that it is Midsummer's Night.  Everyone wears a flower crown and they dance around a Maypole.  They eat Herring, potatoes, and a thickened cream.  This holiday is as big as Christmas. Almost everything in the town was closed except the train station.

Pippi Longstockings was born in Sweden.  We have several Pippi books in the library.  I was always jealous of Pippi who got to live by herself and had a very exciting life!

This is Malmo, Sweden.  It was only sprinkling at this point.

 Here is a Pippi Longstocking Statue and fountain.

The entire town has beautiful flowers in the same color as the girls' crown.  We tried to get a flower crown, but you have to order them ahead of time from the florist.

This is the castle in Malmo that we hiked through the pouring rain to see.  Notice the moat that went around the castle.  This was built around 1500.

We finally found an old fashioned windmill in the park. Windmills now are really wind turbines used to create electricity.  This windmill was probably used to pump water.

Well, I will be living Sweden tomorrow about 7:30am in about 7 hours.  We lose 6 hours flying home.  It will be Saturday night before I get home.  See everyone next week at school.

Hey everyone, we started the day with  a trip to the Vestforbraending Recycling & Waste Treatment Plant.  Notice the motto is, One man's trash is another man's treasure.  Denmark really thinks of the big picture and takes their role in the environment seriously.

Denmark recycles 70% of its garbage, 23% goes to the incinerator to create electricity to heat water for the city. and only 6% goes into the landfill.  If you wonder how Denmark achieved this, companies and citizens can recycle for free.  They then charge a fee per ton of garbage that can be incinerated and  an even high fee for garbage that must go to the landfill.

 As we toured the Waste Treatment Plant, we learned about the hidden cost of buying goods.  If you buy an iPad, the elements that go into that iPad have been around the world 8 times to be created.  What does that do to the environment?   Denmark is trying to get it citizens to think about how much is enough?

 Did you know how much you can help the environment by recycling?

 One ton of recycled aluminum saves 10 tons of CO2.  How - By using recycled aluminum we do not have to mine and use the many chemicals, and energy that is involved in creating aluminum.

 Denmark have really cool trashcans for recycling.  There is  a section for cans, paper, plastic and bottles.

 I would really like to challenge all of you to look at your garbage and see what you can do to recycle more and produce less garbage.

After this we went to the Science Center and Hostel in Soro to tour the camp and to learn what Denmark is doing to promote talent and innovation in science and to learn more about modern technology.

  

Denmark select about 2 gifted students from every classroom to go to Science Camp to learn more about innovation and creativity in science.  They are challenged and have use of some of the most amazing science equipment I have ever seen.

This is  3-D imaging equipment.  Students come several times over a  two to three year period to work on projects.

We got back to the Hotel late so several of us went to Tivoli Gardens for dinner and to see the oldest amusement park in the world.

The place was very beautiful.  We didn't ride any rides, because it cost too much, but the place was very beautiful.  They had a really cute Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale ride.  Most of the other rides were way too crazy for me.  Airplane that swung around upside down and swings 200 feet up in the air!

 Anyway, it is late so I hope everyone had a good day today.  Tomorrow, I am off to the National Museum and hopefully Sweden.

It was a very busy day.  We started at the Energy and Water Workshop.  This was a wonderful place.  It teaches students how environmental factors are connected and how our everyday actions affects the environment.  This is a hands on machine were students pump water from the spring into the sand box where other students have created farms.  They try to protect their farms from the water and learn about erosion.

The entire place was a hands on workshop.  They even had an enlarged sewer system.  Students can crawl down a toilet and follow the path of the sewer. 

We also worked on renewable energy and conservation.  I got to ride an electric bicycle. This is definitely what we need on North Carolina hills.  You pedal, but you can give it a boost when needed.

This is a typical bike for a parent in Denmark.  Parents put their kids in the trailor in front.

After the workshop, we went to work on individual projects.  Stopped by the Hans Christian Andersen statue.  Timber Drive students should check out some of his fairytales in the library.

Lunch was a typical Danish lunch called Smorgasbrod.  They are open faced sandwiches with lamb, or potatoes or cheese.  It was fabulous.

On our research tour, we went to the Copenhagen Public Library.  It reminded me more of a University Library then our normal public library.

There is a library law in Copenhagen that all residents should have free access to books, movies and music.  After this we went to Rosenberg Castle.  My first castle!

Here are some of the crown jewels.

The long hall - the Silver lions are at all coronations.

The round tower - Oldest observatory in Europe.

Walking up to round tower

What a view!

You can see all the way to Sweden from the top!

We were so tired after 13 hours of walking we got a rickshaw driver to take us back to the hotel!

I've got to go - I'm late because of internet problems.

Our group went to the Denmark Energy Commission today and learned about renewable energy.  Denmark plans to have 36% of all energy used to be renewable energy by 2020.  They are building windmill farms in the oceans to provide much of their energy.  They are also using biomass to replace coal.  Biomass creates energy by burning wood and straw.  They also plan to use Biogas which creates energy from burning waste (manure & items from slaughter houses).  They are planning to have 100% renewable energy by 2050.  They are currently at 22% renewable energy while the United States is at 14%.   The Chinese President visited the Denmark Energy Commission last week to learn many of the things that we did - how is Denmark creating renewable energy.

After this we took a double decker bus to
Roskilde to the Viking Ship Museum.


Ms. Waller dressing up as a Viking with another Wake County librarian, Nancy Carr.

 We had fun learning about the Viking explorations and their innovations in ship building.

 Ms. Waller on recreated Viking Ship.  This ship actually sailed from Denmark to Ireland back a few years ago.

After the Viking Ship Museum, we hiked up a hill (the first hill I have seen in Denmark) and went to the Roskilde Cathedral.

Even though Denmark is a democracy, they still have royalty.  All of Denmark's royalty is buried here.  There are some really cool burial places.  They are all inside the church. King  Harold Bluetooth, one of the early Kings of Denmark is suppose to be buried here.  He died in 985.

This is the ceiling and paintings in one of the burial chapels.

 After all of meetings we were on our own and enjoyed a meal in Roskilde.  I was very proud of myself, I order a meal from a Danish menu and actually got what I thought I was ordering!!! This was a meal of Steak with bernaise sause, potatoes and mixed vegetables.  It was absolutely delicious.
In Denmark, you have to go to the cash register to order your meal before you seat down (In most restaurants.) Tips and tax are also included on the menu prices.

 I discovered the public library in Roskilde which is called the Bibliotek.

After a very adventurous trip, Nancy Carr and I navigated our way back to Copenhagen on the train with the help of many Danes.  The Danish people are very helpful even if you miss your train station!!!

Talk to you tomorrow, we are off to an Energy and Water Workshop.

Wow, what a busy day!  I learned at about 2:30am today that Denmark has only about 5 hours of darkness.  It is dark from about 10:30pm til 2:30am.  I woke up worried that I had overslept - no worries on that part!  Look at Denmark on the map and see if you can figure out why!

First thing, this morning we walked to the Denmark Conference Center to hear a lecture about the Oresund Bridge and the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel network.  You might think this would be boring, but it was fascinating.  This bridge is over 10 miles long over the Baltic Sea and then goes into an immersed tunnel (a tunnel they built on land then placed in the ocean in a trench and covered with rock and ocean silt).   This is the road connection between the metropolitan areas of Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden.    The tunnel allows ship traffic through and they couldn't have a high bridge right by the airport.

Before this bridge was built, the only way to get from Denmark to Sweden was to fly or take a ferry. The bridge now has over 20,000 daily communters.  We live in a global society and this bridge links not just the land, but the people and the economy. People are now moving back and forth between Denmark and Sweden. People in Denmark buy summer homes in the forests of Sweden.  Denmark is now planning to build a 10.9 mile immersed tunnel from Denmark to Germany to link Northern Europe together.

Next we walked along the "Lakes" of Copenhagen to visit Ingrid Jespersen's Privatskold.

  The school did not look anything like I thought it would.

The only playground is in the courtyard, but it has multiple levels and really cool toys.  The girls here are swinging on something that is like a cross between a hammock and a bungee cord.

This is a friend that I met playing on the playground.  All the students and Danes speak English. All Danish students must study Danish, English, Math and Science.

The playground has about 5 of these little playhouses up on a 2nd level because of space.

Since the area is all paved they had picnic tables and lots of fun riding toys.  Many of the parents and students bike to school.  Parents have a place for babies and small children on their bike. Parents were picking their students up on bikes and the student and parent would ride their bikes home.  Bike lanes are everywhere. Pedestrians have to yield to bikes. Most bike lanes are 4 and 5 bikes across.

Of course, I found the library (Bibliotek).  They have about 10,000 books, but in several different rooms and halls.

The librarian said that Danish students love Harry Potter!!!

It is about 7:30 in the evening here and we have walked to Christianshavn for dinner. In the background, you can see the spire of Vor Freisers Kirke (The Church of our Savior). It has a gilded staircase on the outise of the spire that you can climb up. It was finished in 1696.

Last for the night, we went to Christiania which is a town within a town. It declared its independence from Denmark in the 1970's and runs itself as a separate country. They do not allow pictures inside so this was on the outside walls. Graffiti is very common in Copenhagen.  According to the Danish teenagers, it is legal on any public wall.

Hope you have a good day. Tomorrow, I am off to the Danish Energy Commission and then Roskilde to the Viking Ship museum.