Michael Carøe Andersen

Category: Trips in Denmark

The Scandinavian Tour

Friday morning we are four guys heading on a tour of Scandinavia to see friends and have a good time. First stop will be Copenhagen for the weekend then the boat to Oslo for a day and then bus across to Stockholm. Not everything is planned out yet but Im sure well have a lot of fun on the way.

This will be part of the group from the BeNe(no-lux) trip.

The picture above is Martin the Swede at a Swedish book store in Baltimores more shady area where Adult Entertainment and Swedish Books apparently go hand in hand

Follow the progress at twitter/gelle.

Update May 1st: Our hosting in Stockholm fell through so we are looking for a couch or floor to borrow from Tuesday to Thursday for two of us.

Update May 12th: We found a host through Couch Surfing Thanks Daniel

May 1, 2008
Will it snow?

I havent made a proper post here for a long, long time. Sorry for that – let me get you up to speed.

December flew away with a job in Denmark were I held a seminar on how to do interaction design. After that gig I travelled across the country meeting with Rasmus in Randers, Rikke and Lene in århus, sister and family in Odder, met with Femi and partied with the boys in Copenhagen and ended up cruising Lund/Malmø with the Swedes.

Fast forwarding I spend Christmas in Toftlund and New Years Eve in Aalborg with old university buddies. I stayed in Aalborg for a couple of weeks and worked on a project with the good guys of CommunicateIT. I then headed to my parents place.

All the while I had been checking records, looking at dmi.dk for long term weather forecasts because Ann was coming to Denmark at the end of January – and as a Maltese she had never seen snow fall. Chances of snow in Denmark are however not that big, we get it occasionally during the winter but its not that common. To give you an impression the last 100 years Denmark has been covered by snow 7 times on Christmas Day. End of January came and it looked like all we would be getting was the first storm of the year.

Ok, so finally Ann came to Denmark and we had a great week seeing place, meeting people and enjoying each others company. We started out in Copenhagen (without a camera) were we walked around a little bit and then went to see Mozarts Lucio Silla at the Royal Theatre.

Neither of us had seen an opera before so it was an interesting experience but it didnt really blow us away. The next day we walked a bit more and saw Nyhavn, the Royal Palace and The Marble Church.

We drove back home to Jylland just in time before they closed the two main bridges in Denmark due to the storm. Back in the sticks we went out to a farm close by were we got to greet some of the newborns.

The next day we headed to the oldest town in Denmark, Ribe were we saw the old cathedral and went up the tower nearly to be blown off. Ribe is a cozy little town but the weather was really bad with rain and wind so we didnt make it that far in our layers upon layers of warm cloths.

The whole family joined together for the weekend on the island of Fanø (a bit less than 1/5 the size of Malta). We spend the weekend in a summer house, well heated by the the wood stove having it hyggeligt.

The storm had past the west coast and lo and behold it its wake came this

Enough snow for a proper snow fight and enough to build a small snow man.

All in all a nice cosy family weekend and I really enjoyed showing Ann my family and vice versa. The day after I followed Ann to Bremen were her flight was from and I continued on to Prague.

Its nice to be back home in Prague although it is still really cold here. In little more than a month Im going to Malta again for some rays of Ann and rays of sun

February 20, 2008
Copenhagen BarCamp Friday

Its been awful quite here lately but thats not because nothing happens. Well Ill give a better update later.

Right now Im in Toftlund and this weekend Ill head to Copenhagen to participate in this years BarCamp. Its an un-conference so not that much is planned up ahead but I will most likely be doing a talk. The topic will be along the lines of My Experience With Bootstrapping A Rails Business In Prague.

Update 25th jan, 18 My slides: splashr presentation

January 25, 2008
Back in Prague

After a 6 day trip up north I am now back in Prague. It was my first time home since we moved to Prague 5 months ago and it was great going back. I dont miss Denmark but I really, really enjoy coming back.

First I got to visit Dennis (my canoe-buddy from this summer) and Jenny in Braunschweig. Very good people and I have to come back some day to explore more of this city.

After that I hit århus were Christian and I took a ride on his bike and caught up on everything thats been going on since last time we spoke. The day after we continued to Haderslev were Søren and Helene treated us with dinner and another night of catching up.

Finally I spend a couple of days with my sister, nephew and parents in Toftlund. Tuesday I had Magnus for the day which was so much lot of fun.

As I said it was really good to get back to Denmark – everything is so neat, cozy and familiar. But I also realized that I dont need to live in Denmark right now. A good dose now and then and then Im good for a while.

November 1, 2007
A round of goodbyes

Finally it is tomorrow Femi and I are jumping on the plane to Prague

The last two weeks we have been homeless so we went to my parents place for shelter and good food. It was nice to spend a few weeks in the tranquility of Southern Jylland and I got around to say goodbye to some of my friends and family.

I got time to go to Rømø – the island with the huge beach.

Went sailing on Limfjorden with Klaus and Louise

Heavy drinking with the university pals

Played some football with the nephew

Biking with my dad in the club uniform

Wiki-ing with my grand parents

Today (Thursday 31st) is my last night in Copenhagen this time around – so if you are in Copenhagen and want to say goodbye you can catch me at Nemoland, Christiania around 20 – midnight.

May 31, 2007
Aalborg Inspiration

About a week ago Femi and I went on a road trip to Aalborg in the other end of Denmark (250 miles away). Aalborg is my college town and there is a lot of interesting things going on up there. Being set in Copenhagen it is easy to overlook or forget the things that go on other places.

Some of the people we met during the days in Aalborg were the CommunicateIT boys that have set up a thriving IT business in short time, the two wizkids Martin and Torben starting up there own thing and Andreas Haugstrup a Danish vlogger pioneer and organizer of VlogEurope. We ended up spending almost a day each place talking about setting up businesses and geeking about. I hope we have an excuse soon again to go up and play again

We also toured some of the departments and met up with Jan Stage and Ivan Aaen of Dept. of Computer Science. We had a very interesting discussion with Ivan about the paradigm of agile software development. The Software Innovation Research Lab they are setting up sounds like a really interesting project about how to facilitate continual innovation in a software project, and hopefully they will set up a blog so we can follow along in their experiences. At E-Learning Lab we ran into Thomas Ryberg who is doing the last stint on his Ph.D. on young peoples use of technology.

We spend an afternoon at the VR Media Lab that has some very neat 3D facilities. For the first time I had a chance to try out the 3D cave. This was an amazing experience I especially enjoyed the 3D drawing program where I could draw all the way around myself or draw an object and walk around it. Peter had arranged for our tour and we all had a blast. There is a lot of potential in 3D imagery but there are still a lot of difficulties in getting this technology out of the academic setting and in to entertainment – but maybe Peter is a man for changing that

September 30, 2006
Hitchhiking video: From Copenhagen to Aalborg

I finally got around to edit the clips I took from my trip to Jylland.

I had four different rides, all of them was with interesting people. The trip took 5 hours which is pretty good. The only lag I had was in the beginning where it took about 40 minutes to get the first ride from the entrance of Holbækmotorvejen.

August 17, 2006
På tomlen – et alternativ til DSB
Når man bliver gammel efter DSBs definition bliver det ret dyrt at rejse i Danmark, især hvis man er studerende. En returbillet fra Aalborg til Vojens koster for eksempel kr. 548 uden mulighed for rabatter med mindre man køber et 10-turskort til kr. 2200.

Med køreledninger der falder ned, gamle skinner og cola-dåser er det langtfra altid at en tur med DSB er så glidende, som man burde kunne forvente, så hvorfor ikke blaffe?

Der er ikke så mange der blaffer i Danmark, selvom det er en billig og nem måde at rejse på. Jeg tror en af grundene er en (ubegrundet?) frygt for at det skulle være farligt, men de blaffere jeg har talt med har ikke haft ubehagelige oplevelser. På Hospitality Club diskutere et par af de erfarne oplevelser og holdninger til faren. En anden grund kunne måske være at man ikke har lyst til at tale med ukendte mennesker. I USA er small talk i bussen, supermarkedet og ved fodgængerovergangen meget almindelig, men det er ret sjældent det sker i Danmark.

I USA er hitchhiking stort set ikke eksisterende i dag, hvorimod det i 60erne var ganske udbredt.

Jeg har selv blaffet i Danmark omkring et dusin gange og har kun haft positive oplevelser med det.

Det eneste problem har været at man ikke kan vide på forhånd hvor lang tid det tager at komme fra A til B. Som hovedregl er jeg dog kommet frem til min destination omtrend samtidig (+/-1 time), som hvis jeg havde taget DSB. Min sidste tur fra København til Aalborg tog 5:30 time, DSB tager 4:20-5:00.

Positive ting ved at blaffe er prisen, jeg har endnu ikke betalt en øre for at rejse. Derudover møde man næsten altid nogle spændende mennesker (og et par kedelige).

Jeg blev i går spurgt efter nogle råd til hvad man skal tænke på når man blaffer, så her min tjekliste:
- Hav noget lyst tøj på og se ordentlig ud (hvis det kan lade sig gøre)
- Brug ikke hat eller solbriller
- Smil og skab øjenkontakt med dem der passerer
- Lav et skilt med din destination eller et delmål (KBH, Aalborg, Jylland, Kolding)
- Få fat på et gratis kort over danske motorveje Kan downloades her eller findes ved alle rastepladser.
- Sørg altid for at komme af ved en tankstation så længe du kører på motorvejen. (Det er så meget hurtigere)
- Ved tankstationer gå rundt til biler og spørg om du kan få et lift
- Hav tålmodighed
Hvis man gerne vil vide mere om at blaffe, har følgende ressourcer været til stor gavn for mig:
- Highway.dks afsnit om blafning. Siden virker ikke for godt, men Google kan hjælpe.
- Digihitch. Et stort engelsk site hvor mange af de hardcore hikers skriver.
- Yahoo Hitching group. Her kan man følge hvad der sker omkring blafferlivet og der er også en del diskussioner om fare og hvordan man promovere blafning.
- Wikipedias indlæg om hitchhiking. En god kort introduktion.
- Min favorit blafferlitteratur
Hvis man ikke har lyst til at blaffe er der også to danske sider der formidler samkørsel, hvor man kan få et lift og deles om udgiften; Pendler.net og GoMore.dk.
August 3, 2006
På turne i Jylland

De sidste par uger er gået med at få genset en del venner og familie rundt omkring i landet. Først var fætter Christian i byen, så vi var hos Martin til en god middag.

I forrige uge tog jeg på en tur rundt i det jyske. Først blaffede jeg til Aalborg, hvor den stod på grill med de studiekammeraterne Tomas og Carsten og frokost med de ESN folk der var i byen. Fra århus sad jeg bag på Christians motorcykel til Rømø (udtales Romø, hvis nogen skulle være i tvivl).

Tomas og Mikkel og Palisgaard dukkede op et par dage senere og så blev der badet, solbrændt og festet et par dage inden turen igen gik mod Kbh. Det har været ganske hyggeligt at gense folk, og det er fedt at være i Danmark, hvor man kan komme til stort set alle steder på et par timer.

August 2, 2006
Jetlag, frikadeller og festival

Det er herligt at være hjemme i Toftlund og slappe af på terrassen med familien og god dansk mad. Jeg har spist en masse god mad i Ann Arbor, hvor der er mange gode restauranter og ingen fastfoodkæder, så det er ikke fordi jeg har levet super-usundt, selvom portionerne er store og de fedter det hele lidt mere. Jeg havde helt glemt hvor godt rugbrød, rundstykker, leverpostej og frikadeller smager.

Magnus er blevet stor og snakker meget mere nu. Vi havde en sjov dag i går med fodbold og en tur til den lokale traktorhandler.

I aften er jeg på farten igen – Roskilde here I come! For 10 år siden var jeg på Roskilde for først gang, og det var så fedt at se Psyched Up Janis åbne foran en pakket Orange Scene. I år bliver min fjerde tur til Smatten og for en gangs skyld, ser det ud til at vi får godt vejr (7-9-13 og bank under bordet). Slænget jeg var med på den første tur er der stadig hvert år, så jeg glæder mig til at hænge ud med Rikke, Lene, Thomas og Ken igen. Her er de ved indgangen i 97.

June 26, 2006