Michael Carøe Andersen

Tag: iaeste

An update

It’s eerily quiet on this blog these days. It’s been a month since Ive updated it so about time. Well, its not a lack of events thats kept me from posting, so let me give a brief update.

After I went home from London, we moved into a new apartment in Zizkov. Nice new apartment, closer to town and an interesting neighbourhood. I will have to make a full post later about Zizkov the neigbourhood. Zizkov is a lot of things but one thing you cant get away from is the ugly, yet fascinating TV tower from doom that is visible from everywhere in Prague.

Soon after I moved in Mulle, a friend from bording school who I ran into on Facebook earlier this year, came to Prague. Him and a friend had decided to drive down here for a weekend to party. I decided to go back to Denmark with them. It had been quite a while and my grandfarther is not doing so well.

Back in Denmark I covered a good amount of ground. Went to see my grand parents who are in good spirit but old bodies.

With my dad I went to the German border where hundreds of thousands of starlings gather for a couple of weeks to feast before their long migration to North Africa. At dusk they all gather and make wonderful patterns before they settle in for the night.See more of my dads pictures.

The phenomenon is called Black Sun and there is a couple of nice videos on youtube.

After that I went up to visit Majbrit, Magnus and Mogens – sis and family in Odder, visited my mother who was on vacation, and hung out in Ã…rhus with Christian, Rasmus and my cousin Rikke.

From Ã…rhus I took the train to Berlin. I had never been there before so decided to make a day stop over to see the place. Cool city I must say – will return some day

Soon after Ann came to Prague Its nice having her closer this year – although it is hard to classify London as close. She stayed for four days where we went to IAESTE Day 2008 at the universities where we did a presentation on what we have gained from IAESTE. We also went out with my uncle Geert and Elin and her daughters Elisabeth and Majbrit and their husbands who was on vacation in Prague.

Ok that was it for now. I hope it wont be another month before the next post

October 23, 2008
IAESTE Day 2007 in Prague

Yesterday the local committees of IAESTE in Prague organized the annual IAESTE Day to promote the IAESTE programs at different universities across the world. I was happy they asked me if I wanted to give a presentation about how I had benefited from IAESTE. So I told the story of How I Ended Up In Prague Because of IAESTE (Some of it is on page three of this IAESTE UK alumni newsletter). Its been a while since I had done a presentation but I really enjoyed the afternoon talking with people about going abroad.

Even better was the evening were they had organized a banquette for business contacts, alumis and member. Good and free food and drinks is a great thing that I come across way to seldom.

See more pictures at flickr.

October 19, 2007
Bohemian Paradise

About an hour north of Prague is the area called Ceske Raj or Bohemian Paradise. The area is scattered with sandstone tables, forests and quaint castles. Together with the IAESTE interns in town we went there for a Sunday hike yesterday.

The weather was really nice and the trees were slowly starting to change into autumn costumes.

The last week we have also been hosting Ryan and Marisol, two American CouchSurfersÂ who are travelling Europe on their 8th months now. It is amazing how many places they have been and it makes me tick to go on big trip. SeeÂ Ryans great pictures at Flickr.

September 17, 2007
Belgium and Holland Tour de Force

This past weekend Mehmet fired up his Skoda and we went on a westbound road trip. Mehmet is a Turkish friend from IAESTE Prague and together with Femi, me and Mehmets friend Murat, we started out Thursday night around 1am. We got to the German border about an hour later.

I never realized how privileged I am being pale and having a Danish passport. Going in and out of countries have never taken me a long time. This time was quite different however. Apparently there was a stamp in Mehmets passport that wasnt right so it took almost 2 hours before they finally let us through. That set us back quite a lot in time and it took us until Friday afternoon before we reached Breda, Netherlands were we met up with Aytek another of Mehmets friends.

All three Turkish guys works for ExxonMobil so in we got the tour when we went to pick up Aytek. Here are Murat, Aytek, [Aytek’s coworker], Mehmet and [another coworker].

Friday night we spend in the old and beautiful city of Bruges, Belgium. Here are the guys in front of the Belfry Tower from 1280.

Femi and I crashed at a hostel in town while the other guys went on to met another friend. Saturday the next stop was Antwerp were we stayed for the afternoon walking the city and getting some true Belgium fries.

And then it was on to Amsterdam with the Red Light District, coffee shops and canals everywhere. We all had a blast and ended the night at the night club Escape which must be one of the biggest in Amsterdam.

We ended up with two 50 euros parking fines and since we couldnt find a hotel or hostel we slept in the cars. Everyone was tired so it wasnt as bad as expected and Sunday morning we went for a short walk around Amsterdam before driving the 10 hours back to Prague.

Another awesome weekend is over so fast!

[ Update 13/9] Murat just uploaded his pictures and there are gems like this two:

September 12, 2007
Walking to paradise

So its been a week since I got back to Prague so its about time I start to tell something about Hawaii. Here is a video from our hike on the Kalalau Trail read more below.

The highlight of the three weeks was without a doubt the four days we spend in the island of Kauai. Kauai is the oldest islands of Hawaii and also known as the Garden Isle because of the flourishing nature found here. Its one of the wettest spots in the world and the massive amounts of water has shaped the rock into what is called pali in Hawaiian. On this picture you can see the palis:

Fernando had gotten hold of permits for us to hike the Kalalau Trail. The trail follows the the massive windswept Na Pali coastline overlooking lush green valleys and towering rocky cliffs that rises almost 1200 meters to the deep blue pacific below. The trail is 11 miles (18km) long and winds it way along the cliffs in a very varied landscape with rain forest, desert and rocky cliffs. The trail is almost never straight but moves up and down, in and out. The view is spectacular and around each corner awaits new wonders.

It was hot and humid to do the hike so we drank a lot of water. Luckily there are plenty of streams and creeks on the trail so we could refill our bottles.

Also there were plenty of guava trees and a few mango trees so we could get some fresh fruit as we walked.

It took us 8 and a half hour to walk in and the reward was amazing. I was very busted and enjoyed just chilling on the beach for the rest of the day.

We had our camp in shade of trees close to the waterfall were we got fresh water and showers when it got to hot to sit in the sun.

And the beach was of course beautiful.

We spend a day on the beach and the hiked back the next day. Here was what we looked like after having walked back to civilization.

A truly amazing trip.

September 2, 2007
Back in Prague

Im back in Prague after three fantastic weeks in Hawaii. We did a lot of different things over there. I took about 350 pictures that I am working on uploading and tagging plus some videos which I might edit together. There will be a couple of posts about the trip coming up later.

I went over to visit friends from IAESTE Michigan 2005-2006. Here is the gang we got together, from left: Alberto, me, Ivan, Femi and Fernando (who got a job in Hawaii and hosted us).

August 24, 2007
Updated my blog

While some of the weekend was spend with a bunch of IAESTE people at the Karltejn Castle, my hung-over Sunday was spend at the computer.

Ive changed the look of my blog for a cleaner one. There are usually plenty of pictures in my post so I decided to go for a simple design with Depo Clean theme. Here is a few more shots from the castle.

July 23, 2007
South Bohemian Weekend

Last weekend I joined the local chapter of IAESTE on a trip to Southern Bohemia. We were 50 people from about 20 different countries so there were a lot of different talks and a good atmosphere.

Friday we drove to a camp site on the Vltava River were we camped for the night while making Czech sausages and drinking pivo around the camp fire.

Next morning we got up and got suited for a canoe ride seven kilometers down the river.

It was a warm day with temperatures up to about 35 degrees so it was great day for cruising on the river. I think Dennis and I capsized 4 or 5 3 times during the sailing because we had to get through a couple of falls which we werent very good at.

I ended up getting my camera wet so no more pictures from me that day. Instead Im borrowing some from Dennis who was a bit more thoughtful with his camera.

We sailed until we reached Cesky Krumlov which is a really magical town with a huge castle overlooking the town. The centre of the town itself is also very beautiful. The city center is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Here is one of Dennis pictures overlooking the town from the castle.

Sunday we went to see the real Budweiser brewery in esk

July 19, 2007
IAESTE Traineeship abroad presentation

Last year I did a presentation at IAESTE Michigans Employers Symposium where they invited potential employers to hear about IAESTE and benefits of take on a foreign trainee. This years Symposium was last month and Femi and I got asked if we would do a remote presentation. We looked into different solutions for doing remote presentations but ended up creating a video with the presentation and then doing the questions afterwards through Skype. It was fun to make and I finally had an excuse for making a presentation Lessig style:

UPDATE: and Menlo Innovations became employer of the year.

Last but not least the deadline for Danes to apply for a traineeship abroad is coming up 22nd of February. There are about 55 jobs waiting for Danes out there so check out the job catalogue (PDF) if there is anything that sounds interesting to you.

February 14, 2007
Copenhagen Ambiance

This post was written for the international people on the IAESTE Weekly mailing list to tell about Mikael Simpson and Trentemøllers concert at Ungdomshuset December 5th. I figured I might as well post it here so I could include pictures and videos.

As winter sneaks up on us and the sun becomes the friend we see too seldom and too short, the Danes get into a darker, melancholic state of mind for a couple of months until spring finally greets us again. Here is my suggestion of how to embrace yourself for the gloomy winter with some cool Danish music in the middle of Copenhagen history in the making.

Ungdomshuset – Home of the rebels
Ungdomshuset (transl. The Youth House) has been a vibrant institution in Copenhagen for 20-something years but it might be over within the next couple of weeks.

Photo by emo.ware

The history of Ungdomshuset goes back to when it was build by the labour movement in 1897 as a cultural house for the workers of the community. It has been the base of several demonstrations and other events organized by the labour movement in the first half of the 20th century. The place was more or less abandoned in the 1950ies until BZere (transl. squatters) moved in in early 1980.
In 2000 a Christian sect bought the house from the municipality with the use of a front company and since then there has been a legal struggle to evict the young people using the house. It might all end December 14th (or some day close to that) were the authorities will probably use force to get people evicted.

Read more at Wikipedia, about the house or about the trials (More extensive sources in Danish: 1 2 3 4 5)

So take this opportunity to get inside Ungdomshuset December 5th where a couple of the most hip Danish artists are showing their support for the house. See what Copenhagen is also like and meet some interesting people with Mohawks and piercings all over their face – and dont worry they wont eat you, most of them are vegetarians.

Mikael Simpson – The One and Lonely

Photo by Stig Nygaard

Mikael Simpson is a Copenhagen-based artists that catches the restless night spirit of Copenhagen. He makes all his music in his apartment on Nørrebro and here is his latest video that shows you what goes on in his apartment:

He just won the P3 Guld award which is Danish National Radios finest award (backed with a 100,000 kr cheque).

Electric Wonderboy
Trentmøller is a Copenhagen musician/DJ with remixes for Pet Shop Boys, Moby and RÃ¶eyksopp to his name. Trentmøller recently released the laid back solo album The Last Resort that has been getting a lot of praise. Here is a performance from last weekend:

Hope to see you there – Mikael Simpson and Trentemøller

November 29, 2006