Biking in Copenhagen

Biking in Copenhagen is just outstanding. Even I can do it!

Every street has a bike lane on each side that is physically separated from traffic by a curb. Every bike lane is easily wide enough for two bikes, so you can pass. Here is a typical setup: pedestrians on the sidewalk, bike in the bike lane, cars in the road. This street is one-way so there’s only one bike lane, on the near side.

Here is a busy arterial with separated spaces for pedestrians, bikes, parked cars, bus stops, and car/bus traffic.

There’s room for people to get out of their cars because the bike lane is so wide, and people are very attentive to bikes. The curb between sidewalk and bike lane is only an inch high so you can ride onto or off the sidewalk if you need to. At intersections, bikes have their own stop line, ahead of the cars.

There is a system of signals that is perfectly intuitive: the big signal is for cars, the small signal is for bikes, and the one that looks like a person is for pedestrians. They are timed for everyone to cross safely. Here is an extra-complex intersection featuring a left turn lane from the bike lane, with its own signal. (The guy in the crosswalk is walking his bike because he’s with a friend.)

At very large intersections, blue lanes guide bikes and alert cars to where bikes will be.

 

It all makes total sense and is simply wonderful. You see so much on a bike and get everywhere so quickly! Yesterday I zipped out to a museum, then a bakery for lunch, and the ride was half the fun, with church bells ringing and swan boats in front of historic buildings on the lake and a sign noting the place where Oersted discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism. I’m in Copenhagen!

Archival research

I had a wonderful first day in Copenhagen! Jer, Leslie, and I toured the Niels Bohr Institute, “where the foundation of atomic physics and modern physics was created in a creative scientific environment inspired by Niels Bohr in the 1920s and 30s.”



There was a public tour, led by the archivist (whose name is Rob), who told lots of stories. You can sit at Bohr’s desk, but the archivist said the real place where it all happened was at the conference table.



The most exciting part for me was after the tour, when Leslie and I assisted Jer with a bit of archival research. Bohr’s scientific correspondence is all digitized and available online, but Jer wanted to sniff around in some of the funding records, and those are just on paper in orderly boxes. The archivist got us set up, Jer told us what to look for, and I photographed a stack of papers. Leslie also posed with a Bohr statue.

It was fascinating. First of all, it was an extraordinary feeling to hold papers in my hand that Niels Bohr had held in his hand. They were mostly in Danish; but behold the wonder of Google Translate:

(There was also handwritten material, which was amazing, but google mostly couldn’t make it out.) Most of what I was looking at was Bohr’s correspondence with the Carlsberg Beer company, which funded scientific research back then, just like Novo Nordisk does now [https://use.ku.dk/]. The files included requests for funding, budget justifications, expense reports, thank you letters — “boring” stuff, in a way, but it was such a delight, so relatable, that freaking Niels Bohr had to do the same kind of bureaucratic whatever that I have to do all the time. I loved it.

A funny thing was that many of the letters were signed “Erbødigst,” and I had never heard of anyone by that name. Turns out it is the Danish equivalent of “Sincerely.” hahaha

Jer had a good time with a pile of letters from Bohr either supporting, or not supporting, other people’s requests for funding to work with him. When he was not supporting the application, he used standard language: “I cannot offer you any detailed judgment of [the applicant]'s scientific qualifications.” – full stop. Which, in academia, would definitely come across as “This proposal is a steaming heap.” Jer found one application from a guy who claimed to have discovered a "general mathematical law -- the law of the relativity of health, sex, physica, mental, and psycho-sexual characteristics"; this guy was applying for a fellowship to work with Bohr to find out how it all fit together with quantum mechanics. Hilarious, that quantum crackpots/mystics/pseudoscientists were just as much of a thing in 1925 as they are now. In response to this application, Bohr said “I cannot offer you any detailed judgment of Dr. Kelcik's scientific qualifications, but in confidence I may say that the general statements in his application leaves it doubtful whether his scientific standard attains a level whcih I understand to be expected from fellows of your foundation." Definitely a steaming heap.

British oddities

Some things here are a constant surprise or mystery to me. First of all, the driving on the left thing is just impossible for me to conceptualize. I do not drive here, of course, but even walking or being in the occasional taxi, cars just seem to be coming from every possible direction all the time. I try to carefully look in all the directions and still somehow there is always a car coming at me out of nowhere. Fortunately the drivers are all very considerate or I would have died ten times by now.

Does driving on the left also mean that pedestrians pass each other on the left, on sidewalks? I literally can't tell; there seems to be no clear pattern except that I am usually doing it wrong. On the rare occasions when I pass someone without doing an awkward dance from side to side, I feel a small sense of triumph. Yes! I successfully walked past another human on the sidewalk! I never have a problem with this at home.

The next oddest thing for me is the doors. So many doors! You go into a building through the outer door, then there is an inner door, then a door into the hallway, then a door into the stairs and a door on top of the stairs, then doors dividing different sections of the hallway – doors doors doors. The doors often send mixed design signals (like there is a handle on the front, but you have to push it to go in) so I'm always struggling with them. They often thunk shut behind you, so that wherever you go there are doors thudding in the background. And they all say "Fire Door Keep Closed" with the same blue sticker, so I think about fire a lot. Here are some of the doors leading to my collaborator's office.

Here are the doors in my apartment. This is actually good design, because in a small space you want to be able to separate the smaller spaces, but still.

Same spot with the doors open.

Something that I insist is NOT good design is the release button. Every exterior door everywhere is locked from the inside; to open it, you have to press a button (usually green) by the side of the door.

Why on earth to they do this? What if you needed to get out in a hurry and didn't know the system? My collaborator suggested it's because this is how you have a door be locked from one side only, but we need that in the US too; our system is to have a push handle on the inside that unlocks the door. Is that not better in every way? Also, in order to lock my apartment door with a key, you have to pull the handle upward while you lock it. This is considered normal and I would never have been able to figure this out on my own. Why is this a thing?

These windows are also odd. See how they open just a couple inches only at the top? Okay, very safe, but hardly any airflow.

All bathrooms (in homes/hotels) have this towel warmer rack thing, I guess the idea being that you would turn it on as you head into the shower and then have a warm towel when you get out? This seems like a lot to remember – do people actually do that? Do they leave it on all the time? Also, there are no other towel racks or hooks in the bathroom; how is that right?

 

This kind of shower control, though, is genius, especially living by myself: one side controls the temperature, the other side just turns it off and on. Good idea!

Also, my apartment has a washer but no dryer; people here just hang stuff to dry. This is great ecologically and works really well in my current situation (it's just me and I didn't bring much), but it would be hard to adapt to this in a household of five people who do laundry rarely.

All wall outlets look upside-down to me, and they all have on-off switches built into the outlet.

Finally: Addresses. Where I live, houses have numbers. Here, not so much: there is a street (e.g., Sweetman Place) and a micro-postal code (BS2 0HY - these change every few blocks), and often a name of the building (Crown & Anchor House), and that's it. I thought I might order something from Amazon while I was here and I just couldn't figure out how it would reach me. 

 

Cardiff

Day trip to Cardiff today, which is in Wales, just across the bay from Bristol. Super easy! There's a cheap fast spiffy train that gets you there an hour, leaves every half hour all day. The Bristol train station is a five-minute walk from my apartment and Cardiff is a small city, highly walkable. When we arrived we hit the Cardiff Market for lunch. It's from the 1880s, just a pup in British history terms, charming steampunk vibe.

I made sure to get traditional "Welsh cakes," also called "bakestones," from the famous place in the Cardiff market, and I must say they are delicious. Kind of in between a scone and a pancake. I also got some traditional Welsh cheese, a cheddar kind of situation but creamier, very good.

Bristol also has a bunch of "arcades," nifty little covered pedestrian-only walks lined with independent shops. Very Diagon Alley vibe; we went to a dusty old bookshop.

Next,  Cardiff Castle. Here I am in front. Behind me is the "castle apartments" which are from the 1500s. 

Inside, I was especially impressed by the library. In this older world, studying with philosophers - I just wanted to find a nook and start reading.

The coolest thing was the Norman Keep, which is from 1087. I wanted to storm the keep! But there are a lot of very steep steps up to it, which makes for slow storming. I guess that's the point.

Inside the keep, there's... nothing. It's a "shell keep," an open space protected only by the walls: they would build temporary structures inside the walls. It's not a lot bigger than a basketball court. Shown below with collaborator Jer for scale.

In a separate part of the castle, under the ramparts, long spooky hallways with narrow windows.

View of the castle apartments from the top, along with some modern city features - the castle is right downtown.

Welsh language everywhere, very entertaining to imagine how to pronounce it.

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is at the top of a big hill and is beautiful. It's also dingy, like most things here -- kind of sooty and run-down.

This is Cotham House, which is the home of the philosophy department.

Inside it really is like a house!

This is the building with our classroom in it (with collaborator Jer heading in the door). Over the door it says "Founded A.D. 1679." It wasn't the University of Bristol then, it was a merchants' guild school.

As in the other building, the inside is a gorgeous creaky old mansion.

This is the beautiful classroom we're teaching in.

 

Bristol living

I have it pretty good here. I'm staying in an apartment of my own (AirBnB) on a cute little street called Sweetman Place. There are two delightful cafés within a couple blocks that serve excellent coffee, good bread, and very possibly the best donuts I've had in my life.

My apartment is nicely furnished. 

Spiffy kitchinette in the living room. Behind those cupboards is a little dishwasher and a little washing machine! No dryer; as in France, you just air-dry your clothes here. It works. I don't need the second bedroom but it's handy for the clothes-drying rack (not pictured).

The oddest thing about the apartment has been the air fresheners - there were NINE of them stinking up the place when I got here. I think there is still one I haven't found because in a certain place in the house, the smell hits me. 

The kitchen had very little in it when I arrived - no leftover staples from earlier guests and very minimal cooking supplies - but the property manager brought me some mixing bowls and other helpful items, and there is easy grocery shopping very near by. All the dairy products are labeled as to whether they are BRITISH.

Every cafe has hearty sandwiches and most of them offer "toasties," which is their term for a grilled-cheese type sandwich, except they usually have more than just cheese. Yesterday I had an excellent cheese-and-leek toastie. Doesn't that just sound so great? A cheese-and-leak toastie.