Copenhagen 9

(The middle east - Pig food)

Copenhagen 9

Christmas, Nobel Laureates and Weapons.

Good god, it is almost the end of December. Which means 'the holidays' are coming, visiting family weird parties etc. Luckily I live here, and have the choice to go wherever I want. And most parents(in law) don't expect a visit from me. I'm half a mega-meter away so I have been exempted from Dutch visits. Then again, I will have Christmas with my family here.

So, what did I do this week? Mostly calculating, and preparing for the christmas lunch previous friday. Which was rather interesting because first of all it was very fun with lots of great and amusing people and we had 2 guests (although they were pretty tired by then, and I can't blame them) in the end, I even received (finally) my permit.

But first, snow, cold and indoor trees it is Christmas time:

   

All in all, it gets dark here very early, there is only a few hours of sun during a day, and most of the snow remains for a long time. Though by now it melts during the day, and freezes over again at night, creating interesting obstacles to traverse. Part of Christmas celebrations here is the Christmas-lunch, which is held in the evening, and involves making food, and drinking, and a game with dice and gifts in the evening. Packing a tetrahedra was a bitch by the way.

So after baking a giant pile of pancakes (I wasn't allowed to make 'traditional Dutch' space cake, since making Nobel leareates stoned was probably not very good for my career in phyics) and discovering that my matrix was 9 pages large. We went to the Nobel lecture. Which was interesting but also sadly in Comic Sans. Which isn't so bad, but imagining that it was the exact same lecture made in Stockholm just a week before that. A little embarrassing in my opinion. But hey, this is physics.

Afterwards Serge and David accompanied us back to the institute to join in our Christmas lunch which was all lovely. They looked tired and I can imagine if you've been travelling a whole week long meeting important people and finally sit down in a normal small group of scientists must be very soothing. 

Then later on the evening the Quantop Jazz band emerged, which was qualitatively actually fairly good. And to imagine that the lowest educated participator only had a masters degree. It must also have been the highest educated band I have ever seen. 

 On an non-related note, I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me:

My first encounter with the local police department was a very friendly one. And after some paperwork (which took about 2 months to gather :S) they quite swiftly replied with a nice piece of paper:

I finally have the right to bear arms (for show or training) which considering the law here, makes things much, much more simple. On another thug related note; I decided to start a new hobby collecting license plates I find on the streets.

They are actually rather common, usually stuck in a pile of snow with the print of a cars front around it. Either way, I would like to wish you all happy holidays, and a merry

Christmas