I’m sitting in Copenhagen airport, next to the inevitable statue of the Little Mermaid, which resides between a lift shaft and a coffee shop. I’m travelling to Norway to do a thesis examination; I’m quite looking forward to it, to be honest, although I wish it wasn’t in public to be honest.

I haven’t been to Copenhagen since 2001, I think, when I was here for ISMB. The flight in was pretty bad: small plane, big bumps. My memories of the place are confirmed; it’s a nice airport, airy and light. I have a veggie noodles which was actually pretty good. The nice balcony that I remember, on the first floor—low seats, lie down couches, free from children—now mostly houses the smoking and kiddies area (separate of course) and, so, has transformed from the most to least desirable part of the entire airport.

I would have loved to pop into Copenhagen itself—I seem to remember it’s not far—but I have to re-read a thesis. What with the trip to Japan, I haven’t had time to do it before, hence it’s become an airport job.

I’m not doing my carbon quota any good here, about another 200kgs up in, well, whatever the combustion products of a plane are.

11:30

Now in Trondheim. I’ve never been so far North (well, not while on the ground). It disappointingly warm at -3C and there’s not that much snow around either. Trondheim, from a drive through and brief wander, is cool (sorry). There’s an amazing number of pubs (half of them are "British" — I’ve walked past "The three lions", "Little London" and "Macbeth" already; I’ll leave you to work out which is the Scottish one. The street I am on, also has a curry house, a vietnamese and a chinese resturant. I could almost be at home, except for the unfeasibly steep angle on the roofs.

I’m also a new person from before. I’ve seen the Northern Lights. Not seen them well, I admit, through the window of the plane, with the reflection of a reading light in my eyes. But, I have always wanted to see them, I always knew that some day I would, and now I have.

Originally published on my old blog site.