Just finished another Saturday morning brunch. Brunch is always a delicate art of eating just the right amount, a skill that I have never really mastered. I guess if I have to stuff myself with something, smoked salmon scrambled eggs, rye breads, and cheeses are good items to do that with.
Today I need to start another one of my final papers. It's that time of the year, no matter where in the world I am it seems that the end of April will always be a time of panic. I turned in the first of four of my final papers yesterday morning, for my Bio. of Marine Mammals class. I chose to research Killer Whale ecotypes and speciation for my final paper, and I actually found the topic to be incredibly neat. Fun fact: Killer whales are currently one species (Orcinus orca), but years of research have shown that seperate groups of killer whales exist around the globe that are very distinct from each other. These distinctions are strong enough that the orca groups make up different 'ecotypes', these ecotypes don't interbreed or interact socially with each other. Mostly they differ by what they eat and where they live; fish eating coastal type, the mammal eating coastal type, and the fish eating offshore type. More recently there have been three new types distinguished in the Antarctic regions, the seal eating antarctic type, the whale eating antarctic type, and the fish eating dwarf Antarctic type. And, here's the coolest part, newest mtDNA research of today is showing that the genetic lineages of these different ecotypes are seperate enough that many biologists believe they need to be raised to seperate species of killer whales, with some divergences between groups showing to have occured over 700,000 years ago. Cool? I think so.
Anyways, enough nerd stuff. Last night my fellow American students at my hojeskole spent the evening at Tivoli in downtown CPH, our DIS sponsored night out together. Tivoli is the first theme park ever, so it's obviously very old. It was really pretty, and definitely a step up from six flags type parks, with a balance of historical classiness and modern type rides, if that makes sense. There was a concert in the middle of the park that was pretty entertaining, some type of techno rap.
Fingers of sunlight are filtering through the tree branch outside my window right now, a tree branch that is finally heavy with fresh green leaves. I keep telling people how amazed I am at how fast the world changed into spring time around here. They're probably getting tired of hearing me rave about it. But it really IS amazing. When I returned from Greenland two weeks ago, I could look into the forests on the train ride into town and see far into the depths of the forest, seeing nothing excpet bare brown skeletal tree trunks. Now, I can barely see past the first row of trees, as the leaves have created a flurry of a green wall. Dandelions, I mean big monster dandelions, line the sidewalks and populate the backyard of my hojeskole. It is a sight.
Alright, I guess I should go be productive. Cheers!