Once a List-maker, Always a List-Maker

So, this will probably be my LAST BLOG POST before my return to Seattle. Crazy, scary, exciting? Yes, yes, yes. The past few days I have been re-reading my earlier blogs, and it’s so funny to think back to my first couple of days here, when I was so unsure of how my semester would unfold. Since then, I have experienced so many wonderful things (and tasted so many delicious foods), I cannot hope to sum it all up in one final reflective statement. List-maker that I am, however, I will attempt to do so in a few different statements. Probably fighting a losing battle, but it’s the best I got.

This Semester I Learned:

• To actually enjoy tea.
• How to speak Danish (not really) and understand it (just listen for key words)
• How much I really do LOVE eating.
• The procrastination fairy exists all over the world.
• How to eat with a knife and fork and not look like a 3 year old (now I eat more like a 9 year old).
• To love candles (never mind the fire hazard).
• How to make proper smørrebrød
• How to use Danish kroner (though I may have forgotten how American money works…)
• What I’ll probably do for my career/life (kind of important)
• How much I love Europe (and how to travel around it by myself)
• The importance of hygge

Jeg vil savner (I will miss): 

• My favoritest host family (and my bestest host dog!) <3
• Wienerbrød
• Home-cooked Danish food
• Danish 7/11s
• My commute (and seeing Frederiksborg Castle every day!)
• Candles/hygge
• Tea, cookies, and candy every night
• Danish fashion and shopping (so many sweaters!)
• DIS friends–Why won’t you all just move to Minnesota?
• Being a short  plane ride away from anywhere in Europe
• Hearing Danish everywhere I go
• Being a short walk away from hundreds of years of history and culture

I’m looking forward to:

• Eating Mexican/Thai/Indian/Japanese/Chinese/Vietnamese/all non-European food
• “Cheap” not being defined as under 100 kr.
• SLEEPING ALL DAY EVERY DAY
• Seeing my sister and my doggy!
• Driving my car!
• SO MUCH BUBBLE TEA
• Being able to understand people around me
• Seeing Carleton people again! (and returning to Carleton academics…)
• Giving everybody all their European gifts
• Regressing to my baggy sweatpants self (but also bringing a little Danish fashion back home)

Obviously all those lists could go on forever, but that’s a brief summary for you. If you couldn’t tell, I’m pretty conflicted about all this–on the one hand, there’s so much to look forward to about going home, but there’s also so much that will be missing in my life once I leave Denmark. Luckily, I still have one more day to see a couple last friends, eat my last morsels of Danish food, and have one last hyggeligt dinner with my host family (or rather, Charlotte and Cille). Above all, it’s my host family that has really made this experience as great as it was, and I can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done for me. This has truly been an amazing semester, and I am SO glad I chose to come to DIS.

 

Stage One: Denial (and maybe a bit of Bargaining)

I really cannot believe I only have 3 days left in Denmark. The strangest part is not that I’m going to be leaving, but that I don’t know when I’ll return. It’s crazy to be saying goodbye to everyone I’ve spent the past 4 months with, not knowing when or if I’ll see them again. Of course, I’m hoping to do some cross-country visiting, as well as returning to Europe soon, but none of that is at all certain. Luckily we have Facebook nowadays, so I’m certain I won’t completely lose touch with people, but I’m certainly going to miss everybody, especially my amazing host family!

Speaking of, last Saturday we all went to Tivoli together (and met up with Kenneth, friend of the family and owner of Oswald–pronounced OSS-vel–cutest dog ever). We took the train so we wouldn’t have to pay for parking, which made for a pretty funny switching of roles. Usually it’s my host family showing me around and telling me how to do things, but since they rarely take the train or go into Copenhagen at all, it was me and Nanna showing everybody how to do it. It was nice to know that I’ve learned at least one useful thing these past four months.

We started out by going to Nyhavn, which is the canal area you will always see if you look up photos of Copenhagen. Despite its fame, it’s actually pretty small, and even my host family was surprised when we reached the end of the Christmas market there after only about 10 stalls. We then headed over along Strøget towards Tivoli. It was pretty weird being in the area I walk around all the time with my DIS friends, but with my host family. We stopped in some of the shops along the way to look at the Christmas sales, but unfortunately all the cafes we checked had no free tables. So instead we went to a cafe when we first got into Tivoli to have gløgg (mulled wine with raisins and almonds) and æbleskiver (the Danish pancake balls)–very typical Danish Christmastime fare. It was pretty cold outside, so we all enjoyed the chance to warm up a bit and chat for a while.

Tivoli itself was a whole different place (compared to the last time I went). It was covered in lights and decorations (Russian Christmas theme this year) and filled with Christmas market stalls. We wandered around to see all the pretty decorations and stopped to shop at a few of the stalls, including one making fresh flødeboller! We bought 2 boxes–white chocolate and coffee flavors. Yum yum. After we made it around most of the park once, everybody was cold, especially Cille, so we decided to head home for an ordered pizza dinner.

according to my host mom, the swans are because of the "ugly duckling" story

The pizza was actually an interesting experience in and of itself. We stopped on the way home to pick it up, and we each got to pick out our own. There were some really interesting topping choices, including shawarma, lettuce, and dressing. I ended up getting one with gorgonzola (one of their main cheese options), onions, ham, and bacon. It was not a typical pizza by American standards, but it was actually pretty tasty.

On Sunday, I had a relaxing morning of sleeping, watching TV, and cleaning my room up a bit before Shuyao arrived for a sleepover! Originally both Mariya and Shuyao were going to come, but Mariya had a 12 page paper due Tuesday for her class at København University, so she had to stay home and work. My host dad left that afternoon for a business trip (and won’t be back before I leave, so  had to say goodbye–so sad!), so it was a girls-only evening. Charlotte’s good friend Christina came over for dinner, for which we had a traditional Danish meal. I don’t know what the Danish name for it was, but it was basically like brisket with mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. Yum yum yum. For dessert, we had gløgg and æbleskiver and had an interesting conversation about politics. Then Shuyao and I watched Love Actually, a Christmas classic, with cookies and milk before falling asleep for a lovely 9 hours. It was really fun to have another friend over to visit with my host family, and the whole evening was quite hyggeligt.

The next morning Shuyao and I walked around the outside of Frederiksborg and the Baroque Gardens before she caught the bus to the train station. When we parted ways, I headed down Hillerød’s own Strøget to do a bit of shopping. Though I was supposed to be Christmas shopping, I ended up buying some things for myself. Oops? Still, I was able to cross a few things off my list, and I had a great time doing it. It was also just fun to hang out in my own town and being able to walk home at the end of the day instead of worrying about bus and train schedules. It made me wish I’d spent a little more time in Hillerød this semester just exploring rather than always heading into Copenhagen at every chance.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I met Elise in Copenhagen around 1pm to do some more shopping. It was a pretty gross day out, with plenty of wind and rain to go around, so we tried to stay inside as much as possible. We walked all the way down Strøget, popping in shops along the way, and Elise found a circle scarf while I finished off the last of my Christmas list. Midway through our excursion, we stopped at Agnes Cupcakes for a delicious $6 treat that was so worth the extra money.

That night, I went to Lacey’s house again for one last farewell dinner. We had spaghetti with cookies I brought for dessert, and I was able to give Frida (her little host sister) a photo of me for her Vennerbog that I filled out last time. It was very hyggeligt, and we watched the Danish Christmas calendar show together. Apparently every December one of the networks puts on a miniseries that runs every night in December. It continues about a half an hour every night until Christmas. There are at least a couple different shows–one for small children, this year about elves in Greenland, and one for older children about kids living in a castle with ghosts. It seems most  Danish families keep up with the shows, so I’ve seen both from time to time, but have not really followed the plot very closely (plus it’s a bit difficult for me to know what’s going on, seeing as it’s in Danish).

It’s been so weird saying goodbye to people–so far I have had to say a (probably) final goodbye to Elise, Lacey, Lauren, Matt, my host dad of course, and possibly Shuyao if I do not see her again tomorrow.  I really cannot believe I am leaving Saturday–a couple nights ago Charlotte asked me about my flight times so we could plan when we’d leave for the airport, and I got freaked out for a second as I was forced out of my denial, before slowly shoving that thought back into the back of my head. Even though I’ve started packing now (and it looks like my bags will be underweight yay!), there’s some huge part of me that really just thinks this is all made up, and I’ll go back to classes any day now.

Gone With the Wind

Yeah I’ve been sitting on that title for about a week now… My apologies for the delay of this post. Lots of work with very little motivation does not equal blog post, apparently. But here I am, back in business, ready to tell you about my trip to Amsterdam! And some other stuff too.

Amsterdam:

stroopwafel... two layers of wafel cookie with mapley syrupy stuff inside. so addicting.

Allie and I were both pretty tired post-Thanksgiving and we also were in different stages of colds so we decided from the get-go that we wanted a pretty relaxed weekend… i.e. we definitely went home at like 9pm every night. Still, it was a really fun weekend, and I loved our approach to it. We got to stay with my dad’s old friend Carole, who has been living in Amsterdam for the past 4 years. She was kind enough to let us crash in her loft a few floors up from her apartment, which was located right on a canal on the edge of the city center. Perfect. Not only did we get a cozy living space all to ourselves with convenient access to the city, but she also fed us breakfast and Dutch goodies, like stroopwafels (pictured above on the right). Yummy!

so pleased about my life choices

After settling in on our first day, we just spent the evening wandering around the surprisingly small city center. We found out later that we’d been wandering in the Red Light District (I think all the coffee shops and passing the Sex Museum should probably have given us a hint). First we stopped and got some of the famous Dutch frites; I had mayo and onions on mine–DELICIOUS. Then we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant (to get the authentic Dutch experience, obviously). We had a lovely time chatting over dinner, and talked for over two hours after the waiter cleared our plates until we found out that we really had to ask for the check in order to get it! Obviously we got dessert as well, and I sprung for a fancy schmancy apple strudel.

We began Saturday morning with breakfast and tea with Carole. We got to chat with her about her experiences living in Europe, and I updated her on my dad’s happenings. Then Allie and I headed out for a day of exploring, which included the Van Gogh museum and the Anne Frank House. Luckily Carole warned us to buy our tickets online ahead of time, so we didn’t have to wait in any lines! We also were able to walk around the whole time (rather than taking public transit) because everything in Amsterdam is surprisingly close. Of course, we also found the flower market and some cheese shops along the way. I may or may not have bought a cheese wheel and some balsamic mustard… (after trying all twenty of the samples in the store, obviously).

on the way into town, we walked right past the zoo, which is apparently "the 2nd most popular destination in town." I wonder what is the first?

one of my many, many canal pictures...

I was in heaven...

I enjoyed the Van Gogh Museum a lot. It was a good size (fairly small) and very well organized, so you could follow his life while seeing the progression of his artwork.

can't go to Amsterdam without this picture, even if there are strangers awkwardly in your photo...

our lunch was one of my favorite meals. it began with these...

I couldn't resist the raspberry juice... soooo yummy

I had a whole wheat bagel with sun-dried tomato cream cheese and olive tapenade with sun-dried tomatoes. Definitely a trip highlight.

Amsterdam had even more bikes than Copenhagen--a feat I didn't think was possible.

we stopped for some delicious hot chocolate before our evening reservation at the Anne Frank Huis... so hard to resist getting a second.

The Anne Frank Huis was a really well-done museum, and a really powerful experience. We paid a few extra Euro for an introduction in English, so we would know a bit more about what we were seeing. It was just crazy to know what people had gone through exactly where we were standing many years before.

For dinner that night we had Italian (we really immersed ourselves in the Dutch culture…). Then we went home early, grabbing some Turkish rice pudding along the way (missing Istanbul already!). Snuggled up in our loft, we each read our respective books (Harry Potter in French for me and Breaking Dawn for Allie, which she found in the loft). It was really a great end to a lovely weekend. Sunday morning, we slept in and ate a late breakfast, still reading. The weather was pretty windy and rainy, so it was just as well that we decided to stay in. We headed to the airport around noon, where me and Allie had different flights because of a sudden price-change midway through our booking. Just as I was about to get settled at my gate, C9, I found out that it had changed, and had to go all the way to D58. Then the plane was a bit delayed because the crew had gone to C9. I thought I was done with travel issues, but Copenhagen had other things in mind for me.

When we were about to land, there was a windstorm going on (unbeknownst to me) and the plane was experiencing a lot of turbulence. In fact, when we went down for landing the first time, the plane was tipping back and forth, and the pilot decided to pull back up and try again. Not exactly confidence-inspiring. However, when we went around and tried again the plane landed successfully and everybody applauded. Again, I thought finally I could have a smooth trip the rest of the way home. Again, I was mistaken.

I made the train successfully and settled in, excited to see my host family again. The train was shaking a bit, but I didn’t particularly notice until the train stopped and the driver gave a couple of longer-than-usual announcements. I heard the girl sitting across from me (who was talking on the phone) say in Danish, “The train’s only going to Birkerød,” and sure enough, the list of stops changed and Birkerød (two stops and about 15 min. before my own) became the end of the line. I thought I heard something about a bus that would take us the rest of the way (the announcements are all in Danish, so I only understand key words). So I was feeling okay about piling off the train, and prepared to wait for the bus. There was no bus immediately though, and many of the other people were catching taxis so I started to get a bit worried. After a few minutes of waiting, checking rejseplanen.dk in the station’s computer to see if there was a bus that could take me closer to Hillerød, and watching to see what other people were doing, I eventually called Søren to ask for a ride. Of course, once he was about 10 min. away, the bus finally came, but by that time it was easier to just wait for him.

On the way home, he told me that the wind storm (which I’d noticed by then after being blown around by the wind) had apparently caused a tree to fall on the track, which is what caused my train to stop. Apparently the train that encountered the tree falling (which could not have been more than one or two trains before mine because our train driver only discovered it halfway through the ride–good thing my plane was delayed!) had to stay put for several hours because they were worried about the danger of electrical shock. Of course, Søren also told me that you were supposed to avoid driving as much as possible, and I saw why as the car got pushed a foot or so over every few minutes as we were driving home–not exactly a relaxing ride. When I finally got home, I checked the weather and apparently the wind was gusting up to 60mph, and in some parts of Denmark it was hurricane-level wind. So in other words pretty serious storm.

Luckily by the next day my train was all fixed up and everything was normal again (definitely not something that would happen in the U.S.). Overall, our trip was really fun (even if it had a bit of a hectic ending), and I was really proud of myself for packing only my backpack! I know it’s not a terribly impressive feat for a weekend trip, but I feel like all this independent traveling has made me a more efficient traveler and packer, and I just feel like I’ve gotten better at the whole process.

Other happenings this week:

Det Frie Gymnasium! For my Adolescence in Northern Europe class, we had to complete a learning lab, in which we visited a site to see Danish adolescents in person and use the experience to answer our research questions. My group visited Det Frie Gymnasium, or “The Free Gymnasium”, a Danish high school (or the equivalent) in Copenhagen. The school is known for being super democratic, so the students are involved in all official decisions, from what the cafeteria serves to what to do with the new building the school has acquired. We talked to a girl named Anna, who is family friends with my teacher. She gave us a tour of the school (which is covered in graffiti because the students voted that they should be able to paint wherever they wanted, except on chairs of course). The students are on an equal level with teachers, and are able to question what they’re learning and have some say in the way they are taught (though of course they have to complete a certain curriculum, and in subjects like math there aren’t very many ways to teach the material). It was really cool to see such a different school environment and talk to some Danish teens in person. It definitely tied together a lot of things we’d been discussing in class, and was a really unique opportunity.

SO MUCH HOMEWORK. Three presentations and two papers, to be exact. Hence the reason I haven’t been blogging all week. But I’m close to being done (two papers and two tests left), and soon I will just be enjoying my last two weeks in Denmark . Wow it is weird to type that. While I’m getting even more excited to go back to the U.S., I’m also really enjoying Christmas season in Denmark at the moment… Charlotte hung a little bag (sort of like a stocking) on each of our doors, and she has been giving us little gifts (I mean the Nisse–the Danish gift-giving elves that supposedly live in your house). I got an advent calendar and some little Danish cookies. The advent calendar has definitely been helping my motivation… It’s a lot easier to get out of bed when you know you get a surprise chocolate candy!

Tomorrow is my first Danish birthday party, and it will be a 50 person affair. More specifically, it’s my host farfar’s (grandpa) 70th birthday. Danes go all out for birthdays, so I’m sure this will be pretty epic, and definitely will last late into the night. Then on Sunday I’m going to an FCK (the Copenhagen “football” team) game with all the Danish classes. Should be a really fun weekend, but I’ve also got to write an essay and study for a final sometime in there. We’ll see how that goes…

Happy holidays from Hillerød!

Getting in the [Eating] Spirit

Okay, so, yes I did intend to do a little better blogging-wise this week. And yet here I am on Saturday, once again, writing a post about the whole week. My work ethic has not exactly been in tip-top shape since returning from travel break, so there are many things that probably should have gotten done which, well, didn’t. Better late then never though right?

Overall, I’d have to say it’s been a pretty good week, with a few healthy moments of I WILL NEVER MAKE IT THROUGH THIS sprinkled in. Gotta love college. Here are the things I have failed to update about until now.

La Glace: My, was that a good decision. Conditori La Glace is Copenhagen’s oldest bakery, located only a few blocks away from DIS. It is especially famous for its lagkage (Danish layer cake) but all of their pastries are exquisite, with prices to match. One slice of cake costs 52 kr., or about $10. Not exactly in my budget for a regular stop, but definitely worth going at least once if you come to Copenhagen. Last Saturday Allie and I decided to check it out as a special motivational treat. It took us way too long to figure out how to order and sit down (we tried to sit down like 3 different times and kept getting sent back to the counter), but we finally figured it out–when in Denmark, always remember to take a number and then you can make it through anything. So we finally ordered (I got their sportskage (pictured on the right), their specialty lagkage, and Allie got a mocha eclair) and sat down in a cozy little corner to enjoy our expensive goodies. I can’t speak for Allie’s (though she seemed pretty pleased) but mine was just WOW. Danish lagkage is usually a few layers of cake and cream, but this one was just all cream. The middle cream had crushed nougat, and was slightly thicker than the outer regular whipped cream. It had a chewy macaroon bottom and little carmelized choux pastries on the outside for decoration (like a French St.Honoré pastry if you’ve ever had one). AMAZING is all I can say. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back…

Projects/Semesters: This was the I WILL NEVER MAKE IT THROUGH THIS part of my week. I have 3 group projects that were assigned this week which will be due during the same 3 days (in addition to two 8-10 page papers). So some stress is definitely headed my way, especially because the weekend preceding this craziness I will be in Amsterdam, an experience I do not intend to taint with schoolwork. Of course, complain though I might, I failed to get ahead on any of this work even though I had very little homework this week. So you must take my complaints with a grain of salt. Adding to the difficulty of this time period is that Carleton is doing finals now, and will thus be done starting next week. At Carleton we have 10-week trimesters, so our winter break is Thanksgiving through New Year’s. I’m giving up the majority of that break to be at DIS, which is on a semester system. Even though I had semesters in high school, I have grown really used to the short but intense Carleton term, and I thus have mixed feelings about the length of this term. On the one hand, I am so happy to be able to stay in Denmark for four full months, getting to know my host family, DIS friends, and Copenhagen itself all the better. However, that’s also a really long time to be (mostly) consecutively going to class and doing homework. Coming back from two weeks of traveling around Europe and seeing all my Carleton friends’ Facebook statuses about being almost done has not helped either. At the same time, I cannot believe I only have 4 weeks left here (my host family and I just had a conversation about the day I leave!) to do all my shopping, eating, touristing, and enjoyment of Denmark! I guess what it comes down to is I love being here, but not doing schoolwork. Of course, I suppose that’s why they call it study abroad.

Chinese Thanksgiving: On Thursday night, Mariya, Shuyao and I (along with Shuyao’s good friend and amazing cook Scarlet) had a travel group reunion! We (mostly Shuyao and Scarlet) made a Chinese food feast in the common kitchen of Shuyao’s kollegium (the Danish version of a dorm, though it is not connected to any particular school). It was my first time in a kollegium, so I was very intrigued to see another DIS housing option. They all differ, obviously, but this one seemed really nice. Shuyao has her own mini-kitchen in her room (which she shares with her friend Yen) and there is also a DIS-specific common area downstairs, which is where we did our cooking and feasting. It was really fun to reunite with my travel buddies (and Scarlet of course) and to participate in one of our favorite activities–EATING. We had shrimp with bok choy, Mongolian pork, pumpkin noodles, tomato with scrambled egg (Shuyao and Scarlet were horrified when Mariya and I told them Americans would usually put cheese in our scrambled eggs), and a dish with sprouts. LOTS of food. We also exchanged presents from our second travel weeks, and I got an adorable little London double-decker bus magnet from Shuyao.

It was a unanimous vote that i should get the big bowl. I wonder what that says about me?

Networker’s Lounge: On Friday night DIS was hosting an event called the Networker’s Lounge for everybody in buddy networks to get together and meet people from other groups. I had been originally planning to stay in the city after class because I didn’t have time to go home before it started, and I was going to use the current 7/11 croissant deal (2 croissants for 10 kr., or about $2) for my dinner. When I told Lacey about my plan, she scoffed and suggested that I just come over to her house for dinner instead. So after our two afternoon classes together Lacey and I caught the train to head to Skovbrynet where she lives with her host family. She takes the A train (whereas I take the E) so it was kind of exciting to see the different stops and try to pronounce them. There were definitely some Danes laughing at us as we tried to copy the pronunciation of the announcer. At Lacey’s house, I got to meet her host dad Rene, adorable 8-year old host sister Frida, and pet bunny rabbits. It’s always fun to see other housing situations, partially because it makes me realize how much my own house has really become my home over these past 3 months. Over dinner we discussed music and Coen brothers movies (Lacey’s host dad has good taste) and before we departed I dutifully filled out my own entry Frida’s Vennerbog (“Friend Book”) with much translation help from Rene. I think I may be required to give Lacey a picture of me for Frida to paste in there as well… she’s very thorough.

The Networker’s Lounge itself was fun. DIS gave out tickets for free crepes from a little cart around the corner (I got one with nutella, though I was scolded by everybody else for not getting bananas too)–yummy! I also found Shuyao and Scarlet for a bit, and made plans with them to meet up at the DIS Christmas lunch on Sunday. Overall a lovely evening.

Bingo Banko: I believe I have brought this up before, but I’ll explain it again–a wonderful show that I wish we had in the U.S. Bingo Banko is basically a gameshow for the whole country, because anybody can play. All you do is print out bingo cards (Danes call them “plates”) and tune in at 8pm on Saturday. Throughout the show they do crazy games (everything from beaver racing to tattoo Pictionary) and numbers come up every once in a while for you to mark on your bingo cards. There are 3 chances to win: one row, two rows, and a whole card (3 rows). The prizes are huge (sometimes you get a chance to risk your prize and play for a better one, but you may end up with just a rubber glove filled with soup). I’ve played twice, once with Søren, and again last Saturday with Charlotte, but so far we have not won. Tonight is the last game of the season, so we’re going to go all out and have cards all over the floor. New refrigerator, here I come.

DIS Julefrokost (Christmas lunch): Tomorrow is the DIS Christmas lunch. There were originally about 500 spots and they’re all sold out, so it’s going to be a HUGE event. DIS is providing some food, and everybody is asked to bring a dish and a wrapped gift worth about 10 kr. I’m excited, though a little curious about how such a huge lunch is going to work. Most people are going with their host families (including me) so it’ll be a real range of ages and cultures. I’m also hoping to find Shuyao and Scarlet somewhere in the masses, so we’ll see how that goes. In any case, I think it’ll be really fun with hopefully a lot of good food.

And now time for me to return to all that work I’ve been putting off all week.

I also updated my Danishness page this week so check out my new reflections on Danish culture!

Vi ses (hopefully sooner than next week)!

Nothing But Sunshine (and Gelato): Long Study Tour

So I’m back from my long study tour, and it was AMAZING. This post is gonna be a biggy, so buckle your seatbelt and prepare to be here a while.

Saturday/Sunday (still in Copenhagen):

Saturday night I played Bingo Banko with my host family. It’s basically a nation-wide crazy televised bingo game, where anyone who wants to play can print out a bunch of cards (as many as you can keep track of) and compete for prizes. During the tv show, they play crazy games (including tattoo pictionary and beaver racing) and do silly things (asking people on the street random questions) to come up with the bingo numbers. There are tons of great prizes, from socks to refrigerators. You compete for first one row, then two rows, then a whole board, and if you get the right numbers then you have to be the first one to call in. The whole thing is super silly, and really fun. I played with Søren and Cille, and we each had 9 cards. Sadly it was not enough, and we did not win anything, but I still had a great time. The show is on every Saturday, so I’m sure we’ll try again soon!

I spent most of Sunday packing and double-checking my passport, camera, money, and other essentials. That evening Søren was nice enough to drive me to the train station, where I headed over to Allerød to spend the night at Allie’s house. It was fun to meet someone else’s host family and we played some pretty competitive Wii games with her host brother. Plus we had some leftover brownies and tea for dessert.

Monday (Day One):

Monday morning began bright and early with a pre-dawn walk to the train station. It was nice to be going with a friend, though, so if anything went wrong we’d be in the same boat. We got a random offer for a ride from a Danish guy in a big sketchy black van, but we decided to stick with the train. Luckily, all went smoothly and everybody got to the airport in time for our flight. After an hour-long bus ride and a quick stop to check in at the hotel, we were sent off on our own for Urban Awareness: Milan Edition. Team Awesome (me, Allie, Ansley, Colin, and Dylan) decided to go the low-key approach, and started out at the Parco Sempione. The park was absolutely gorgeous, especially in the beautiful weather, and we sat for a while on the grass just soaking in the Italian atmosphere. Then we continued on through the other DIS recommended spots to visit, and grabbed some cheap pizza for lunch. A great first afternoon in Italy.

best hotel ever. FREE soda and cookies in every room, refilled each day.

view from our spot in the park--Arco Della Pace

supposedly you get good luck from spinning 3 times on the "delicate parts" of the bull in the center of the Galleria

For dinner, we ate as a group at a place called Art Factory. First we got huge plates cheesy pasta with bread and little breadsticks, and everybody ate until they were full. Then it turned out we had a second course–mozzarella, tomato, and prosciutto. So yummy, but way too much to finish.

That night we had some free time, so Jenna, Allie, Ansley, and I went to a little restaurant-bar Ansley had spotted on her run earlier. Ansley and I had the most delicious margaritas, and it was lovely to just sit outside and chat for a while. We went home on the early side because we were all exhausted from the long day.

Tuesday (Day Two):

We began the day with a wonderful hotel breakfast buffet (I perfected my selection throughout the week–fresh machine-squeezed OJ, yogurt, cake, fruit, salami, proscuitto, and cheese, saving cookies for a mid-day snack) followed by our first academic visit. We heard from a researcher on subjective well-being, and it was really interesting, though it was hard to get in an academic mood with such gorgeous weather outside. Then we went to the Galleria D’Arte Moderna, which was beautiful. I mean, the art was great too but the building and gardens were gorgeous.

For our group lunch we went to a local sandwich chain (way nicer than Subway) and had paninis. I had a Fattore, which had salami, cheese, and something called aurora sauce. YUM.

At lunch, my friend Shuyao joined our trip because she’d had visa troubles that wouldn’t allow her to go to her own Scotland study tour. It was a shame for her to miss her tour, but it was fun to have her along.

That day we also got to see DaVinci’s Last Supper! Waiting to see it was pretty intense because there were a couple of airlock doors to go through, and there were guards around making sure nobody did anything wrong. As soon as we got into the room, some poor lady took a picture and one of the guards was like NOPICTURENOPICTURE and ran over to her and made her delete it. The way he was running I half-expected him to tackle her or something, but obviously that didn’t happen. The painting itself was really cool to see, even though it’s pretty faded and has had to be restored so many times. It was just crazy to be seeing something that old and that famous/influential.

Our next stop was a wine tasting at That’s Wine. Unfortunately we got lost trying to find it (a common theme of the trip) and the group was getting a bit cranky because most of us hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Everyone was overjoyed when we finally found it, and our group completely packed the tiny little wine bar. The tasting itself was super fun, and I actually really liked all the wines we tasted. Plus we got some delicious bread, cheese, prosciutto, and salami to accompany it. After three glasses of wine, we all were desperately in need of dinner, so we tromped around as a group until we found a restaurant called Flash Pizzeria. The food turned out to be really good, and I had gnocchi and split some bruschetta with a few other people. Afterwards we got our first Italian gelato at a place near the Duomo, and it was definitely as good as the hype.

group picture in front of the Duomo

Wednesday (Day Three):

Wednesday morning we had an academic visit with Prof. Paolo Inghilleri and a couple of student researchers at University of Milan. It was a long visit, but really cool because we got to hear about real research that’s being done right now around positive psychology. We also got a tour of the University, which is in a very old hospital building. It was really beautiful, and it was hard to imagine being a student and having classes there every day.

We had lunch as a group at Original Pizza. At first only one type of pizza (pepperoni) showed up and we were pretty disappointed because it meant only one slice per person. But after a few minutes, another pizza came, and then another, and it seemed like they just kept coming and coming. I think we had four or five pizzas in all, and my favorite had gorgonzola cheese and corn. We also got dessert, either ice cream balls or Italian ice–even more delicious when it’s paid for by DIS!

After lunch we got to go individually to the Duomo, but since everybody went at about the same time it was sort of like a group activity. This was what I’d been most excited for, because I’d heard the views from the top of the Duomo were spectacular, and I was not disappointed. At one point we thought we’d seen it all, but luckily the elevator man closed the lift and told us to go down the other side. In the process of looking for the “other side” we discovered the stairs up to the very top of the roof. Moral of the story: the Duomo is HUGE, and there’s always something more to see!

We also went inside the Duomo, which was HUGE. I could’ve spent an hour just looking at all the details and exploring the place, but we wanted to get the most out of our free afternoon, so we only took a brief tour around. It was dark inside, and you weren’t supposed to take pictures anyway, so I have no pictures for you all, but I assure you it was really amazing. For dinner we had a quick bite from a food cart near the Duomo and did some shopping at a designer department store. The clothes were so wonderful but so expensive and we left quickly to avoid further temptation. That evening we had a visit at the La Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (apparently they are located all over the world) and go to speak with a woman about the importance of meditation and peacefulness in daily life. The whole atmosphere was very calming, and it was really interesting to hear a different point of view on well-being.

After the visit we searched for an open pasticeria because Ansley really wanted an Italian Napoleon, but almost everything was closed. We ended up at a little place near our hotel, where I had a huge cannoli. Yummmm.

Thursday (Day Four):

Thursday morning’s academic visit was one of my favorites, because we were talking with Antonella Della Fave, one of the first positive psychology researchers ever, and the most important one in Italy. She and her fellow researchers talked about their work and gave us a lot of great information on how the positive psychology principles we’ve been learning about in class can be applied in practical research. Even the presentation was three hours, it went by really quickly, and I think we were all sad to be leaving at the end of it.

We had a fancy group lunch with risotto then pork with wildberry sauce and potatoes. The restaurant was dark so my pictures didn’t turn out very well, but the food was scrumptious. After lunch we got espresso courtesy of DIS. In the afternoon we visited with Dr. Morandi at Ayurvedic Point, and learned about Ayurveda as well as traditional medicine in general. It was probably my favorite visit because he talked to us about the philosophy of traditional medicine and how he approaches his Ayurvedic practice as a Western medicine-trained physician. He emphasized how Eastern and Western traditions should work together, rather than competing, and his perspective was really fascinating. I definitely want to learn more about Ayurveda and how it can be applied to a psychological context.

That night we got the evening to ourselves, so Ansley, Allie, and I took some relaxation time before going out to dinner. I took a marvelous bath (with jets!) in our hotel room, and it was great to get some time to just chill after having such a busy week. For dinner we met up with Jenna and her Italian friend she’d met a few years ago while being a camp counselor. We found a nice place with outdoor seating by the canals, and splurged a bit on fancy food and some wine to accompany it. For dessert we went back to the hotel and found a gelato place nearby, and I found my new favorite flavor–crema.

Friday (Day Five):

Our last full day in Milan began with another academic visit with Antonella’s researchers. This time it was focused more on disability and positive psychology, which was really cool because it was very different from the other research we’d heard about the rest of the tour. As a surprise at the end of the visit, we each got Kinder Bueno bars from our tour leaders. Then for Liia’s birthday they took us out to free gelato, the best gelato I had that week. It was a place called Gelatissimo, and unsurprisingly the owner was very happy to have forty customers at once.

I got Crema Catalana and Pistachio--delicious!

We had the afternoon free, so Shuyao, Jenna and I walked through the Parco Sempione (neither of them had gotten to see it the first day) to the Pinoteca di Brera, an art museum that was highly recommended by, well, everyone. I know next to nothing about art history, and the captions were all in Italian, but the paintings were mostly from the early 1800′s or the 1500′s. There was a ton of religious art and many depictions of the Virgin Mary with Jesus. I love art museums, but I’d never seen such old art before so it felt like an entirely new experience. My favorite painting depicted a young woman, relaxing in a chair while shirtless. I know nothing of the context of the painting, but she just seemed really relaxed and content, and it was a nice contrast to all the stark religious imagery.

For our last night, we had a group dinner followed by a jazz show at Blue Note Milan. Everybody got dressed up for the show, and it was fun seeing everybody all fancy (though a lady at the restaurant apparently thought we were in high school). It was dark in the restaurant so my pictures are not spectacular, but we had three wonderful courses–pasta, sausage with veggies, and flan! We also each got a glass of wine or soda to accompany the meal.

tried using the flash for the second course--not a great result (but the food was delicious!)

Shuyao didn't want her flan, so I ended up having 1 and 3/4 flans (what is the plural of flan?!)

I didn’t think the day could get any better, but it definitely did. The jazz show was simply amazing. Allie, Ansley, Jenna, and I got bar seats right on the balcony so we got a good view of the performance. The singer was Luca Jerman, accompanied by several musicians and a couple of backup singers. His very first song was “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers, which I had just downloaded the week before, and it pretty much set the tone for the night. Everything about the performance was amazing and his voice was really incredible. Luca Jerman was also accompanied for one song by another singer, who turned out to be a really famous Italian singer who won a singing competition show followed by an Italian music award.  Apparently he was taught by Luca Jerman, which was why he showed up for the performance. Everyone in our class was buzzing about it afterwards, and it was a truly perfect way to end the trip. Plus, on the way home, Shuyao and I found Spongebob randomly painted on a wall.

Saturday (Day Six):

Saturday morning I had a perfect last breakfast, including a creme puff covered in chocolate mouse–obviously a great way to start the day. We loaded all our stuff onto the bus and departed for an afternoon at Lake Como. The lake was so beautiful, and the town was adorable. It was nice to see someplace other than Milan, which is beautiful but has a lot of cars and busy streets (stark contrast from Copenhagen).

After getting our lunch money and directions from our guide, Shuyao and I headed over to the Funiculare, a gondola-tram-thing that takes you up to the top of one of the hills surrounding the lake. When trying to find it, we first went up this tiny alleyway, thinking we were headed the right way, and we were surprised that nobody else was around. Then when we reached the top of the hill we came out onto a regular busy street, and were really confused. We asked a woman where to find the Funiculare, and she told us we had to go all the way down the hill, and it’d be right there. OOPS. Turns out what we’d thought was a cafe was actually the ticket office.

walking through the little town

We were starting to get hungry, so we decided to try to find some lunch up on top of the hill. We wandered through the streets for a bit, starting to wish we’d paid more attention to the map of the town near the Funiculare station. Finally we decided to ask for directions from a guy at a small grocery store. He pointed us to a little trattoria tucked away in a side street. The restaurant was adorable, and there were only about three options for each course. Shuyao and I decided on two different pasta dishes because we didn’t want to spend too much. What a great choice. After a long wait, the waiter brought out our pasta, and it was the best food we had all week. The ingredients were really simple, but it was all super fresh, including the pasta, and we felt like we were experiencing the real Italy.

We decided to head back down again for dessert, and we found a gelato place by the docks that looked really good. The woman there spoke only Italian, so it was a little difficult making our orders, but the gelato was delicious, as always.

We walked back into town and explored a street market there for a while, and I bought a scarf. Then we went to see the Como Duomo (haha I couldn’t resist), which was obviously much smaller than the one in Milan, but still very beautiful.

On the inside the ceilings were very detailed and and covered with gold embellishments, but I didn’t take any pictures because you’re not supposed to (though many people do anyway).

On the way to the airport, we did a positive psychology intervention where everyone filled out positive comments about everyone else in the class, including themselves. Later on everybody received a packet with all their positive comments. All the comments were so thoughtful, and it was really nice  to end the trip with a positive feeling.

We arrived in the airport way too early because of the lack of traffic, so we had about an hour to waste before we could check our bags. Ansley, Allie, and I sat at some tables and shared all our Italian purchases and ate our last few snacks leftover from the hotel breakfast. Once we finally got to check our bags, we checked out a gift store where Allie bought a souvenir and then went to find something to eat. There was only one choice for food in our terminal, but it turned out to be really good. I had a sandwich with prosciutto, cheese, and arugala, and a pastry for dessert.

My sfogliatella (lobster tail). It was (to my surprise) really delicious--my own farewell to Italy.

Unfortunately, when we got back to Copenhagen at 10pm, it turned out that some of the trains were not running. Luckily Allie and I were together so we searched for a solution. First we went from Nørreport to Central Station to figure out what was going on. All the info booths were closed, and when we tried to figure out the bus we needed, we couldn’t find the stop to meet it. In a stroke of genius, Allie ended up buying a hot dog while we figured out what to do. We asked the man at the hot dog stand if he happened to know anything about the buses/trains, and he told us that if we took the one train that was running to Hellerup, we could catch our train from there. We went for it because we had no other ideas, and fortunately he was correct. We each ended up getting home at like 12:30am, but we got there!

Told you it would be a long post. Now it’s time for me to prepare for a return to a normal schedule, homework and all. This trip was better than I ever thought it would be, but I’m so glad to be back in Copenhagen. It is so nice to be in my own room with my own bed, and I’m actually really excited to return to my normal commute tomorrow morning. It’s funny how Copenhagen has become my new home and frame of reference as I travel around–even American money is starting to look foreign!

Arrivederci and vi ses!

I Scream for Ice Cream

Blog update, as promised.

First off, my field studies on Wednesday! They were both even better than I expected. First I went to the Davids Samling Museum with my Turkey at the Crossroads class. It looked pretty small from the outside—if I hadn’t known what we were going to see I wouldn’t have even thought it was a museum—but it had a surprisingly large collection on the inside. The museum was created by a fund made by a really rich guy—C.L. David, who died in 1960—so it’s basically about what he was interested in. We split into two groups and got a guided tour, which was nice because we got to learn a lot more about the history of the museum and the art that we would’ve if we’d been browsing on our own—not least of which because most of the explanatory placards were in Danish. We looked at their Islamic art collection, some of which was from Turkey/the Ottoman Empire, but it basically from anywhere Muslims lived (i.e. much of Europe, the Middle East, and northern Africa). My personal favorite exhibit was their collection of miniatures—apparently the largest collection in the world that is open to the public. The paintings were, well, miniature, and the details in them were just amazing. The tiny figures had facial expressions and complicated patterns on their clothing. Our tour guide informed us that some of the details were done using a brush with only one hair—crazy! After the tour, Allie and I went back and spent some more time looking at the exhibit because it was just so amazing. I think most of our class definitely plans on going back to the museum sometime, especially because entrance is free!

After seeing the museum, Allie and I went off to find a library (Københavns Hovedbibliotek) that Lauren, a girl in our Positive Psychology class, had told her about. I think it might be a new favorite study place. It was really nice inside, and a lot closer to DIS than the Black Diamond(and there was free wifi). Plus there were a lot more places to sit, including some funky desk armchairs that I will have to try out next time.  I ate my lunch and we chatted for a while about various things, and then I left for my Danish Language and Culture field study while Allie got to working on our Positive Psychology paper that was due Friday.

I met my Danish class near Christianshavn metro station, and found them all already buzzing with anticipation for our tour of Christiania. Most of my class had never been there (I went there briefly for my Buddy Network dinner) and we were all excited to see the [in]famous Copenhagen landmark for ourselves. Our Danish teacher had told us we would have a very special guide that she likes because he not only has lived in Christiania for 20 years, but he does not do tours very often so he is still very excited and interested in talking about his home. She also warned us that he was very much a Christianian, so to speak, and would be “very representative” of Christiania culture. Indeed, the first thing Joker (yes that was his actual name) did when he met up with us, about 10 min. late, was take out a small tin of pot and start packing a pipe.

He actually ended up being a great tour guide, though, because he had a lot of personal knowledge about the history of Christiania and could really articulate what it was all about. I’ll only give you a brief overview, since I don’t want to spread incorrect information (you can read more on Wikipedia). Basically, Christiania was founded in the 1970′s as a place where people could be free from the rules of society and just be themselves. Joker explained that they started out without any rules, but over the years they’ve had to develop a few: no hard drugs, no violence, no guns (or bulletproof clothing), no (private) cars, and no private property (buying and selling real estate).  The rules are not always able to be enforced, especially since the government has had problems with Christiania a few times over its forty years (Christiania had its 40th birthday last Monday, and was celebrating all this week). Joker said the private cars rule has especially been difficult recently because, as he put it, many people put so much money into their cars that they feel they ought to be able to drive them where they like. Joker also cleared up a popular rumor about Christiania: they do pay their bills (water, electricity, etc.), they just do it collectively. Apparently to live in Christiania, all you need to do is pay a monthly fee, and then you pay for however you want to build your dwelling (materials, labor, etc.) Because there is no buying or selling of property, you cannot “own” a house, you merely live in it.

One of my favorite stories Joker told us was the story of how he came to live in Christiania. When he was first living there, he had no intention of staying–he just wanted a job. So he went to a cafe and asked the man he assumed was the owner for a job, and received a set of keys. After he was working there for a couple of weeks, the man he thought was the owner came to him and asked him for a job. He was really confused, but he just gave him a job and kept working there for about a year. Then somebody else came and took it from him, which he assumed was because they were in charge. It was only a few years later that he found out he had ‘owned’ the cafe for that year. Apparently the man he’d thought was the owner had given him the cafe (by giving him the keys), and thus then had to ask him for a job. The next person that came along was just becoming the next ‘owner.’ Anyway, after finding out that he’d owned a cafe for a year without knowing it, Joker decided he had to stay in Christiania.

Joker also had a really interesting take on drug use, which surprised me a little bit because of the first impression he’d made. He said that he believed in the legalization of marijuana so that it will not be “cool” for young people to smoke it. He pointed out that places where marijuana has been legalized, only the “losers” smoke, and young people are too busy living their lives to bother. He thought it was unfortunate when teens get caught up in smoking rather than getting an education and growing up, and end up reaching their thirties without having done anything with their lives, or developed the skills to start doing something.

Here are a few pictures of Christiania. Unfortunately pictures are not allowed on Pusher Street, where they sell pot openly, because although people are open about it in Christiania, it is still illegal according to the Danish government, and police do regular raids of Christiania to try to put a stop to it. Apparently there used to be a lot of kids helping the “pushers” on Pusher Street because it was an easy way to earn a lot of money. The adults in Christiania wanted to find a way to change that, but they knew that forbidding it would only make the kids more likely to do it. So instead they built an indoor skate park to give the kids something better to do, and now the average age on Pusher street has increased by about ten years. Joker said it was a great example of Christiania’s creative/collective decision-making at work. Of course, they aren’t always able to find such a perfect solution, but it’s cool that they tried to find an effective solution rather than the expected response that would probably happen if a government had been involved.

And now for the pictures…

this store has all the building materials you need to make a house, and according to Joker they'll even order something for you if they don't have what you need

some guys were brewing beer outside on this huge scaffold structure, maybe a special birthday brew?

the Christiania flag represents the 3 dots of the i's in its name--the flags were all over for the birthday celebration

The "Put and Take"--exactly what it sounds like. Joker was about to put down some flowers, but then a guy came over and was like "oh I want those" and took them from him

there was lots of graffiti and murals on the walls of buildings

the cafe Joker owned for a year

this was a "children's area".. there was a little beach and some play structures around the corner

a cool house; unfortunately I didn't hear the story Joker told about it because I was in the back of the group, but for some reason the chimney is in the shape of a frog/dragon

Gray Hall is where they have all their town meetings, and sometimes have concerts. According to Joker, a lot of famous people come there, and Bob Dylan actually requested to do a concert there.

After all the walking, I was exhausted so I went home and took a nap, then spent most of the evening working on homework. Thursday we had our first quiz in Danish, and it seemed to go pretty well. After class I still had two essays to finish for the next day, so I went home and worked on them. I was so worried about finishing everything that I actually got done early–about 9:15pm, and got to relax fo the rest of the night. Søren was out of town on business and Charlotte was at work, so Nanna made us pasta salad for dinner and she, Cille, and I had a cozy dinner in the living room in front of the TV watching Friends.

Friday morning I woke up bright and early, exhausted but excited for my last day of class before Milan. I ended up being able to grab some leftover pasta salad for my lunch instead of making a sandwich, and made it on an earlier bus so I could get to DIS with time to print out my paper before class. Even though I was out of the house before 7am (usually a bad sign) I could already tell it was going to be a great day. In the main DIS building I ran into many of my classmates, also printing out their papers and commiserating about their tough homework weeks. I found Allie and we went together to class, where we were the first ones by several minutes. It felt really good to finally turn in my paper, since we’d been working on it for about two weeks, and then at the end of class we got a really interesting presentation about The Last Supper, which we will get to see in Milan! Apparently the painting has gained a ton of popularity since The DaVinci Code (my host mom was shocked when I told her I hadn’t read it) and now it’s very difficult to get tickets to see the painting, so I’m really excited to get the opportunity (and for free!).

My day continued to increase in excellence as I ran into several of my friends when sitting in DIS between classes, and then decided not to get a pastry during lunchtime, despite my nagging hunger, so as to save money for Milan. Turns out, it was a perfect decision because in my last (and favorite) class of the day, Adolescence in Northern Europe, my teacher bought us ice cream! Most of the class was spent talking about our upcoming learning labs, an assignment in which we will go to a Danish school and direct our own project or research through our visit. We were turning in research proposals that day (my second paper of the week) and figuring out which schools we wanted to go to. I was really excited because I got into a group with my friends Lacey and Red to go to the “Free” Gymnasium (a Danish high school) which is an alternative school where the kids are really self-directed and on an equal level with teachers. We get to visit our sites in October and November, and I’m really excited to get to talk to some real Danish adolescents (aside from my host siblings). The best part of the class was when my teacher asked if we wanted to spend some of our class budget (she is very into an alternative education style, and encourages us to do what we want and is always asking us what we want to learn) on a walk through Strøget (the walking street) to observe some people or to get a treat. Of course, we all got really excited and asked if we could get ice cream. She said yes (and mentioned baking a cake at the end of the semester!), so at the end of class we all trouped down to a nearby ice cream stand. We each got to spend 35 kr. (about $7!) so we could get 3 scoops each. I was at the back of the line, so I planned my order out very carefully and got Lemoncello, Vanilla, and Kinder Surprise with whipped cream and strawberry jam (very typical Danish toppings for ice cream cone) in a waffle cone. It was SO GOOD. I made the perfect order, and it was a gorgeous sunny day–perfect for ice cream. Red, Lacey and I then walked to the train station together eating our ice cream, and managed to extend our discussion of the particulars of ice cream all the way to the station.

When I got home we had a yummy dinner and then Charlotte suggested we go out into the town because it was a special celebration night in Hillerød. We started walking and then Nanna joined us later on her bike. All the stores were open until 9:15pm–very special in Denmark–and there were sales everywhere. We walked through the “big” mall (about the size of a medium to small one in the U.S.), and Nanna ended up getting a dress and a coat. It was fun to be out around so many people, and the atmosphere was very spirited. In the square there was live music playing, and it seemed like everybody in Hillerød was out, both young and old. Charlotte and I stopped in the “Candy Bus” (Sweet Factory-style portable candy store) to get some candy to bring back to Cille, who had decided to stay home. That night we watched a Danish sketch comedy show and then Terminator 2, but I started falling asleep on the couch before the end of the movie and decided it was time for bed.

Today has been very relaxed–I was in my PJ’s until about noon–and the day has been gorgeous (record breaking temperatures for October). Søren’s parents came over for a bit and we sat outside and enjoyed some yummy raisin cake his mom made. Then Cille and I played about ten rounds of UNO, and now I am sitting outside updating you all on this week. Tomorrow I will pack for Milan, and then after dinner Søren will drive me over to the train station so I can go to Allie’s house, where I’m going to spend the night. We have to be at the airport waaaay early Monday morning, earlier than my bus runs, so Allie and I will go together. I’m super excited to go to Milan, where I will be sans laptop, and enjoying beautiful summery weather (by Copenhagen standards).

So long until next week!

All About the Food

Speaking of food (when am I not?) I forgot to mention a yummy treat my host mom made this week. They were like two layer cookies with frosting on top and raspberry jam in between. NOMS. I think I had like four huge pieces.

Then Thursday night, Charlotte was working so it was just me, Søren and the girls for dinner. They told me we were having “mexican pancakes” which, as I suspected, turned out to be tortillas. It was sort of an odd meal, because it was simultaneously familiar (my family at home has make-your-own-tacos/quesadillas pretty frequently) yet also very Danish. The possible ‘pancake’ toppings included both the usual ground beef, red peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, and some very Danish choices–cucumbers, ketchup, or “crème fraiche” dressing (like ranch). We also had ‘nachos’ but there wasn’t enough cheese so it was more like flavored tortilla chips with a touch of cheese. It was all yummy, but still odd.

Continuing on the food theme, yesterday afternoon I had my first Fransk hotdog! As I believe I mentioned before, there are hotdog stands all over Copenhagen, offering several varieties of ‘hotdog’ for 25-40kr (about $5-$8, a very reasonable price by Danish standards). Fransk hotdogs are hot dogs stuck in a long hollow baguette with a really yummy mayo-ish dressing. Here’s a picture. I had been eyeing them for a while since the pictures look really good, and finally decided to get one as an afternoon snack for my train ride home. It was even more delicious than I had hoped. The bread was fresh, the hotdog was crispy on the outside, and the dressing was very tasty. Yum! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I got a few weird looks on the train as I ate my hotdog but it was totally worth it. Since it was rush hour on a Friday, the train was pretty full, and after a couple of stops a family with small children (about 6-8 years old) sat across from me. The kids were ADORABLE. The little girl was starting a little embroidery kit, with a lot of help from her mom. And the little boy had a HUGE cucumber, at least half as tall as he was, that he was just munching on. After a few minutes his chin was turning green from all the juice dribbling down his front. One of my favorite things about my commute is the people-watching opportunities, especially when there are families. I can never understand what they’re saying, obviously, but children seem to be the same everywhere, and it’s funny to see their unabashed curiosity in contrast to the reserved and quiet adult Danes on the train.

Friday night I got to have another cozy night with my host parents (the girls were both out). After dinner, we didn’t have any sweets in the house so Charlotte suggested that we go see the new Netto that had opened up, basically a re-furbished version of the old one in the same spot. Søren had not heard about any new Netto, so Charlotte made fun of him pretty profusely, suggesting that it was very sad he didn’t get an invite. So then Charlotte and I headed out with Maggie to go see the new Netto and bring back some candy. When we got there, though, it turned out that it was so new that it was still under construction,and not yet even close to opening. So we went up the street to Fakta instead, trying to come up with a plausible story to tell Søren about the “fancy new Netto.” Charlotte couldn’t believe she’d made fun of Søren that much and then turned out to be wrong, and we were laughing the whole way to Fakta and home again. It was one of those situations that you just knew would become an inside joke, and it was very fun to experience that with my host family.

That night we enjoyed our goodies from Fakta (two kinds of cookies, Snickers bars, licorice, and hard candies) with tea in front of the TV. Among other things, we watched a Danish singing competition where all sorts of famous Danish singers (from rap to opera) are paired with regular folks with singing talent to sing one of the famous singer’s signature songs. There seem to be a lot of shows that involve collaboration between all kinds of Danish singers, which never happens in the U.S. to my knowledge. I think it may have to do with the size of Denmark, and the small number of famous Danish singers, but it seems like a really nice idea.

Other exciting news from this week:

-Over Thanksgiving weekend (at DIS we have school on Thanksgiving but then we get a three day weekend) I’m going to Amsterdam with Allie! We bought our tickets this week, so it’s totally official. I think that will probably be my final travel planning for the semester because I do want to spend plenty of time at home with my host family. They are already making plans for having Thanksgiving dinner this year, which is so sweet since it’s not their holiday. I will have to show them some American traditional foods, though I’m glad my host mom is an adventurous cook because my skills are somewhat lacking.

-Tomorrow I am going to be interviewed about my experience as a foreign exchange student! Charlotte’s work colleague’s daughter’s high school buddy is apparently doing a project and needed to interview a foreign exchange student, so Charlotte told her colleague that they had one at their house. I am kind of excited because I’ve never been interviewed like this before, and I think it will be fun to discuss my experiences so far. Plus I am happy to be able to help someone out.

The more time I spend here, the more I realize that I’m going to miss it so much when I go back to the U.S. How will I survive without rugbrød with remoulade and real wienerbrød and even leverpostej? Yes those are all foods… to me location is always about food. But I’ll also miss the quiet trains and almost getting hit by bikes every day and all the weird Danish/British television shows that would never be allowed in the U.S. And of course my wonderful host family and my host dog Maggie (she is so excited every time I come home or come out of my room in the morning!). I know I still have three more months here, but by the time I’m actually leaving it’ll only be even harder. Just a few weeks ago I couldn’t believe I was going to stay here for four whole months, and now I don’t know how I’ll leave at the end of the semester!

Party At Fakta: My Short Study Tour!

Last night I returned from my short study tour to Western Denmark, and it was AWESOME. I ate a TON of food and enjoyed myself quite thoroughly. There’s lots to tell, so if you’re planning to read this whole post, you’d better snuggle in and grab a snack because this is gonna be a long one. For that reason I will also divide it conveniently into three parts to give you some safe stopping places.

Thursday:

Thursday morning I awoke bright and early, determined not to forget any important items or to be left behind by the bus. I double-checked my bag approximately five bajillion times (I counted) and added a couple last minute items before it was finally time to go. I had an awkwardly large duffle bag with my little DIS backpack since my only other options were two backpacks or a rolling suitcase (not a good choice on cobblestones). I squeezed my way out the door and successfully onto the bus at 7:36 am. On the train, I sat a few seats down from Colin, a boy in my class who lives in the folkehojskole (another DIS living option) in Hillerød. I slept a little bit but I woke up earlier than usual because I was determined not to miss my stop, even though at this point we were scheduled to be about 30 min. early for the tour bus. As we approached Nørreport station I noticed Colin was still fast asleep. At first I assumed that he would wake up when the conductor announced our stop, but we arrived and he showed no signs of stirring. The trains do not stay long at one station, and if you miss the two minute window, you are stuck on the train until the next stop. So I knew I had to try to wake Colin, so he wouldn’t miss the bus. First I tried calling his name, but I didn’t want to shout and be rude to the Danish passengers. He didn’t budge. So I grabbed my huge bag and went over to him and shook his shoulder, which finally woke him up. It wasn’t easy though, so I think if I hadn’t woken him up he might’ve slept for another hour on the train. Time was running out to get off the train, and the door nearest Colin had a no exit sign, so I had to turn around and go through the bike compartment. As I reached the doors they were already closing, so I think I barely made it out on time. I started walking towards the stairs out of the platform and I saw Colin standing at the no exit doors trying to open them. Of course, they didn’t open. I’ll never forget the look on his face as the train started pulling away. Luckily we were still super early so he was able to get off at the next stop and catch a train back, and he even still arrived early for the bus.

As we climbed on the bus we FINALLY got our schedule for the trip. Before we’d only been given a vague idea of the itinerary, to the point where it was a bit absurd. My host family had asked me where we were going, and I could only give them a guess answer. Our schedule booklets had a full itinerary, maps for our “time on own,” pictures of everyone on the trip, and a few sudoku puzzles in the back. The bus was a double decker, and apparently brand new (the bus driver had only gotten it 14 days before the trip). We were only supposed to sit on the top level, since the bottom mostly had a table and the bathroom. Ansley, Allie, Jenna, and I sat together towards the middle of the bus and settled in for our 3 hour drive to the island of Funen (home of Hans Christian Andersen), where we would have our first academic visit. Our tour leaders Julie and Tilde (our teacher Gitte couldn’t make it) were super nice, and they gave us fruit and candies on the way. When it was determined that everyone was hungry, we also got to stop at a gas station to buy snacks. Everyone was super excited at first because we were curious what a Danish gas station would be like, but then the excitement died a bit when we just stopped at a Shell. It was still nicer than U.S. gas stations, though, and they sold hot dogs and pastries in addition to the usual array of candy, chips, and soda. I didn’t want to spend too much money, so I just chose a candy bar that looked tasty. It was called a Yankie, and it was actually perfect–caramel with chocolate/malt nougat, kind of like a Milky Way, only way better.

Our first academic visit was with Kaare Christensen, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark. You may have heard of him from his recent appearance on 60 Minutes. He wrote a brief article about possible reasons for Denmark’s consistent #1 spot in the happiest countries ratings. His conclusion was basically that Danes have low expectations so they are not surprised when things go badly, and they are pleased when life turns out better than they expected. The article and the interview are pretty tongue-in-cheek and I recommend checking them out. He also talked to us about his research on aging, which was very interesting. He discussed a few studies about the relationship between health and happiness, including one about perceived age, where health and life satisfaction were compared with how old the participants looked rather than how old they actually were. It gave us a lot to think about, and it was a nice way to begin the trip.

We next headed off to Odense, the 3rd largest city in Denmark, also located on Funen. Since we were running a bit late we only had about half an hour to grab our own lunch (we chose shawarma–cheap and delicious). We all met up at the Brandts Klædefabrik art museum, where we got all-exhibit passes and got to roam around on our own. It was just a tourist visit for our class, though we saw other DIS groups there who had an academic visit there. The Communications and Mass Media group even got to produce their own newscast in what I guess was the “media” exhibit of the museum. The first exhibit we saw was a photography show by Jacob Holdt. I did not read all of the placards, nor did we have a tour guide, but from what I gathered he was a Danish photographer who had gone to the U.S. in the sixties to take photographs of poor people. It was a pretty intense exhibit because it basically paired photos of African Americans with those of white supremacists, including members of the KKK. There were couples, families, and individuals in all kinds of situations, but most of the subjects of the photos fell into one of those two categories. Some of the captions said things like “____, a mass murderer, shows his daughter ____ how to use a gun.” (The names weren’t blanked out I just don’t remember them.) The KKK photos were especially hard for me personally. There were photos of people dressed in KKK uniforms just eating a family dinner. It kind of emphasized how all these people are just everyday people, and in many other ways they seem just the same. I’m glad we went to see it, but those photos just took me unawares. Luckily the rest of the exhibits were not nearly as emotionally charged, and so after that room it was much more relaxing. My second favorite (after the photography) was a dark room filled with fake lit-up flowers in swirly patterns around the room. The flowers made a crackling sound that almost sounded like crickets if you didn’t listen too hard, and the whole room was very peaceful. In the rest of the museum there were some other photography exhibits, the media room which had its own printing press in addition to the news studio, and some fun cloth sculptures (pictures forthcoming).

After the museum we had another two and a half hours on the bus before arriving at our hotel in Århus, the 2nd largest Danish city. On the way Julie and Tilde showed us a Danish film, Italian for Beginners, but I think most people slept instead of watching. We also got to sign up for our hostel rooms, so Allie, Ansley, Jenna, and I got a room together. Our hostel was in the middle of the woods, but it was pretty cute. We got a few minutes to settle into our room and set up our beds (we had to bring our own sheets) before heading out for dinner again. Our room was actually really nice, with two bunk beds, a little chair and table, a tv, and our own bathroom with a shower and everything. I think a lot of us were picturing a huge room with several bunk beds and a communal bathroom, so we were pretty excited to have such nice accommodations. For dinner, we all piled back on the bus again to drive into town. We ate at a super nice restaurant (which was extra special because restaurants are so expensive in Denmark). We were served a DELICIOUS salmon with creamed spinach and lemon wedges. It was super yummy, even though we didn’t get dessert.

We had to find our own way back to the hostel after dinner, so the four of us decided to go exploring around Århus a bit. We went the opposite direction from the rest of our class, found a quiet little pub where we had some drinks and chatted for a while. There were some Danes sitting at the table next to us, and after a bit they introduced themselves. Apparently they had been wondering if we were from Spain, which was quite the compliment since we were all very much American. It was a really fun evening, but we were tired from traveling all day so we left earlyish to determine how to get home. We first made a valiant effort to determine how to use the bus, but it was difficult to figure out in a strange city, and eventually we just decided to go with the cab that was sitting conveniently nearby. It ended up being pretty cheap since we weren’t too far from our hostel and we split the fare between the four of us. When we got back to our room, we figured out the tv (surprisingly tricky) and found a funny french movie to watch for a bit before we all dropped off to sleep one by one.

Friday:

Friday morning we had breakfast at the hostel, which was basically a typical Danish breakfast buffet. I had several pieces of bread with different combinations of butter, jam, and cheese. The cheese slicer was awesome–there were two blocks of cheese on a round platform with a handle attached to a slicer. When you turned the handle, it sliced the cheese and the whole thing moved down so you could slice a new layer of cheese. Basically the best thing ever, especially because I’m so bad at using Danish home cheese slicers.

Our first academic visit for the day was to KAOSpilots, an alternative entrepreneur school that emphasizes team-based education, real world testing, and process learning. It was a really cool program and it almost made me a little jealous of the students. It’s a three year education, kind of like a “bachelor’s degree” but you don’t get a diploma as such. You have to be 21-35 years old to apply, so that everyone has a certain level of maturity. The application does not require test scores or grades, but rather answers to questions about your personality, interests, and motivations. Instead of having a bland presentation with a powerpoint, we got to engage in a couple of exercises to demonstrate how their education works. First we did a dream journey, where we had to relax and close our eyes and visualize ourselves in the future. It didn’t exactly work for me because I got distracted by an inconsistency in the “story” we were being told, but it was relaxing. My favorite part of the presentation, and perhaps the whole trip, was the next exercise we did. First we had a minute and a half to write down seven things we were passionate about. Then we shared them as a group. We repeated it with things that make us angry and things that we’re good at. The angers were especially good to share because at first we were all stepping over each other shouting them out, but the presenter, Sarah, stopped us and told us to listen to each other. After that only one person spoke at a time, even though there was no raising of hands, and each anger shared was felt by the group. It was a really cool bonding experience. After making our lists, we were told to get into groups of three people with others we don’t know well, and to find themes for each list. This was really interesting because a lot of the things people wrote down were super random, like being good at making pancakes, or hating socks that fall down. But when you sat down with someone’s list and thought about it, it was really possible to come up with meaningful themes that described their list. The final step was to write down our themes in the form of a statement: “My wish is to use my passion for [passion theme] and my talent for [talent theme] to [verb] [anger theme].” The exercise felt not only really cathartic, but also productive because it was about using the themes to combat what makes us angry. Everyone came out of the presentation feeling good and with new energy for the day ahead.

Our next stop was group lunch in town at another really nice restaurant. We had pesto pasta with veggies and salad on top. Super delicious, and I cleaned my plate. It was nice to get some more veggies too because Danes are not always big on those. After lunch we got time on our own to explore Århus, so Ansley, Allie, Jenna, and I went to Den Gamle By, or The Old City. One of the other options was the ARoS art museum, which is supposed to be awesome, but we had just gone to an art museum the day before and we wanted to spend some time outside. We took a rather roundabout way getting there, which was okay because it was a gorgeous day. It has three sections–the 1800′s, 1927, and 1974. The 1800′s part is the biggest, as I think they are still building the 1927 and 1974 areas. The whole thing was really adorable, and it was nice to have some time to relax and just walk around. Dessert was on our minds basically the whole trip, so of course we found the bakery to get pastries. I got three vanilla almond cookies for only 10 kr. and they were scrumptious. Though it was only a small part, I really enjoyed the 1970′s part of the “city.” There was a poster museum which had retro Danish posters, some of which were pretty funny. There was also a music store with old tvs and record players, records, and cassette tapes. Once we’d seen everything we had some extra time so we slowly wandered back to KAOSpilot, where we were supposed to be meeting the bus. We stopped at Netto to get some snacks for the bus (I got a giant bag of banana chips) and then sat in a large square near the church and the theater to relax and munch on our food for a while.

There was only a short bus ride to our last academic visit at Camp True North, a summer camp for teens designed to raise their positivity and self-esteem. From the moment we got there it felt like returning to camp. The presenters were just as overly smiley and enthusiastic as you’d expect, and they had us do all the little claps and sayings that they have campers do. At first I was skeptical, but then they had us stand up and go around to ten different people and tell them “You look FANTASTIC today.” It was very silly, but after doing it a few times everyone was laughing and it was actually fun. After an introductory story about the need for positivity, we went to the back of the room to play Gopher. We stood in a circle and each person had a “trap” hand and a “gopher” hand. Traps were laid out flat and gophers were one finger placed in the “trap” next to you. When the “gopher caller” said “gopher,” you had to try to trap a gopher while get your own gopher to escape. I was pretty bad at the game because I just got so surprised every time that I just threw up both my arms, so my gopher escaped but I never caught another gopher. After each round, everybody who was successful did their “gopher dance” which was basically any dance you wanted. It was really silly, and I’m not sure what academic value it had, but it was a lot of fun.

After playing Gopher, we had to do a Maze activity. For this one, we were divided into two teams and each team made a grid on the floor with masking tape. The point was to find your way through the “maze” without getting beeped or buzzed by the Maze Master, who had the key to what spaces were “safe” and not. Every time you stepped on a wrong square, you got “beeped” and had to return to the beginning, and each time you didn’t follow the rules, like going back the way you came, you got “buzzed”, and your team lost a minute on your time. Most importantly, you couldn’t talk at all during the game. Our team worked together really well, and soon we fell into a system for finding our way through the maze. I thought it was really fun, because it felt really collaborative to be working with our class to solve the puzzle. When our team finished by getting everyone through the maze, the other team still hadn’t found their way through it. I’m sure it didn’t help that once we’d finished, our team sat down to watch their team struggle to the end. Their team was not working together nearly as well, and they all looked visibly frustrated. After both teams completed the maze, we got a sort of weird concluding talk about how every day should be a job interview, and the facilitator said she knew what ten people she would hire after that activity.

A lot of people left the visit complaining about the maze and the campy feel of the presentation. I personally really enjoyed myself, and it was a little frustrating to have to listen to others complain so much. My main problem with it was the fact that we didn’t get an explanation of the methods of the camp or any academic discussion of the benefits for the kids who attend. I liked the team-bonding-ness of the maze activity though, and the gopher game was fun too. On the bus to our hostel, Julie and Tilde played Little Miss Sunshine for us, which was fun because it was so familiar (and also just an excellent movie). When we arrived it was already dark at the hostel so we all went off to check out our rooms and set up our beds. This time we had rooms of six, so our group of four from the day before was joined by Randy and April. We were in a cabin with two bedrooms, a loft with two more beds, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. It was nice and spacious, and cozy in a different way than the previous hostel. Ansley and I took the loft, which was super adorable, though the ladder up to it was awkward and bringing our stuff up and down was a definite struggle bus. The kitchenette was also super cute, and it was stocked with plates, pots, and even a hot water heater, so we were disappointed that we had no food to make. Instead, dinner consisted of chicken sandwiches and soda at the hostel dining room, which was also pretty tasty, if not as exciting as our other meals. After dinner we hung out in the lounge with some other people for a while. There were two other DIS classes there that night (one Psychology and one European Politics and Society) so a group of people went “out,” but it was such a small town that we didn’t want to participate in a DIS invasion. Jenna I played a game of Go Fish with the other people in the lounge and someone even found a guestbook from the 60′s. It was pretty cool to hear about other people travelling through the same hostel fifty (wow that’s weird to say) years ago, enjoying their own European discoveries. After one round of Go Fish, I was pretty tired, so I headed off to the cabin to join Ansley and Allie who were already there. We had a nice little chat up in the loft before we all went off to sleep.

Saturday:

Saturday morning, I was a little sad that our trip was ending, but also pretty tired and ready to be home. It was weird to be going “home” but not HOME, and it didn’t help that everyone was moving in at Carleton that day. Breakfast at the hostel was perhaps even more yummy than the last one. They not only had all the same bread/jam/cheese, but also chocolate slices to put on your bread with butter. Allie had been telling me about them because her host family has them a lot, so I was quite excited to try. Sure enough, it was just as delicious as it sounds. I also had a bowl of raw oats (what Danes have instead of cereal) with yogurt for good measure. I was absolutely stuffed and could not have eaten another bite, which is saying a lot for me.

That morning our final stop was in Jelling to see the Jelling stones, some runestones carved in the late 900′s (the Viking era) by Harold Bluetooth (namesake of Bluetooth technology) and his father Gorm the Old. We first got a guided “tour” of the museum (there was only about one room) and our guide got pretty into it and acted out some pieces, so it was more entertaining than ancient history usually is for me. We also learned about the horrible things the Vikings did to their slaves, like cutting off the tip of their nose and purposefully infecting the wound with gangrene to mark slaves as different from regular people. Pretty gross and awful. Then we had a few minutes to check out the real Jelling stones outside, and climb one of the “mounds” built to mark/frame the spot. We had to hurry off to lunch because we were already running pretty late, and Julie and Tilde told us we’d only have about half an hour to get our food and eat once we reached the restaurant.

Our final lunch was a traditional danish buffet, with bread, meats, salmon, shrimp, hard-boiled eggs, sausage, cheese, and a few veggies stuck in here and there. I grabbed almost everything even though I’d had a huge breakfast. Something about being on “vacation” during this trip made me feel like I could eat anything and everything. Again I stuffed myself to bursting, but it was delicious and I regretted nothing. Back on the bus for our final 3 hour leg, Julie and Tilde played a Danish movie they’d warned us about the first day. I didn’t watch it because I was too busy doing Sudoku, reading Harry Potter, and sleeping, but I heard that basically everything bad that could happen did happen in that movie. When we were approaching Copenhagen, Julie and Tilde surprised us by bringing out cupcakes they’d gotten for Dylan’s birthday, which had been the day before. It was a nice way to round out the trip while we filled out our study tour evaluations and prepared ourselves for arrival back in Copenhagen.

In the final goodbyes and walking to the train station, vague plans were made for Tivoli, dinners, and fun things ahead. Søren was nice enough to pick me up from the train station because the bus wasn’t coming for another hour. Lots more has happened since I arrived home, but that is a topic for another post. This study tour was more fun than I ever thought it would be, and I learned and experienced more than I expected to. I am now eagerly awaiting our week-long tour to MILAN of all places, which will no doubt be even more exciting and exhausting. The rest of the weekend has been quite excellent, and a post about that is coming soon.

Final note: I was chosen to be a DIS blogger! That means that MY BLOG will be posted on the DIS website with my photo and everything. I submitted my blog on a whim, never expecting to actually make it. Now I will have to step up my writing game, and continue to be diligent about updates. And I’ll actually have readers! (Not that I don’t count you, lovely family of mine and Allie. ) Thursday all the bloggers will meet and get our pictures taken, and get advice about blog stuff. I’m excited!

Fish and Chips

Last post before my short study tour! It’s hard to believe this semester is going by so quickly. In just three more weeks we will be headed off on our long tour to Milan. It’s very exciting but at the same time I’m starting to worry that I won’t get to see and do everything on my (yet-to-be-made) list. Everyone is already finalizing plans for our two week travel break at the end of October, and the rest of the semester is already coming into focus. Not to mention Carleton New Student Week is happening across the Atlantic. Before I get too far ahead of myself, though, I should fill you in on the happenings of this week so far.

Monday was a relaxed but long day since my first class wasn’t until 11:40 but I had Applied Psych in the evening until 7pm. Normally on my late mornings Charlotte and I have a nice breakfast together, but she was at work so I had a quiet morning with my cornflakes. My first class was Danish, which is beginning to get a little more challenging. The first few classes we were just going over basic phrases like “What is your name?” and “Where do you live?” but now we are getting into grammar and more complex vocabulary, and it’s a bit intimidating. Being the easily excitable nerd that I am, I practiced some Danish last spring, so I was familiar with basic questions as well as numbers up to 20, so I didn’t have to practice those things very much. Now that we’re moving beyond those early bits, though, I’m realizing that I will actually have to practice and study if I’m going to do this whole “learning Danish” thing. Apparently I’m not doing too badly, though, because we had a numbers competition, testing our knowledge of numbers 0-100, and I was one of the four winners. Unfortunately our prize was licorice candy, which seems to be an acquired taste, because I couldn’t handle it, and neither could most of my class, but the Danes love it.

After class I went to the library to find a movie I was supposed to watch for my Adolescence in Northern Europe class. The DIS library is pretty small (about the size of my elementary school library, plus some computers and a lounge study area) but it does have some great film rooms. To get a film, you just have to give someone in the office your student ID card, then you can go through a door and across a hall to the film rooms. There are two–one that’s bigger, and more like a small theater, and a small one with just a couch, some chairs, and a big flat screen TV. I chose the smaller one since  I was by myself, popped in the movie, and curled up on the couch to watch it. Overall a very pleasant viewing experience. The movie was called Råzone, and it’s about some Danish teenagers who get out of control and things turn out badly. It was pretty much like American films of the same genre, but luckily not as intense as I expected from the warning our teacher gave us beforehand. It was a nice way to spend a Monday afternoon, and I sort of wished I’d had popcorn to munch on. That evening, Applied Psych class was actually pretty fun. Our teacher is pretty eccentric, and she gets really into what she’s saying, which is good for a class so late in the day. We were discussing narrative therapy, and we even got to try it out by doing roleplays in groups, with one client, one therapist, and one observer. I was the client, the one thing I didn’t want to be, but it was actually pretty relaxing just telling someone about my life and having them listen to me. Between that class and my positive psych class, I’m getting pretty used to  this feelings-validation thing.

When I got home, my host parents had leftovers from dinner waiting for me. Charlotte described it pretty accurately as “Asian food made Danish” since there was meatballs with curry and rice. Curry = Asian. Meatballs = very Danish, not Asian. Despite its incongruousness, it was actually quite yummy, and it felt very hyggeligt to be sitting on the couch with my family while they watched the Danish version of Survivor and I ate my dinner. I definitely do not regret doing the host family option. The more I hear about other living situations, I am so glad I get to come home to a cozy family waiting to hear about my day over dinner.

Tuesday was pretty bland, just classes as usual. Every early class day I am struggling more and more to pull myself out of bed. As glad as I am to have a routine and feel comfortable in my environment, I kind of miss the days when jetlag, excitement, and nervousness made lack of sleep a secondary concern. I’m getting really good at sleeping on my morning train, and sometimes on the afternoon one too. Those naps help a little bit, but I should probably just start going to bed earlier…

Tuesday night I also went to a BLUS (basically an LGBTQ student organization in Copenhagen) event that I’d been invited to by Adda and Anthony from my buddy network. Originally Jenn was supposed to come with me, but about five minutes after my train left Hillerød I got a call from her saying she wasn’t going to make it. She’d realized she forgot her transportation pass and had luckily gotten off the train before it became a problem. You can get on the train without a ticket but if you get caught when they do their occasional inspections you have to pay a large fine. So basically she was stuck somewhere between her house and Copenhagen, and she’d bought a ticket back home but she lives beyond the S-tog area so she has to take the regional trains, which come much less often. Anyway, I was left to ride my train with the prospect of going to an event alone where there would be more Danes than DIS students. Obviously, it turned out fine and I ran into some other DIS people there and it was pretty fun. BLUS has a bunch of events planned for the semester, mostly on Tuesdays, that I may go to although probably not too many because I don’t like missing dinner at home. It was a fun way to hang out with a mixed group of people, however, and I ended up riding part of the train home with a Spanish guy we met who was pretty nice.

This morning I had my second field study, this time for my Positive Psych class. We met at DIS in the morning then walked to Parliament, at Christiansborg Palace (yes,the Danish Parliament is in a castle) where we met with Peter Juels Jensen, the education spokesman for the Liberal Party. I was expecting it to be a somewhat formal and serious event, but he was actually pretty funny and had some very interesting things to say about Danish happiness, the education system, and other political issues. We also got a great tour of Parliament, including some fancy meeting rooms, Peter’s office, and of course the room where all the action happens. Other than the fact that it was a castle, it seemed a lot like our American government buildings, except with much older decorations, more eccentric paintings, and a lot less security.

On the way back to the train station, I was absolutely starving, so I stopped for my first Danish hot dog, or pølser. There are stands all over Copenhagen, and they come in several different varieties, so I just went for the most basic since it was my first time. This one didn’t come with a bun, but it was a long (bright) red sausage with delicious mustard and ketchup on the side. The stands had been tempting me for a while, so I was excited to have an excuse to finally try one. Just as I suspected, it was super yummy, and now I’m really excited to try some different varieties with more toppings. I’d been planning to walk with it to the train station, but as soon as I got my food it started pouring out of nowhere. So I ended up eating my fast food like the Danes do, standing by the cart under the overhang to avoid getting soaked.

After my snack I had to hurry to the train station because today I had to register with my local kommune (municipality) to get my Danish CPR card so I can live here non-illegally and get benefits like free Danish healthcare. Charlotte was nice enough to pick me up from the train station and take me to the kommune because it’s way out on one side of town, and somewhat difficult to get to if you don’t have a car and don’t know the way (i.e. if you’re me). Registration was actually very easy, and quite different from my experiences at American DMVs. We had to take a number, but there were very few people there, so we only waited about a minute. At the desk next to us, a little girl was getting her first passport which was super adorable because you could see how excited she was to sign her own name for her own official passport. On the way home, we also stopped at Føtex, which is a bit like Fred Meyer or Target, only Danish so much much smaller. It’s fun for me to go to Danish grocery stores, especially because I’m not buying my own food or anything. I am always immediately tempted by all the candies and chocolates because for some reason foreign candy always seems that much more delicious. Plus kinder chocolate is just great. Luckily the high prices always keep me from even touching any of it. I think I’ll be in trouble as soon as I visit a country with even slightly cheaper prices.

Tonight I was able to hang out with my host family a little more since I don’t have any homework due until next week after my study tour. Charlotte and I might make cupcakes together sometime, because she has a cupcake cookbook but Danes don’t really have cupcakes, only muffins. As someone who loves cupcakes (pretty obvious given my recent blog theme change) I’m very excited to make them from scratch. Maybe I’ll even show them cupcake cones, though that might be too much to handle. At dinner we discussed Christmas traditions, which is getting me really excited for Christmas even though it is still a few months away. Since they don’t have Thanksgiving in Denmark, Christmas spirit starts in full swing in November, so it won’t be too long. I told them about eggnog, and I think the girls thought it was a pretty strange idea, but maybe I’ll make some for them this winter. After dinner, Cille, Nanna, and I took Maggie for her walk, which was really nice because we never really get a chance to chat just the three of us. Then we all played a family game, Ludo (kind of like Sorry or Trouble), and had some delicious apple streusel muffins Charlotte made. The game was very competitive, but it went on for a long while, so eventually we called it quits, and we each claimed to be the winner. It was one of the most hyggeligt nights I’ve had so far and it was a great last night before my first overnight trip.

[Pictures of above events coming soon!]

(About the title of this post: during the game Cille was swearing a lot and getting very angry when she would lose, and her parents were not too happy about it, so they asked me about nice ways to swear in English. I mentioned “gosh darn,” “fudge,” and “fiddlesticks,” which got transformed to “fish and chips” as they were all trying to pronounce it. One of those had to be there moments, but it was pretty hilarious.)

Winning

Yesterday was another long day. I had class first thing in the morning, at 8:30am, and of course I napped on my morning train ride. The first week I was here, the train was so exciting I wanted to spend the whole time looking around, but now I fall asleep almost every time.  After our morning class, Allie and I wandered over to the Black Diamond and sat outside in the beautiful sunshine.

sunny day outside black diamond

The week had been pretty rainy and gray, so it was nice to know that summertime isn’t quite over. After Allie left for her second morning class, I sat around for a little longer then took the scenic route back to DIS. On the way as I was walking past the canals, suddenly a band was playing out of nowhere, but I looked around and didn’t see a parade or anything. It turns out there was a boat passing by with a small ensemble playing on it, and it seemed like yet another sign of a wonderful Friday. My afternoon classes were pretty normal–we’ve gotten past the basic introductions now, and are moving on to more serious material, so I got my first real essay assignment… whoopee (not). After classes I checked my email in the library to waste some time, before heading to the metro station to go to my first Danish buddy network event.

As one of the possible immersion programs, DIS does a buddy program where you can be matched up with a Danish buddy, usually a university student, to get to know. I think they used to do one-to-one match-ups, but apparently students found that somewhat awkward, so this year they are doing a network system, where there are 10 Danish buddies and 20 American students. Each network gets a budget to be spent doing fun events together, so many of the networks did their first event this week. My network’s event was a dinner in Christiania, a sort of hippie-ish independent city within Copenhagen known for their “green light district” where people are selling and smoking pot out in the open. The police have been cracking down on the drug usage in Christiania recently though, so we have received many warnings not to partake in the available activities there. Christiania is also known for their funky houses and general atmosphere, so it’s a required stop for tourists in Copenhagen. For our dinner, we were meeting in the Christianshavn metro station, which was not difficult to find, only about 2 stops down from Nørreport, the station close to DIS. I got there pretty early so I sat for a bit then wandered back through the metro station looking for the group. I started to get a bit worried because I didn’t see a large gathering of Danish or DIS students, but then I saw a guy with a backpack (definite DIS student marker) who asked if I was from DIS. Together we ran into another student, and then we spotted a couple of Danish people across the square that had been standing there for a while. When we all met up, we found out we’d all been standing around for the past 10 min., not recognizing each other as part of the group. It was pretty silly, but I was mostly glad to have found the group successfully.

We waited around for several more minutes for other students to show up, but only about 5 DIS students from our network showed up. There was also a group of DIS students from DIS housing (sort of like dorms) who knew the “Danish buddy” organizing the event and were invited to come along. When it became clear that nobody else was coming, we started walking together over to Christiania. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to take pictures in Christiania because the residents don’t want to be caught on film doing their illicit activities so I have no pictures to show you, but it was a very cool place. We only walked straight to our destination, so we didn’t do a lot of exploring, but there were lots of painted murals everywhere and booths and we passed the sign for the “green light district” as well. On the way to the place where we were having dinner, we also passed a giant plastic jellyfish sculpture just hanging outside. I’m returning to Christiania for my Danish class later this month, so I’m really excited to explore it further.

The place where we had dinner was basically called “Gay House” in Danish (Bøssehuset I think?). It’s a venue for drag and other gay events, and groups can also rent it out for the night. When we got there they gave us some free drinks with blueberries that were quite good and we all stood around chatting for a bit. After a while we sat down at tables, with at least one Danish buddy per table, and waited for dinner to be ready. Everyone seemed really nice, especially the Danish buddies. The one at my table was Adda, who was actually Icelandic but she’d been living in Denmark for the past seven years. There were a couple of other non-Danish Danish buddies too–one from Portugal and one from South Africa, but all of them had been living in Copenhagen for several years. They were all very funny and friendly, and very interested in getting to know us. The conversation was actually much more academic than any I had had since being here, since they were all university students as well. It was nice to talk about something other than where I was living in Denmark and what classes I was taking.

For dinner we had food prepared especially for us by a chef guy who Anthony, the Danish buddy organizing the event, knew. We had pesto salad with grilled tomatoes, flødekartofler (basically potatoes baked with cream–very Danish), beef, and two kinds of bread. Everything was very delicious, and I ate until I was quite full. After dinner, we were divided up into teams for a quiz competition. Each team had to have a mascot, who got dressed up in the various crazy drag costumes in the back room. My team was the Swinger’s Club and our mascot, Michael, was wearing a ridiculous jellyfish tentacles thingy around his neck and an afro wig. The quiz was really fun and our team did pretty well. We only got second place, though, so we did not win the bucket of candy. All the DIS students ended up leaving after the quiz was over, which we felt a little bad about, but everyone had various morning excursions to attend and nobody wanted to try to find their way back to the train station alone in the dark. Overall it was a super fun night, and I got to hang out with some people I never would have met otherwise. Hopefully our network will have another event soon.

This morning I had to get up earlyish to get to Copenhagen by 10am to catch the bus to Helsingør (Elsinore in English)! My travel today was actually very silly because Helsingør is actually north of Hillerød, so I went 40 min. south only to go 1 hr. north, and on the way home I went 1 hr. south back to Copenhagen then 40 min. north again to get home. Lots of wasted time, but definitely worth it. I met up with Jenn at Frue Plads where we were meeting our bus, and we had a lovely bus ride along the coast up to Helsingør. Along the way were some very nice waterfront houses that were huge by Danish standards. Probably hugely expensive. When we finally got there, we got about an hour and a half to explore on our own before we had to meet up for our tour of Kronborg, Hamlet’s castle. Jenn and I wandered around the adorable streets of Helsingør, just looking around. There was some kind of children’s fair going on, and so there were a lot of kids in fluorescent yellow vests and there was a giant giraffe bouncy castle in one of the squares.

streets in elsinore

giraffe bouncy castle

After seeing the town, we went to find the ice cream place that Allie had recommended to me after she went to Helsingør last weekend. It was called Brostraede Is, and it was quite delicious. I definitely recommend it to anyone going to Helsingør. I got caramel ice cream with fresh whipped cream (a common thing in Denmark, I think) and a bit of real strawberry sauce on top. The caramel and strawberry didn’t clash as much as I expected, and the whole thing was super yummy. The waffle cone was also really good–thinner than American ones and more sugary/crispy.

super excited for my ice cream

It was another sunny day, so we sat outside and ate our ice cream, and then had our lunches. My packed sandwich and apple were yummy, but a bit underwhelming after having ice cream (maybe that’s why you don’t have dessert first?) but my host mom had given me some candy too so I had a second dessert to round out the meal. By the time we finished lunch, it was time to head back to the group meeting place to get our castle tour. I was pretty convinced that Jenn and I had “won” this part of the day, since we found the public restroom right away (the thing everyone was looking for as soon as we got off the bus) and got delicious ice cream. Of course, nobody else recognized our clear victory, but pride of winning was enough of a reward.

For the tour, we had to get divided into smaller groups, which was done by calling out all our names individually and sorting us by last name. Definitely not the most efficient process (Kendall, you would not have been able to handle it), especially considering everyone was just going to go with their friends anyway. When we finally got going though, the tour was really interesting. It was nice to get some more history and explanations of the appearance of the castle, unlike when I went to Frederiksborg and couldn’t even read the signs in Danish. Apparently when opening Kronborg to the public, they decided not to put in fake restored items, so most of the walls were bare but all the items there were original, about four hundred years old.

cool ceiling (my favorite )

We also got to go down in the old dungeons, where they performed tortures long ago. There is also Holger Danske, a statue of a famous Danish Viking hero who is supposedly sleeping until Denmark is in grave danger, when he will awake and defend it. His legend is very famous and all Danish children know about him.

Holger Danske

gorgeous view out of Kronborg

It was a long tour, and by the end we were all pretty exhausted, especially because our group finished up with the dungeons, which were very dark and a bit scary to navigate. The floors were super bumpy rocks and the ceilings were low, so you felt like you were going to trip at any moment. As interesting as they were, it was a bit of a relief to walk out of the dungeons and into the sunshine. After the tour, we took the bus all the way back to Copenhagen, when I caught a train all the way back up to Hillerød. It was a lot more travel than necessary, but Jenn and I chatted on the bus ride and it was quite pleasant. On my train, I obviously fell asleep yet again, since I was pretty tired from walking all day.

After dinner tonight we (it was just me and my host parents because Nanna was at work and Cille was at a friend’s house) took Maggie for a walk as usual, but we stopped by Søren’s aunt and uncle’s house for tea. They were just as friendly as the rest of the family has been, and their English was pretty good (I think Søren’s aunt studied in England when she was younger). Søren’s uncle was very funny, just like the old men you see in the movies, who are allowed to be inappropriate because of their age. It’s funny to be able to meet so many members of the family; I’m not used to having everybody live so close together. Of course, in Denmark, 30 minutes is a pretty far distance, and if you live 3 hours away, it’s good to see you a few times a year. Tomorrow I will meet even more family members because there is a women’s race, that I agreed to participate in my first day here, that practically all the women in the family are participating in. The distance is about 5 km., or 3 miles, but Charlotte assures me that she will be mostly walking too, so I’m hoping it will be relatively low key.

I’m really starting to get used to living here, and it’s almost weird to think about going back to the U.S., and to Carleton especially. Since Carleton New Student Week is starting soon, I’m getting emails from the GSC and such about various preparations, and it’s hard to believe that all that is still happening across the ocean, even though I’m not there. At the same time, it also seems odd that I’m going to be here for so much longer. I feel like I’ve been here a while, but I still have 3 and a half months to go. I’m sure it will speed by though–as I begin to make plans for travel and exploring, those 3 months are beginning to seem shorter and shorter. Only two weeks ago I arrived here exhausted and unsure of what would happen, and now I have an established routine–I’ve regained my anti-morning feelings, I fall asleep on the train, and I can find my classes without checking my schedule. So much has happened already–I can’t imagine how anything more could possibly happen to one person in such a short span of time.

Must go to bed soon and prepare for my race tomorrow. Nighty night.

(Also, Facebook pictures are now up for those visual learners out there. )