Estonian for a Day

Allison, Ben, Veena, and Kelly with their free julbyrg that I talked about last blog. 
The Tuborg Christmas elves. 
Stroget on Thursday. It was only about 3:30 when I took this, but it was almost completely dark. 

The ice skating rink set up in Kongens Nytorv, in front of the National Theater. Nyhavn (the famous canal street), would be right to the left, across the street. 

I officially have less than two weeks left in Denmark. Scary, scary thought. But I am trying to make the most of it. This past week all my classes have switched into wrap-up mode, and finals are imminent. We reached the crux of the semester in my European Union core course on Wednesday with our simulation game. I am a political science nerd, so I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though my partner was less than thrilled. 

For the game, the two EPS classes were combined to form the European Council. Not all countries were represented in the simulation, because we don't have quite enough people for all 27 member states. I don't know how my professor selected the countries, because we were divided into country groups on the first day of class, before the topic for the game was selected. It's kind of hard to explain the simulation without explaining the structure of the EU, which took me about half of this semester to figure out, so bear with me. The European Council is made up of the president's and prime ministers of the member states, so unlike the European Commission or Parliament, the Council is much more concerned with national interests than European interests. It will change once the Lisbon Treaty replaces the Nice Treaty (don't even worry about what that means), but currently, member states trade of the presidency of the Council every six months. President Sarkcozy of France is the President of the Council until December 31st, 2008, and the Czech Republic, which is currently vice-president will become president. So for the game, we were the country leaders, as well as the COREPER representatives, and dignitaries of the present member states. My group was the only group with two people, so we were doing stuff the whole time. 

I'm not entirely sure why Jacob chose Estonia to be one of the countries. We only have 1.4 million people in the whole country (that's about 1/5 the size of Denmark, which is tiny), and we only joined the Union in 2004, so we have basically no power whatsoever. The topic of the day was the climate package plan, "20 20 by 2020," meaning reducing carbon emissions and improving the amount of biofeuls and clean energy sources by 20%  by the year 2020. Everyone had to write position papers before the game on our countries' stances on different elements of the proposed plan. I just simply had to write on our paper for that there was no information on that subject for Estonia. I felt pretty dumb until during the actual game Jacob handed out this massive chart that had all the information for goals, and emission levels, and all sorts of official things that he and the program assistants put together, and every single slot for Estonia was blank. 

The Council meeting followed the official format, and everyone tried to make deals during the breaks, which is apparently how most of the work gets done in real life. The game took 4 hours, and we couldn't come to an agreement in that time, because Poland has some serious issues with coal dependency. Lucky for Estonia, we have a market-based economy, so as long as Russia doesn't screw us over by cutting off our natural gas (Russia is Estonia's only source of natural gas), we should be okay. 

After the game, there was a champagne reception at this really cool wine bar across the street from DIS. Everyone was trying to act like they didn't care about the game, but then they were really angry at France for being stupid (which they were alot of the time...I think the power went to their heads a little bit), and Poland was hacked off that no one would listen to their problems, and the Netherlands were annoyed with Denmark for undermining their proposal for burden sharing with a way less effective proposal of their own. All in all, I think the game got under people's skin more than they were willing to admit. My friends and I moved on to the cafe bar next door after the reception, where they got Christmas beers, and I just hung out, before moving on to this amazing dessert bar close to Vesterport station. I got Christmas tea there (infinitely better than the Christmas beer, in my opinion), and we ended up spending more than 3 hours there. 

Thursday instead of going to a regular Hans Christian Andersen session, the entire class was invited to my teacher's apartment. It was in this really cool area of town, Christianshavn, built along one of the canals. Apparently King Christian IV (who else?) built this neighborhood of Copenhagen as an island, on top of a whole ton of shipwrecked boats. But it was really fun, and she fed us lots of good Christmas treats, including some of the best hot chocolate I've ever drank, so a good time was had by all. 

Thursday was also Mette's real birthday, instead of just her party. I learned the meaning of sugar-overload that day, because we had traditional Danish birthday cake. I don't even know what all is involved in that, but it had a million layers and was pretty much delicious. They take the Christmas season very seriously here, so I have a feeling there will be lots more sugar to come. I only had one class on Friday, so I got to spend the day Christmas shopping after that. I know all the stores in the US are decorated for Christmas, but man, I promise it is nothing like here. I almost couldn't walk through some stores without getting caught on some form of decoration or another! And then at home, we have about 5 different forms of advent celebrations going on. There's the normal chocolate calendar, several hanging calendars, the advent candle, the Santa Lucia candle wreath, and apparently we get presents in our stockings every weekend of advent. It's a good thing I love Christmas. :)

The Lost Weeks

At the Colosseum with Meg!
This is at the top of the Vatican, but more specifically, St. Peter's Basilica. 
The Cupola of St. Peter's. The staircase winding up to it was ridiculous! For parts of the climb, I had to lean over from my hips to the side, which is not the most comfortable way to ascend stairs. 

Finally a sunny day in Zurich, Switzerland. 
Luzern (Lucerne), Switzerland, about an hour outside of Zurich. 
Erin and me outside of Malahide Castle in Dublin, Ireland. The shadow is of a kid named Bryan who we met there, who happens to be studying abroad in Rome. 
European Parliament! This is the picture that got me and two of my friends lost and separated from our group inside the European Union. We had quite the time finding our way back!

Okay, yes. It's been well over a month since my last blog. Now there is so much to say, I'm just going to rip off the band-aid, breeze through it, and move on. The pictures above are in reverse order from how they actually happened (have I mentioned that I hate the blogspot picture thingy??), but at least they loaded! Wahoo! In the past month and a half, I went on my long study tour to Brussels, Belgium, the Hague, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, went to Dublin, Zurich, Luzern, and Rome on my travel break, experienced the election Danish-style, and all other sorts of things upon my return to Copenhagen. 

Long study tour was a blast, and I love my program. The bulk of our time was spent in Brussels, because that is where the European Union is located. We had visits with representatives from the European Council, Commission, and Parliament, and also had to go off into Brussels on our own in small groups to interview lobbyist groups. My visit was at the Women's Lobby group, the largest representative of women's interest in the EU, which was really cool. We also visited NATO headquarters, which was probably my favorite academic visit. I realize I'm in a European Politics course, but it was great to also see how the US fits in with the international cooperation of Brussels. 

Academics aside, I loved Brussels because I got to see my friend Kerice from high school, who is studying abroad there. I got a way different feel for the city than the rest of my class. But as a class, we did discover Delirium, the famed bar of Brussels. This place had over 2,000 beers on tap. It was ridiculous. And these weren't pansy beers either. I don't know too terribly much about beer, but I'm told that normal beer is about 3-4% alcohol. Belgian beer averages about 13-16% alcohol. The morning after my entire program partied it up at Delirium (and some moved across the street to the absinthe bar), we had an early morning bike tour of Brussels. May I just say that that was not a smart idea a) because Brussels, unlike Copenhagen, is NOT a bike friendly city. Even those of us who weren't having specific issues were mildly terrified the whole time. And b) the night before was not conducive to coordination. Jacob, our teacher, (who actually fell off his bike), has assured us that the bike tour will not appear on the agenda for subsequent DIS tours. 

In the Hague, we visited the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), run by the UN. On the way there passed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which we were all way bummed we didn't get to go to as well. At the ICTY we talked to one of the prosecutors, and I'm pretty sure all the girls in the class wanted to be her. Her name was April, and she went to school at UT (boo) and SMU (yay!), had a really strong Texas accent, she was only in her 30s, and could basically kick butt in the international courts. We were all a little upset because we were supposed to sit in on some court action, but the case got moved, so we just got a tour instead. 

Amsterdam was only a quick visit, just for fun. I went to the Anne Frank house, and got a Dutch pancake, then headed to the Red Light District with my friends. We didn't actually partake in any of the activities offered there, but it was definitely an experience just to walk up and down the canals in that particular district. 

After an 18 hour turn around in Copenhagen, I headed off on travel break with my friend Erin. Dublin was our first stop, and Ireland is my absolute favorite. This was my second visit, and it definitely was not my last. Our hostel (both of our first real hostel experience) was amazing, and right in the thicke of everything. I think we saw just about everything thanks to the hop-on-hop-off tour, but the best part was listening to traditional Irish music at a pub one night. We were right up at the front, and had quite the rapport going on with the band, mainly because I started a round of clapping, when the crowd was being really boring, and then I requested an Irish song ("Tell My Ma," which I only know thanks to Ms. Duck), after the lead singer asked for audience requests for the billionth time, and no one responded. And afterwards, we went to another pub with some real live Irish people, Joe and Callum, so that was pretty exciting. 

Switzerland was great, mainly because Erin and I befriended an Australian kid named James, who joined us on a day trip to Luzern (Lucerne). Zurich was nice, but Luzern felt much more like a little Swiss town. 

Italy. What is there to say. Erin and I had gone our separate ways for the final week of break, and this is what I learned: Italian train workers suck. I met a very nice kid from Wisconsin who had to help me find my hostel as a result of the train workers sucking. I got to see my friend Meg (YAY!!!!!), but then we got caught in a torrential downpour (NO!!!!!!) that soaked us through to our skin, so we could not make it to our plans with the nice Wisconsin kid. The Vatican is amazing to see, but also really scary/intimidating for those (like me) who are not of the Catholic faith. The man at the hostel was really creepy, and liked me a little too much for comfort. The piazzas are crazy (in a good way), and are probably crazier without all the rain. In a nut shell, I'm glad I got to see Rome, but it is so not the city for me. I was beyond relieved when I got back to the order of Copenhagen. 

The week back from break was completely scattered. Everyone's sleep schedule was thrown way off, even more so from all night election parties that Tuesday, and a good chunk of my school was missing thanks to Sterling Airlines, which shut down suddenly thanks to the economic crisis, which left tons of people stranded. The Danish people were all overjoyed at the election results, as was I, and that week was basic merriment all around. My week was further scattered because Jesper wasn't home, and we had a 14-year-old girl from the Netherlands staying with us as a part of some EU project that Anne's involved in, so Tinne was pretty much freaking out that whole week. 

I also got to experience a HUGE Danish tradition: the release of Tuborg Julbyrg, or the Christmas beer. On Friday, November 7th, at exactly 8:59 pm, blue trucks rumbled away from the Tuborg factory on their way to spread Christmas cheer (and Christmas beer) to every bar in town. Almost all the bars were decorated for Christmas, and all of them were playing Christmas music. A truck would pull up, the back would open, and there would be a whole flock of people dressed in blue Christmas outfits. The girls were playing Christmas music from stereos, and passing things like stickers out, and then would dance into the bar alongside all the guys carrying in cases of beer. It was absolutely hysterical to watch. The trucks were even covered in soap suds to make it look like they were snow-covered. 

Enter the lost week. I was really sick, and have no clue what went on that week. 

Last week Lillian visited from Florence, where she's studying abroad. We went to Tivoli with a whole group of my EPS friends. I think Tivoli is really my favorite thing in Copenhagen. It was completely decorated for Christmas, and then it started to snow. It was beyond perfection. I'm just heartsick though, because I forgot my camera at home, because I thought we'd get back to my house between my last class and Tivoli, but we didn't. Oh well, c'est la vie. The next day we went to Lund, Sweden, which is just a tiny little Swedish town, but still fun to see. It's only about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Kobenhavn H (central station), and it was even more snowy than Copenhagen, and looked like an old fashioned Christmas card.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I got to celebrate it for real! Tinne is in this math dinner club thing with some fellow math professors, and it was her turn to host on Thursday. I convinced her to do a Thanksgiving dinner, and it was a smash success! I had found this store in Copenhagen that had some random American things, like turkeys, and cranberry sauce, and Stove Top stuffing, and I made a pumpkin pie. It was so bizarre to have to go to class that day, but it was also amazing to tell the story of Thanksgiving to all these 40-something Danish math professors.  

This weekend was exciting because on Friday my family and I went out to eat, which is a big deal here because it's so expensive. All the girls got good teacher-parent conference reports, so as is the tradition, we went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate. Yesterday was Ida's gymnastics competition, and also Mette's 18th birthday party. I spent a large portion of the night hiding out in my room, because there were over 30 people here, all speaking Danish (clearly), so it was a little overwhelming, but still fun. 

Phew!! I think that's a little bit of everything! I'm in my home stretch here, so I plan  on doing quite a few more blogs, because there is quite a bit going on right now! I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! 

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere!

Last night was Kultur Natten ("Culture Night") in Copenhagen, and the whole city was buzzed on the drug of relief that this past week was finally over. And a little alcohol, as well. This week was mid-terms for me, which were just plain hard, and the last week before a week-long break for the students and professionals of Denmark. 

The city made up for the hell that was mid-terms with a massive, Copenhagen-wide celebration of Danish culture. Through the night, the city's cultural institutions flung open their doors for the people of Copenhagen, and threw a party. I met up with a whole group of friends, and went to the top of Round Tower, the private cathedral of the Royal family that connects with Parliament, the ruins of Absalon's castle, and the inner parts of the city hall. 

Round Tower was built as an observatory during Christian IV's reign. To reach the top of the tower, you walk up this really broad, circling path up to the top. It was built so wide so that King Christian could ride up to the top in a horse-drawn carriage. Legend has it that even a car made a trip up in 1912. There was a little bit of a wait to see the observation deck, but the workers handed out chocolate, so all was well. At the top, there was a panoramic view of the city at night. One of my friends is in the Copenhagen history class, and knows all about the city (and her eyesight far surpasses mine), so she could point out all sorts of things, which was a ton of fun. 

The Royal family's cathedral used to be 100% private, but then some idiots who were on the river behind Parliament accidentally threw a firecracker on top of the roof, and it caved in. Taxpayer's money was used to fix the cathedral, and so to be fair the royal family opens it up for the public every now and again, like Culture Night once a year. I was a gorgeous room, and everything was either white marble, gilded with gold, or covered in red velvet. 

After the cathedral, we found our way across a plaza to wait to see the ruins. Bishop Absalon founded Copenhagen in 1167, and the ruins were his original seat and castle. Currently, they lie underneath Parliament, and so no one hardly ever gets to see them. It was so cool and dark and creepy because you had to climb down these stairs that wound their way underground. The ruins weren't all that much to see, but hey, they've been there since the 12th century, which made them impressive. Also, there was a group of nuns singing, and we followed them up and out to where there was a group of monks. And all of this was amidst a fairly tipsy crowd. 

In Denmark, there aren't any rule about public intoxication, or drinking in public, and so everyone was roaming the streets holding beer cans and what not. But last night was also fairly family-friendly, and so I didn't really see anyone getting out of hand. On the way to city hall, we tried to go to the old jail, but it closed right before we got there. It was okay though, because outside of the jail I bought a bag of almonds from a street vendor that were still hot from being coated in cinnamon, sugar, and I don't know what else, so life was pretty fantastic at that point. 

The bus ride home was fairly intense. I've never taken a bus that late (the 12:01), and I've never seen so many people on it at the same time! The bus driver actually closed the door on people, and left some stranded at the station because the bus couldn't hold any more. He didn't even stop at the first few stops, because no one had chimed to get off, and so he wouldn't even try to take more on. Usually if the bus is full, I only have to wait a couple of stops, and then there are plenty of places to sit. Last night, there wasn't room until one stop before I get off (so for about 30 minutes), and then of course there was no point. I finally got to go to sleep for a loooong time, and it was beyond amazing. 

And then today was Halloween at Tivoli!

I am a bit of a fool for any type of holiday, but I absolutely love Halloween. Pumpkins are my favorite, and I just love everything about it. And because all of the children of Denmark are off of school this week, Tivoli re-opens for this one week, completely bedecked for Halloween. I met up with four other EPS girls to just hang out in the park. We only payed for admission, and not for the rides, but it was completely worth it. I have never seen so many pumpkins in my entire life! They added a whole little Halloween village, and almost every square-inch of that place was covered. I'm so glad that I went to Tivoli in September because I could really see the difference. I finally got to have hot apple cider (the kid version, not the alcoholic type), and I felt a bit akin to a little kid in the biggest candy shop in the universe. 

For the rest of tonight I have to pack because tomorrow travel break begins! I'll be on a bus all day on my way to Belgium, Brussels. I'm so excited because I'll get to see my friend Kerice from home, because she's studying in Belgium for the semester. The focus of Belgium will be the EU, obviously, the UN, and NATO. I'm SO excited. After about four days in Belgium, we'll head to the Hague, Netherlands, to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Did I mention I'm excited?!?!

Then after a quick regrouping in Copenhagen, I'll be off to Dublin, Ireland, Zurich, Switzerland, and Rome, Italiana for two more weeks of traveling! This is the main event of studying abroad, and I don't think I could be more anxious/excited/slightly scared (ALL in a good way) if I tried! Wish me luck!

P.S. Once again, through multiple attempts, Blogger has failed to load my pictures. I blame slow internet connection. :(

Some pictures of Sweden

Read the post below first... These are just some pictures of Sweden from last weekend, because I didn't actually post any yesterday. I haven't uploaded pictures into a facebook album yet, but as soon as I do, I'll put that link here as well!



My first time in Sweden! Woohoo!
On the hike down, down, down.

Andy had my camera in Ladonia, because I needed both hands for climbing.
Becca from Danville, KY, me, and Erin from Columbus, Ohio.

What to do, what to do

This weekend is my first weekend out of four weekends to spend in Copenhagen. I'm a little bit at a loss for what to do with myself! Four weekends ago was short study tour, then there was Bornholm, Sweden, and now! So far as I can tell, Danish families don't really do all that much on the weekends, and no one has left the house all day. Luckily, I have to go into the city tomorrow to do some research at the library, and for a consultation on a project with my Creative Industries teacher, as well as a textile designer, so I won't get cabin fever.

So, two weekends ago was biking in Bornholm. We had to meet at Frue Plads by our school at 9 o'clock at night to take a bus to the overnight ferry that you have to take in order to reach this remote little Danish island. It's actually so remote that after WWII, everyone sort of forgot to kick out the Russians who occupied Bornholm, and so it remained under Russian control for several years after the end of the war. Poor little island! The overnight ferry wasn't too bad, but I only got about two hours of sleep, which, as I found out, is not conducive to successful biking. We arrived at our hostel in the town of Gudhjem at sunrise. I was in the first of two to get to eat breakfast, so my friends and I ate, were given bikes, and sent off on our own to explore the island by 8:15.

Bornholm is in the Baltic Sea, about 5 hours away from anything (by boat, obviously). It was great and beautiful and everything, but oh my goodness was it hilly! I was biking, on rickety old street bike, with three other people. Three of us were normal, and one was an athelete. We were Andy, Dana, and I (ALL from the Seattle area!), and Allison, whom I love, but she does crew at Maryland, and pretty much kicked all of the Seattle-kids butts. It was a really hard day for me, and I've decided that I will never bike uphill ever again, but it was completely worth it for what we saw. Besides the beautiful, wild coastline that made me miss home, we saw castle ruins that reminded us all of Ireland, as well as one of the three round churches that Bornholm is famous for. The church that we went to at Olsker was built by the Vikings in the 12th century. You could go up the narrowest, most shallow staircase I have ever seen in my life, to the upper two stories.

When my friends and I started climbing, I was a bit slower than them because I was still exploring down below. I didn't actually know there was a third floor, and when I got up to the second floor, with the shaking, creaking wood floor, in a dark room and didn't see anyone, or any way out, I got mildly freaked out. Thankfully, when I called out my feeble "guys?" they answered from above. Which was ironic, given I was in a church.

On the bike ride back, up another, never-ending hill, I was seriously tempted to just give up, and sit down by the side of the road and wait. We got completely lost in the farmlands of Denmark, and though we saw some adorable animals, it was not exactly what I would call fun. But we made it back, sore butts and all. We joined up with some other kids later that night to go out for some dessert, and watched as our fellow DIS-ers searched the town fruitlessly for a bar, or really any form of nightlife, of which there was none to be found.

The next day we weren't really in to the whole biking idea, so we set off on foot to find Baltic Sea and Glass, an amazing glass-blowing place we had heard about. The director of the hostel gave looked up the bus schedule so that we could ride down to what was supposed to be a gorgeous beach, instead of biking there, which was a way longer trek than we had made the day before. So we went to the glass blowing place about 4 kilometers away, and then walked another few kilometers to wait for the bus. We waited. And waited. And waited. The bus never came. We walked back towards our town, and passed the Bornholm museum. After consulting one of the helpful workers, we discovered that tourist season just ended, and therefore, there would be no bus. At all.

Well, great. We walked all the way back to town and had an excellent meal of smoked herring (which Bornholm is also famous for). My more intrepid biking-mates headed back out to do a few more hours of exploring on wheels. After biking back up the hill to get out of town, I said no thanks, and did my exploring closer to home. Another overnight ferry back to Copenhagen, a bus ride, and a short walk later, I fell into bed at 9am Monday morning.

Sunrise on Bornholm right when we got to the hostel.

A very small part of the castle ruins.
The round church with the coolest tree ever.
Me, Allison, and Dana right behind Baltic Sea Glass.

Last weekend on Sweden was much more relaxing. Instead of leaving at night, we had to meet early in the morning for the bus to take us to the ferry to Sweden. Then it was only one day of biking, followed by a day of canoing. The biking was so much easier than on Bornholm, which was greatly appreciated, although it still wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I was with two different girls, and a different Andy than I was with on Bornholm, and we still managed to get lost. This time, we ended up hiking our bikes up a nature trail because we took the wrong turn off without realizing it. We finally got to a place where we could lock our bikes, and continue hiking towards our goal unencumbered. It was kind of a hard hike, but we got to visit a whole other country (neither Sweden nor Denmark) once we reached the end. We were in the country of Ladonia, in a city made entirely of driftwood, on the beach of Nimis. This guy built the city out of driftwood, including towers and walkways, which the government of Sweden sort of had a problem with. And so, the country of Ladonia was declared. It was sad that the founder wasn't at home, because you can become a citizen of Ladonia for free, or pay $12 for a title of nobility.

The next day was canoeing, which is my absolute favorite! It took my friend Erin and I awhile to figure out how to keep straight, but once we did, there was no stopping us. All the leaves have started changing colors, and it was a beautiful day on the river, albeit a bit nippy. Once we reached the boathouse where we had to leave the canoes, we had time to walk into a random Swedish town, where we found ice cream and a petting zoo. The DIS bus picked us up back at the boathouse, and a bus ride, ferry ride, another bus ride (on which we passed my exit for home, which was torturous), and a last bus ride 40 minutes back to where we had passed, and another weekend came to an exhausted close.
This is Nyhavn, the area of town that has the canal street, the night before leaving for Sweden.

This coming week is mid-terms, so I'm anxious to have that over with. Then, this coming Saturday, I leave on the long study tour to Brussels and the Hague, and the three week travel break begins! I have a bit more planning left to do, so I'm looking forward to a crazy week!

Fall Came to Europe, I went to Germany (and some other places too)

WARNING: This is perhaps the longest blog in the short history of blogging, so enter with caution!

Oh my goodness, so much has happened in the last two weeks I don't even know where to begin! I guess at the beginning would be good. But first, I must apologize once again for the lack of pictures. This time I'm writing this on a school computer, so I don't even have access to my pictures, but they will come soon!

Okay, so two weeks ago Thursday, on September 11th, I left with my European Politics & Society class on our short study tour. The EPS kids were really lucky, because we were one of the only programs that got to leave the country. We were study the EU, and what role it plays in European border regions, so we headed to northern Germany. First we stopped at the Lolland Kommune in southern Denmark to talk to the head of the Administration there. He, like many Danes, was fairly anti-EU, and we didn't really learn much of anything about EU relations. He was more focused on Danish regional development, which wasn't all that interesting, and didn't really pertain all that much to what we were studying. After his talk though, we boarded the ferry bound for Germany!

Back on the bus, and before arriving in Lübeck, Germany, one of our Danish tour leaders, Jakob (note: NOT my teacher Jakob, but a different one) gave us all Danish pieces of candy. We've been warned about the perils of Danish licourice, and how it is ten times stronger than American black licourice, but this candy was in small balls that were brightly colored, so we thought we were safe. Oh how we were wrong! Inside these unassuming little balls there was the worst form of the licourice. Salty liquid grossness. I'm not sure any of us actually got it down. Candy here is so much less sweet than at home. Jakob then came around with something called Turkish Peppers. We were all too wise by this point to sample it.

Anyway, we arrived in Lübeck, the city of seven spires, and were met by a German tour guide named Manfred for a guided bus tour of the historical city. Holy cow this was so not your typical high school bus tour. This guy, who, for starters was pretty old and had a giant, white handlebar mustache, was SO dirty! He kept on making all of these sexual references to everything in town, so even the guys felt sort of awkward. Lübeck is known for its excellent marzipan, and he informed all of the guys that they needed to get some, seeing as it's an aphrodisiac. He also mentioned something about champagne, and taking someone's virginity, and I don't even know what all. He definitely made for some great entertainment, but was certainly not family rated!

Lübeck is this gorgeous old city, and it is in one of the regions that was bombed the least during WWII. But that's not to say it got out completely unscathed. Manfred the Crazy took us to this beautiful cathedral, which was home to the biggest organ in either Germany, Europe, or the world (I got a little confused on that point, and Mom, I have pictures). But it also had one of the saddest things I've ever seen. The cathedral got hit in one of the last bombings of the war, and the bells fell from the bell tower. They were left there as a memorial to all those who died. Here is where I had conflicting sadness. These giant bells were cracked and smashed, and halfway in the floor, and one of those things that is so beautiful, but so heartbreaking at the same time, but I don't know if it is a memorial to the German Natzis who were killed, or those that they killed. There was a sign in German that I took a picture of that I think might explain it, but I need my sister to translate it. I'm assuming it's for those that were killed, but still. Not a great thing to be unsure of.

After the cathedral and some walking around time, we went to where we were eating dinner that night at Schiffergesellschaft. It was the coolest place EVER. Manfred had taken us there earlier. It's this old, oooold place from the 16th century where all the sailors met to discuss the shippers business. It was basically the early meeting point for the shippers union. But everything was completely preserved, so we sat on these pew-like benches that were grouped closely together with the ships' seals carved in them, and ate off of 400-year-old oak tables. And the food was A-mazing. No offense to Danish cooking, but German cooking totally kicks its butt. Plus, they even brought us seconds. Mmmm...

We then had to leave the fair city of Lübeck for the horribly industrious city of Kiel, Germany, where a cocktail bar provided the lone source of entertainment before bedding down for the night in my first hostel ever. The next morning at breakfast, my friends and I talked to a German couple who had both studied in the States for the year during high school, and that was the highlight of Kiel. We went on a random ferry ride, had the most boring tour guide ever, which made us all miss Manfred terribly, inappropriate comments and all, I ate the single worst piece of quiche ever, and we were pretty set to get the heck out of there. First we had to talk to a couple of EU workers of Schlesswig-Holstein who were total politicians and THEN we got to leave.

We ended up in the most picturesque Danish town I've seen yet. Sønderborg is located right on the Baltic Sea, and is now just a sleepy little town. I had a really bad night there because I didn't feel all that well and decidedly did not want to go out to bars and stuff, but the only other option was being alone at night in a hostel in the woods. So I went. The next day though, academia aside, was great. I had my first shot ever, provided by my really cool study tour leaders (including the associate director of DIS), on a Danish battle field, at noon. It was this stuff called Gammel Dansk, which is super bitter, but I didn't mind so much because I didn't know what it was supposed to taste like. Everyone else had something to say though. But a tour of Sønderborg, a couple of cultural stops, some cake, coffee, and a long bus ride later, we were back in Copenhagen, very late at night, and extremely exhausted.

Whew! This is definitely turning into the longest post ever! Sorry!

The study tour was the start of an insane two weeks. The Sunday after the Saturday (the 13th) we got back, a friend of my host family's stopped by with her baby. It was cool to meet her, and play with her baby a little, but most of the conversation was in Danish since they were catching up, so I didn't have much to contribute.

Then on Monday, the house was overrun by math scholars. Both Tinne and Jesper are math professors, and they had some of their students over for a pizza party, as well as an Itlian professor from UC-Berkley. I was the only "kid" home, but it was actually kind of cool, because everyone was speaking English, and these were University students as well, even if some of them were alot older then me (like the guy sitting next to me, who was married with a baby on the way).

But oh then Wednesday came. Wednesday the 17th, I got to go to Tivoli for the first time. Generally, 3 hours is a totally sufficient amount of time to spend in this park, which happens to be the oldest amusement park in the world. I spent 10 hours there. We had a field study there for my Creative Industries course at 11 when it opened, so then I spent awhile walking around with kids from my class. But then I ended up with this guy from my class and his girlfriend who had come to join us, making me the most awkward third wheel ever, with this couple I didn't know. On all the rides at Tivoli, you sit two by two, so I was left to slide around in the seat behind these two. NOT FUN. But I had to stick it out for awhile, because Anne (15-year-old host sister) was dancing in Tivoli at 4:30, and then I was going out to dinner with the fam and some friends.

It turned out that after Anne danced, the family wanted to spend some time in the park, so we were to meet at the restaurant in Tivoli at 6:30. I took Ida around, which, let me tell you, was scads more fun than the random couple. Then we had to meet up for dinner with SOME people. Yeah, so it turned out to be 25 Danish people and me! Guess which language was spoken? This one lady accross from me talked to me every once in awhile, and some people debated politics with me, and asked if my family at home went out to eat all the time, but mostly I just sat there. It was sad, too, because I kept on hearing McCain and Obama, and I wanted to join in the conversation so badly! I mean, this is why I'm in Europe! To discuss politics! Oh well. After dinner, we walked around some more, got ice cream, and then finally got to leave at 9.

The next night I went back to Tivoli, but this time for a ballet of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinderbox" on the original Tivoli stage. It was a great performance, the sets and costumes were designed by the queen of Denmark, and I was only there for about an hour and a half.

The next day, Friday, September 19th, marked the start of my weekend biking the INSANELY hilly Danish island of Bornholm. But I'll save that, and write about it after I bike and canoe in Sweden this weekend. But let me just say this; I was not meant to be an athletic person for a reason...

How Time Flies

Oh my goodness, I uploaded a picture! I'll see if I can't post more as I go along. This picture is of SOME (nowhere near all) of the bikes at Norreport station, where I catch the bus everyday. It's been quite the past week here in Denmark. I had to remember how to use my brain to complete schoolwork, which ended to varying degrees of success. But more importantly, I found my crown jewels! Oh, and they were worth the wait. I felt a little ridiculous when I realized that there was an entire castle about two blocks to the left and across the  street from the train station, but really, the spire on Rosenborg castle looks pretty similar to every other castle. But I did fun stuff all three days this weekend, and it made for a pretty good time.

(Publisher's note: So I got pictures to load, but they aren't in the right spot. Hmm...another challenge.) 

On Friday afternoon, I drudged home, exhausted from the day and from a short-lived, but still acutely miserable cold. After drifting aimlessly around the house for awhile, I went on a quick trip with Ida and Jesper to drop Anne's overnight stuff off at a friend's house. But as it turns out, this friend lives in Holte (note: not Gammel Holte, where I live). Holte, the new-and-improved Gammel Holte features the most expensive homes in all of Denmark. They weren't huge compared to American mansions, but compared to the houses with the thatched roofs in the Gammel neck of the Holte woods, they were downright monstrous. After dropping off Anne's stuff, and passing more "Dutch houses," which are made mostly of wood, which is not the house-building material of choice in Denmark, we went to Ima, the grocery store, to indulge in a Lutzen-Kjeldsen Friday night tradition. Each person can buy whatever candy they like, but it cannot be worth more than 11 Kroner (a little more than 2 bucks). I was ever so happy to eat my choice of gummy bears and a little snickers bar while watching "Friends" on the couch with Ida. But oh yeah, I'm in Denmark...

So later Friday night, I caught an 8:40 bus to meet my friend Erin in Copenhagen. We were both still suffering from colds, so we just walked around for awhile, and weren't really in the party mood. We stopped in a small Muslim kebap shop, so Erin could get some food. After we were spoken to in French (I thoroughly surprised the old man when I answered him), asked if we were Dutch, and questioned as to our political persuasions, the man behind the counter told me that I reminded him of a dream he'd had the night before. Okay, that's kind of sketchy. After assuring both the French man and the man behind the counter that yes, we would vote, and yes, we would vote for Obama, we were allowed to continue our night.  Walking down Stroget, we decided that we absolutely needed gelato (which, on top of gummy bears and snickers, supplied quite the sugar rush), and eventually found our way to an outdoors cafe, where we ordered wine and sat outside, moving underneath a patio umbrella when it started to rain. I can't speak for Erin, but I know I felt pretty fabulously European. 

However, the next day we were tourists, through and through. I met Erin again in Copenhagen and went to Rosenborg Slot, and to see my jewels! King Christian IV built the castle in the late 16th century as a summer castle (meaning, as you will see, there are multiple Christian IV castles) for his wife, Anna Catherine. The top three pictures are all of Rosenborg. The castle was of course impressive, as most castles are, but what really made it were those jewels. The only other crown jewels I've seen were in England. The display of the Danish crown jewels is much more humble. You enter through the door that says "treasury," and there are all sorts of gilded weapons, but mostly swords and guns off to the right. On the left of the entrance, there are more what I would consider fancy houseware. Like, sparkly boxes and vases and that sort of thing. But in this dungeon-like room there was another door, leading further down still. This was the vault with the jewels. There were the crowns of the king and queen, the absolute crown, the ball and scepter, and all sorts of emerald, ruby, or pearl encrusted, gilded finery. 

Sunday, I discovered that Frederiksborg Slot ("castle") is  grand without aid from luxury gems. Frederiksborg is another castle by the one and only Christian IV. This king had so much money because he was the first monarch to rule after Denmark became a Protestant state, meaning the Catholic church had to turn all of its money over to the absolute monarch, Christian IV. He liked to build castles and make war, and under his rule both the treasury and the extent of Danish territory grew markedly smaller. The castle has over 300 rooms, so I made sure to go with a DIS-led tour, especially knowing my tendency to get lost. The tour lasted an hour, but we barely saw any of the castle. But it really was beautiful, and Christian certainly spared no expense. Even the ceilings in these places are insane. 

Later Sunday night I had to write my first essay of the year. It was on a fairy tale though, so it wasn't too bad. Although this so-called tale made me cry, and I wouldn't recommend it for children. I'm already done with classes for the week because I don't have a field study tomorrow BUT this is the week of the short study tours! I'm so excited because on Thursday I get to go to Germany for the first time ever. I am very lucky to be in the European Politics program, as we are one of the only groups leaving Denmark for the weekend. Also, tomorrow I am hopefully finalizing my plans for the three week travel break in October! Exciting stuff. 

Oh, yes! And since I am apparently a failure at posting blog photos, to see more pictures go to: 

http://facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039578&1=0785a&id=24904347

and

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=203958&1=a2aff&id=24904347

                                                    

Walking in a Fairytale

First of all, I still cannot get the pictures to load correctly, and I keep on taking more! I have yet to figure out who I can consult about my minor technical difficulties while I'm in Copenhagen. Plus, I think it's something with my computer not working, not the program, because I'm having Facebook difficulties as well. Hmm...hopefully I can sort this out soon because my day to day would be so much better with pictures to show from it. 

Today was my first field study. The way classes are organized, we have every Wednesday off in order to do these studies, which are sort of like grown-up field trips. Ideally, you are only supposed to have one field study per Wednesday. Unfortunately for me, in a few weeks I have one make-up class and three field studies planned for the same date and time. Uh-oh! But that is an issue for another time. 

This morning I had to meet in the DIS courtyard for a 9:30am study for my H.C. Andersen class. We had to divide into groups, and then go out in the city to complete a sort of scavenger hunt of places that were important to the master of fairytales. They weren't the most interesting sites because they were all located fairly close to DIS, but I still enjoyed it (yes, academically), which I think is more than I can say for the rest of my group. The sheet with the questions helped me sort of figure out the history of the places I've been passing everyday, not all of which was pleasant.

For example, Slutterigade Plads is the square that has the Court House, which used to be the jail, next to which is Nytorv Plads that has a platform where people used to be flogged or beaten ("Her stod byens kag i en periode indtil 1780"). We also had to find Skindergade, a street where the animals were skinned in the olden days. I was actually on that street the other day, and vaguely wondered why it smelled so strangely. Not all of the places had that much to do with Andersen. Perch's Teashop (where I had also already visited) was on the list, but only because it was established in 1835, which, as far as we know is only important to Andersen because that was almost the only time in his life when he had some sort of significant other (although whether that other was male or female is still somewhat up in the air). But I did find out that the famous teashop has an upstairs tearoom, which I plan on visiting on the first truly miserable day, to treat myself to a cup of tea and a hot scone. 

The real highlight of the hunt was its end at a coffee house called Dalle Ralle. Our professor treated us all (over 60 of us) to drinks. To be fair, we think that there is a budget for each field study, and it's up to the professors to spend it however they wish. We're all becoming increasingly fond of our professor Janis. My latte was pretty much the best one I've ever had. It probably helps that I haven't had any form of caffeine since arriving in Denmark. 

After the scavenger hunt ended, I spent the rest of the day roaming the streets by myself. I forgot my cell phone at home, so I couldn't call any of my friends to come join me, but I got around okay. I never found the castle with the crown jewels, as was my intent, but I stumbled on to some other cool finds. Let me explain though, that not being able to find an entire castle was so not my fault. The lady at the DIS front desk said to just go to the castle, but she didn't give me a name before she returned her gaze downwards, clearly indicating she was done dealing with me. People, this is Denmark. There are SO many castles! So I wandered off in the general direction she had flung her arm to show me, and sadly never found the jewels. BUT I did finally find one of the royal bakeries! Home of the wienerbrod. AKA the most amazing danishes in the history of the world! That kind of made my day. I also found the Copenhagen University Library, which is gorgeous and just plain cool on the inside (gosh, I have pictures of it...if only I could load them!). I returned to Trinity Church, where I had gone earlier in the day on the scavenger hunt, but this time without the 50 million other Americans, and I also found what I think was the music district. 

Tomorrow I'm going to find the local kommune in the town of Holte to register for my CPR number, which is sort of the Danish social security number that gets you all of the same benefits as the Danes. Yay!

Welcome to Wonderful Copenhagen

At least that is was everyone here keeps saying. But I must admit that everything has been pretty great so far. I arrived in Copenhagen on Sunday evening local time, and the week has passed in a blur of orientation activities. It's already Sunday again! Since I'm new at this whole blog thing, and I haven't really talked to anyone since I arrived here, thanks to a 9-hour time difference and a non-helpful calling card, I'm going to give a bit more detail than usual in the run down of my days.

Sunday: I arrived in Copenhagen dazed and confused after not sleeping at all on the overnight flight. My trip started off in an unexpected, unwelcome way when the direct flight I was taking from Seattle to Copenhagen was delayed 2 hours due to engine failure. Usually, that wouldn't really be a big deal, but this time it meant that I would miss the arrival deadline, and thus have to find my own way to the orientation site. The DIS (my school, the Danish Institute for Study Abroad) representative I talked to in Minnesota assured me not to worry and there were other DIS students on my flight, but still, it was not the most promising start.

On board the flight, I sat next to a 20-year-old German guy who thankfully spoke English. It was fun taking to someone my own age, until he mentioned something about a Madrid flight. When I asked him to explain, he told me that it was just in the news that the engine of a plane flying out of Madrid had failed like ours, and they replaced it, but then the new engine blew up, killing 130 people instantly. Great. We were still at the gate, and the plane hadn't started moving yet. He (we never exchanged names on the 9.5 hour flight) proved to be fairly entertaining seat company, until he started making fun of me during my desperate attempts to fall asleep in my airplane seat.

When I arrived in CPH, and breezed through customs, I realized that I was one of 13 of us coming from Seattle. We divided up into two groups to take these massive van cabs to the orientation site. It was actually really cool to meet them all, because we all are from the Seattle area, but like me, everyone goes to college at private universities scattered across the U.S.

The orientation site proved to be highly over-stimulating for my sleep deprived brain, but it didn't last very long, and then my host family came and picked me up. And oh my gosh how I love my host family! I'll explain more about them as I continue this ridiculously long post, but they are: Jesper the Dad (Yes-per), Tinne the mom (Teen-eh), Mette who is 17 (Met-teh), Anne who is 15 (Anne-a), and Ida, the cutest 11-year-old ever (ee-dah). Jesper, Tinne, and Ida picked me up, then took me home to a traditional Danish meal, a quick trip down to the harbor to get ice cream and see their sailboat, and then shuffled me off to bed.

Monday: Jesper drove me into the city because I didn't get my transportation pass until that afternoon. On the way he made a Harry Potter joke, and then later referenced "the Parent Trap." After that I felt a lot better about being in a random international city, living with strangers. We stopped at his office at Copenhagen University (he is sort of a combined mathematician/math historian), and then he helped me find my way to the Black Diamond, the new Danish Royal Library, which was the site of the opening ceremony for the semester.

After the ceremony, I found one of the girls I came in from Seattle with, and walked around for a couple of hours, and found our way back to DIS. Those of us Seattle-type people who arrived late also missed the distribution of the transportation stipends, which are kind of extremely important, so we had to get our money. We then had a two-hour bus tour of Copenhagen. I don't really like bus tours because you can't really take pictures, or see anything if you are cursed with my eyesight, and Angela (the girl from Puyallup, Washington), Caitlin (also from the Seattle area), and I were surrounded by these really loud frat guys who were more interested in discussing their flip-cup plans than listening to the tour guide. I ended up falling asleep by the very end of the tour, and I'm going to need to go back and re-visit almost everything anyway.

It was then time to go home, thus it was also time to figure out how to go about purchasing trasportation passes. This turned into a whole long process, because DIS failed to mention that we would need passport photos for the passes, no one knew where to find them, and everyone was becoming increasingly cranky at 4 in the afternoon, thanks to jet lag. We finally got everything sorted, and I now can ride through up to 6 zones on the bus or S-train by just flashing my pass.

I ride the 150 S bus towards Kokkedal, from Norreport Station, get of at Gammel Holte after about 40 minutes, then walk diagonally through a park towards home. I only got lost once n my first time out by myself, and that was only because the bus stop was on the highway access road that I hadn't seen before, and I was completely disoriented, so I accidentally turned the wrong direction off of the bus, found the wrong diagonal path, and had to call Tinne to rescue me.

Tuesday: Long and painful orientation sessions. 3-hours of orientation stuff, 3 hours of Danish. Brain still jet-lagged. Many yawns ensue from all directions.

Wednesday: This was the first morning of program orientation, as well as th first morning of rain. European Politics and Society had the earliest orientation at 9, and ours lasted the full hour. I had from 10-1:15 free, and so I decided to be touristy for the first time since arriving in Denmark, and went out, camera in hand, to explore. I was alone for the first hour and a half, and then my friend Andy (also from Seattle, imagine that!) came and joined me. I'm having trouble loading the pictures I took, but they are coming soon!

We had another 3-hour Danish lesson that day, which included a trip to the grocery store to find and identify foods in Danish. When I got home, I watched Friends with Ida, which was pretty exciting. A few of the jokes are completely lost on her due to culture barriers, so sometimes I feel a bit awkward when I start cracking up about something, and she (or Anne, or Mette) looks at me like I'm crazy. I got to explain what a ouija board is, so that was entertaining as well.

Thursday: First day of classes! I don't have my first class until 1:15pm on Thursdays, so I finally got to sleep a little. Woohoo! Also, after six total hours of Danish language, I decided it was useless to try to learn it in three and a half months, and my host family agreed with me, so now I'm taking Hans Christian Andersen and the Golden Age. On Mondays and Thursdays I also have Creative Industries: Business, Innovation, Politics, & Culture, as well as Environmental Problem and Policies: A European Perspective. My last class doesn't let out until 5:45, so that will make for a very dark ride home.

Friday: I have Jacob (YA-kob) Buksti for both my 8:30 core course, European Politics: The European Union, and Danish Politics and Society at 1:15. He is this ridiculously brilliant guy who has done all sorts of work in the E.U. I think his courses will be by far the most difficult, but I'll also probably get the most out of them for my major, Comparative/International Political Science.

Friday night, DIS threw the students a welcome party. I'm definitely not in the U.S. any longer. Each student was given an entrance ticket into the nightclub/bar (I don't really know the difference) LUUXE, along with two free drink tickets. This place was super fancy, with this velvety, lace-overlay type wallpaper, and all of these mini-chandeliers on the ceilings, and leather couches and pillows all along the walls with a dance floor in the middle. Apparently all bars in Denmark are non-smoking, which I appreciate. And this place was also really expensive for those who felt the need to move beyond the two free drinks. This one guy tried to order a Long Island ice tea (isn't that a girly drink?) and it cost 250DKK, which is about 50 dollars for a drink! I left with some friends who wanted to find a cheaper bar, but left them before we found it because I didn't know the night bus schedule, was paranoid about it, my feet hurt, I was tired, and apparently really lame.

Saturday/Sunday: I'm tired of writing, and I'm sure you're tired of reading, so I'll wrap this up quickly...Saturday I went on a really dumb, two-hour long walking tour of the "other" Copenhagen, meaning trendy shops, cafes, etc. It was really boring and pointless, but the guide gave us a helpful map (which was really all we needed in the first place, because nothing was open). Then I took a train for the first time, met some Americans from Seattle (!!!) who helped me figure out which train to take to Lynby, met up with Mette to do some shopping, got home, and I haven't left the house since. There were a couple of castle tours that I will definitely go on, but today was not the day. It has been quite the first week, and there is for sure more to come!