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!
3 comments:
I think when providing throuroughly Danish names that you should also provide a pronunciation guide like you did with your family's names. I also wish that I could come visit you because your CPH sounds charming. And thirdly, I'm impressed with your visual writing style.
In unrelated commentary, I have successfully installed Skype on my system, but still need to get the right headset. . .
So I don't have Skype, but I have iChat...
If you can't figure out how to get the pics in the blog, why don't you open one of the free photo sites, dump them there, and link it in. That's probably much faster than sticking them in Blogger.
I agree with Emily about your writing. I'm teaching sensory detail next week, and I might use an excerpt from your first post. They have to write a prompt describing a room, and these kids demand samples first.
Could you send me some of those danishes? :)
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