First Week Recap!

GREETINGS!

So, as you know if you've been a LOYAL BLOG follower, today marks the end of my first week in Copenhagen! :) Throughout this upcoming week I expect I'll get into a more solid routine with my classes, homework, and general frolicking. In light of that, here is a photo tour of my daily walks to and from class!

OK, so this isn't technically me on my way to class (it was after our welcoming ceremony the first day!), but I do walk past City Hall every day! Here I am with my Wooster pals :)

The plaza we're standing in is aptly called City Hall Plaza. When walking through it, you see a lot of this:

Cool crafty booths!

 And these:

Pigeons :)

And these!

Fruit stands everywhere! Much cheaper than grocery stores, thank goodness!

There are almost always performers of some kind:

And sometimes THESE goofballs, if it's a Friday afternoon :)

Yep, definitely legal to drink in public here! In fact, you basically fit in better if you DO drink in public!

THESE are on nearly every corner, which kind of surprised me:

Good old 7 eleven!

AND, one of these!

This is on Strøget (I think it means 'Stroll' in English), which is a walking only street! Lots of shops, bakeries, restaurants, performers, and TOURISTS.

One morning, I saw THIS:

Yep, a car with a giant ICE BLOCK melting through the roof! And yeah, those are TENNIS SHOES frozen inside it!

A closer look :

I must say, I was quite confused. My first thought was WOW, what a mean prank! Then, after I figured that was both too much work and a LITTLE too mean to be a prank, I figured it was an art exhibit of some kind. It was still there (although about half melted) around 4 hours later when I walked home, so I asked a bystander why in the world a perfectly nice car was being impaled by an ice block, in almost exactly those words! He told me that it was a fundraiser being put on by a shoe company (the one that makes the sneakers frozen in the ice) and that as the ice melts, people can just come up and take the exposed shoes! The shoe company paid for the car and everything.

Anyway, on to CLASS DESCRIPTIONS :) I'm taking Communications and Mass Media, Danish Language and Culture, A Cultural History of Travel, European Film, and Nordic Mythology! All seem very promising and to be taught by wonderful and qualified faculty. Every class has several field trips (Comm. + Mass Media takes a week-long trip to LONDON!) and I get the idea that the goals of the classes are to get us to see more of and better understand both Copenhagen and Europe as a whole. I'm especially excited about Danish Language and Culture :) Tomorrow night we have our first field study - Cafe Night! It's a dinner out at a nice cafe, and the idea is to teach us about Danish cafe style and culture. It's also sponsored by DIS, so WOOHOO!

Oh, had to add this:

This is India, and she's standing over our delicious vegetarian chili! She lives with a host family and had the kitchen to herself for the evening, so a group of us decided on a recipe, went grocery shopping, and got to it! It was wonderful! We even got to meet her host mom, who just so happens to have completed an immersion trip in...CARMICHAEL, CALIFORNIA!! What are the odds?? Needless to say, I was ECSTATIC about this and proceeded to ask her question after question about her stay. She spent some time living in Arden Park, for those of you who recognize it! :)

Well, tonight was special not only because it marks the end of my first week here, but also because I met my Danish visiting family! Because I'm not living with a host family, I signed up to have a local Danish family meet me for dinner, sightseeing, walks, etc. every week or so so I can be properly immersed among the Danes! They are WONDERFUL! They took me to Tivoli, an amusement park down the street from my apartment. Tivoli is one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, and has lovely extras like free concerts every Friday night, daily and nightly performances, beautiful landscaping, and gorgeous restaurants and hotels! It has some great thrillers and some good rides for sightseeing that give you a great view of the city from WAY high up (made me kinda nervous, but so worth it!) It was a great "first date," and I can't wait to meet with them again! I'll elaborate more tomorrow when I have some pictures to add :)

Anyway, I guess since I'm apparently here to go to SCHOOL or something, I'd better get going on this reading I have to do! Homework on study abroad?! WHAT?!?

Well, I'll report back in a day or so, hopefully with fun pictures and stories to share!

Miss you, love you, xoxo :)

More of em.

Helsingør and Kronborg Castle

Hello Hello Hello!!

Today we made our way out to Helsingør, a coastal city in Northern Denmark which is not only VERY close to Sweden and the location of Hamlet's castle, it's also a great place to explore, shop, and enjoy :)

(Haven't figured out how to rotate it yet. I will eventually!)

HAHA! This was painted right on the street!

It was LOVELY! We had about two hours to explore the city before our tour of Kronborg Castle began. We shopped around (a lot of stores were cheaper than the ones in Copenhagen), bought yummy pastries, and sat by the Sound of Øresund and looked at Sweden!

Hi Sweden!!

Then, we made our way over to the castle!

The castle was beautiful, inside and out! There were tapestries over 400 years old in almost every room, and much of the old architecture was preserved. We went on a guided tour through the king and queen's bedrooms, the ballroom, and the DUNGEONS!! All pictured respectively!

 

The dungeon was REALLY dark; don't let the camera flash fool you into thinking this is a light and happy place. There were oil lamps scattered throughout the place, but it was still pretty creepy and hard to navigate! The dungeon was for prisoners (of course) and sometimes for soldier housing for various reasons. The daily ration for soldiers living in the dungeons included SEVEN LITERS of beer! Hopefully that made dungeon life more manageable!

 

 

Both the architecture of the castle and the artwork within it were extremely impressive. I have many more pictures if anyone is interested!

Following the tour, I came home, rested up a bit, then headed out to a WONDERFUL Indian restaurant with some buddies. Afterwards, we wandered around and hit up a few bars. We played foosball (sp?) with some REAL local Danes! They were VERY enthusiastic about the game and it was a lot of fun playing with them, even if they weren't impressed with our skills at all :) After that, we went and watched some live music and enjoyed each others' company, then wandered on back home!

In approximately 4 hours (I'm writing this at nearly 3 am - holy heck!) I will have completed my first whole week in Copenhagen! I'm already SO much more acclimated than I was 6 days ago; it feels like it's been much longer than one week at this point simply because we've packed so much into each day. Soon I'll post an update on CLASSES and such! We had our first two days last week, but I was too excited about Helsingør and the castle to remember to mention them :) 

STAY TUNED!!

Orientation, 100% Rain-Free Day, and DANISH SPIN CLASS.

So, quickly after finishing my last post I realized that I forgot to mention two aspects of life in Copenhagen which are proving to be two of the biggest challenges of my acclimation process:

1) It rains, on average, at least 8 times a day here. And I don't own a raincoat. And for some reason I thought it would be OK to leave my umbrella and rain boots in the US of A. In my limited experience at this point, the weather cycles through sunny and beautiful with various clouds, cloudy, cloudy and OMINOUS, drizzles, and TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Life goes on; the Danes just keep on riding their bikes through the city with their easily accessible ponchos, jackets, or even umbrellas (do I have to learn to bike while holding an umbrella?), and soon Copenhagen is sunny and happy again. But, as the title of this entry dictates, THERE WAS NO RAIN TODAY. First entirely rain-free day since our arrival on Sunday!

2) IT'S SO EXPENSIVE! I'd heard Denmark is one of the (maybe even THE most) expensive countries in the world, but I didn't really see if affecting me as much as it does. I'm basically responsible for all my own meals, and even though I'm given a nice little stipend for a lot of it, it's still overwhelming to spend 350 kroner (about 60 USD) on some yogurt and some vegetables. I've done a fair amount of research, and I'm fairly sure the cheapest cup of REGULAR OLD COFFEE is 16 kroner, almost $3!! Good thing it's DARNED HIGH QUALITY :)

So, the past two days in Copenhagen have been spent meeting new friends and completing orientation activities! Yesterday we were put into groups of 6 and sent off into the city on a scavenger hunt. We got to see the palace where the QUEEN lives (including the guards with their goofy bearskin hats!)

I was too shy to actually take a picture WITH them.

The national Opera House that cost over FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to build (pictured directly above!), the parliament library (called the BLACK DIAMOND. It reminded me of Borders!) and some cool shopping and picnicking areas. There was also a water bus trip involved! We were walking for over three hours, and still didn't make it to all the stops! All the getting lost was probably good for us, and now I have a fun list of places to hit up in the future. Last night we played around in the city, and actually met some local Danes! Exciting! Today we met some of the DIS faculty, and they all seem wonderful! We met with our core class groups (mine is Communications and Mass Media) and each got our set of textbooks in our own giant IKEA bag. Lugging the IKEA bag back to my apartment was a real treat. After today's orientation sessions we hit up a store called TIGER! I think it's Denmark's version of the dollar store, and I've determined it's a real GEM of a place and will frequent it from here on out.

This evening, I had made plans with a girl from one of my orientation sessions to take a spin class at the gym we get to use for a discounted price! This gym is PHENOMENAL. It includes a juice and coffee bar, free wifi, massage tables, two floors of equipment, free classes, saunas, showers, lockers, AND...there's a DJ who comes in on the weekends. FANCY. And they scan your fingerprint before you can enter. VERY fancy, and a little creepy. The spin class was TOO COOL. The instructor gave the workout in Danish, and would every once in a while remember to give some instructions in English for us. It was HARD! And the music was LOUD, BOOMING techno!

Tonight, we had some apartment bonding time making dinner and watching the Danish sports channel together. Now, we're getting everything ready for the first day of classes tomorrow! EEK! Expect an update on that soon! :)

XOXOXOXOXOXXOXO.

Greetings from Danish Land!

WELL HELLO :)

So, by tomorrow morning at approximately 7 am (that's 1 am eastern time, and 10 pm pacific time) I will have completed my first 48 hours in Copenhagen! And what an ups and downs kind of 48 hours it has been! Upon our arrival in the Copenhagen (København, if you feel like being Danish!) airport we were herded through customs and baggage claim, BOTH of which were easier than I expected, and made our way towards the buses waiting to take us to our designated housing!

It turns out I got SUPER lucky with housing; I live in a lovely recently refurbished apartment on Gasværksvej (pronounced Gas-varks-vay, it’s Gas Works Way in English). It’s located right in the city! We live in what used to be the red light district and there's certainly some proof of that along the bigger streets (pictures soon to come!), but now it's a very trendy district full of fun bars, cafes, restaurants, and shops. There are fruit stands every few blocks, and the central square and canal are beautiful! I'm certainly still at the touristy stage where I have to have my gigantic map of the whole city open whenever I walk one block, but I'm slowly but surely making progress :)

As nice as the area and all my fellow students seem thus far, our arrival in Copenhagen left me feeling...a bit out of sorts! I was surprised at how homesick and uninspired I felt as I got used to the idea of living here for the next four months. Of course it takes some time to acclimate to any new situation and there are many reasons for emotional ups and downs when studying abroad, but I never expected to feel so homesick. It may have been because we didn't have much planned for our first day, and I had a little too much time to think. The first full day (a full day after ZERO hours of sleep on the flight over) was spent moving in, getting to know my apartment roommates, and exploring some of the city.

This morning I woke up, got my new fancy Danish cell phone, found a coffee bar and a fruit stand for breakfast with my roommate Kathleen, and headed over to the opening ceremony at the Copenhagen City Hall! There were many impressive speakers, including the mayor of Copenhagen and the DIS program director. There was also a lovely quartet who played Mozart between speakers! After the ceremony, I met up with my Wooster friends (FINALLY! I MISSED THEM SO MUCH!) and we explored more of downtown Copenhagen! It was so nice to see familiar faces and have some free time to play in the city.

Later tonight, Emily and I attempted to use the metro ourselves, and, of course, got off on the wrong stop. I had to buy a ticket to cover the extra stop, which wasn’t expensive but was SO damn difficult. The entire machine was in Danish, it made you move fast, and it only took cards or coins. Thank goodness for the wonderful Danish lady who both explained the machine AND paid for part of the ticket when we realized we didn’t have enough coins! We finished the night by walking around the city a bit more at night and poking our heads into bars to listen to live music.

Well, there’s the update so far! Thanks for reading! Pictures to come, I promise! Miss you all; email me or facebook me if you want to chat sometime or if you want a postcard :)