Well, it's HIGH TIME I blogged.

So sorry for the absence! I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging since my ARRIVAL, and that's just no good, so, here we go!

This past weekend was a fantastic combination of making the most of my free time in a totally schoolwork-free way :) I still feel like I'm "wasting Denmark" when I sit around with no plans, so I went to bed Sunday with quite a feeling of accomplishment!

Saturday night, I FINALLY made my way out to a Folkehøjskole (another fun word to try and pronounce!). I LOVE the whole concept of the Folkehøjskole! It's a specifically Danish educational system, and the idea is for students to participate in a wide range of courses and extracurricular activities so they have an idea of what they want to pursue in the future, whether it be university or anything else! While I was there, I met a really cool girl (from Bornholm!) whose favorite class was some kind of outdoor class for which they did things like climb trees and spend ALL their time outdoors. Oh, and another fun perk: no exams or grades! Sound appealing?

To get there, I took about an hour-long train ride out of the city and into some cute little area (town? suburb?) called Humlebæk. Jordy met me at the train station, and we walked through a forest that was EXTREMELY unnerving by night but refreshing and beautiful by day :) The Folkehøjskole is right next to a huge organic farm (one of the largest in Denmark!) and it has big ol' bales of hay, sunflowers, and some brown cows (I'll elaborate more on these later). It houses somewhere around 80 students I would guess, and that includes some international students, 10 or so DIS students, and mostly Danes.

Anyway, onto the party :) The Danes go NUTS! The room was decorated, the playlist was a lot of fun (it included Ricky Martin and several other winners) and everyone was dressed up and dancing! I met people from Israel, Hungary, Ghana, Iceland, Japan, and several other Danish students (one of them even gave me a tour of the Folkehøjskole!). I got to talk with some Icelanders for a bit, and afterward concluded that everyone from Iceland has both an impossible to pronounce name and a wonderful sunshiny personality :) They were so friendly and welcoming, and were very patient while I tried and tried to get the names right (this never happened). I later heard that good attitudes are genetically inherited in Iceland; it's entirely dark so much of the year, so if they DIDN'T have good attitudes, they'd never make it! I don't know if this is true, but it's an interesting theory and I kinda like it :)

I think we konked out around 4:00, even though the party was still raging on (at this point, though, it was all Danes and no Americans - they put us to shame!). We woke up, had a lovely Sunday brunch, and headed out to go hang with the COWS!

I am SO BUMMED I didn't have my camera! Picture this: Big open fields lined with sunflowers (nearly dead now, unfortunately, because it's pretty much autumn!), bales of hay, trees and trees and trees, and, cows :) You can get RIGHT up close to them, and they're very friendly. We pet them, fed them, and started putting our faces right up close to them after we got more comfortable (and vice versa, I suppose). When I was feeding my personal favorite cow a handful of grass, her WHOLE TONGUE wrapped around my wrist! I could feel it there the rest of the day! What a RUSH.

After hanging with the cows for a fairly big chunk of time, we headed over to the KLAMPENBORG DEER PARK! Klampenborg is a northern suburb of Copenhagen, and is full of fun things like forests and beaches :) The deer park was beautiful (again, REALLY bummed I didn't have my camera)! There were several walking paths going through big groves of trees and fields. There were also some very appealing carriage rides, and big groups walking around with huge cameras. At first, we only saw a few boring old deer, but THEN, we saw guys like THIS:

Um, YEAH! REINDEER ALL OVER THE PLACE! It was funny to see the "head reindeer" (who knows what the heck they're REALLY called) bellowing at all the lower-tier reindeer. The little peasant reindeer always do exactly what the big old grumpy reindeer want! 

After a very big animal-filled day, we headed over to Christiania for its 39th birthday party! First, we hit up a wonderful little vegan restaurant where there was live music, then we wandered around and listened to more music, went through the flea market and looked at all the things we wanted to buy but couldn't afford, and got the best hot chocolate IN THE WORLD (I even saved the cup, that's how good it was!). There was a HUGE birthday cake the size of a pool table decorated with winter wonderland scenery, lots of lights places to sit or dance and enjoy the music, and, of course, the smell of pot EVERYWHERE :) Everyone was in a great mood, and I loved the atmosphere. Great experience!

After we left I realized, OH my, my first midterm is tomorrow! I came back FULLY intending to study, I promise, but...somehow I ended up at Tivoli watching the closing ceremony fireworks instead (I don't know HOW it happened, don't blame me). They were FABULOUS and paired with some great music! Apparently Tivoli even has its own fireworks factory. Here's a video. Rest of the night went like this: came back, tried to study, didn't work, went to bed :) I can say that, though, because the midterm the next morning went just fine. 

Tuesday evening, I hung out with my visiting family again :) They came and picked me up by bike, and we headed over to their apartment in Frederiksberg. The street they live on reminds me of the fab forties in Sacramento, and their apartment complex reminds me of the condo setup at Squaw Valley. Lifestyle envy! They made WONDERFUL Danish meatballs, potatoes, and red cabbage (a popular Christmas dish). We drank lots of red wine and talked for hours! It was wonderful! They're such a caring, close-knit family, and I'm so happy I can get in on it once in a while.Whenever there was a lapse in conversation, I would point to something and say, "what do you call this in Danish?". It worked pretty well as an icebreaker, and I think they had a lot of fun laughing at my Danish "skills." After dinner, we had tea (The two girls had licorice tea. EW. I opted for Christmas tea with honey; it was a Christmas-y themed night) and I watched Mama Mia with Emma and Sille. Great movie, if you're able to suspend reality for a bit :) 

And finally, yesterday was Wednesday! I slept nice and late (no study tours) and spent the day with Colleen and Sarah at Kings Garden, halfway studying for our Danish test (happened today, went well!) and wholly enjoying the sunny, crisp fall weather. FINALLY, I have some photo documentation; however, the photo uploader just decided to wig out on me, so I'll have to try and post them later (at least I got the reindeer up here!).

This week was the first "heavy on the academics" week since my arrival here. By the end of the week, I will have completed two midterms, a presentation, and a paper for film class (that's next on the agenda for tonight!). Sunday, my Communications and Mass Media class is going to LONDON (!!!!) so I just need to keep my eye on the prize until then :) I am SO EXCITED to go! We're going to visit the Roman Baths and Stonehenge, see Wicked, visit a film production agency called "Delicious Edits" (sound intriguing?), and learn how to use London's Tube! The Tube is actually supposed to go on strike while we're there, so that should make for some interesting stories.

OK! Glad I got all that out there. Sorry for the lack of pictures; the second I'm able to snag some of the Folkehøjskole, Deer Park, or Christiania I'll put em RIGHT UP. ALSO, happy last day of September! The leaves are finally starting to change here. YES :) October is absolutely my favorite month of the year, and I have several spots picked out where I can't WAIT to see all the colorful leaves.

Time to get to the paper :(
Hej Hej, Vi ses, Farvel (all the ways I know how to sign off in Danish).

Det er dej ligt vejr!

(It is lovely weather!) :) It really is - I've heard Septembers in Copenhagen are supposed to be wet, nasty, and cold, but thus far we've had mostly beautiful, sunny days!

Happy Friday :) No class till 11:40 + weird desire to do something productive (aside from homework, of course) = BLOG updatin' time!

This week marks the end of our first official month in Copenhagen. It's very surreal; I'm in something of a routine, and am transitioning out of the tourist stage (I've finally realized that I don't necessarily need to bring my camera with me to class every day!). I'm a super competent grocery shopper, ALMOST a true Copenhagen cyclist (especially now that I've finally put a light on my bike and have stopped biking in the dark illegally!), and I have my established list of favorites (coffee shops, parks, etc.). In a lot of ways I still feel like I'm in the "testing the waters" stage, though; I'm really pathetic at using Danish in day to day life and I am CERTAINLY not beyond getting lost on the way back from somewhere I've been a billion times. These are things I don't really expect to change by the end of the semester :)

There are a few reasons I'm self-conscious about my Danish: 1) It's SO damn hard! I love Danish class, but we only meet twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) so by the time the next class comes around, I feel like I've forgotten everything I've learned from the last class already. 2) A number of our professors have mentioned that the Danes aren't exceptionally tolerant of other accents. The few times I've attempted to use Danish in a restaurant or at the store, whoever it is I'm speaking to can immediately tell I'm an English-speaker and switches to English. There are so many different but VERY similar-sounding vowel noises in the Danish language, and pretty much every word is pronounced WAY differently than the way it LOOKS like it should be pronounced. I also feel like they enjoy mushing all their words together to make life difficult for those attempting to learn, and I think they just add whatever letters they feel like that day onto the end of a word to make it plural or change the tense. Take the word "banana". "Banan" is just "banana" (easy enough), but "the banana" is "bananen" and "the bananas" is "bananener". Seems simple enough when written out, I guess, but it gets tough trying to remember which letters to tack on when asking for bananas at the grocery store!

All difficulties aside, though, I love learning Danish. Learning it is a very different process that was learning Spanish (my history with Spanish is causing me to roll my r's and leave the h's silent, neither of which you're supposed to do in Danish!) and it's really neat to be learning what is such a little-known language back in the States. I'm a little excited to show off when I get home :)

In other news, Wednesday night I had my first first field study with my European Film class. We met at this VERY cute little movie theater to watch and discuss the film "Mammoth." It dealt with some pretty heavy stuff, but was, I thought, very interesting and well-produced. It follows the lives of an American couple and their young daughter, and depicts the difficulties they have in remaining close as a family. Because Lukas Moodysson (the director) is Swedish, I wondered if he was commenting on the American family's difficulties specifically, or if he chose the American setting for other reasons. It was a wonderful evening; the theater had a lovely cafe in which we sat, drank wine, and chatted with the film professors after finishing the movie (side note: I think at least half of our field studies at this point have included drinks on DIS - I picked the RIGHT program!).

Now, it's Friday! Again! I'm still a bit thrown off by the classless Wednesdays; they're starting to feel like Sundays, which makes Thursdays feel like Mondays, and then when Friday comes along it's like, where in the world did the week go?? We have tentative plans to venture into SWEDEN this Saturday. It's so funny that traveling to a different country for the day is feasible here - Sweden is just a 40 minute or so train ride out of Copenhagen!

Anyway - time to prep for the day. Vi ses! :)

Mmm - fishy fishy!

Tour de Bornholm :)

READY TO RUMBLE

As clearly depicts the picture above, some HEAVY DUTY biking occurred this weekend! Friday night, we were bussed, ferried, and bussed again to our hostel in Gudhjem on the island of Bornholm! Here is the first picture I took upon our arrival:

One plus of overnight ferry rides: beautiful view of the sunrise :)

Everyone was more or less half awake after spending the night on the ferry, but all it took was a few moments of looking around to perk us RIGHT up. It was BEAUTIFUL! Our hostel looked right out onto the Baltic Sea, and was conveniently located in a lovely area amongst some great shopping opportunities (I'll elaborate on this later!). 

Hostel

Part of the very Scandinavian-looking neighborhood :)

Until a few days before we left, I was under the impression that Bornholm was Swedish territory. Actually, it's a Danish island, but I didn't get the impression that even the Bornholm citizens thought of it as such (for one thing, I got a text message upon our arrival saying "Welcome to Sweden" in SWEDISH).

It almost looks closer to Poland than to the rest of Denmark! We stayed right around where that red dot is on the map.

After dropping our bags at the hostel, we were free to roam the island as we pleased! The tour leaders had planned three routes for the day, and I chose the aptly named "Killer Tour". The Killer Tour was a 62 kilometer route (although after numerous extra excursions, getting lost, etc., we figured we did at least 80!). The first half of the ride went right along the coast and the second went through the middle of Bornholm which consisted mostly of forest, farmland, and very picturesque houses.

Off we go!

"Cycle-Vai" - Just like the American River Parkway on Bornholm!

The ride was so amazing and, surprisingly, pretty tough! I have to admit I wasn't expecting much of a challenge, considering any DIS student who chose to could have signed up for the ride. Bornholm is both hilly and windy - two of the deadliest ingredients a bike ride can have! We stopped at various points of interest for photo ops, water breaks, and food. Here is a sample of what we saw!

Lots o' farmland

A windmill! SO Scandinavia. 

The sand at Duodde beach! It's supposedly the finest sand in the world, and is also the sand they use for hour glasses! Lots of fun to play in, roll around in, etc. 

The Baltic Sea! The water is so pretty and clear. AND cold.

Our lunch destination - Duodde beach!

The day was SO fun, but GRUELING (I really shoulda brought my fancy padded bike shorts!). The ride back was extremely windy (the weather went back and forth between gorgeous and kind of scary. At least it wasn't rainy the whole weekend as was predicted!) and wind is no fun to bike in, particularly when there is a lot of uphill involve AND you're tired and, in many of our cases, lost! We got back to the hostel around 7:30 (I'm pretty sure we were the last to return!), wolfed down some food, and sat and recounted the day's experiences with each other. The hostel even provided beer and board games! :) It was a fun, relaxing way to end the day and, after a night on the ferry and a full day of biking, I'm pretty sure no one made it past 10 pm :)

Sunday was more of a cultural excursion kind of day. After waking up and eating another delicious hostel-provided meal, we started biking north (Saturday we went south, so, new territory!) toward Helligdomsklipperne (what, you can't pronounce it?). Hellingdomsklipperne roughly translates to "The Sanctuary Rocks," and is known for its big impressive cliffs:

 

There was also a cave! You had to climb down a ladder to get into it, and it was verrrry narrow and dark!

After exploring the rocks, we biked a little further and found a great hiking spot. After hiking in half a mile or so, we found a beautiful little waterfall! Later, I found out that this was actually one of the tallest waterfalls in Denmark. HAHA. 

It was a beautiful forest!

Not to mention all the COOL WILDLIFE it included:

After exploring the natural side of Bornholm, we biked back to Gudhjem in search of the island's infamous smoked herring! I sampled the herring, but decided on this instead:

Smoked salmon and potato salad! PHENOMENAL. The Bornholm-ers know their fish!

After lunch, we wandered along the harbor and went into some of the shops. I noticed that the stores in Bornholm don't scream "tourist attraction," which I really liked! A lot of the shops in Copenhagen are so geared toward tourists you can't walk into more than one without seeing a lot of the same things. The stores we looked at in Gudhjem were more about the craftsmanship that went into whatever they were selling and sharing it with the world. There stores included the first toffee shop in Denmark (free samples!), a handmade chocolate shop, and a few blown glass stores! Glass blowing is big in Bornholm, maybe because they have access to the best sand in the world? :) My personal favorite was, for lack of a better title, a condiment store (Mom, you would have LOVED this place!). They sold various types of marmalade, honey, vinaigrette, jam, seasonings - EVERYTHING! They even had a sample counter with bread and pretzel sticks out for taste testing :)

I think we spent a good hour and a half here. The atmosphere was just so cozy, and there was so much to look at! In addition to the aforementioned products, there were also numerous candies, liquors, and pastries for sale. Everything looked so GOOD! I might have picked up more than a few souvenirs here...

We took pictures of each other sitting at the cute little table.

We stopped at a delicious crepe cafe for desert (five of us split two - we had one with chocolate, ice cream and nuts and another with apple and cinnamon! Mmm!) and headed back to the hostel JUST in time to clear out our rooms by check out time. After packing, we had dinner, did a little more wandering, and played cards in the hostel common area until it was time to leave to catch the ferry.

Beach by NIGHT

A seriously cool looking picture! They GLOW :)

 The ferry left Bornholm at 11 pm, and landed in Copenhagen around 6 am Monday morning. This made for an interesting day of classes, but, after after a long debate with myself, I DID actually attend all of them!

This was a wonderful weekend; I've always loved bike rides, so 100 kilometers of cycling on a beautiful island with great company agreed with me quite nicely :) Copenhagen is great, but it's so nice to get out of the city and experience something a little less hectic once in a while. Also, Bornholm is much further removed from American influence; because Copenhagen is so modern and populated, it has, understandably, molded to a more universally accessible model, which (unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the context) includes some Americanization.

Copenhagen life is going well, as per usual. I'm now a PRO on the bike in city traffic, the fall colors are starting to come out, and, as of tomorrow, I will have been here an official MONTH! How weird is it that the semester is already a quarter of the way done?!

Thanks again for reading; I miss you all and love hearing from you. 

Hej hej! (Yeah, they say "hi hi" as goodbye. They're goofy here.)

A (kind of usless) UPDATE!

Hello :)

The last few days haven't been especially monumental (though lots of fun!), but I'm in a blogging mood and who doesn't love a random update? This past Monday was our first day back in classes after returning from our study tours, so no one was really all that into it, including the professors! It was nice to spend the day sharing stories, recounting details, looking at pictures, etc. It seems like everyone is much closer after having completed this short trip together; it was definitely good bonding time!

Tuesday turned out to be a great day! After finishing classes and wandering around with friends for a while, I went off exploring by myself (something I'm trying to make a point to do more often; it's the only time I pay attention to where I'm walking!). I popped into some new shops, and, after questioning at least four random passersby, found a post office and mailed the postcards I've been holding onto FOREVER. I got home and realized that I was a) too restless to stay in the apartment and b) severely lacking the motivation to shop for and cook dinner! This worked out perfectly, because Sarah invited her friend Alex and me to her kollegium for the evening :) (A kollegium, for anyone who doesn't know, is a dorm-like housing option for both DIS students and Danish students studying at nearby universities). I loved it! The kollegium has a cute little kitchen attached to a common room with couches, tables, and a TV. I met some of the Danes she lives with, and they were all very friendly and welcoming (they were also all making WONDERFUL smelling food!). We made pasta with veggies, drank wine, listened to music, and chatted all night. I love nights like these!

This morning, my communications class had a field trip to an ad agency called "Adtomic" (I looked for Don Draper, Roger Sterling, and Bert Cooper but I guess they had the day off). Talk about a seriously cool place to work! They have a free espresso machine (!), a foosball table, a balcony, and nice, big open office space. We listened to a presentation by the CEO of the company, got a general tour, and also worked in groups to come up with ad ideas for Carlsberg Brewery (we had to write down and generally illustrate at least 10 ideas in 30 minutes!). The agency is actually in the middle of coming up with a REAL campaign for the Carlsberg Brewery, so it sounded like they were taking our ideas at least somewhat seriously! DANG! Everyone at Adtomic was very nice and enthusiastic about our visit, and we had a great time. Wish I had taken pictures, but photographing people doing IMPORTANT WORK may not have been in very good taste!

So, that was the day! I'm in the middle of doing laundry for the first time since being here (I know, almost a month into the program! Be IMPRESSED, not grossed out!) and the laundry machines here take QUITE a while and make funny noises, so I'm hanging around nearby to make sure the machine doesn't blow up or flood. Great blogging material ahead: tomorrow, I'm going with a group of friends to see the New Pornographers at Christiania! I'M SO EXCITED!! Also, this Friday night I'm traveling to the island of Bornholm (I thought this was in Sweden, but apparently it's actually Danish territory! It's just right NEXT to Sweden) for a weekend cycling trip. Can't wait!

Since there was a sad lack of photos in this post, here are a few randoms I haven't yet posted!

The group after blokarting :)

Me posing with some pillar covered with posters in Odense.

CMM B at dinner the first night in Odense!

My happy happy group of friends :)

A goofy car, giant loudspeaker and all (never actually heard anything out of it!).

Cool lookin' clouds, as seen after our Danish class's cafe night :)

A very nice dog we met on the water bus, like, the second day we were here!

 Vi ses! Goddag!

Odense! Ribe! ...Drag Show!

LONG POST! Get ready.

So, every student at DIS is in a core class, and every core class takes two study tours (one short one to Western Denmark and another longer one to some EXOTIC place). Every core class's short study tour took place this past Thursday through Saturday; therefore, I am writing this after having completed my first study tour with my core class!

My Communications and Mass Media class left for Odense (third largest city in Denmark? Something like that?) at 7:30 am Thursday. It's pronounced "Onse." I know, this doesn't make any sense, but I've kind of gotten used to Danish not making any sense at all, so I went with it and didn't ask questions :) We arrived at the University of Southern Denmark (crazy, very modern campus!) around 9, and listened to a lecture regarding the Muhammad cartoon controversy (read about it here; I didn't know much about it before the lecture). Our lecturer, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark, was VERY interesting to listen to - he adamantly believed in free speech and atheism and also believed that anyone who disagreed was wrong. This was very different from any presentation I'd ever seen. I feel like in the United States, most professors would be sure to acknowledge both sides of an issue and take care not to offend anyone. This certainly wasn't the case here! This made me laugh: he said that when someone brings up a point with which he disagrees, he says, "I respect your right to your opinions, but they are utterly wrong." Sound like a fun person with whom to engage in a debate? :)

 Next, half of us headed off to a News broadcasting station while the other half went off to explore a castle. I was pretty nervous about the broadcasting workshop; I've never taken a Communications class before, let alone worked in a news production studio! It ended up being lots of fun, but also pretty tiring! We divided up into pairs, and took different jobs. My job was "Cultural Interviewer;" I got to interview Anne, a girl in my class, all about the new Bob Dylan art exhibit at the National Museum! Other jobs covered researching and reporting financial stories, international news, and entertainment news. We also had a host, an assistant producer, camera men, and an editor! Our production was a little shaky (we only had a few hours to throw it together) but, I think we did a lovely job in the end :)

Anne and Jena workin hard!

You can see all the coffee cups; our instructor Hans kept us well caffeinated :)

After we completed our news broadcast (we get to see it Monday in class!) we had a lovely DIS-sponsored dinner (LOVE those!), and headed over to hear the Odense Symphony!

It was a beautiful performance! They played pieces by Mahler and Sjostakovitj (I'd elaborate on the composers, but the program is all in Danish!).

After the symphony, our professors took us our for...DRINKS! On them! We went to this very cozy bar near the symphony hall, listened to live music, and enjoyed each others company :)

I know - impressive photography, huh?

Well, that ended Day 1! We headed back to our hostel (which was LOVELY, I'm a big fan of hostels so far!) and woke up to a great breakfast. The hostels had wonderful food! The bread was warm and fresh, and there were great assorted cheeses, fruits, and even an ESPRESSO machine at the first one :)

Friday, the group of us that had completed the broadcasting workshop the day before headed off to Egeskov Castle.

This castle is BEAUTIFUL. And, whaddaya know, the Count and Countess still live in it! I felt a little weird going through this castle taking pictures of someone's home. But, what can you do!

Haha :)

Apparently, some ancestor of the Count was a big-time hunter - there were rooms upon rooms filled with animal heads and skins on the wall :( There was also a VERY elaborate doll house, a room with wax people, and a room with no electric lights, so they only use candles :) It had a very homey feel! It also had a beautiful garden...

A maze (I think we cheated to get through it, oops!)...

A treetop walk! I was proud of myself for doing this; it was rickety and I'm definitely not a heights person!

Leslie on one of the bridges!

And, a vehicle museum! And horses!

We got to groom them and give 'em treats :)

Egeskov was a big hit, and I'm so glad we got to see it. After the castle, we picked up the other half of our class at the broadcasting workshop and took off for Ribe (oldest, and certainly one of the CUTEST cities in Denmark!)

After spending a good deal of time driving through it, I've determined that much of Denmark looks like this:

Vast, flat, and green! (As seen through the bus window)

There are also big fields of big fluffy sheep, cows, and horses! It made me very happy.

We arrived in Ribe sometime in the afternoon, and the first thing we did was climb to the top of the cathedral. It was 248 steps to the top! SISSY stuff compared to the tall Danish towers we've climbed thus far, but I think this view was my favorite!

A nice rooster at the top as a prize!

After exploring the cathedral, some of us further explored the area. Ribe is such a charming city. Cobblestone roads run all through it, and the buildings are all old and brick:

We had fun with the pictures :)

Ha! "NEJ!" means, "NO!"

We had a wonderful dinner in Ribe (again, paid for by DIS!) which included Thai soup, chicken with pesto, and red wine. A bit later, we went on a walk with the night watchman! The watchman was a sort of policeman before Ribe's official police force was instated in the 1800s. Now, he just walks people around the city and sings traditional watchman songs :) We spent the night in another hostel, and in the morning it was off to the BEACH.

Our study tour itinerary said that Saturday morning would be spent "blokarting," which was apparently similar to windsurfing, only it was on land?

SPEED DEMONS!

Well, you basically sit in a go-kart with a sail, and let the wind propel you forward! The only way to stop is to turn the kart into the wind, so, as I'm sure you can imagine, 13 people learning to do this at once was a real experience. Our instructors, these goofy British guys, set up cones for us to go around in loops. It was CHAOS! But it was SO FUN :) After about half an hour or so of flying uncontrollably down the beach, they set us up to RACE. This was VERY intense; we're a competitive bunch! Sadly, I didn't win :( BUT, we did get these goofy pictures!

Me in all my blokarting glory!

Ready to get INTENSE.

I REALLY want to look into this in the United States. Has anyone heard of it? Anyway, after the magnificence that was blokarting, we went to a restaurant where we were served a traditional Danish buffet lunch! I wish I had taken pictures; the food was fantastic! We had salmon and chicken rolls, a type of vegetable quiche, olives, bacon, bread, and other types of food I couldn't even attempt to describe. The meal ended with a yummy chocolate cake and tea :)

Following lunch, we hopped back in the bus for the four hour trek back to Copenhagen! There is a very distinct difference between Copenhagen and Western Denmark; Copenhagen is like the New York City of Denmark and Western Denmark is much less populated and hustle-bustle. It was nice to experience a different side of the country!

After taking a much needed shower (I didn't bring shower stuff on the trip, does this surprise anyone?) India, Sarah, Emily and I headed out to be cultural! We saw a slam poetry reading, of which I was a big fan! The poets were from all over; one was Danish, one was South African and I think a few were from Zimbabwe. We talked with a few of them, and they were fascinating and lots of fun. After the poetry, we went to an African drag show! Talk about a different experience! This was part song and dance, and part, well, drag show! People got pretty into it, and there was a lot of dancing and audience participation going on. We were all fairly exhausted after this, having just returned from a very busy trip!

On our way home, we passed the US Embassy. Danish families had written memories and letters to American firefighters, people had left flowers, and there were candles set up with an American flag. It was very touching to see that all the way over here in Denmark, people's hearts go out to Americans on 9/11.

I have a very exciting week planned :) I already can't wait to write about it; this blog is BIG FUN. Thanks for reading, SEE YA SOON.