Godt Weekenden!

This has been a lovely weekend.

On Friday, after class I quickly met Kristina's parents before going home. The weather was beautiful, so I went for a run. I explore some new areas of my neighborhood and found a little dirt path with apple trees and a horse field. Upon my return the house smelled like chocolate cake (chocolade kage sho-co-la-kay-ah), and my host mom said, "Would like some cake and tea?" Of course!

After cake, the whole family went to Stig's work. He is in charge of all the military hospitals in Denmark. At the base he works on, he has a garage area where he builds racing bikes. Somehow the concept of having a garage at work does not seem strange at all. His office looked exactly like their house except for the big Monet print on the wall.

Simone and I went home and made beef and brown sauce over mashed potatoes for dinner. Beef and brown sauce is basically ground beef in water and flour with brown food coloring and seasonings. It was really cute having some time to bond and talk about how I like it here and the family.

After dinner I went into the city and met up with Kristina, her parents and Alex. They had had dinner at a little pub restaurant. We went back to the apartment Kristina's parents rented at NyHavn (the colorful buildings along the canal). The place is really nice and has everything included like pots and pans, dishes and silverware etc. Alex and I left Kristina to hang with her parents and went back to their kollegium for a drink. It was a very relaxed Friday, and I went home to watch Grey's online (finally saw the last episode from last season) and also talked to Dave.

Saturday morning, I slept in for a while, got up and watched more Grey's, then got ready to go to the market/fair with my host sister. We met Stig and Jane there and walked around for a while. It was like a regular fair with tents, rides, carnival food and live music. Danes like to line dance. Simone and I explored on our own and then met back up with Jane and Stig so they could buy me ice cream (tak for is!). I found a new purse, which I was excited about since I need one with a zipper for traveling. And it was pretty cheap. Simone and I left and Jane and Stig biked out to wherever they were camping. The ride there and back was about 45 minutes each way, which is really far when you live in a tiny country. We had lots of time to talk and get to know each other. Simone is going to come visit me when I live in a big city.

Silly me double booked my dinners for Saturday night, one with Kristina and her parents and one with Olya, who's birthday it is today. I decided that the best thing to do would be have dinner with Kristina and her family and then go out with Olya. So, I hoped on the train switched to the metro and followed a very nice DIS kid to his kollegium, which is also Christina's kollegium, who was hanging out with Olya before they went to dinner. I gave Olya some birthday chocolade and then left to meet up with my dinner pals. We had spaghetti with shrimp and crawfish, salad and bread. It was sooo good to have American food cooked by American parents. Dinner ended up being very hygge, so we talked for a long time after and then we had cake (which had nuts in it, so I had some yummy cookies intead) and then we talked some more, and by the time we were almost done talking it had gotten pretty late. Alex and I tried to meet up with Olya, but it wasn't working out because they were at some bar in the "former" red light district. So we walked and walked and ended up getting beers at a 7-11. Classy, I know.

But it was a really good thing because there was almost an international incident when these two idiots from DIS were on the train talking about American politics as if they had ever even held a newspaper. I was sincerely embarrassed to be from the same country as these morons who were distinguishing Senator Obama's career as when he was a state senator vs. when he was a US senator. I wish I could remember the exact phrase the one kid used to comment on the financial crisis, basically saying its a decoy or a tool to make things interesting in the election. And then they proceeded to discuss the Danish welfare state in a way that I found offensive, and I'm not Danish, so I can't imagine what the people (who all understand English) sitting around him were thinking. So in the end, the only thing that kept me from making any suggestions to them was the humbling fact that I had just had a pounder.

This morning I went to Olya's host family's house. They had a very elaborate lunch and gave her a beautiful necklace. It was a weird mix of emotions because on one had everyone was happy it was her birthday, but on the other hand the host mom's sister is very sick. I can't believe how much they did for her birthday though. It shows that there are some really fantastic, caring people out there. After lunch, Olya and I rode bikes through the farmlands. It's like being a little kid again, just Denmark is a little prettier than Reading and my bike had breaks.

Pictures!

I just opened a webshots account, where I can upload 1000 pics plus videos plus 100 more pics every month, much more than flickr's limits. So, look to the right and you'll find the link to those! There are plenty to browse through, but not all have captions yet!

I saw the Queen!

Of course it was the day I didn't bring a camera, but luckily Kristina had hers!

We decided to test out the water buses today. The last stop takes you right to the loading/unloading area for the Royal family onto the Royal Yacht. When we got off the water bus, we saw the flags raised and a crowd of people around a red carpet. Across the canal (past the Royal Yacht) they did a canon salute for her, then a bunch of Navy boys came out onto the yacht and saluted, then a little boat came from the yacht to where we were standing and out she came! She walked down the red carpet and waved to the people after some man gave her flowers and got into her little car and sped off to the castle. What are the chances!

This weekend was really fun and busy. On Friday night, I hung out with Alex and Kristina and Danes from their hall. We did a Pub Crawl through the island of Amager (pronounce Ah-mar). We kicked it off in a very Danish way with smorebrod sandwiches, Tuborg and a shot of snaps. It was fun hanging out Danish style and being able to talk to Danish people. We definitely met some interesting people including a bellbottom-wearing, very snooty Dane who kept referring to the island as uncivilized. After he said Danes were uncivilized and bad things about Americans and Brits, I asked him where he would live ideally to which he responded Southeast Asia as if it was completely obvious. Later, after we got back to Alex and Kristina's kollegium, we all took a trip to the roof. He found me again and asked, "What are you doing up here?" Very interesting. Another Dane was wearing a 1992 style windbreaker, brightly colored, that at one point in its life had a pair of matching pants and belonged to a woman on her way to jazzercise class. And another one was wear a Helly Hansen jumper/overalls with reflective strips around the ankles. And two others were wearing leather vests and jackets.

I stayed over (in Kristina's bed, thanks!) and we woke to more Danish interactions. This time Jakob (Yak-ob) wanted to make us some pancakes aka crepes. So we let him. We talked politics a little and got to the point that Denmark is better than the US because its a welfare state. I tried to use the example that even making reforms in NYC is a big deal with only 8 million people and how much praise is given to the mayor for cutting down on crime etc. But to make changes to a system of 300 million people is absurd. Denmark went into $16 billion worth of debt creating its health care and other systems in the 90s. Could you imagine what it would cost for the US to do the same, especially during a war? From what I've observed, its really difficult for people in a small population (5.4 million in DK) to comprehend the magnitude of the US. We have 20 states bigger than Denmark!

After breakfast, I got some work done before heading home to shower. I got ready and headed back out to meet up with Alex to go to DIK, the international kollegium, one town over from me. They had an open bar and BBQ from 5-9. Very fun and got to meet some new people. We went back to Alex's kollegium to hang out with Kristina at 9 and made the rest of the crepes with ice cream for dessert.

On Sunday, the girls and I went on a canal tour. B-e-a-u-tiful day for this. I let Alex take hold of my camera and work her magic while I sat back and relaxed. Alex and I explore Vesterbro, the former red light district, after the tour while Kristina went to a birthday party at her visiting host family. We met up with a boy named Alex and went to the soccer game, FCK vs. Aab. FCK won! 3-0. Definitely a great experience because of the fan base and insane amounts of songs and cheering that went on. And I had my first Franskpolse (french hotdog?). It's a hollowed out french bread roll with a hotdog stuck in it.

I've been feeling a little stuffy and have been taking lots of vitamins and sleeping as much as possible. Yesterday was rough, but today I had coffee in the morning, which made my life wonderful.

Tomorrow I am going shopping with Alex and Kristina, meeting about a group project and then going to the Bodies Exhibit with my class! Yay for these field studies paying my way to really cool stuff.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow marks being here for one month. I'm definitely doing better in terms of homesickness and am really enjoying being here even when I have no idea what its being said over the loudspeaker on the train! In only one more month I'll be in Paris and one month after that we're having a Thanksgiving dinner and one month after that is Christmas Eve! I sent my resume to a bunch of people for proofreading and will hopefully be able to start sending it out within the next week or two to apply for jobs.

I'm working on uploading pictures- there's a lot from this weekend!

Quotes from The Copenhagen Post 9-12/18/-08

"Copenhagen will play host to the UN climate conference, the International Olympic Committee's congress and homosexual Olympics the Outgames next year."

"A novel about Aisha, the 6-year-old wife of Muslim prophet Mohammed, deemed to controversial to print in America, may be too expensive to print in Denmark."

For an idea of the cell phone ad, go to http://samsung-sensation.com/landingpage/ and put your cursor over the Netherlands (NOT where I am...). The mermaid is a full page ad, not sure what bejeweled boobs have to do with phones, but hey! We're in Copenhagen.

"Movie Only a Mother Could Love": "I am Mike Myer's core audience. I almost passed a kidney stone watching the Austin Powers series and I am known to readily quote Fat Bastard, even after it became unfashionable to do so. My sense of humor hasn't developed much since 1990 and I was eager to meet "The Love Guru" Myers' first original character since the Powers films." (spelling and grammar article's own)

And the weather is forecast as dry with sunny spells...damn those spells of sun! Damn them all!

Now, add a weinerbrod (Danish pastry), and you just had yourself a taste of a Danish morning.

Field Trip to Tivoli

I went on a ROLLER COASTER today. So, it was old and wooden and didn't go high or that fast, but can I get a little credit for doing things I don't like to do and finding out I like them?


The pictures are me in my fish on a kiddie ride, Alex and I on the ferris wheel and a sign I thought Julie would appreciate.

My debut!

I feel like I just got back from summer camp! My core class went on our short study tour this weekend. It is best described as the pre-game for our long study tour to London in October.

We left super early on Thursday morning from Copenhagen and arrive in Odense at around 10. On the way there, we went over the really huge bridge that connects the island Copenhagen is on to Fyn, the next island over. Our teacher gave us lots of trivia during the drive such as telling us that one of the small islands we drove through was where they used to send morally loose women. He told us that one of the students last semester had a great name for it: Slut Island. He also informed us that the tops of the pillars of the bridge are 10 cm apart, but wanted us to figure out why. When no one could figure it out, he explained, "Because of the curvature of the earth...it's logical."

Off to a hilarious start, we then took a quiz to see who would get the suites in our hotel, the Cab Inn Hotel, where you "Stay cheap in Luxury." Some of my friends ended up being put in the Commodore Suite, which turned out to be two of the tiniest beds you've ever seen in a room that barely fit them. This was opposed to the other rooms: bunk beds and enough floor space to pull out a trundle. Of course the bathroom was a toilet, sink and shower head- good luck not getting EVERYTHING wet. I stayed with two girls, Paige and Emily.

Our first stop was Funen Village. I think what happened was they took houses from all over Denmark that were built within a certain period and put them on a plot of land. Because Odense is where HC Andersen was born, they tried to tie him in, but were very unsuccessful. So they took us on a tour of Jakob's life and constantly said, but HC was doing this instead because he went to school. It was more or less like, this is a normal person from the town Kathy Griffin is from and this is how they lived because they aren't her. Weird. BUT, it was absolutely gorgeous, so you should look at those pictures when they are up.

After FUNen Village and our "rustic lunch," we walked around Odense's city streets. At a huge 160,000 people, it's Denmark's 3rd largest city. What?! We met back up with the other half of the group and went to my 3rd TV station, TV2. TV2 was awesome in that we got a really interesting perspective on international TV and broadcasting nationally to only 5.4 million people. They also showed us a clip of their journalists going to Afghanistan and being on the front lines with Danish soldiers. Controversial but also amazing journalism.

TV2 led to our first buffet of many for the weekend. And dinner led to a bar, but nothing too crazy since we had to get up pretty early.

On Friday morning, my group went to Brandts, which is a media museum in Odense. They also offer a class where you put together a news broadcast from picking out the stories, to lighting and camera work...we ran the show (along with the creepiest Dane I've met yet). This was a fascinating experience for me because I've never done anything like a TV or news show before. I was on the team that went out in the streets and created a segment with live interviews. We decided to ask people about biking safety in Denmark and had a blast pulling together the interviews. We met some pretty odd people, like one guy who saw our equipment (a camera and a mic) and wanted to know if we were from MTV? No. CNN? No. Fox? No. ABC? No. The list went on. I think it went pretty well. In the final cut, my opening line, "Bikes" and my closing line, "And now back to the studio," were both cut, so it's a little abrupt. Also, we didn't have the best instructions/couldn't read the Danish editing program to do a great job. But, Matt, who did the editing, had experience with it and was able to pull together a good segment in not a lot of time. Julie uploaded the video to YouTube for easy viewing.

When we were finished, we were definitely in the mood for a drink. Just like some Danish high schoolers... The trip focuses on both academic experiences and cultural experiences, so part of our cultural experience for the day was meeting some young Danes who are going to Texas to study abroad this year. We were dropped off at their gymnasium or school and went to their Friday bar. Every other Friday they have a bar in the basement of the school where everyone can go and drink, which is exactly what they did. We were at the Friday Bar for a couple hours and met lots of Danes. It was really fun to talk to them since they are all going to Austin Community College. Some of the DIS students planned and exchanged contact info with the Danes and we planned to meet up with them later that night.

When we left the Friday bar, our trust bus driver, Jakob had bought the bus a case of beer to share before dinner. We went to a Chinese buffet for dinner, which was regrettable. A few of the girls and I took a nap before getting ready to go out, and eventually met up with some of the Danish students to go out to the A Bar or Australian bar. The place was hopping, and we had free admission and free drinks until 12. I definitely wasn't feeling my Chinese food plus just waking up from a lovely nap, but when they start playing all of you favorite dance songs, you soon forget all of that and start having a really good time.

There were lots of DIS kids at this one bar, which is a chain and there's also one in Copenhagen by school, so we all got to bond more and hang out. The time absolutely flew, and I rallied the troop to get back home before 3 am.

We had to get up again at 9ish to be ready to go by 10. We headed out to lovely Svendborg, Denmark to check out Valdemars Slot. This castle was more interesting than the first one I saw, but no one was in the mood to listen to broken English and tour the house of real people. It was actually sort of voyeuristic in that there were pictures of the family who lives in the apartment that's closed off to the public. We saw some of the bedrooms that the current Royal family has stayed in recently...it was a fully functioning home that they do tours of for money.

Lunch was much better with another buffet at Hotel Troense (all our breakfasts were buffets too) of lots of traditional Danish foods: dark bread, herring, pork, cheese, lox....and beer. The area the restaurant in was, again, gorgeous and on the water. Our trip wrapped up with a little cruise in the water to get back to our bus. So cute.

On the way home, our teacher told us another story about when he was a part of the Militant Young Against Apartheid. He and his friends planned a heist at a Shell (who had some sort of stake in South Africa) gas station and kidnapped teddy bears. After the heist, they gave a letter to the paper saying that they would start beheading the bears if apartheid didn't end after three days. Obviously, it didn't end, so they started the beheadings. When the one or two articles died down, they tried to beef media back up by giving the broken bears to school children and having them mend them. Pretty funny.

All in all, I got to really get to know a lot of people in my program. Everyone is really nice, and I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the semester with them and especially going to London with them!

Pictures will be up soon on flickr instead of snapfish, so be on the look out for a new link to those.

Trying to Keep Up with Myself!

I wanted to do a quick update of this past week before the long weekend we have here at DIS.

This week has been pretty awesome in that we had a presentation that was very interesting, and my other class took a field trip to Parliament.

On Monday, my Creative Industries class hosted a woman named Malene Kristiansen, who is a textile designer. Ever since the quote below from the Devil Wears Prada, I've been wondering about this whole fashion business:
Andy Sachs: No, no, nothing. Y'know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y'know, I'm still learning about all this stuff.
Miranda Priestly: This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

So more or less, Marlene is the person that gives Oscar De La Renta the blue in the first place. She makes swatches of fabrics and goes around to different clothing companies and designers and sells them. Then they take it and send it off to China where it's made into clothes. The whole reason she came to talk to us is pretty neat too. One of our assignments is to design a t-shirt that could be sold in a Denmark based clothes store. We have to make observations about the store and be able to explain why our design fits their style. It also has to include DIS in some way.

My really original idea is to use a Danish word, hygge, (wonderfully enough, the topic of a paper due on Monday) in an American way: Hygge it out! Go ahead and try to pronounce it. Did you try? It's sort of said like hoo-gah.

I'm still learning all about the media in Denmark and Europe, as it is often compared to the US's media. Today we had a field trip to Parliament, as I said, which was incredibly interesting. First we talked to a political reporter and heard from him about his job. Some fun facts: campaign season is 3 weeks; party representatives can be very young- 30; there are 7-8 parties depending who you ask; and the Minister of Health was outside Parliament addressing protesters (or demonstrators as they were called) without security or anything.

After Claus Kaae-Neilsen finished telling us about his job, Ida Auken came in. She's 30 years old, was elected last November to the Folketinget (the representative group, like Senate and Congress combined) as a representative of the Socialist People's Party because of her aggressive use of social media (you can facebook friend her, go to her website, read her blog or watch her videos on youtube). She wasn't supposed to be the speaker, but the guy who was was sick. So instead of focusing on the relationship between politicians and the media, she told us about her stance on environment.

She's also aggressive about the environment. Someone asked if she had other extreme ideas for the environment in Denmark, to which she replied that they're not really extreme at all- it's saving the planet. Anyway, she wants to enact things like a congestion tax to reduce car traffic. Get more bikes going, start putting more windmills up instead of taking them down, more solar panels and improve public transportation so that taking a car isn't a moral issue, but a common sense issue. While Denmark has so much more than the US in terms of energy efficiency, she wants to be carbon neutral by 2030. She read some of an article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times and criticized it for showing Denmark in too good of a light. In the past couple years, there are less people biking and taking public transportation and windmills are coming down more than going up. Apparently, the prime minister of Denmark at one point compliments Bush for all he's done for the environment. In conclusion, while Denmark is wayyy ahead of us, they too have the issues in government that are holding them back from being truly environmentally aware.

Plus, she works with PR people to help fill in the gaps between politicians and journalists. It's funny that she seemed to really appreciate and rely on her PR people, yet referred to them, as many Danes do, as spin doctors.

Tomorrow morning I have to be at school at 7 to go to Odense, the third largest city in Denmark, for our short study tour. I will go with my communications program, the same people I'm going to London with in October. We will spend one day at Brandts and one day at TV2. Brandts as far as I can tell is a museum with a photography and media portion and also an outdoor area that's made to look old. TV2 is obviously a TV station, where I think we will put on a mock production. I'm getting my program for the weekend on the bus tomorrow morning, so its hard to know what's going on until then. Anyway, apparently there is a Friday Bar, hanging with Danes and some yachting going on. And hopefully on Sunday I can go to the last day of the European Beer Festival at the Carlsburg brewery.

On a side note...let me know if you have trouble looking at my pictures! I can try to fix it if it's not working because they're awesome, and you should be looking at them.

Swedish Meatballs

This weekend has been nothing sort of amazing. I'm willing to say that it has been the most adventurous, physically strenuous, all around charming weekend of my life.

Let's start at the beginning. On Friday after classes, Alex and Kristina and I trekked out to IKEA to get the necessary equipment for staying at a hostel (sheets and towels). Not knowing anything about where IKEA was or how to get there, we made it there with no trouble and only knowing sort of what the name of the town kind of sounded like.

This is where the weekend of meatballs began. Of course, we ate at the IKEA cafe and of course we ate Swedish meatballs given our trip the next day. During this meal we began compiling the necessary ingredients for a good drinking game to play in Sweden, starting with the title Swedish Meatballs.

While IKEA was very fun, we had to keep moving and get back to school for our beer tasting. This was a highly enjoyable event, and we tasted a wide variety of very good beers. You can check out my pictures for what the beers were. We learned some interesting facts about beer such as supposedly putting lime in Corona is a tradition passed down from when people wanted to disinfect their bottles after their slaves had opened it for them.

At the beer tasting we made some friends and went out to the Happy Pig bar or simply Bar if you go by the neon sign. We went to this place the first weekend and enjoy the ten shots for 100 dkk as well as the blatantly American music. I headed back to my house after not too long, but had time to see a guy balancing on one hand on a post outside, with his body parallel to the ground. And, some tourists asked me where a bar was, only to be totally surprised by my accent and ask if I was not from here. I told them I was Danish, I just have a great American accent.

I was up at the crack of dawn to meet the bus to Sweden. We drove up to Helsingor (where Hamlet's castle is) and hopping on a ferry (well, drove on with the bus) to Sweden. It sort of a shame this whole EU thing because not only did they not look at my passport, but I didn't even get a stamp!

Driving through Sweden was sort of like driving through Lancaster...farms, weird smells, volvos... the occasional windmill really mixed it up. We got to our hostel in no time and realized that we were staying in the lap of Swedish hostel luxury. Then we got our bikes. I didn't realize it until we were on the road that my pedal was falling off. I'm sure someone out there can appreciate trying to bike with one working pedal. But, because it was so nice out and every new scene my eyes fell on was more fascinating than the next I tried to forge on.

We didn't have a very good map (a crappy photocopy with writing in Swedish on it), but somehow managed to get to where we wanted to go. At this point, I really couldn't keep pedaling. We called the hostel to find out that we needed to locate some campground to exchange my bike because the hostel guy was going to a party. We biked down the road some more and found a little shop. I walked in and asked the guy who worked there if he spoke English, which is when we found out that basically all of Scandinavia knows English better than Americas. Luckily, we were maybe 400 ft. from the camp ground and I got a sweet beach cruiser for the rest of our journey.

And by rest, I mean to say that this was only the beginning. We biked up to a wooded area which contains the path to Nimis. Nimis is basically a HUGE drift wood sculpture that you can walk around in because its sort of built like a castle. But the trek to Nimis is not paved in gold or good markers, so while we attempted to follow the rocks/trees etc. marked with a yellow N, we accidentally followed the blue diamonds. We probably should have realized that no one who isn't the Jolly Green Giant could have moved the amount of driftwood that constructs Nimis up the paths we were taking. I'm talking nearly vertical, all rocks and roots, with difficult to find footing and nothing to hang on to. Up until now, I was with Alex, Kristina, and maybe two people from DIS, so we were very relived to run into several more DIS kids on this same path. We collectively decided that our best bet was sticking to the trail and finding out way out because no one wanted to go back the way we had come. Fortunately, we ran into two more DIS kids who had talked to some friendly Swedes and got directions. We verified these directions with some more friendly Swedes and their bear dog before heading back into the trails.

After walking for 15 or 20 more minutes, we ended up right where we started and started again. By now, no one was willing to back down and admit defeat. We had to see this thing.

This time we got smart and followed the Swedes and their stockinged footed children down a treacherous path, following the N's this time, toward Nimis. After several near death defying slips by others, we finally came to the sculptures and immediately knew that we would all climb the highest mountain again if it meant seeing this up close and personal.

You have to look at the picture to even sort of grasp this monstrous wooden thing. Not to mention the views across the fjord were lovely.

We chilled out and ate the randomest sandwiches and juice boxes ever before realizing that it had gotten late and we needed to start heading back. The climb uphill was a little easier in terms of getting footing, but being we were all so tired, several people definitely slipped in a scary way. This sort of thing would never be allowed in the US.

The bike ride back was more awesome views and unforgettable sights. I mastered the art of biking while taking pictures and added the video at the top because I'm pretty sure there aren't words for that.

Back at the hostel, we showered and ate a barbeque dinner. Then the real fun began. Our tour leaders brought some pretty strong schnapps...or something of this nature that tasted like Rye. When in Denmark...do as the Danes do. Fortunately, Kristina and Alex and I had brought along some mango vodka and sunny-d or heaven in a nalgene. The whole night was really fun and a good time to get to know some people we otherwise might not have become friends with. And Swedish Meatballs for a while was us picking apples from the apple tree and batting them with a big stick, but obviously you can only play it where there's apple trees. We'll have to work on that one.

We got up pretty early and went canoing. I had muesli for the first time and am not pretty positive that I am not allergic to hazelnuts.

Canoing was not nearly as fun, but still really enjoyable. The river was incredibly serene in that it was wide enough, slow and flat. We were supposed to find towns to stop in, but that didn't really happen. Once we reached the end, we did explore a Swedish town a bit but didn't find anything was open. Then we amused ourselves with canoe equipment and making up new games until the rest of the group came followed by the bus.

Then I came home, and I still can't believe I went to Sweden. I would go back in a heartbeat, but only if I get to climb another mountain.

Look for me on TV!!

For real this time! Not like that time I was on when they tested the sirens at school or that time at the Phillies game or that time at the Yankees game...but for real on Danish TV.

I was supposed to go to a club on Tuesday night, but we didn't end up going and will go later in September instead. This is with my class on Creative Industries. Then on Wednesday my life changed for the better. Besides the fact that one of the only six people in Denmark that work as Danish/Russian translators explained how subtitling works on Danish TV on our field trip to the top Danish TV station, I was introduced to heaven on earth...also referred to as Nutella.

The field trip was really interesting. We learned a lot about how Danish TV is set up and some of the challenges translators/subtitle-ers face. Like translating slang...and jokes...on the Simpsons. The guy I mentioned who is one of six Danish/Russian translators, Lars something or other, is the guy who translated when Reagan and Gorbachev had their talks. Kind of important.

Today in class I learned a million fascinating things about media and newspapers. I won't bore you all with the details, but I will mention one thing that stood out: even though readers insist that political and "important" stories be put on the front page, its more or less for show because the articles about strange octopuses or man-eating dogs are what attract readers. He suggested that there is a way to make a political story entertaining and journalists should strive to do that. He also referred to PBS as "TV that smells funny."

After class, I raced home and met Jane to go to the kommune where I applied for my CPR card. Its like a social security card and gives me access to health care as well as the library. Yay!

Then we ate bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, fried egg and shredded cabbage and carrots for dinner. And then the real fun began! We drove like crazy people to get to the TV studio in time to watch Sandhedens Time! It's the same show as in the state where someone is on the spot answering tough questions with yes or no. A lie detector is used to see if they are telling the truth and they can win money. The woman admitted to giving people compliments she didn't mean, stealing from work, telling people they had hygiene problems, taking naked pictures, not cheating on her ex, enjoying porn (which was first legalized in Denmark btw.), planning to say yes if her boyfriend proposed, making fun of disabled people (there was some link to someone with Downs Syndrome), planning to have an abortion if she found out she was pregnant with a disabled child...all of this to get out on lying about being attracted to other men while dating her boyfriend. She was up to 200,000 dkk and blew it.

They said they were putting things on youtube, so it might be worth a search later. I'll let you know what I find! But anyway, from the picture below, you can kind of see that I was right behind where the family sits. I'm thinking whenever they showed them, I'm probably on! Fun, fun.









The next picture is sort of random, but it was taken outfront of either a building for the U. of Copenhagen or their admin building. Usually these are busts of famous Danes, but today, they are robbers or skiiers? Note the black masks.










Tomorrow night I have a beer tasting, and this weekend is my trip to Sweden! You should probably look forward to seeing those pictures; I hear its quite lovely in Kullaberg.

"At regse er at leve" HC Andersen (to travel is to live)

Dad alerted me that my link to pictures was not working, so I have updated it and added photos to accompany this blog post!

The beginning of this trip has been beautiful weather- today included. After my Danish class I walked through some of the shopping streets to Rosenborg Have (have means park or garden) around the Rosenborg Slot (castle). Throughout the garden there are many sculptures. But, while those are nice, there were much nicer things in the garden today.

First, the lovely bench that I sat on to eat my lunch of smorrebrod, which is a traditional lunch of dark bread with a meat or fish component.

Next, the peaceful fountain surrounded by frolicking Danish school children.

Then the drunk Dane who I ignored as he yelled to me from the next bench over until he stumbled toward me, Carlsberg in hand, to ask for the time. But, we didn't learn "what time is it" in Danish class yet, and I of course couldn't remember how to say "I don't understand." Instead I said, "I don't speak Danish," like a true American. He pointed at his wrist, and I replied in prefect English, "It's 2."

After him was the cutest Dane I've seen since getting here: a bulldog! Love, love.

So let me go off on a bit of a tangent about the appearance of Danes. There are the Brad Pitt Danes, the Prince William Danes, the McCauley Culkin superhip twelve year old Danes, Heidi Klum Danes, Scarved Danes, Dark Danes and extremely well behaved child Danes. A lot of those groups are self explanatory based on who they look like. I need to take a picture of the superhip twelve year olds-- basically I will never be as cool as them. Every Dane is a scarved Dane and the trend is wearing a square scarf with the triangle in the front and triangles over the shoulders. http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/the-tassel-scarf

Dark Danes are the women especially who have dark hair and dark eyes with very pale skin. Of course, everyone is super good looking so I take it as a compliment when the H&M salesgirl tells me my total in Danish and looked completely shocked when I asked to to repeat it. "Oh! You speak English?!"

And now back to important subjects such as military time. Really, why? Why can't four just be four? Why does it have to be 16?

Yesterday I went to a cafe for dinner with my Danish teacher and some other students. All DIS students can go to a dinner like this, and its a chance to go out, get a free meal and experience some hygge and skalling! Hygge sort of means cozy and is highly important here. There's no direct translation. Skal is what you say when you toast. We ate sandwiches (Lettuce! Real romaine lettuce!) with a curry dressing and Carlsberg beer or ol. This was in a new part of town that I hadn't ventured into before called Norrebro, which means north bridge. I got a little lost getting there, but in true Danish fashion, was still on time.

I want to sum up this post with some interesting information about the Danish healthcare system and smoking. We learned today that throughout the recent history of smoking legislation/taxation/information sharing the US uses taxation and more so legislation (like banning smoking in public places) and campaigns to reduce smoking. It's effective because it denormalizes smoking and makes a formerly social activity something done in isolation. But, in Denmark, they simply tax and tax tobacco because it doesn't deter people from smoking. Wait...if it doesn't deter Danes from smoking, why do they increase taxes? That's because the taxes aren't used to improve health, but to raise revenue for the country. Smoking has yet to become the health crisis it was in the US and the government and tobacco companies are making tons off of it. Interesting huh?

Here's a clip from the park: