"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: