Kate goes some places

The End

2009-12-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

So this is the end of seven months of crazy traveling adventures. I'm writing this from Massachusetts, which is colder but sunnier than Denmark. I will certainly miss Denmark. It was an absolutely amazing semester and I met some really awesome people. But there are some nice things about being home. As I said it's sunny. I don't have to cook. I get to see my family and friends.
Still, I hope I can go back to Denmark at some point.

Awesome ride

2009-12-15T07:49:00.000-08:00

So ever since I arrived in Denmark, I'd really wanted to go on the ride pictured above. It's basically a cross between the swingset rides and the elevator amusement park rides. You're on a giant spinning swingset and it's brought up and down that giant elevator style shaft.
And I finally lived out this dream last night! It was really cold but well worth it. It gave an amazing view of Copenhagen and of Tivoli, where it is. It was also fast, high, and thrilling, which is everything I love in amusement park ride!

Malmo Trip!

2009-12-14T02:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Malmo, Sweden with DIS and it was a really awesome time! The day started with me discovering the most amazing bar in Copenhagen. I didn't even have to go inside to know that it's the best bar ever. Just take a look at it:

Boston Sports!

Next we got on the train to go from Copenhagen to Malmo. The train ride pretty short, considering it goes between to cities in two different countries. And we got to go over a really long bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Transportation didn't go as smoothly as it could have. When we got into Sweden, they made an announcement on the train that the train would not be stopping at Malmo central station. Rather we would have to get off at Malmo South Station, which was a half hour or so bus ride away from where we wanted to be. So, inconvenient but not the end of the world.
When we did arrive in Malmo, we saw that it was like Copenhagen in many ways. The buildings and atmosphere were very similar. But it was still cool to walk around. There were a number of cool sculptures, buildings and a ferris wheel. And Malmo, like Copenhagen, was very Christmassy!

The Giving Tree

Marching Band sculpture

City hall or other important building, I think

We spent most of the afternoon just kind of wandering around and looking at the city. We also found time to eat one of the most delicious meals ever! It was a middle eastern buffet, with all sorts of falafel, hummus and other random things that I had never eaten. It was really really delicious and kept me full until bed!

Middle Eastern Buffet. Much more appetizing than it looks.

So, Sweden is also really cold. Much colder than Denmark. (Actually that was probably just a coincidence, since it's like two feet away from Denmark.) But anyway, we decided to go inside a mall and wander around. In the mall, we encountered a mini-procession of people celebrating Santa Lucia, which is a Swedish holiday, where girls dress in white and sing songs and put candles on their heads and eat buns. I'm sure there is also a deeper meaning than that, but I'm not sure. But it was really cool cause these girls (and a few guys) were just standing in the middle of the mall, in white dresses with candles. One girl, had the candles on her head, which looked uncomfortable as she had wax all in her hair. Later we had some Santa Lucia buns, which are a traditional pastry eaten on Santa Lucia.

Santa Lucia in the Mall

Santa Lucia Bun

We wandered around some more at night and saw a lot of really neat things, like this giant lamp in the middle of a square. Then we saw even more Santa Lucia singers! These ones were outside right in the main square and were really amazing and beautiful to listen to. And it started snowing which made it even more beautiful. Here are some photos and a short video of the first song the Santa Lucia girls sang.

Giant Lamp

Ferris Wheel

Santa Lucia on the Balcony

Climate, Christiania, and Christmas

2009-12-12T09:19:00.001-08:00

Random Photo: I bike CPH, even in the winter

My last full weekend in Copenhagen was an amazing one! Of course, every now and then I'd be standing somewhere, and think, wow, the odds that this is the last time I will ever be in this place (or at least for a very long time) are increasing at an alarming rate with every passing day. And that makes me extremely sad. But I've been trying to enjoy my last week here as much as I can.
Friday was my last day of classes. Honestly, I'm not all that sad about no more classes until January. Sitting in class on Friday was so hard with all the climate excitement going on outside. I could hear people marching down the street with drums and chanting and I really wanted to see what the excitement was about, but it was my last class of the semester, so I stayed put. But we did have some good tasting cookies in one of my classes, that kind of looked like dog kibble, but tasted much much better.

Much better than dog kibble

I then spent a good chunk of the rest of Friday wandering around the city looking at all the climate stuff. You may have heard, but Copenhagen is hosting a really major conference on climate change with like every world leader in the world in attendance. This means that there are also all sorts of protests, climate exibits and general coolness (no pun intended) going on. Among these exhibits are a trailer saying "Brad Pitt is saving planet earth in Copenhagen." Brad Pitt has no actual affiliation with this trailer. Instead they are taking random people off the street and filming them imitating Brad Pitt talking about saving the earth. I got some nice photos of a DIS student imitating Brad Pitt. (Check out www.bradpitt.dk for more info about this interesting exhibit.)

Not Brad Pitt

Another favorite exhibit of mine is the ice sculpture of the polar bear that the WWF put out right near my school. It started out as a complete polar bear. But then obviously it slowly started melting away and underneath was a metal polar bear skeleton. This symbolized how global warming is killing the polar bears. It earned creativity points for presentation in my book.

Global warming killing the polar bear

I also happened upon a small but cool demonstration, with people wanting to save the Himalayas. There were tons of Nepalese flags and a large group of mountain climbers. There were also a few Nepalese politicians. It was cool though, cause on stage they had a group of ten or so climbers who had all summitted Mt. Everest (and one who had climbed the tallest mountain on every continent.) So that was neat. Here's a photo from that and a few other random ones from climate exhibitions around the city:

Himalayas Demonstration

That giant plant and that giant ball aren't normally on the streets of Copenhagen

One of many painted globes in Kongens Nytorv

The next day was perhaps even more exciting! Two friends and I decided we wanted to see what the Christiania Christmas market was like. On my way biking down I saw a man biking with no pants on, just underwear and knee socks. That was kind of strange, especially since it was quite cold. Then I met Katherine and Kyle down on Christianshavn where we happened to be when the most massive climate demonstration EVER came through. It was so big! Estimates place somewhere between 60 and 100,000 people at the demonstration! Really, they just kept coming and coming and coming. Most of the people had various climate signs . There were people who were just against global warming, vegans, people telling us to save the polar bears, people telling us to save the panda bears. And then there were people who really were just using it as a platform for their own non-climate issues. This included people wanting out of Iraq, union workers, marijuana smokers, communists, socialists, and more that I probably am forgetting or simply didn't notice. Ultimately the protest resulted in 900 arrests

After watching the climate demonstration for about an hour we headed over to the Christmas market. It was packed, but it was still pretty cool. Inside a giant barn, there were all sorts of vendors selling all sorts of weird things. I was hungry so Kyle and I tried something called risengrød cause it looked like rice pudding and I like rice pudding. And it was really delicious and warm. We weren't really sure what went good on it, but they had bowls with sugar and cherries so we added both and both were really good. Also, as we were leaving Christiania, about ten police vans SPED onto the street, sirens and lights blazing. And piled out of the van and ran off sprinting. We weren't completely sure what that was about, but I read in the paper the next day that a bunch of cars were set on fire outside Christiania and that a policeman had a brick thrown at his face. So maybe we saw something to do with that.

Christiania Christmas Market

Risengrød

After visiting Christiania I walked back to the center and saw some cool stuff. There were christmas carollers in the middle of Strøget, and they were really good. There was also all sorts of litter, leftover from the environmental protest. A little ironic in my opinion. And finally, I ended my walk at the city hall, which is really awesomely decorated for the climate conferences, with a giant globe, stationary bicycles to contribute power to the event (which I of course rode) and all sorts of interesting exhibits.

Giant Globe

A final point of success: I have figured out what I am doing for Christmas presents for my family. But it would be silly of me to post it here, considering my parents make up more than fifty percent of this blog's readership, so that would really defeat the point :)

Returning to Prison

2009-12-09T10:54:00.001-08:00

I should be writing my 12 page 1.5 spaced paper that is due Friday about how Nestle kills babies.
But instead I am going to write about my second visit to a Danish prison, with the same class that I went with before. Once again, this was one of my favorite Danish experiences of the semester. It's really just so fascinating to see how completely different it was than in the US.

The last prison I went to was shocking because it was an open prison and we have absolutely nothing like that in the US for drug users and robbers. However, this closed prison, Vridsløselille, was almost as surprising in its own way. With the open prison, I did have some idea of what to expect. I had seen photos in my class lectures and had heard from my teacher about how different it was from an American prison. But in regards to the closed prisons, she had always told us that it would be a lot more like what we pictured when we pictured a prison.

Well, at least this prison had gates that lock. But other than that, it still was not very close to what I imagined to see in a closed prison. The prisoners still dressed in normal clothes. They still wandered around within their unlocked wards at will. The knives in the kitchen (although this time attached to the wall), the tanning bed, the soccer fields, the friendly conversations between guards and prisoners that I had seen in the open prison still existed in the closed prison. And these are not prisoners in for minor drug offenses or pickpocketing. The prison we visited had murderers, serious drug offenders, gang members, the worst criminals in Denmark. Prisoners can go to the gym, school, work (well, work's a requirement), and even the prison grocery store! They aren't allowed to leave the grounds obviously, or to go outside their ward past a certain time, and they are locked into their rooms at night, but as far as prisons go, this didn't seem all that uncomfortable. There were even pool tables and ping pong tables on all the wards!

They also place a large emphasis on education in the prison, which seems like a good thing to me. Instead of going to work, prisoners can go to school to receive an education in the prison. They will still be paid as if they were going to work! While I know Americans would have a problem paying prisoners to go to school and not even to work, it probably helps with giving prisoners something to do when they get out of prison other than go right back to crime.

At the end of our visit, we talked to a prisoner for a little while, which was a little disconcerting. He committed a double homicide of two Finnish police men, which is like... a really horrible crime. But he seemed extremely nice and seemed genuinely sorry, which was the disconcerting part. I had to keep reminding myself that he was a serious criminal and that in all likelihood isn't as friendly as he seems. Or maybe he is, who knows?

Also, when we were leaving, I saw a cool sculpture at the train station:

Christmas in Copenhagen

2009-12-07T04:33:00.001-08:00

So Denmark is very very Christmassy. And I love it! Christmas season here began even earlier than it does in the United States, at the end of October. The official start of Christmas season here, as far as I have been able to tell was J-Dag (or J-Day), which is when Christmas Beer comes out. That's right. Denmark makes their own Christmas beer and its release is a national holiday! I walked around downtown the night that it came out and it was wild! People were dressed in entire outfits, head to toe, that were put out by Tuborg, the maker of the most popular Christmas beer. I was even lucky enough to be given a free Christmas beer hat. Basically, it's a giant blue Santa hat, with white polka dots and something written in Danish on it. I didn't stay out too late, as I was recovering from the flu that night, but I heard every bar in Copenhagen was packed. Interestingly, one of my friends tried to get into one of our favorite bars and was told that on J-Dag they only let Danes into the bar and she was given a similar response at a different bar. Even Danish people who I've asked about that were surprised and were not aware of that policy.

Me in my J-Dag hat

After J-Dag, we left for our travel break and upon our return we were greeted with Denmark's Christmas season in full force. And as the weeks have continued it has become more and more apparent. Every street is lit up. There is a giant tree in front of city hall. My bus stop has turned into a Christmas tree farm. Nyhavn has turned into a Christmas market.
And there's tons of Christmas themed food. I tried something called æbleskiver, which are like spherical pancakes that you put in powdered sugar. They were one of the greatest things ever and it makes me sad that I won't be able to have them on return to the states, cause I don't think I will be able to buy them anywhere and you need a special pan to make them yourself. Another common winter drink is gløgg, which I haven't tried but I have heard quite a bit about. It's like hot wine with rum and rum raisins and nuts in it. It's supposed to be really good and is quite a big thing to some people apparently. I have one Danish friend who showed me his supply of raisins that he has been soaking in rum for THREE MONTHS so that they will be good and strong for Christmas season gløgg. I definitely plan on trying this.
I also used this Christmas season to finally visit Tivoli, something I have been wanting to do all semester. Tivoli is the second oldest amusement park in the world and was really really cool. The Christmas decorations were amazing and I had the most delicious caramel apple that I have ever eaten! The highlight of the evening, however, was the Crazy Christmas Cabaret or Mamma Mafia. It was a English performance in Tivoli about a bunch of mafia families in America, complete with singing, cross-dressing, dancing, making fun of Americans, making fun of Danes, and all around ridiculousness. They do a Crazy Christmas Cabaret in Tivoli every year and it it amazed me that at the beginning of the night, when they asked how many people had been to a show before, everyone except my small group of DIS Americans raised their hands.

Entrance to Tivoli

Inside Tivoli

But I would also say I'm taking a lot more notice of the Christmas season here than at home. At home, I know Christmas decorations, music, and festivities start around Thanksgiving, but I'm usually so busy with finals that I don't notice. I do have finals and work here, but because I'm in Denmark and trying to savor every last minute of it, it's so much easier to notice and enjoy the Christmas joy here.

Norway!

2009-11-29T02:35:00.001-08:00

I just got back from an amazing trip to Oslo, Norway. It was short but sweet (and cheap, due to a friend getting tickets from her host family!) To get there we boarded an overnight boat. The boat ride was fun, with plenty of Christmas decorations and cool people to hang out with.
When we arrived in Oslo, the first thing we saw was the Opera House. It was really neat. Basically it looked like a giant sled hill. It was all white and looked like snow and you could see people walking all over it. So we went over and climbed to the roof of the Opera house, which was provided some pretty cool views.

Opera House

Top of the Opera House

Next we walked a little throughout Oslo. We went up some walking streets, which were extremely Christmassy, which was no real surprise considering that Christmas-Spirit is what I have come to expect from Scandinavia. Walking through the streets we realized that Norwegian (at least in its written form) is extremely similar to Danish. We were all pleasantly surprised at how much of the language we could read on the streets. It was especially surprising because I really don't know much Danish at all either!

Merry Christmas

Eventually we made it to the Norwegian National Gallery, which had a whole bunch of paintings. Some of them were of Norway and really impressive. Others were also impressive because I'd actually heard of them, which is unusual when it comes to me and paintings. Among the ones I recognized were a self-portrait of Van Gogh and Norway's most famous painting, The Scream.

Scream (photo from google, no cameras allowed in museum)

Our walk continued to the Nobel Peace Prize institute. We didn't go inside the museum but looked at it from the outside. Obama will be there next week to get his prize, but he'll be in Copenhagen too, so I didn't feel like I accidentally came to Oslo a week too early.

Sign at the Nobel Institute. When I saw it, I thought it said "King Obama" which seemed strange. But upon closer look it says "Fra King Til Obama" or "From King to Obama"

The Nobel institute was right next to the City Hall and a giant ice rink in the middle of a square. There were some impressive figure skaters on the rink, which was neat. And a giant "Julemarked" (Christmas market) that we would make our way back to later. From the city hall, we caught a ride over to the highlight of my day: the Viking Ship Museum. This museum is the home to three 1100 year old Viking ships. When important vikings died, they were buried inside whole ships. And they managed to dig up three of these ships, which are impressively preserved. Along with the ships, there were tons of other things in the ships and now in the museum including carriages, horses, pots and pans, smaller boats, human skeletons. It was really quite an amazing museum.

Viking Ship

Going back to the center, we happened upon the changing of the guard at the royal Norwegian palace, which was my favorite changing of the guard I've ever seen. The guards had amazing furry hats and knives and guns that they used in the ceremony. It was pretty impressive.

Royal Palace

Guards, with their hats and guns

We ended the day walking around that Christmas market. It was really cooly lit and there was a Santa and Christmas music and nice smelling foods.

Julemarked

Eventually we had to go catch our boat back to Copenhagen. Another fun boat ride back. We played people watching Bingo. Our board included such items as "Christmas sweater" and "pants tucked into socks." All in all a very fun day in Norway.

Going to Danish Prison

2009-11-23T05:38:00.003-08:00

Well, you may have read about my run-in with the Danish police for not have lights on my bike at night, so it was really only a matter of time before I ended up at a prison. Kidding. Kind of. I did go to a prison, it just wasn't because of any laws I broke, rather it was just for my Criminal Justice in Scandinavia class.
The Scandinavians take a very very different approach to criminal punishment than the Americans and this prison was proof of that. While Americans basically just seem to shove as many people into prison for as long as they can, without really caring about giving them any sort of humane living conditions, the Danes are much more lenient with their prison sentences. A murderer may receive a ten year sentence. In fact, few people receive more than five years. And for most prisoners, the default place to serve out a term is an open prison, meaning there is an open gate, and the prisoners are not in any locked facilities during the day. At night they are locked into rooms, but that is all. The only thing that stops the prisoners from walking out is there willpower. And somehow it seems to work. After all the conditions in the prison are extremely humane. The prison is neat, clean, and comfortable. There is green grass all around. The prisoners have access to TVs, when their children come and visit, there are toys and playgrounds. There is a gym, a kitchen where prisoners cook for themselves, with full access to very large cooking knives. Basically, the guard who showed us around, an unarmed female in an all-men's prison, said that the philosophy is that if it doesn't make them more criminal, there is no reason they should not have access to it. Indeed, perhaps the most mind-blowing thing to me was the tanning bed. Prisoners had access to a tanning bed! It's not free for them to use, they pay for it out of their wages, but still! Wow!
And the thing about all this is that it seems to have the desired effects. The prisoners, as a result of being treated like human beings, act like human beings. They were friendly, polite, even joking with the guards. And the recidivism rate in Denmark is significantly lower than the US, which I think says a lot.
A lot of Americans would have a problem with this, I think. I heard one fellow student say, they're criminals! They shouldn't be treated nicely. But I really do think people will act how you treat them, in a lot of cases, and the results of Danish prisons speak for themselves.
All in all, this was one of the most eye-opening experiences I have had since being in Denmark. It is certainly my favorite field-trip I have ever been on and I had moments of genuine shock (seeing the knives and the tanning bed in the prison, to name a few!)

Berlin, Germany

2009-11-23T05:38:00.001-08:00

The final city we visited on our Euro-travel-trip was Berlin, which, consistent with the common theme of all the cities I visited, was completely awesome! Like most of the cities I had already visited, I knew very little about what to do and see in Berlin, but I was completely blown away by how amazing of a city it was. One of the first things we noticed the night we arrived, trying to find our hostel, was the amount of street art. Some of it just looks like plain over graffiti, but much more widespread. And some of it is amazing and looked like photographs made out of paint. A lot of it really was art!

Our Hostel

My favorite street art: The Creation of Atom!

Street Art

The next morning, we realized that we were going to be doing a lot of walking in Berlin. In our ignorance of Berlin's geography, we booked a hostel that was about three miles from the Mitte, which is the main touristy part of Berlin, where most of the things to see were. Our hostel was right next to a subway stop but each ride on the subway would have been about $3, which just didn't seem worth it, so we decided to walk it. We fortunately did break up the walk by stopping at a delicious bakery, where I had one of the most amazing things I have ever eaten. It was like a moist custardy, powdered sugary gigantic flat cake type thing. When we got to the Mitte, the first things we noticed were the giant TV tower, lots of bear statues, and lots of buildings that looked like they were made in Rome, with columns and old looking stuff like that. For some reason, that wasn't quite what I pictured when I pictured Germany, but it was still really cool.

TV Tower: Berlin's highest structure

Looks like Rome

Bear statue

As the day continued, Katherine and I decided to do our final free walking tour of the trip. And as usual it was extremely cool. Here are some of the interesting things we saw:

Sign in a river saying not to swim or drop anchor there, because there is an unexploded bomb there still left from World War II. Apparently this is fairly common around Berlin.
Museum Island, the site of five world class museums. Also, how our guide introduced us to the creativity of German names. The first museum of the island originally was named "The Museum." When a second museum was added it was named "The Old Museum" (Altes Museum) and the new museum was named "The New Museum" (Neues Museum). How creative!

A very simple but powerful memorial to "victims of war." It was basically a wide open room with only a statue of a mother holding her dying son. Underneath the statue are buried an unknown German soldier and an unknown concentration camp victim.

Crosswalk signals: shaped very differently in East Berlin.

Humboldt University: Where several very famous Germans were educated, including Einstein and Max Planck.
Another memorial, below ground, visible through a window in the ground showing plain white bookshelves with enough room to hold the 20,000 titles that were burned during WW2. Near it, students sell books that were banned.

A chocolate store that our guide said was the best in Berlin. It had amazing chocolate sculptures, including a chocolate bear, a chocolate Titanic, and several choclate German landmarks, on the outside and when we returned later it was indeed amazing chocolate. It was also interesting cause it was all in German and I didn't really know what I was buying.

The Berlin Wall, or at least the second largest remaining piece of it. And Checkpoint Charlie, the American-run checkpoint from East to West Berlin was.

Berlin Wall

One of the most interesting things we saw however, was the place where Hitler had his bunker and where his body was discovered and burned. It was interesting because it was so uninteresting. There is nothing there indicating that anything of any historical importance happened there. The bunker is covered in grass, and it is right in the middle of a grassy section of a parking lot.
A new contraversial memorial to the Holocaust. Contraversial because it's very ambiguous. It's a bunch of stone pillars in lines. Nothing is written about what they mean or represent. Someone said the idea is to make you think about the Holocaust for yourself and to try to figure out what it means, rather than simply being shown a list of names. The other thing though is that the stones are covered with a chemical to repel grafitti and that chemical is produced and developed by the same company that made Zyklon-B, the gas that was used in the holocaust to kill the very people that the memorial is commemorating. Some people have a real problem with that, and I can certainly see why.

We finished the evening at the Brandenburg Gate, which is a really cool gate in a big square. It's one of the major landmarks of Berlin. Incidentally, it's right next to the American Embassy. When the Americans decided they needed a bigger fence around the embassy, they asked the Germans to move the thirty meters to the left. Keep in mind, this gate is REALLY BIG and is like the biggest landmark of Berlin! The Germans declined the request. Also, right near the gate is a pretty important hotel: the hotel that Michael Jackson dangled his baby out of!

Brandenburg Gate

Balcony Michael Jackson dangled baby from

Dinner that night was delicious. I had something that was basically meatloaf wrapped in cabbage topped with a different kind of cabbage, with a side of potatoes. It was really really amazing. After dinner, Katherine and I decided to check out a ping-pong bar we had heard about. It was pretty different. It was a giant plain concrete room, with a ping-pong table in the middle and a bar off to the side. You could put down a 5 Euro deposit for a ping-pong padde. Then you joined the line on one side of the table. When you reached the front of the line you took one shot and if you made it, you went to the end of the line on the other side. If you missed, you were out. I never did too well, but it was fun and some people were very good!

Ping-Pong Bar

The next day, Katherine and I repeated our same routine of walking to the center and stopping for delicious baked goods on the way. In the city, we walked around in the morning. We saw tons of bear statues. We also saw one of the best street performers I have ever seen. He played the water glasses, but he played like really complex songs with tons of glasses at once! It was mind-blowing! Later we saw something extremely strange:
Katherine and I were standing by that memorial we had seen yesterday with the statue of the mother and son, when we noticed a giant pink man in a rabbit costume (like a pink Easter bunny). He was carrying a Christmas wreath covered in carrots with some German writing on it. He left that wreath in front of the monument, walked about 20 feet and was charged by three police officers who grabbed him and threw him into a van. We still haven't really figured out what it was about, other than that it had something to do with Africa. Not really sure exactly how that works, but that's what the flier someone handed out said.

???

We ended the day at one of the museums on Museum Island: the Neues Museum, which had an amazing collection of Egyptian art including the Bust of Nefertiti, which was really beautiful. There were also tons of really cool scrolls and mummys and sculptures, and bones and more. It was a great museum and a great end to our trip.

Bones

Bust of Nefertiti

After the museum we headed back to our hostel and went to sleep. An early morning flight the next morning and we were back in Copenhagen. Home sweet home, at least for another month.

Krakow, Poland

2009-11-23T04:00:00.000-08:00

After leaving Prague, we continued with a seven hour train ride to Krakow, Poland. The train ride was long, but it was kind of cool because we were in a Harry-Potter-esque compartment. For the first couple hours, Katherine and I were in the compartment with four other people, so it was a pretty tight fit, and they were all quiet and reading so it was super awkward if we wanted to talk to each other, so that wasn't too fun. But then everyone had cleared out by the Polish border and Katherine and were given the chance to stretch our legs and to talk to each other as much as we wanted so it wasn't too bad at all. Finally, after a rather long train ride, we arrived in Krakow. My first impression of Krakow was a very positive one. The train station was like right next to the main central square, and our hostel was right next to that, so we found our home for the next few days very quickly. The only catch is we spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to cross the road. There were no crosswalks anywhere that we could find and it was quite a busy road. (As we later discovered, there was actually a foot-tunnel under the road that we should have gone through.

Also, when we first arrived, we immediately saw the giant Medieval market square, which we learned is the biggest Medieval square still existing in Europe, at something like 250 meters across! That's a big square. And when we arrived it was all decorated with posters and Polish flags, because we happened to arrive the day before Polish Independence Day! After crossing the square, we found our hostel, which was the best hostel in the world, I have decided. We paid something like $12 per night. And this included breakfast, an incredibly neat and clean room, internet access, helpful signs telling how to do important things like go to the airport, a kitchen with free coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a sign telling about the various free events that went on in the hostel each night. These included wine night, cake night, pudding night, Pierogi night, and more. Although, we only were really there for wine night and cake night. Another interesting thing that happened that night: as I was laying in bed, someone came into our room and was getting into the bed next to mine who looked really familiar: my roommate from Copenhagen. I knew that she would be in Krakow over the break but I didn't think it would be while I was there, and I certainly didn't think she would end up the next bed over from me.

Flags for Independence Day

From the Medieval Square

The next day was when we discovered the lovely weather of Poland. By this I mean that it was bitterly cold and rainy. Like a rain so cold it makes you feel like an icicle. I actually wore a pair of tight leggings underneath my jeans so I could be a little warmer. The bulk of the early part of this day was spent visiting Auschwitz, which is right near Krakow. While obviously this is not the most cheerful place we could have visited, it was eye-opening and I am very glad that we went. Some of it looked just like what I had seen in photos or in movies like Schindler's list, the wooden barracks, the barbed wire fences, and the train-tracks. But there was something about being there that photos and movies can't really capture. And while most of the major part of the camp is in ruins, you can still get a sense of the massive scale of the crimes that were committed there by how the rows and rows of barracks (even if all that remains of most is the brick chimneys and foundations) just keep on going into the distance. I could talk at length about what we saw on our visit to Auschwitz, about what shocked me and what sites of horrific genocidal crimes we saw, but some part of me feels like a blog isn't really the place to do that, so I'm going to leave my visit to Auschwitz to what I have already written on the topic.

After arriving back, we continued with something that dominated much of our time in every city we visited: walking around aimlessly and exploring the city. We saw a memorial to Polish independence, which was covered in all sorts of flowers and fire, in honor of Independence day. We also saw tons of churches and remnants of the Medieval fortifications. We also found the Wawel Castle, which is a really big landmark in Poland. It was night, so we couldn't walk around on it's grounds but it still looked really cool. Finally, we decided we were freezing so we went back to the hostel to warm up, and on our day there was a large group of people singing Polish songs in the Main Market Square!

Old fortifications

Part of Wawel Castle at night.

Eventually, we went to dinner, where I had a dish that consisted of beef in some sort of really warm and hearty sauce with sauerkraut, and I really love sauerkraut, so that made me super happy. That night, was wine night, so we had a little wine, and then one of the hostel workers offered to show anyone who wanted some bars in the area. So we, and maybe a dozen others, from our hostel followed him into a very bizarre bar. On the one hand, it was nice because beers were less than a dollar. (Poland uses the Zloty, which is pronounced some way that I don't even know how to transcribe). As to the bar, it was in a small brick basement. And the entry area was decorated like a giant pirate ship, with sails, flags, and boat stuff. But then when you looked around on the bars, there were all sorts of motorcycles and motorcycle paraphanelia on the walls. And they played bad eighties American music, like Michael Jackson, which really added to the atmosphere. And the Polish guys that we were watching dance, danced like something from the disco era. It was really a fascinating bar to see.

The next day was an exciting one. First we took a free walking tour of Krakow. Our guide, a local college student, was fantastic. He spent the first fifteen minutes of the tour assuring us that he was a certified guide, because apparently the companies that charge for tours don't like the companies that give them for free, so he says they make news stories saying how the guides aren't real guides, and he made very sure that we all saw his official badge. It was kind of funny. He showed us some interesting things that we would not have found on our own. For example, we saw various interesting churches, the Jewish quarter, which has some very old synagogues in it. He also pointed out a bunch of pope (JP2) statues. John Paul II was from near Krakow, and they LOVE him there! There are so many pope statues in Krakow. He even showed us a window in a random building with a giant poster of him in the window. Apparently, one night he visited Krakow and was staying in that room and a whole bunch of Polish students stood on the ground outside the window yelling for him to come talk to them. And he came and told them to go away, that he couldn't sleep. And then he stayed and talked to them for three hours. And then whenever he came back to Krakow he would stay at that window and talk to students for several hours at night. He also pointed out various spots where scenes in Schindler's List were filmed, which was interesting because in some of the spots I could definitely vividly recall the scene they were talking about. We also ate a type of really good Polish fast food that was really cheap called Zapiekanke, which was basically a really delicious pizza with garlic and onion sauce and fried onions and no tomato sauce. Finally, on this tour is when I noticed that Krakow is filled with pigeons. They are literally infesting the main square and will land on anyone eating food that they want.

Pope window
Giant head in the Medieval Square

Me, Katherine, Polish fast food. Also, we were cold.

Pigeons. Rodents with wings.

After our free walking tour, we decided to visit another major site just outside Krakow: the Wieliczka salt mines, which are the home of the oldest continuously running salt mines in the world. These mines have been in operation since the 1200s! We started our trip into the mines by walking down 54 flights of stairs! Ouch, but we made it. Ultimately we ended up 400 feet below ground and saw some really awesome stuff. Everything there, the walls, the floors, the ceilings are made out of salt. Our guide assured us that we were welcome to taste any of those if we were in doubt, which I declined to do. The only things we could not eat were the salt art. All over there were amazing salt sculptures. Some showed miners mining the way they would have mined in the Medeival times (what a shock, it was REALLY dangerous!) and other art showed more funky things, like the seven dwarves. The most impressive part by far was the salt cathedral, complete with salt chandaliers, salt Jesus, salt Last Supper painting, salt alter (saltar?), and of course a salt John Paul II. It was a huge room, that was absolutely mind-blowing to stand in. I've never seen anything like it and I doubt I ever will again. The other thing that blew my mind was how big the whole mine system was. Tourists are required to stay with a guide at all times because there are over 300 km of shafts and you could very easily get lost in them if you didn't know what you were doing. The final exciting part of the mine was getting back to the top. Fortunately for everyone's knees they did not make us climb back up the 54 stories. Instead we all packed in to a very very small and cramped elevator that was tight, dark, and shaky. I don't love elevators and I really didn't like this one. As it was idling, it kind of bounced up and down ever so slightly, and to be honest I don't know that Poland has the same safety regulations as the US, so I really was uncomfortable. However, we did make it to the top very quickly, so quickly in fact that my ears popped on the ride!

Salt salt-miners

Chapel, with partial view of salt chandelier in upper right corner

The Last Supper

Back in Krakow for the night, Katherine and I decided to eat the most Polish meal we could think of: pierogies! Pierogies are these delicious little Polish dumplings that I'd heard of because a few friends of Polish decent told me about them and because my school cafeteria served something that they called pierogies. I word it like that becacuse other than sort of being a dumpling, they were nothing like the delicious amazing warm dumplings we had in Poland. Traditionally, they are served with a potato filling, but we had one with a delicious cabbage and mushroom filling. Also, when we got back to the hostel we discovered it was cake night. It was not, however, cake like we know it. It was really good and ridiculous sweet, but it was more like a glorified cookie. Like it was basically layers of wafers held together with an obnoxiously sweet and sticky filling that was kind of like a mix of condensed milk and caramel. Very good.
Our flight out was the next afternoon, but we still found time to fit a little more exploring in. We decided to see the Wawel castle in the daylight. It was really nice to walk around and we found a big dragon statue and entered a pretty neat cathedral. And for some reason, outside the castle there was a tile, with a star and Michael Jackson's name on it. Not really sure what that was about.

Wawel Castle

Travels continue: Prague!

2009-11-21T06:17:00.000-08:00

Our Roman adventure over, my friend Katherine and I headed off towards Prague, Czech Republic. Our immediate introduction to Prague, like introductions to many cities, was not particularly charming. The airport, like most airports, was pretty far away from the center and I really hate figuring out how to get from airport to Hostel. Our journey from the airport began with trying to find the right bus. Not particularly easy to do, considering that Czech, like Danish, is really a horrible looking language. We were however told, by a transit worker, that we should pay our fare on the bus. However, when we attempted to pay the driver, we were yelled at in Czech. Not sure why, but then he motioned for us to move. Other people appeared to have tickets, but we never purchased a ticket of any time. So within our first hour in Prague, we definitely broke Czech law, by stealing our five dollar bus ride. However, we never got caught and when we changed to a subway train, we managed to figure out how to pay for that ride. Finally, that train ride over, and after a twenty minute or so walk so with our bags, we found our first hostel, Chili Hostel, where we stayed in an eight bed room, with six complete strangers, which ultimately turned out to be a great way to meet some pretty awesome and interesting people.

Our hostel basemement.

After getting settled in our room for a little bit, we headed out to eat. Our hostel was like a twenty minute walk from the really touristy areas of Prague, so we were fortunate to be able to find some pretty cheap eats. For $10, I had a gigantic meal, which included goulash, a delicious beef dish, some spinach that I actually liked, potato dumplings, and a soda. We were pretty beat from a long day of travel after dinner, so we planned on going back to the hostel pretty quickly. However, the restaurant we chose to eat at was right on the river, so we decided to follow the river a little and see what we found. And we definitely ended up walking much further than we intended. As we turned a corner, we got our first glimpse of Prague that was as breathtaking as I had heard. From our spot across the river, we could see the big castle in Prague, the cathedral and bridges, and lights. It was amazing. We decided to walk towards the lights and just kept getting drawn in further and further to the city. We'd see something we wanted to go look at and say, let's go there and then turn back. But from there, we'd see something twice as amazing and had to keep going. We ended up going to the famous Charles Bridge, which is covered in old Gothic statues and enjoying the amazing night views. This is also when we noticed that Prague is extremely touristy! I hadn't heard so many Americans since being in America!

The entrance to the Charles Bridge

Our first beautiful view of Prague

The next day, Katherine and I set off to explore the city in the morning. In our explorations, we ended up finding an old looking wall just off the main touristy area, and the wall kept going all the way up this really long and steep hill. So naturally, we decided to climb the hill. From the hill, it was very apparent that it was autumn. The trees were red and yellow and amazing. And the top of the hill provided an amazing view of Prague's old town. We also explored a pretty sweet island in the middle of the river that we were able to get to off one of the bridges. This is also where we first noticed the abundance of dogs in Prague, none of which were on leashes. Somehow everyone just has perfect little dogs that don't leave their owners! On the hill, we also found an interesting monument, the "monument to the victims of communism." We figured out that the Czech Republic really does not like communism any more, after their Soviet occupation.

View from the hill

Autumn on the island

Monument to the victims of communism

Also, this was the day that we first discovered an amazing thing when traveling through European cities: free walking tours. Basically, you go on a tour, with a guide that is paid only on tips. We saw some really parts of Prague, like the Astronomical clock tower, some old churches, the Jewish Quarter and more. One of the coolest churches we saw had an old shriveled up human arm hanging in it. The legend says the arm came from someone who tried to steal a statue of the Virgin Mary from the church. He pointed out the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe, which has over 25,000 bodies in it, in a VERY small areas. The bodies are buried one on top of another an the gravestones are piled in every which way. Our tour also came complete with re-enactments from the guide that actually made Czech history very interesting.

Astronomical clock tower

Cool church sculptures

Hebrew clock from the Jewish Quarter.

We also discovered a grocery store today, where we bought some delicious pastries and wafers, which are strangely popular in Prague. The wafers are like two giant communion wafers with hazelnut flavored sugar in between. Really good.

Wafer

Other highlights from our remaining time in Prague include:

The castle and the Cathedral: We hiked up a very long hill to the castle, which was cool to walk around. And at the end of the hill was an amazing cathedral. This cathedral is the second biggest cathedral in the world. And considering we saw the first biggest (St. Peter's) only a couple days before, I was pretty happy to see this one as well! The cathedral was huge and gothic, with amazing gigantic gargoyles, stained glass windows and more.

Castle and the Cathedral on the hill

We found the John Lennon wall, which is a giant wall covered in John Lennon related graffiti, including lyrics, his face and more. It was pretty neat to see. Near the wall was an old-fashioned watermill and a fence covered in locks. We never figured out what the locks were really about but it was still very cool to see and very different, and it was a nice find a little off the super touristy path.

From the John Lennon Wall

Watermill and Locks

Food in Prague was really good and beef heavy, with good sauces and stuff. Really creamy and delicious. What was unusual however, was the fact that almost every meal came with a side of some random raw vegetable. At one meal, I had a side of sliced cucumbers. At another there was a side of lettuce. And at yet another there were quartered tomatoes. Strange, but at least it made me eat my vegetables.

We also visited the Kampa Art Museum, which was an art museum we found right by the river. There was a lot of really neat stuff in there. Basically, Prague loves weird sculptures. I'll just show photos, since a picture's worth a thousand words:

Giant-faceless babies.

Penguins

Me + ?

We visited a giant TV tower. In and of itself, the TV tower would not have been that impressive, considering the fact that we had to walk pretty far to see it. What was really strange about it was the giant sculptures of faceless babies climbing up and down it on all sides. It was really really creepy, actually. And I'm not sure what the babies were all about, but there they were.

TV Tower. If you look close you can see the babies on the left-most column

Travel Break: Rome Part 3

2009-11-19T04:13:00.000-08:00

Rome

On our next day in Rome, we visited Ostia Antica, which was an ancient Roman town that is pretty much entirely still there. True, the buildings are all in some state of ruin (being over 2,000 years old) but it's amazing how a complete town survived the way Ostia did. Apparently, it was just abandoned over several years a long time ago and left the way it was for the rest of time! Osta took most of our morning and early afternoon and was well worth the amount of time we spent there. For one, it was great to get out of the really touristy parts of Rome. Rome was amazing, but extremely crowded everywhere you go, which could get a little old. And you really could just walk around Ostia anywhere you wanted (except in a few specific places that were roped off.) We were allowed to climb ancient stairs to the tops of ancient buildings and look out and see a view of even more ancient buildings. There was a complete theatre, a temple to Jupiter, a house where a religious cult held there headquarters, and a bar! There was also an ancient public bathroom, where people could use toilets side by side. And what's amazing about that is that the Ostians actually had a system of continuously running water that would not be matched in terms of hygiene until the 20th century! Truly amazing, from my public health student perspective! My favorite part though, besides simply exploring the massive maze of buildings was the market square, where the foundations of all the stores remained. But what was really cool, though, was that in front of each store on the ground lay a stone mosaic with a picture of what services were offered in that store. The mosaics showed boats, pots, fish, bread, and much more. Essentially it was an ancient mall, storefront advertising and all.

Me in Ostia

The theatre

Ancient Public Bathroom

Market, with some visible storefront mosaics

In the evening we took a trip to the capitol. After climbing a very long hill (Rome is hilly) we were greeted by a statue of a man on a horse. This statue of Marcus Aurelius is the first known equestrian statue and is believed to be the inspiration for every statue of a man on a horse since then! Inside the capitol museum was pretty awesome as well. We saw old chariots, more marble statues, more pots (less boring than it sounds, I swear), as well as a pretty cool temporary exhibit on Michelangelo. Let me just say, that man was pretty impressive. He had paintings, sculptures, buildings, intelligent writings, the Sistine chapel and probably more stuff I'm forgetting about. So it was pretty cool to see a lot of his original work all in one place!

The Capitol

Today was a very gelato heavy day as well. We got gelato twice! One time I got three scoops and one time I got two, meaning I tried five different flavors! Delicious! My gelato flavors included: Chocolate, chocolate mousse, hazelnut, mixed berry, and cream. All of them were excellent.

Our final complete day in Rome was another very walking-heavy day. First we visited a pretty neat graveyard with a giant Egyptian-style pyramid. It was kind of bizarre to see something like that in the middle of Italy. In this graveyard, there were the graves of some famous people including the writers Percy Shelly and John Keats. Keats' grave was interesting because his name was nowhere on it, per his request. Instead, his lifelong friend is buried next to him. His grave reads something to the effect of 'buried next to his friend, John Keats.' I think this is interesting, because it's kind of sad for the friend, that his entire epitaph is based on the fact that he was friends with someone famous, instead of having anything to do with his own life. Another interesting grave was the one for 'Denmark.' That was all the grave said, no years, words etc. So I'm very curious as to what was buried under there and how the country I currently live in died and came to be buried in Italy. This grave was right next to the grave for 'Bulgaria' but these were the only two countries I found in the cemetery.

Pyramid at the Cemetery

Another thing we saw was an ancient landfill, of sorts. Basically, it was a gigantic hill, but if you went to the side you could see that everything in the hill was stacked up layers of ceramic. Apparently the entire hill was made of shards from amphoras of all the olive oil that was shipped into Rome! And they had so many that they just didn't know what to do so they made huge hills of them. We also encountered the Circus Maxiumus, where chariot races used to be held. However, now the Roman government is using it for military exercises, so there were all sorts of fancy camouflage planes down there.

Circus Maximus

One of my two favorite things of the day were the Termes of Caracalla: the ancient Roman baths. This bathhouse was massive! Apparently it was big enough to accommodate over 1,600 bathers at once. And it has so more than just bathing facilities. In ancient times there would have been a library, sports facilities, barbers, dentists, tailors, swimming pools, and more! And most importantly, there was running water! Walking around what is basically an ancient YMCA was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that my roommates for the trip and I decided to spell out YMCA in the middle of the baths for a photo, which was definitely fun.

Baths

My other favorite site of the day was the Tempietto, which means 'The Little Temple.' On my trip I definitely saw some amazingly large churches, such as the largest in the world in the Vatican and later the 2nd largest in the world in Prague. But this temple was so small that I really liked it. It was a circle covered in columns which could not have been more than ten feet in diameter. A very cozy church, indeed. Also, it has some significance, as it is the place where St. Peter is believed to have been crucified, upside-down, according to legend. So now I can see I've seen St. Peter's tomb (in the cathedral named for him) and the site of his crucification.

The Tempieto

Of course, this day like the rest included some excellent food. Sadly, we did not meet our goal of eating gelato every day. But that is because today we had two other amazing Italian deserts: cannolis and tiramisu! Both were awesome. The cannoli was gigantic and delicious, although the place we ate it was filled with pigeons and smelled bad, so that may have detracted from the cannoli experience a little. And the tiramisu was one of the greatest things ever.

Canolli

The next day was mostly a day of travel. This is where my friend Katherine and I broke off from the larger group and made our own way to the train station, to the airport, and ultimately to Prague, which I will write about in the coming days.

Goodbye Rome!

Travel Break: Rome (Part 2, the Vatican)

2009-11-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

Day 3

Welcome to the Vatican!

Rome continued with a trip to the Vatican, the smallest independent nation in the world, at just less than one square kilometer. That being the case, the Vatican certainly has the most impressive art per square kilometer of any country in the world. Considering that the Vatican is so small, it's quite ironic then that one of the words that kept coming to my mind throughout our visit was: BIG! Indeed, the Vatican museum is really quite overwhelming and walking through the massive rooms, which are loaded with priceless, beautiful art from their floors to their extremely high, painted ceilings, you feel very very small. The entire museum is really a work of art. The walls, ceilings, floors, are all incredible. Everywhere you look there is something breathtaking. And this is coming from someone who is by no means an art fanatic. But it is really impossible not to be impressed by the Vatican museum. I'd heard from friends visiting the museum, that the walk to the Sistine Chapel, is extremely long, and indeed it was. But the rooms we walked through on the way to the chapel had so much to look at that I honestly did not feel impatient to reach the Sistine Chapel. Indeed, the walk to the Chapel included several works of art, that even I, in my complete lack of knowledge of art, had seen pictures of. (On another more cynical note, seeing this museum makes it very difficult for me to sympathize with any of the Catholic church's supposed budgetary issues).

A painting famous enough that I recognize it!

Wow. Ceiling.

Another ceiling

So many sculptures...

Eventually, after winding through countless passages of sculptures and paintings, we ended up looking at what is possibly the most famous ceiling in the world: that of the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel really is amazing. I can't even begin to fathom how it was painted entirely by one man. The entire thing is just painted with huge amazing paintings. How Michelangelo managed to paint the ceiling laying on his back is entirely beyond me. On another note, it is forbidden to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel. Originally I planned on respecting this rule, as I assumed it was something about preserving the art or something noble and important like that. Instead, the Vatican sold the rights to all photos of the Sistine Chapel to a business in Japan. So I feel a little less bad about the photos I am posting below, despite the fact that I probably committed a sin in the Sistine Chapel, which really can't be good.

The Creation of Adam. With my head poking over.

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Walls of the Sistine Chapel

And when you've seen the Sistine Chapel, the museum's done, right? Not by a long shot. After the Sistine Chapel, we spent a little longer looking at famous sculptures, a really impressive and beautiful courtyard, with a cool bronze spinning ball and what we assume is a giant pinecone. Me and a few friends finished the museum with an exhibit on Mesopotamian art, which was pretty neat. There were a lot of pots and strange masks, which I liked.

Augustus

Courtyard and funny bronze ball

Giant Pinecone. Or perhaps an artichoke.

Mesopotamia

After the museum we all ate lunch, which included bruschetta, mozzarella, bread, pizza, and more delicious Italian stuff that I'd never had before. I even tried something with eggplant, which I normally don't like, but this was all breaded and covered in spices so I actually liked it.
After lunch we went to St. Peter's Basilica, which can really only be described in one word: wow! The outside is obviously something I've seen on the news, in movies, and in books, so that was awesome to see. And it's gaurded by the Swiss guard, who have very interesting outfits, to say the least. And on the inside, the Basilica big. Indeed, it's the biggest cathedral in the world, and it's really impressive and filled with even more famous art, like the Pieta, which is a sculpture of Mary holding the crucified Jesus. The basilica is really huge, with so much to see. Again, it made me feel very small. Inside, is the tomb of St. Peter, which is certainly pretty amazing, as well as a giant altar made by Bernini. But wow, the Catholics really know how to do churches. Everywhere I looked there was something else to see. I feel like I could have spent a year in the Basilica and still not seen everything there was to see. After spending some time in the Basilica itself, we went and visited the Papal Tombs, where the Popes of the past are laid to rest. Among the popes there are St. Peter and John Paul II. There were tons of people of John Paul II's grave and many of them were praying and crying. I didn't realize quite how beloved of a pope he was.

St. Peter's Basilica

Outside of the Basilica

Swiss Gaurd.

The Pieta

St. Peter's Basilica: Shiny and Impressive

Sadly, I don't think a photo can capture quite how big the Basilica is.

St. Peter's Tomb

After visiting the Vatican, me and a few others found our own way home. Naturally, we stopped for gelato, today I tried the cappuccino. On our way, we found the Castel St. Angelo, which is a really beautiful fort type thing with a bridge across the river of statues of angels. It was sunset as we crossed so it was extra beautiful. There were also some strange street performers, that we later saw in other places around Rome. These were people dressed up as Egyptian mummies that just... stand there. They're wearing masks and giant gold sheets, so I really don't get what's so special about them. They confused them. Finally, that night we took a walk to see some of the sites at night. The Trevi Fountain and the Piazza Navona were both really cool at night. And also, we discovered that Rome has tons of fountains with DRINKABLE water all over the city. That was really cool.

Castel St. Angelo

Angel at Sunset

Mummy. Meh.

Friends drinking from Street Fountain

Travel Break: Rome (part 1)

2009-11-16T04:47:00.000-08:00

So I just arrived back this morning from two of the most amazing weeks of my life! I visited five countries outside Denmark (if you count the Vatican), saw SOOOO much, including a whole lot of things I completely was not expecting to see. (Seriously, who knew the Bust of Nefertiti was in Berlin?) In the past two weeks, I took almost 900 photos, used four different types of currency, met fellow travelers from countless places and had the time of my life!
The first place I visited was Rome. Rome was unique among the cities I visited because I traveled with DIS, which was nice, because it left a whole lot less organizing for me to do, and I got to do and see a lot that I would not have known about otherwise. My trip to Rome was dominated by seeing some great sites and eating even greater food. But on that note, I apologize if this blog post is basically a long list of Roman sculptures, buildings and meals..
Also, this may be a long post! Sorry!

Day 1
The first day of my trip began with an extremely early wakeup. I had to get to the airport by 5:30 in the morning, which is before the regular busses run, meaning that we initally thought we were going to have to take the night bus to get to the airport that early. Fortunately one of the Danish people that lives in our building offered to give us a ride, which was extremely generous and saved us a whole lot of hassle.
When we first arrived in Rome, one of the first things that I noticed was the strange bathroom in our room. By this I mean there was a bidet. I just don't get bidets, but I'm not going to go much more into that. The next thing I noticed was the weather. It was so warm I didn't even need my jacket and there palm trees everywhere. I knew Rome was pretty far south, but I didn't really it would look that beautiful!
Next we had a walk around some of the local sites. Rome has some truly amazing sites. It was amazing how we'd just be walking through city streets and then you turn the corner and BAM, there's a major ancient monument. That was my introduction to the Pantheon, which was an amazing and beautiful building, inside and outside. The ceiling of the Pantheon was one of my favorite parts, with it's HUGE dome and giant hole in the middle. And all around the sides of the Pantheon there were various Christian shrines, from when the Christians decided that they didn't want a giant Pagan temple in the middle of their empire. But still, the inside was extremely impressive.

The Pantheon

Me in the Pantheon

We also saw a number of obelisks, tall skinny stone towers, including a famous one designed by Bernini with a stone elephant at the bottom. Another one of my favorite sites was the Trevi Fountain. This was the very first real site I saw in Rome, and wow is it impressive. It's a giant fountain, which if you throw money into then supposedly you are guarenteed to return to Rome. At first I was going to throw a Danish kroner in, but I wasn't sure if the fountain Gods would accept foreign currency so I threw in fifty Euro cents to be safe. I figured it was worth it to guarentee my future visit to Rome. Interestingly, all the coins thrown into the fountain are vacuumed out of the fountain daily and donated to feeding the hungry. Walking by the fountain on a later day, we actually saw the giant vacuums used to pick up the coins and all you could hear was the noise of clanging metal as the coins were sucked up.

Trevi Fountain

Yet another highlight of the day was the Largo Argentina, which is a small grassy patch of ruins in the middle of some very busy streets. The ruins themselvers were cool and provided a very nice view, but honestly not that amazing compared to some of the ones I saw later on the trip. The interesting part of the Largo Argentina was the cats. Hundreds of them. Literally. They were all over the ruins, climbing all over the fallen columns and crumbling foundations. Basically, a woman runs a shelter for stray cats there. And even though there are hundreds of cats, she knows every single one of them. When a single cat goes missing, she knows and puts up signs for it around the area. I found that really amazing.
We also made it to the Piazza Navona, which is an amazingly large fountain in the middle of a square, the Spanish Steps, which are a beautiful, even if tourist covered, set of stairs leading up to a very old church, and the Ara Pacis. The Ara Pacis is an altar to peace made in around 10 BC, just blows my mind. It is still in amazing condition. All of this intricate carved marble artwork is still standing after 2000 years. And what wasn't still in perfect condition was reconstructed amazingly, with outlines of what they think the sculptures would have looked like.

Piazza Navona

Spanish Steps

Ara Pacis

In addition to some fantastic sites, I also ate some fantastic food on the first day. For lunch, we had pizza, except it was like amazing and delicious, with giant chunks of real mozzerella cheese. For dinner, there was lasagna and wine! (They really love to serve wine at restaurants in Rome. We discovered that it was cheaper to buy wine than water, which is kind of cool, but also somewhat frustrating to me, as someone who really just loves to drink water with dinner.) And of course there was gelato. There are so many gelato shops in Rome. There are literally multiple gelato shops on every city block. From the one across from our room, I had the creamiest, chocolatiest gelato I have ever had. It was at this point that my friends and I made the pact to have gelato every day in Rome.

Day 2
Our second day, like the first day, included more amazing sites and more amazing food. Certainly the most famous of these sites is one that I have been wanting to see for as long as I can remember: The Colosseum. And it really was amazing as I had always imagined it. It was big, beautiful, and mind-blowing to stand in. It just amazes me that such a huge structure is still standing. Among the other sites we saw that day was a strange giant white palace. It looked like a giant wedding cake, and really did not seem to fit in with the rest of the buildings around Rome, which are not quite as... ostentatious.

The Colosseum

Inside of the Colosseum

Wedding Cake

We also spent some time in the Imperial Forum, where there are a number of ruins, near the Colosseum. There were some impressive arches, the old senate house, and the temple of the vestal virgins, where an eternal flame was kept burning in ancient Rome. The forum was amazing because in the middle of it, you were just surrounded by these ancient ruins, which was really cool, to say the least. One thing that I didn't like, however, was that they put all these ugly modern marble sculptures around the forum. It just didn't seem to fit.

Temple of the Vestal Virgins

Ancient Temple in the Forum

Bird eye view of the Forum

Ugly Ugly Ugly

After the forum, we had some time on our own, during which me and a couple others visited the Capuccini Church, which is probably the creepiest, strangest thing I have ever seen. Honestly, words cannot even describe how creepy this place is. It's basically a collection of human bones and skeletons. They have several rooms just decorated with bones. There were full skeletons dressed up as monks, in various poses. There were chandeliers made of bones. There were walls decorated entirely with pelvises. There were even a number of very disturbing, child-size skeletons. And to top things off they were playing the creepiest music in the world.

Cappuccini Church: No photos allowed inside, this is a photo of my postcard

The food was great again today. For lunch, I had a panini sandwich with prosciutto and mozzarella, which was awesome. And of course we had our daily gelato, which I chose to get in the mint flavor that day. Dinner was gnocci, which I love as well.

Travel break to be continued...

Birthday

2009-10-29T01:11:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday dear me.
Happy birthday to me.

Yeah, 21st birthday!

My run-in with the Danish police

2009-10-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

So, I got pulled over today. How, you might be wondering? I don't have a car over here and I certainly haven't been driving. Well, let's just say, the "politi" here will pull you over for biking without a light past dark. In my defense, I used to have a light, but it mysteriously disappeared off my bike a few weeks ago and I just haven't gotten around to replacing it, despite the fact that they cost less than 20 kr at Tiger (the Danish equivalent of the dollar store, everything is $2-$4).

My bike. Do you see a light on it?
That's because there isn't one.

Luckily, as my friend put it, some combination of being blonde, female, and American got me off with only a verbal warning.
But basically it went like this. It was dark and rainy and I was biking home from the center. And I saw these people in shiny vests with a few lightless bikers next to them. And before I knew it, the shiny vest man stepped in front of me, said something in Danish, and gestured for me to stop. So stop I did. That's when I noticed the bold letters "POLITI" on the vest and started rambling something about not speaking Danish. The cop started asking me questions, why am I in Denmark, how long, when did I arrive, am I American? Further, he kept telling me that it is illegal in Denmark to bike at night without proper lights. He seemed to think I was an ignorant American, unaware of the law, and I felt no need to disillusion him with the fact that I knew full well what the law was, and that I had just been too lazy to go to the store that is literally a quarter-mile from DIS to buy a light. Well, for one reason or another, the policeman decided to take sympathy on me and let me off with a verbal warning. I felt very fortunate as I left the policeman (on foot) because it seemed like the four or five other bikers pulled over by other cops had not been so lucky to escape with a warning. And that's a 500 kr ($100) fine. Ouch.
Another point of luck, I was right next to the bus station when I got pulled over, and my bus home was arriving literally as I walked by. This is quite lucky, because I really didn't want to walk the three or so miles home, and I just would have been tempting fate by continuing by lightless ride.

P.S. Sorry mom and dad, if the title scared you.

A bunch of things

2009-10-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

A bunch of things are happening in my life:

First, a week or two ago, my friend Kate, and I had some time so we decided to go check out Rosenborg Castle, which is where the crown jewels of Denmark are kept. The castle it was kept in is GORGEOUS inside. Sadly, they charge 20 kroner extra to take photos, and I was feeling cheap, so I didn't buy the photo pass, even though I really regret that decision now. There were so many cool rooms in the castle. One room was all mirrors. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, all mirrors! Other rooms had thrones, artwork, beautiful ceilings and much more. Then the crown jewels themselves were beautiful and not what I pictured. The crowns were incredibly intricate and detailed, not just a round, pointy slab of gold with some stones stuck in it, like I'd kind of expected. But I did buy a few postcards, which I took photos of, posted below:

Rosenborg Castle. I actually took this picture in September. Denmark is not this bright and sunny anymore.

Another view of the outside of the castle, also from September

Postcard photo: Lions surrounding thrones. You can also kind of see the amazing sculptures on the ceiling.

Postcard of Crown. Seriously, look at how detailed it is!

Postcard of a room inside castle. Again, look at the ceiling.

Another exciting development: I finally tried smørrebrød, which really popular to eat over here. It's basically a cold open faced sandwich with various toppings on it. My Danish teacher brought them into our class for us all to try. She brought in four different varieties: roast beef, frikadeller (a Danish type of meatball), egg and shrimp, and fried fish. I tried all but the fried fish one, and picked the shrimp of the egg and shrimp one (don't like seafood) and they were all really good! I can see why people eat them on such a regular basis. Also smørrebrød, is on really good bread, called rugbrød, which I just Wikipediaed and apparently is a type of sour-dough ryebread. I've been eating rugbrød very regularly since coming to Denmark, and I, unlike some of my American friends, really like it, but it was even better when it was part of smørrebrød.

Another recent change is the amount of daylight. As I write this it's 4:30 PM, and it's definitely starting to get dark already. We just had our daylight savings, so now it's really getting dark earlier and earlier. Weather.com predicts sunset today at 4:47 PM.

The view outside my window at 4:38 PM.

The final important development in my life is the amount of schoolwork at the moment. I'm not going to lie. The classwork with studying abroad has not been all that difficult or time-consuming. And I am most certainly not complaining. Having spent four semesters at JHU, where the workload is anything but easy, it's been nice to have a semester off of late nights of studying and more papers than I care to think about. However, since DIS is technically an academic institution, they do give some schoolwork, which I would imagine is more challenging than a typical study abroad program (they claim it is anyway.) And it just so happens that 90% of my work for this semester has been due either last week or this week. Not fun at all. So while writing two ten page papers and taking two midterms in eight days might be par for the course at Hopkins, let's just say I've gotten out of practice. To get through it, I'm just holding on to the fact that I when the work is over (or when I decide to take a break from it) I have some REALLY cool stuff coming up:

On Wednesday I'm going to museums with a Danish friend who said that they will be really cool!
Thursday. Turning 21! Not as big of a deal as it would have been in the States, but any birthday is fun no matter where it is. So despite the fact that I'll be studying for a midterm that's on Friday, I'll still be 21.
Friday. Last day of classes until November 16! Start of travel break!!!
Saturday. Being completely lazy and useless. Sleeping.
Sunday. 5:30 AM. Leave for Rome!
The following Friday. Rome to Prague.
Following Tuesday. Prague to Krakow, Poland. (We had some serious issues booking our train ticket from Prague to Krakow. We went to the train station in Copenhagen, since we couldn't figure out how to do it online. So at the train station, my friend and I paid and were handed a pile of tickets, all in Danish. The tickets were broken up into two parts: one from Prague to Polish border and one from the Polish border to Krakow. However, there was only one piece of paper for each, and since we don't read Danish, we couldn't tell if they were actually tickets for two people. So we went up and asked the woman at the counter to double-check that these actually were for two people. She told us very condescendingly that, yes they were for two people, couldn't we read those [Danish] words right there that said it was for two people? Assured, even if not by the friendliest person I have met in Denmark, we went back home. At home, our Norwegian RA, who's been extremely helpful with the language barrier involved in booking travels in Denmark, offered to look over our tickets just to check that they were right. However, as he was looking over it, he noticed a problem. Yes, indeed, we did how two tickets out of Prague to the Polish border. However, we only had one ticket from the Polish border. So one of us was doomed to sit in the middle of Poland and the Czech Republic, hoping for an open spot on a train. Now, that does not sound fun!
Following Friday. Going to Berlin, Germany!
Very early Monday morning. Back to Copenhagen. I realize I am going to be completely exhausted for class on Monday, but it was significantly cheaper to fly in Monday morning than Sunday night.

Should be an amazing travel break! The thought of it is definitely what's getting me through the upcoming days.

Typing in Danish

2009-10-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

I'm going to preface this entry with the fact that I, unlike many of my studying abroad peers, actually really like the Danish language. Will I ever be fluent? No. Will I ever even be something that could be considered passable? Again probably not. But I think it's such a neat language and I really am enjoying learning it. It's so satisfying when I can pick up tidbits of conversations or can read signs in the store. It's not like any language I've learned before, where I never really found any practical application for it. Here, I actually do get to you my Danish understanding skills fairly frequently. True, everyone here speaks English with an astounding fluency, but it still helps to understand a little Danish. (Speaking it is another story. I can't even come close to pronouncing this language properly. There are seriously sounds I've never heard before).

But anyway, the real point of this entry is that I do not like the Danish keyboard. I have a very difficult time typing on it, because instead of a semi-colon, an apostrophe, and the enter key, you have all these other random, non-English letters. So when I'm typing to friends from a Danish keyboard, like at DIS, I often end up typing them a random pile of gibberish, as I keep accidentally hitting non-english letters.

And this keyboard also insists on putting a lot more stuff on top of the numbers, so that in order to get to the "@" for example, you have to press "Control" and "Alt" at the same time. I guess it's not that big of a deal, but when you're switching between the two keyboards as often as I have found myself doing, it gets rather annoying.

Legoland!

2009-10-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

This morning began with a very early wakeup. After my alarm went off at 6:30 AM and I biked downtown as the sun was rising, however, the tiredness was completely worth it. After all, I was biking to catch a bus to the coolest place in the world: LEGOLAND! It was a very long ride to Legoland, almost three hours. But honestly it wasn’t that bad. I got together with a group of three other students and taught them one of my favorite card games ever: whist! The bus ride passed pretty quickly, so much so that I was actually annoyed when we arrived at Legoland, given that I was about a third of the way through one of the best hands I have ever been dealt, a hand which I was never given the opportunity to finish. But the unfinished whist victory, like my early wakeup, soon paid off as we entered the park. First off, the weather was gorgeous. We’ve been having our share of cold and rain recently, but you never would have known that today. I was very warm with just my jacket, no scarf or gloves necessary.I just hope it lasts.

Once we entered the park we were greeted by mini-land, where you can view all of your favorite world sites, except miniature. And made of Legos. It's amazing what you can build out inch long plastic bricks. Everything from Nyhavn, to the Mt. Rushmore, to Mt. Fuji was replicated in mini-land. And some of it was awesome realistic looking! The Lego model of Amsterdam, for example, had canals filled with real water running through it, with lego boats and a lego drawbridge, that actually worked and lifted up when the boat needed to go through! And some of the models were huge! I can't even imagine the work that goes into some of them! The Statue of Liberty, for example, was made of 1.4 million lego bricks. That's a whole lot of Legos. And some of the models, of course, were distinctly Danish, such as Amelienborg, the Danish royal castle. I also enjoyed posing with Hans Christian Andersen. And I loved the lego solar farm and windmills. Take a look below at some of the highlights of Miniland:

Me and HC Andersen

Nyhavn

Amelienborg

Lego Solar Farm

Japan

Working Dutch Canals

As we continued, we saw more cool Lego models throughout the day, including my personal favorite of vikings fighting a sea serpent. There was also a safari, with rather large Lego elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions and other wildlife. It was amazing just how detailed the park got with their Lego models. In the trees there were Lego birds. The benches had Lego tourists sitting on them. Even the mailboxes in the giftshop were made of Legos.

Me in Firetruck

Lego Zebra

Lego Lion Pride

Lego Vikings in battle with Lego Sea Serpent

Lego mailboxes. Really work!

Trash barrel, with Lego-looking top

Probably the coolest exhibit in the park, however, was Atlantis, which was a real aquarium,
with real fish and sharks and rays, with Lego decorations. There were Lego scuba divers, Lego submarines, Lego treasure chests, and more! And the real wildlife was pretty... wild. The aquarium had one of those tunnels that you walked under so we were walking directly underneath the fish. It was awesome to be directly underneath a rather large shark, less than a foot away, separated only by a piece of glass. Also there were these GIGANTIC crabs. Seriously, move over Baltimore, these crabs weighed 22 kilograms apiece. That's about fifty pounds of crab!

Real Fish, Lego skeleton

No Legos here. Sure hope the glass doesn't break.

These crabs weighed 22 kg!

Tunnel through the fish.

And of course, since Legoland is an amusement park, there were rides, including a couple of pretty neat roller coasters. One of the cooler rides was called "The Dragon." It started out with a slow tour through a medeival lego world and ended with a couple of pretty sweet roller coaster drops. Another awesome ride was the "Power Builder" which is difficult to describe, but it was really innovative. First, you and a friend are given a plastic card which you load into a computer. Then the computer shows you pictures of various spins, flips, twists, and turns and you choose the ones that you think look the best. Then, you and that friend are strapped into two side-by-side roller coaster seats at the end of a really long, mechanical arm and are spun, flipped, and turned in the manner you selected. It was definitely faster and tougher than pretty much any standard coaster! There were also a number of water rides in the park, which we elected not to do. I know I said it was warm, but still a Danish October is seriously not warm enough for water rides. I was amazed at how many people in the park were doing those rides though! The Danes must just be used to it.

Scenery on the way into "The Dragon"

Finally, as a closing note, they allowed dogs into the park! They were everywhere, and I loved it but it really made me miss my dog. But how cool is that that they actually let people bring their pets into an amusement park?

Dogs in the Park!

Thanks for reading!

Fun fact

2009-10-16T08:59:00.001-07:00

Fun fact about Danish:
The Danish word for "Great Dane" as in the dog is Grand Danois, which is French for "Great Dane!"

Finland

2009-10-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Fun fact before the rest of my post: Helsinki is the second-northernmost capital in the world, after Reykjavik, Iceland, at 60 degrees north, which puts it at a full five degrees north of Moscow and fifteen degrees north of Ottawa. This is the furthest north I have ever been! It is also why Helsinki was really really cold.

Now for my actual blog post:
As I said in my previous blog post, after leaving Estonia, we headed to the ferry to take a boat ride to Helsinki, Finland. The boat ride was short, less than two hours. It was definitely a fun two hours though. There was a fantastic sunset, despite the extreme cold and on the deck.

Sunset on the deck

We arrived in Helsinki pretty late in the evening, and we were all tired so we decided to have a cozy night in the hotel. Me and a group of girls went to the grocery store and bought some Finnish candy (I checked to make sure that was all actually made in Finland before buying) and headed back to the hotel. I bought these really delicious chocolate mint candies and there were some very good gummy bear type candies. However, there were also some flops with the candy, especially the one that was like eating spongy flavorless jelly. In the grocery store, we also had our first exposure to the Finnish language on signs. Let me just say, that I seriously pity anyone who tries to learn Finnish. I thought Danish was hard. One word I kept seeing all over Finland, for example, was "uutuus." That doesn't even look like a word. Apparently, gramamar in Finnish is also extremely difficult. I was told they have 22 different noun cases. I don't really even know what a noun case is, other than that we don't have them in English.
But anyway, the next morning, we woke up and went to the hotel breakfast. Here I learned something very important and upsetting to me about Finnish cuisine. Finns love fish. I hate fish. Remember, I tried the tongue; I tried the turnip, but fish I just cannot imagine ever enjoying. And yet, even the Finnish breakfast buffet was filled with more kinds of fish than I knew existed. Fortunately, the buffet was big enough that i managed to find good alternatives for breakfast. After eating, we headed to the Rock Church, which is an active Lutheran church in Finland, that was basically carved out of rocks in the ground. It was a really neat church, certainly different from any church I had seen before, and there was a really nice piano player there.

Rock Church

Next we got on the subway to our semi-academic, semi-cultural visit to the Helsinki University Museum. Most of the museum focused on medical history, which was definitely interesting. My personal favorite single item in the museum, however, was a set of woolly mammoth tusks, which were really coolly displayed on a painting of a woolly mammoth.

Old Wheelchair in the museum

Woolly Mammoth Tusks

We were on our own for lunch, so me and my group of friends went to a cafe right across from the museum and some other really nice looking buildings. I'd say about 90% of the menu was fish, but I managed to find a really good quiche dish, that was thankfully fish free. Most everyone else ordered a mushroom and salmon soup. I'd never heard of mushroom soup before, and the salmon in the soup sounded questionable, but all reports were that the soup was excellent.

The view from our seats in the Cafe

Cool Building

Also cool building

Next we had an academic visit to a Finnish Health Center, which was really big and had primary care, secondary treatment, dental care, and much more all in one building. One thing we learned that definitely fascinated much of our group is that all orthodontic care is free to children under 18 in Finland! Even Denmark doesn't have free dental care! But in Finland, braces are free! How many American parents would absolutely LOVE that?
Dinner that night was quite interesting. First we had soup, that was my second encounter of the day with mushroom soup (this one without fish, however). As I said, I was a little suspicious of it, but I tried it and it was probably the greatest soup I've ever eaten. It was warm and just plain old delicious. The main course for most people was fish but I fortunately filled out on some DIS form some where that I don't eat fish, so I was provided with a good, fish-free meal. But really, the Finns love fish. Dessert was... interesting. Honestly, I didn't really like it. It was kind of a berry mush. It was basically like eating unsweetened, watered down berry jam. Interesting to try, but not something I would eat again.
After an academic visit the next day, we took a trip to a traditional Finnish sauna, one of the oldest in Helsinki. At first I wasn't so sure about this. A sauna seemed like an odd place to visit, until our leader told us just how much of a Finnish tradition saunas are. In Finland, there are 5.3 million people and a whopping 1.6 million saunas, an average of one per household! When Finns go to the sauna, which they generally do at least once per week, if not more, they will stay for 2.5 hours. They alternate their time between the hot sauna room and cold showers, or in a truly traditional shower, jumping in a cold lake. People will even hold business meetings in saunas. (I find that one a little odd, considering that Finnish people will not wear any clothes in the sauna, so they're basically conducting their business meetings naked, but I guess that's their culture.)
So, as we were standing outside the sauna building, ready to go in, a 60ish year old man, all old and wrinkly, came out of the building, dressed only in a towel around his waist and sat down outside, on the bench to smoke a cigarrette, not ashamed at all to not be wearing anything more than a towel in front of a group of 30 American twenty year olds.
In the sauna, the males and females separated into separate sauna rooms and the girls all went in, wearing towels, instead of doing it the truly traditional way. The sauna was hot! A thermometer at the top of the room read 65 degrees. When the girl said that, I was confused, because it seemed so much hotter than 65. Then I remembered. The room was 65 degrees celcius, which is almost 150 degrees fahrenheit! That was at the very top of the room however, and I stuck to the lower tiers, so it was a little cooler than that for me.

Sauna. Obviously.

That night we went to the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra, which was cool because the conductor reminded me of Santa Claus. He had a huge white beard, a big round belly, and he seemed extremely jolly. After the orchestra, a group of us tried going out to a bar to get a drink, where we encountered something we were really not used to: IDing! Denmark has extremely liberal alcohol laws, and we never even stopped to think that those rules were not universal in Europe. So despite the fact that we were all over the legal drinking age in Finland (18) a few in the group were not carrying their IDs so we just decided to walk back to our hotel. On our way back, we saw some really strange looking college-aged kids. I don't mean the kids were stange looking actually, but rather their outfits were. They were all wearing jumpsuits. Like the kind of jumpsuit you would expect a military pilot or prison inmate to wear. And these jumpsuits were various colors and covered in all sorts of patches from what looked like companies. We asked our leader about these the next day who told us that college kids from the same school and class will all wear identical jumpsuits. Not to classes, however. They wear them to parties and to bars to show pride for their groups. Sort of like how lots of Americans will wear their Greek fraternity letters, he explained. And the patches are indeed from businesses. The students will write to companies and ask them to sponsor them! I didn't take any pictures of this, cause it was dark and rainy, but here's a link I pulled off google: http://www.personal.psu.edu/rbc4/students1.jpg

Of course, we got lost, because as I already explained Finnish words all basically look like: Uutuåssnnöössii and are basically impossible for a foreigner to figure out. Then something happened that would never happen in Denmark. We were staring confused at our map, trying to look at the street signs which may have been written in the greek alphabet, when a couple of Finns stopped, and asked us if we needed help! That's just not something that happens in Denmark. Not to say that Danes aren't perfectly willing to help with directions when asked, but they certainly would never offer them to a confused looking group of tourists on the street without prompting. The directions got us got us back to our hotel, safe and sound, but not without a detour at a public restroom. I really had to use the bathroom and I knew we were still a twenty minute walk from home so we stopped at a train station. They charge one Euro ($1.50) to open the bathroom door. However, the lock on the door only takes one Euro coins, while I only had a two Euro coin. There was a machine where you can change your two Euro pieces into one Euro pieces. However, when I put my two Euro coin into the machine it spit back one one Euro coin. And one small metal washer. So in other words I paid three dollars to use the bathroom. Ugh.

The next day was our final day of the study tour and it was a good one. We all went to the contemporary art museum in Finland, which certainly had some interesting things to look at. Some of it was cool and interesting, but some of it, I just didn't get. Nonetheless a good time was had by all.

Inside the art museum

Disturbing art

Creepy art

Shiny art

Delicious art, my favorite kind!

Is this art?

Finally, we went to the airport, boarded our flight, and flew home to Copenhagen, where it was three degrees warmer and speaks a language that's not quite as horrible as Finnish, and has roads that I can sort of get around. So definitely an amazing week, but also very nice to come back to Denmark.

Estonia

2009-10-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

If you had asked me at the beginning of my freshman year what countries I met end up in while studying abroad, I'll be honest, I probably would not have predicted Denmark. However, I think it's even less likely that I would have predicted that I would EVER end up in Estonia. But that's where I found one Sunday afternoon, with my entire public health class.

My first impression of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, was that it was cold and rainy. Did I mention cold? After all, Tallinn is on equal latitude with the middle of Canada, and lies just over a two hour train ride from St. Petersburg, Russia. However, my dreary first impression was improved as soon as we arrived by our hotel and saw the beautiful surroundings. We were staying just on the outskirts of the Old Town, which is filled with beautiful churches, castles, towers, and walls.
We were able to get our first glimpse at all of these sites on our way to dinner the first night, which was at a FANTASTIC medieval style restaurant. This meal was certainly one of the most interesting that I have ever eaten. The staff was in Medieval costume. The restaurant was candlelit. And of course, the food is actually supposed to be pretty authentic in the recipes and cooking methods they use. Even the bathroom looked like an old-style outhouse. (Fortunately there was a regular modern flush toilet). The food was interesting and some of it was very good! I definitely tried a few new things such as turnip, which I liked. (Somehow I've managed to ever avoid trying turnip, even though it's always served at Thanksgiving and Christmas I think). I also tried tongue, which I most certainly did not like. And I'm not just saying that because I don't like the idea of eating tongue. But I'm glad I tried it, because really, what's the point of coming all the way to Europe if you're not going to try new things? The rest of the meal included some chicken, lentils, berries, bread, cheese and more. We were all able to try little bits of everything, since the food was served in a family-style manner, which was excellent.

Sign for the Medieval restaurant, Olde Hansa

Walking back from the restaurant the first night, I learned one important lesson about Tallinn: wear good walking shoes. Really. The streets of the Old Town in Tallinn are nothing like the smooth, flat, bike-friendly roads of Copenhagen. Instead they are narrow, steep, cobblestoned roads which began to kill my feet after just the walk to and from the restaurant. Needless to say, reaching my bed was a huge relief on the first night.
The next morning had a rather humorous start. We were told we had to met our group at nine for a guided tour of Old Tallinn. My roommates and I set our alarms to give ourselves plenty of time to meet up. By just before eight we were ready for breakfast and followed the signs in our room which said breakfast was available in the basement. Down we went to the basement. No one else was down there, so we figured we were just really early. We noticed some paper bags containing food in them, which we took back to our rooms. In our rooms, we discovered that these bags contained only ham sandwiches, which confused us. But we were hungry for breakfast and ate them anyway. Then, thinking we were way ahead of schedule, we decided to just chill in our room until 9. Shortly, however, when our watches said 8:15, the intern on our trip came knocking on our door.
"Hey guys, you planning on going to the guided tour of the Old Town?" She asked.
"Yeah, why wouldn't we be" we all responded.
"Well, it just left..."
"What? It's 8:15! I thought we weren't leaving until 9!"
"Guys... Estonia's an hour ahead of Denmark. It's 9:15..."
Oh... Also, apparently, there hotel had a really good regular old hot breakfast that we missed the message about. We never did figure out what the ham sandwiches were there for.

Anyway, the tour of the old town was AMAZING! Many of the buildings have been standing there since the 13th and 14th centuries. Just think about that. A couple hundred years before Europeans even discovered America, and Estonians were building buildings and towers that are still standing today. Tallinn looked beautiful, kind of like a combination of Soviet Russia and a fairy tale. Old stone towers, churches, walls, gates and cobblestone roads fill the town. We went into one church that remains a Russian Orthodox church today. When we went inside, the interior was gorgeous (no photos allowed) and there was still active worshipping going on, even though it was a Monday. It was not like any church I'd ever seen. There were no pews. People just stand at various altars, or in the middle of the room, praying and listening. It was definitely interesting. Also, we saw the two of the main cobblestone roads, which are called the "short leg" and the "long leg." One is long and shallow, the other very short and very steep. Our guide told us that Estonians often say that "Tallinn has a short leg and a long leg and that is why Estonia always limps," meaning that is why Estonia always has problems.

The Alexander Nevsky cathedral, where we saw the Russian Orthodox worhipping

A view of part of the old town, complete with towers and walls

Cobblestones leading down

Tower where prisoners used to be kept

Estonian parliament

As our tour continued, we got some great views of the new part of Estonia, from the old town. It's so strange to look over the 700 year old buildings and see modern skyscrapers. One of the most interesting buildings that our guide pointed out was an old hotel, which is famous because it used to be that every single room in it was bugged by the KGB.

Skyscapers beyond the old town

The day continued with a lunch of soup, meat, and potatoes, which made me quite thankful not to be a vegetarian in this part of the world. The day also included some academic visits, including one to a health center where we learned about HIV in Estonia and another interesting one to a general practitioner's office. This GPs office wasn't as pleasant as the one we visited in Denmark and seemed much more disorganized. However, they did have a number of jacuzzis which they say they use for medical purposes. And they had a "salt room" which was a small room that was completely coated in salt. The walls and ceiling seemed like they were made of salt. And the floor was covered in salt so that it seemed like beach sand. Apparently, they use this on some viruses, although there is no evidence that it has any medical benefit beyond a placebo effect. Interesting though.
Later that night, we ate dinner at the oldest pub in Tallinn! It was much cheaper than Denmark! I got a burritto (well, they didn't call it a burritto, they called it chicken with beans and cheese wrapped in a tortilla, but it was a burritto) and a blueberry beer for $10. I don't even want to think about how much that would have cost in Denmark. More than ten dollars, anyway. We ended the night at a beerhouse, which was pirate themed on the outside. (Seriously, it had a really big model of a pirate ship) but was German themed on the inside. I didn't really understand it, but I liked it. There was even a beer tap at each of the tables in case people were too lazy to get up and go to the bar. We didn't elect that option, but still enjoyed the beerhouse nonetheless.
The next morning, we enjoyed the very good breakfast provided by the hotel, rather than some mediocre ham sandwiches. Then we headed off to the Museum of Occupation, which focused on the Russian occupation, followed by the Nazi occupation, followed by more Russian occupation. It was interesting, and something I had never learned about before. We saw a boat that many Estonians fled from the country in, lots of propaganda, a collection of doors to prison cells, and much more. The most interesting part of the museum, in my opinion, was the collection of Stalin statues that had been put up around Estonia during the Occupation. They were really big; twice the height of the doors! They were definitely interesting to look at though. After the museum and another academic visit, we headed to the ferry port to leave for Helsinki, which I will write about in my next entry.

Stalin statue

4k for Cancer

2009-10-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

The 4k for Cancer is now accepting applications for the 2010 team! So if you want to bike across the United States and fight cancer at the same time go to www.4kforcancer.org.

I promise it will be the best summer of your life!

Denmark/Sweden Soccer

2009-10-11T05:14:00.002-07:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Danish people really like soccer. The other night was the Denmark vs. Sweden soccer game, which took place about a quarter mile from where I live. For the game, my friend, Erica, and I decided to head downtown to find somewhere exciting to watch the game. In the city center we saw some really really crazy soccer fanatics.
In the center of the city, I literally saw a man being beaten with a chair. A group of about twelve guys were having a horrible fist fight in front of this bar and they started grabbing chairs from outside the bar and beating this guy with a chair. When the guy started running they threw the chair after him and kept chasing him. The bar where Erica and I went to watch the game was packed with Swedish and Danish fans watching the game. Our bar didn't get too crazy fortunately, considering there were around 100 arrests, split fifty/fifty between Swedes and Danes. What hooligans!

Olympic Festivities

2009-10-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

You probably know that last week the Olympic International Committee met in Copenhagen to decide where the 2016 Olympics will be held. Obama, Oprah, Michael Jordan and a whole bunch of other famous people made their way over to Denmark to make their case for Chicago being the home to the 2016 Olympics. Sadly, Chicago did not win (actually I kind of wanted Rio to win anyway, just to give South America their first Olympics) but the days surrounding the decision were still amazingly fun. Copenhagen put on some really amazing festivities.
The first excitement related to the Olympics happened as I was biking home on the Wednesday before the announcement. We were about to bike past the American embassy when we realized that the road/bike lane next to the embassy was closed off and we had to cross the road. There was a huge crowd gathered around the embassy, with reporters and tons and tons of police and security. We asked one of the reporters what everyone was waiting for and he told us Michelle Obama was about to arrive. So we decided to wait with the crowd for her to arrive. We didn't actually get to see her, but we did see her entire motorcade, which consisted of probably a dozen black SUVs and cars and a whole bunch of Danish police cars. So that was pretty cool. I saw Michelle Obama's car!

A sign inviting Obama to a free lunch at a local cafe

And if the security we saw for Michelle Obama was intense, the security for Barack was even crazier. They basically shut down half the city for his arrival. Roads were closed. Even the bridge to Sweden was shut down! All during class on Friday, we could hear helicopters overhead, which made it very hard to focus on doing schoolwork, what with the constant reminder of the excitement going on outside.
Class eventually ended for the day and I made my way to city hall plaza, where there was all sorts of excitement. A stage was set up, where various athletic events were taking place. There were gymnastics performances, karate performances, rowing machine races and much more through the whole afternoon. Off-stage, there was a handball court set up. I'd seen handball on TV before, but never actually seen it played in person, so that was definitely really neat. It was kind of like soccer, but with throwing the ball instead of kicking it. Then there was BMX biking, where kids biked around on a dirt track that had been set up for the day. Some of the kids could definitely jump pretty high on their bikes!

Kid jumping on his bike

It was really crowded there, especially with people from Japan, Brazil, and Spain all rooting for their respective cities to win the Olympics. The Spain fans kept singing Spanish songs and the Japanese fans were dressed up in totally awesome costumes. Some of them wore white wigs with a red dot in the middle. Others wore Pikachu costumes. I never realized how into the Olympics some people are that they would come all the way to Copenhagen just to root for their city of choice to win the Olympics.

Tokyo supporters, the Pikachus among them

As night started falling, the live music started. I got a really sweet spot in the crowd, right at the very front, literally against the barrier that stops people from getting to close to the stage. I could not have been any better! Throughout the night, there was Danish rap, which is kind of bizarre. When I think of rap, Denmark is not the place that first comes to mind, but it was still pretty cool. After a couple more bands, the highlight of the night came on stage: AQUA!!! Aqua, the band who did the song barbie girl, is apparently Danish and they gave a live performance. I'll be honest, when I came to Copenhagen, one of the last things I imagined was that I would see a live performance of Barbie Girl, but it was amazing and so much fun! Aqua was really fun to watch. They were not what I pictured. There were about ten of them in the band, which was larger than I expected and the lead male singer wore a skirt. Not what I pictured at all.

Lead female singer of Aqua

More Aqua

After Aqua, the announcement of the winning city was made. They brought a group of kids from each of the four candidate cities on stage and showed video of the announcement on a large TV screen. When they announced that Rio had won, the Brazilian kids seemed really excited, which was cool. It seemed very Danish of the announcer when he said, that it wasn't really about winning, though, that it was more about participation and all of these cities were winners. I don't think they would say that in America!

Kids onstage from each city

Brazilian children after the announcement

After the announcement, the live music continued. One of the bands that stood out in my mind was D.A.D. The guitarist had a really sweet guitar shaped like a rocket ship and there was fire on the stage, which is always fun.

Fire on stage

Rocket guitar, from behind

D.A.D.

Adventures in Sweden

2009-09-28T04:18:00.001-07:00

I spent this last weekend with DIS in Sweden exploring the countryside with numerous awesome outdoor activities. I knew that I would enjoy some of these activities, such as canoeing, but to be honest I was a little skeptical about rappelling. As it turned out everything on this tripwas amazingly fun, and thanks to DIS I ended up trying a few things that I know that I never would have tried otherwise!
We met in the center of Copenhagen early on Saturday morning and took the bus to Helsingor, where we caught a ferry over to Sweden. This ferry ride was really really quick. Really. The DIS interns with us told us that we wouldn't even have time to finish a cup of coffee on the boat, and they were right. However, they did have some duty free shopping, which included chocolate at a significantly cheaper price than is available in Denmark, so I indulged in a little candy. And then, a few minutes later, we were in Sweden! My first impression of Sweden is that it is probably the cutest country in the world. The countryside and all the houses were really pretty, like what you'd see in a painting.

I love these houses!

After a short drive through the Swedish countryside, we arrived at a river. There we paired off into canoes. The river ran mostly through the woods, and through a couple small towns. The houses and yards that we passed were all beautiful.
And for the first time since being in Scandanavia, it was apparent to me that it was autumn. The leaves in Sweden were definitely beginning to turn all shades of red and orange, something I hadn't yet seen in Copenhagen. We canoed down the river for almost three hours, and my arms definitely were feeling the strain by the end, but it was really fun nonetheless.

Canoeing

After canoeing we checked into our hostel, which was one of the nicest hostels imaginable. It was basically a giant house, with an older couple in charge of it. No one was allowed to wear shoes inside and the whole house was really pleasant. They gave us a delicious lunch of soup and bread, which warmed us all up from canoeing.
After lunch, we went for a hike down to somewhere called Nimis. Nimis is really difficult to describe. It's basically a giant network of driftwood towers right on the beach. The artist just nailed together, rather haphazardly, all the driftwood he could find into towers that were probably 30 feet high or higher. Then most of the towers are connected by driftwood tunnels. Basically, it was like a playground for adults, with the added uncertainty of whether the structures actually were stable. We climbed through all the tunnels and up all the towers, as seen below. Then we went and looked at what appeared to be a humungous sand castle on the beach, made out of rocks, sand, and whatever other junk the artist found on the beach, including keys, bones, and metal rods.
Also, interestingly this area of Sweden, Ladonia, has declared itself to be an independent micronation. Citizenship is free, but a spot in their nobility will cost you twelve US dollars. The hike down to Nimis was pretty difficult and steep, so not that many people go there, although it was certainly one of the most interesting and strangest things I have ever seen. I'd seen pictures of it, but they really didn't even begin to explain to me what Nimis was. It was far bigger and far more elaborate than a photograph can possibly show. Add that to the fact that it is right on the ocean, and you have quite possibly one of the coolest places in the world. And I probably never would have even heard of it, let alone actually hiked down there, if it wasn't for this DIS trip, so I'm really glad for that!

Photos trying to show the immense scale of Nimis!

Arx, the giant sand castle thing.

Jawbone in the structure of Arx

I thought this rock looked like a dinosaur so I took a picture of it.

We ended the night back at our hostel with a barbecue. Unfortunately, I've managed to catch a pretty nasty cold that had completely exhausted me, so shortly after the barbecue (8:30 PM), I passed out in my bed until the morning.
The next morning started on a rather humorous note. We woke up at around 8 and tried to find the breakfast that we knew was being served somewhere in the (very small) hostel. Logically, my roommates and I tried the room where lunch and dinner had been served just the day before. Indeed, there was a small array of food sitting out, which included apples, juiceboxes, and chocolate bars. Thinking this was an odd breakfast, but seeing no other options, we began to eat. Within a minute or so however, we had a good laugh when we realized that everyone else in our group was eating a real breakfast upstairs and that the chocolate bars were to go with our lunches.
After breakfast, we headed off for the Kullaberg Nature Reserve, which was absolutely beautiful. It's right on the beach, with some of the most amazing views ever! First we hiked around the reserve and saw beautiful views of the sea, an awesome lighthouse, and fields of cows. I was a little nervous walking through the fields of cows, because they all had gigantic horns, and some of them were definitely bulls. And they were kind of staring at us in what seemed like an angry manner. But the trails went right through the fields of cows/bulls, so they can't have been that dangerous. I'm not really a big hiker (I only made it like a third of the way up the mountain last time I tried hiking) but this was really fun. It was so beautiful, that even though getting down to the beaches could be tough, it was well worth it.

Nice beach, although getting down there was a real challenge

Another nice view of the sea

Lighthouse and me. The lighthouse has only been here since 1899, but there has been a flame shining here since the 14th century! Also, this is the strongest light in Scandanavia at 1000 watts!

Cow, and what I'm fairly sure is a bull.

We ended the outdoors part of our day with rappelling down cliffs, which for some reason I wasn't really looking forward too. (Rappelling is like rock climbing, except only going down, you don't have to climb back up!) I'm not really afraid of heights, but something about the idea of basically walking down a vertical cliff, held in only by a couple ropes just didn't sit right with me. When we got to where we were going to rappel, we saw that there were two cliffs, one of about 12 meters and one of about 25 meters. We all started by going down the smaller one. It was hard to get the hang of at first, but eventually it did become easier. The smaller cliff wasn't too hard because it wasn't completely vertical and it wasn't that high. After I did this one twice, I decided to try the much bigger one. This one was completely vertical and I started out by getting my foot caught in a crevice and not really being able to move. I spent a couple minutes trying to get my foot unstuck, and then I was completely tangled in my ropes. And this cliff was a lot higher, so it was definitely really intimidating looking down. But I made it to the bottom, which was completely awesome! Rappelling was something I don't think I ever would have done on my own, so I'm so glad that DIS made us do it on this trip! The bigger cliff that we rappelled down!

Me rappelling down the smaller cliff.

The smaller cliff we rappelled down.

View from the top of the bigger cliff

Finally, we started making our way back towards Denmark, when the interns told us that we were going to make a stop at a cafe and eat pastries and coffee or tea! The cafe we stopped at was the cutest place in the world. And the pastries were amazingly delicious! After the cafe, we finished our ride back to Copenhagen, where we arrived exhausted but satisfied at one of the greatest weekends ever!

Cafe

Pastries.... mmmm....

Adventures in cooking

2009-09-24T06:04:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest downsides of living in Shared DIS Housing (housing with all other American students) is that we have to cook for ourselves. I didn't think this would be too much of a problem as I had to cook for myself last year, but now that I look back on it, I think I ate a lot more Subway than I realized. And when it wasn't subway, it was usually pre-packaged, very simple meals to make from Trader Joe's. Well, I haven't found a Subway in Denmark yet, and if I do find one I doubt I'll be able to afford it nor have I found anything like a Trader Joes, so I'm really on my own.

And what is the biggest lesson I have learned so far?

I can't cook. I don't know why I can't cook. My mother is an excellent cook so one would think that I should have picked up cooking along the way somewhere. But I've been told that her mother was not so great of a chef, so perhaps these things skip a generation. Anyway, I've found a couple meals that I'm quite proficient at. The first I call 'Toasted bread with a hole in the middle and an egg in the hole.' I think it has another name but I don't know it. This I can cook with no problem, because the bread holds the egg together so the yolk doesn't break when I try to flip it. I'm also quite good at spaghetti with pesto. Sometimes I'll throw a vegetable in with the spaghetti for good measure. And finally, I've invented a great dish called potatoes with basil and eggs. Basically, I cook potatoes in a pan and put basil onto it and then fry an egg to go with it. It's pretty good, and I had thought I reached the point where I couldn't mess it up any more but then I almost burned down my building trying to make it the other day. Basically, I put the oil into the pan and turned the stove on, but forgot to add the potatoes. I realized this like 15 minutes later when I smelled burning. I ran to the stove and figured I'd add more oil in order to cool down the oil in the pan, but then I accidentally dropped the plastic cap to the oil into the pan, which instantly melted into a giant yellow glob of plastic goo. Oops. I quickly threw the pan into the sink and ran water onto it which made the oil splatter everywhere, including all up my arms.

Dinner in progress.
Spaghetti boiling on the back burner. Artichokes cooking on the front burner.

So basically, there's really no point to this blog entry other than that I can't cook. Perhaps I should have considered that when I was signing up for housing, cause honestly I'm already getting a little sick of spaghetti, eggs, and potatoes. (Plus, I think I'm missing a few food groups in my daily diet). So if you have any brilliant simple ideas for dishes, please tell me about them. I'll be forever grateful! (Simple, meaning no ovens, no more than two burners required).

And on another unrelated note, doing laundry in Denmark is also really complicated!

Hamburg

2009-09-21T05:19:00.000-07:00

What are people from Hamburg called?

Hamburgers. Seriously. I learned that this weekend on my visit to Hamburg, Germany with a class. We got in fairly late in the day on Saturday after a bus ride, a ferry ride, and more of a bus ride. I had a brief moment of fear on the ferry to Germany when I realized that I had forgotten to bring my passport with me. However, I crossed the border into Germany without incident. (Along with my passport, I forgot my camera, so sadly there will be none of my own pictures accompanying this blog post, just some links from Google). I like about Europe, how you can just pass from one country to another with absolutely no border control. Another really cool thing about the ferry was that they put a train onto the ferry! Seriously, in Denmark, the track went right up to and on the ferry, and then in Germany it connects right with a track over there. So an entire passenger train was on the ferry with us to Germany!
When we arrived in Hamburg, it definitely seemed different than Copenhagen. One of the first things we noticed, because it was dark and we couldn't see much, was the abundance of police sirens. Not particularly unusual for a large city, but not something you hear in Copenhagen all that often. That made me thankful for how safe of a city I chose to study abroad in. I'm definitely lucky here to be able to walk around at any hour without too much fear. We want to do too much the first night, as it was late and we had to be up quite early the next day, so we grabbed some pizza, for about half what we would have paid in Denmark, and went to sleep.
The next morning, we woke and visited the St. Nikolai memorial, which commemorates the firebombing of Hamburg by the allies during World War II. Over the course of one week, in Operation Gomorrah, approximately 50,000 German civilians, consisting mostly of the elderly, women, and children, were killed. The memorial itself consisted the remains of a destroyed church, with some really nice statues. It's difficult to describe, but by looking around you could definitely see some of the damage that was done during the firebombing. They have left some of the rubble around and the bricks of the belltower are still scorched. Statues in the memorial commemorate the bombings. And the remaining belltower was clearly once a part of a very beautiful building that is now gone. Beyond the memorial itself, none of the buildings look much older than fifty years, because none of the older buildings survived the war. It's strange to me that where I stood, a completely different city would have stood sixty years ago.
After visiting the memorial we had some time to ourselves to see downtown Hamburg, which was really beautiful. The city hall was absolutely gorgeous and the lake next in the city center provided a great view when we walked around it. Our exploration of the city center lead me to a few conclusions about Germany:

Germany has many more Starbucks than Denmark. Seriously, we found two Starbucks within in the same block!
Germany is cheaper than Denmark. But where isn't?
They speak less English in Germany than in Denmark. It was a little strange to encounter a language barrier, since I have not had to deal with that at all in Denmark. I guess I've gotten spoiled, because I really shouldn't expect to be able to speak English everywhere in Europe.
Hamburg has a great city center and it convinced me that I really want to go back and spend more time in Germany.

The rest of the day was spent visiting Neuengamme, a local concentration camp, which was the real purpose of the trip to Hamburg. I will say that it was not what I expected from a former concentration camp, but I definitely learned a lot and I am very glad that I did it. Before visiting the main camp, we visited a sub-camp of Neuengamme called Bullenhuser Damm. Bullenhuser Damm was a school that was shut down and used as a sub-camp durign the war. It is particularly famous for the brutal killing of 20 Jewish children in the boiler room. A part of the building is a memorial for the killings. But the really strange thing is that most of the building is used for businesses, and of all things, a kindergarden. My professor who was with us made an interesting point, that if every single site in Germany where an unjust killing during World War II took place was completely shut down, then there would be nowhere left for Germans to work and live. And I know I'm coming at this from a different cultural perspective than Germans, but I really don't see that Bullenhuser Damm is a great place for a kindergarden. I just can't wrap my head around it.
Finally, we visited the main concentration camp. It didn't look like what I expected. The barracks were burned down at the end of the war, and in their place were rectangles filled with stones. Plus, there was tons of grass and it was one of the most beautiful, sunny days, which somehow just didn't mesh with my expectation of a concetration camp. I expected that the day would feel a lot more dreary, but of course that is not realistic. Even so, the camp was still very interesting and very sad at the same time. There was an enlightening museum, factories, and remains of many of the buildings from the camp. I'm not going to go into any more detail than that, because I am not a good enough writer to do it justice.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Going to the Movies

2009-09-21T05:08:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, I saw the movie Inglorious Basterds with some people from my building. I'm in shared DIS housing, meaning DIS rented out a floor of an apartment building to a group of all Americans. There are a few really cool Danish people who live on our floor who come up with fun things for us to do and one of these activities was going to see Inglorious Basterds. I really enjoyed the movie and the Danish movie theater was definitely a little different than an American theater. There are assigned seats in the theater for one. The seats were huge and comfortable. (Maybe this isn't true of all theaters in Denmark, as I've been told this was one of the nicer movie theaters around.) Prices for food and drink are actually about equal to what you'd pay in an American theater, which means they are still expensive, but not much worse than what you'd find elsewhere in Copenhagen.
Now, there was one rather large issue with this movie. I didn't think anything about the language of the movie, since they don't dub American movies into Danish, rather they always use subtitles in Denmark. So I figured I'd be able to understand the dialogue without issue. However, large portions of this movie are in French and German. (Probably about 40-50% of the movie). In the US these portions of the movie would be subtitled in English. In Denmark... they subtitle them in Danish. So a large part of the movie was spent trying to combine my (extremely limited) understanding of spoken French and German with my (just as limited) understanding of written Danish. Fortunately, Quentin Tarantino isn't the most subtle director in the world, what with the ridiculously over-the-top violence, so I was able to follow the plot pretty well. I probably missed some subtleties of the plot, but still really enjoyed the movie.

Western Denmark (Saturday)

2009-09-21T04:41:00.000-07:00

On the final day of our study tour, we were exhausted, but I still had a really great time. We started out the day by visiting a castle called Egeskov Slot. This was my favorite castle I've seen in Denmark by far! It was crazily beautiful, with a moat and some beautiful flowers, and gardens. There were mazes in the shrubbery, which I wanted to do but didn't end up doing for fear of getting lost and missing the bus. Inside the castle, there were some rooms with all kinds of animal skins, including lion and tiger. Other rooms held armor, plates, dollhouses, paintings and other strange items. The strangest single item was probably a small wooden doll in the attic of the castle, which according to legend must never be moved or the castle will sink into the moat on Christmas. Also on the castle grounds was a 'treewalk,' where you walked on a shaky footbridge through the tops of the trees. My mother, and anyone with any fear of high up unstable things, would have hated it. It didn't look very scary from the ground, but that bridge was really wobbly. Eek! What really struck me as strange is that people actually still live in the castle. I can't imagine ever living at a castle, not just because it's a castle, but also because there would be tons of tourists running around my house every day. It would be cool to have a moat though.

Here are some photos from the castle:

The Castle, surrounded by the moat

One of the fountains

View from the attic window of the castle

The wooden doll that can never be moved

Animal Skins on display.

Walking through the trees

After the castle we went to the city of Odense, which is where Hans Christian Andersen was born. The city really prides themself on this fact, as can be seen by their pedestrian crossing lights, street names, and signs all showing their allegiance to Andersen. Funnily enough however, HC Andersen never considered Odense his home. Rather, I've been told he really hated Odense. But nonetheless, I thought Odense was a cool place.

The pedestrian crossing light, made to look like HC Andersen

We ate lunch at a place called the Ugly Duckling (another tribute to Hans Christian Andersen) and went off to see the Robot Festival. There were certainly some cool displays of robotics at the festival, including one that took a plastic ball, engraved my name in it, and shot it at me with a ping-pong paddle (probably the first free thing I've gotten in Denmark!). Finally after a very long three days we loaded up on the bus and headed back to Copenhagen. The short study tour was awesome, educational (in a good way), and fun but it was nice to be back in Copenhagen where we could just relax.

Robot that gave me the plastic ball with my name on it

Western Denmark (Friday)

2009-09-21T04:09:00.001-07:00

The next day of our travels around Western Denmark was nearly as exciting as the first. The highlight was definitely visiting a place called Danfoss Universe. Basically Danfoss Universe was like a giant science museum amusement park with indoor and outdoor exhibitions. One of the exhibits was a car on a pulley that you were able to lift up by pulling on the ropes on the other side. There was also a room where they created lightning, another where you walked through a short ice cave. A lot of their exhibits were focused on climate change and sustainable energy. This building below has water flowing down all its sides, representing global warming.

Other exhibits talked about wind energy and other renewable forms of energy. It's really interesting to see how much emphasis Denmark puts on other sustainable energy. It's so different than at home, but it's something that's really nice to see! However, the two most exciting parts of Danfoss Universe were getting to control an excavator and dig a really big hole in the ground and finally getting to ride a Segway! Riding the segway was probably one of the sweetest things ever. We got to go around this obstacle course, with hills, bumps, twists and turns. At first it was kind of hard to control but once you got the hang of it, it was really easy and fun.

Later that evening, we checked in at our hostel in Sønderborg. I'd never stayed at a hostel before, so I expected them to be kind of small and dirty, but this one was neat and clean. That was definitely an unexpected to surprise. After dinner a group of us were walking around the town and came across a crowd in front of an empty stage. Curious, we decided to stay and find out what it was. A short time later, a band called Johnny Deluxe came on. Apparently they're pretty popular in Denmark. It certainly seemed so as most of the crowd knew the words to their songs. We stayed for their entire performance, even though couldn't understand any of the words. Still, it was really lucky that we just happened across a free outdoor concert of a popular Danish band! That was just completely awesome! On the walk back to our hostel, we were walking behind this Danish girl who had caught the wristband that the singer threw into the crowd and she saw some of her friends and was super-excited showing them her wrist. All in all, it was quite an exciting night!

Western Denmark (Thursday)

2009-09-19T05:39:00.001-07:00

This past weekend was spent in Western Denmark with DIS. Every program (mine being public health) spends a weekend in Western Denmark studying things relevant to their class. For some reason, my expectations of Western Denmark were fairly low. Perhaps it was the reaction I'd gotten from a few Copenhagen-ites whose reaction to our DIS sponsored travels to western Denmark was "Why would you ever want to go there?" And to be honest I really didn't know was there at all. Plus, since this was a DIS event, with our health-care class, I was expecting it to be all... boring and academic. (Not that I think health-care is all boring, but I really just didn't want to spend a whole weekend learning about health care while abroad.) However, the entire weekend in western Denmark was awesome! It wasn't all academic stuff, and even the parts that were academically oriented were really interesting and educational in a good way! I have a lot to say about the weekend, and I'm not really in the mood to write for two hours right now, so I'm breaking this blog entry into a couple parts, so stay tuned for parts two and three.

Last Thursday started out bright and early as we met by DIS at 6:45 in the morning. We loaded up onto our bus, took off towards the town of Svendborg, about three hours away, where we had an academic visit. This was my first time in Denmark that I had been of Zealand, the island where Copenhagen is! At the local hospital they told us about their tele-medicine project, which means that when a patient leaves the hospital, instead of having to come in to the hospital all the time for follow-appointments, the patient can video chat with the doctor. They can run tests on themselves, the results of which are automatically sent to the hospital. This was pretty neat and we even got to watch one of these video-chats as it was happening! The woman was a super-nice elderly woman with COPD who kept smiling and waving at us and telling us to smile more. That was really cool.

Our day continued in the town of Rødding (which I don't think I could pronounce properly for a million dollars) where we visited a general practitioner's office. Again, this was really cool and really showed me that having universal health care does not detract of the quality of care in any way. People in the US worry about long wait-lists. At this office, the doctors said that if someone needs it they'll be in within a few days. And even without an appointment, the GP we talked to said that if someone just shows up and their sick/hurt, they'll find a way to fit them in that day. It seems like the the doctors are really accessable as well. Every morning, from 8 to 9 the doctors spend an hour at the phones, so that patients can call and ask any medical questions they need to a doctor! Plus the office was just really really nice. The exam rooms were a lot bigger and a lot more comfortable than in the US. In the facilities, they have an x-ray machine, a paramedic with an emergency van, and an acupuncture room. One of the GPs will perform acupuncture on patients if he thinks it will help them, which he kindly demonstrated for us. He asked for volunteers out of our group, pulled out some needles and stuck them into the volunteers' hands, as shown in the photo below! Ouch! Actually, the volunteers said it didn't hurt at all, that it just felt a little strange.

The day ended as we made our way to a højskole for the night. A højskole is like a very small rural campus where college-aged students take classes, but not for credit. Only about 30 students lived on this campus, which was really pretty, although I can't ever imagine living somewhere that rural with such a small group of people. The food at the højskole was really good! It was a nice change to not have to cook for myself and to have food that wasn't spaghetti. After eating, we hung out with the kids from the højskole. Living seems like an interesting life. They sing songs together every morning; they aren't allowed to drink on weeknights, even though they're all of legal age to drink; they take classes but receive no grades. According to the principal of the højskole, about 10% of Danish kids go to a højskole after graduating high school but before college. It's a way to study new subjects without the pressure of not being good at it. It's definitely different from the US, where almost everyone goes straight to college right after high school and it's considered unusual to take time off before college. In Denmark, I've been told that almost everyone takes time off before college. It seems much more relaxed and like much less pressure on students than in America. Below, of course, are a few pictures from the højskole.

Strange tree.

Strange sculpture.

Just a Quick Observation

2009-09-19T04:57:00.000-07:00

I was walking into my apartment the other day and I walked by Fakta, the grocery store in my building. Outside the grocery store, lined up with the 20 or so parked bicycles, was a baby carriage. Now this on it's own wouldn't be so strange, but I quickly noticed, as I was locking my own bike that there was a baby in the carriage! Someone had left their baby completely unattended in a baby carriage outside as they completed their grocery shopping inside! Curious about this, I asked one of my teachers about it in class the next day. According to her, this is a typical practice in Denmark. She says people want their babies to be able to get fresh air, so they'll leave them outside, unattended as they run into stores. No one ever kidnaps them, she says. People don't even think twice about it.
The teacher even told me about an interesting news story about a Danish woman in the US who left her baby outside as she ran into a store. The woman was arrested she really didn't understand what the big deal was.
Just wanted to share that story because I thought it was interesting.

Danish Resistance Museum

2009-09-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday I visited the Danish World War II Resistance Museum with a class. It was small so there's not too much to say, but it was an interesting museum. I'd been wanting to go here for a while, because what I guess is a pretty silly reason. I read the book Number the Stars when I was in fourth grade. Number the Stars is about a Danish girl during World War II who helps smuggle her Jewish friend out of the country to Sweden. This was the first time I ever remembering knowing anything about Denmark, so I figured I should go to the museum in honor of that book.
Despite it's small size, there were a number of interesting things in the museum (Some of them pictured below). I saw an armored car that was used by the resistance, some wrenches that were used to de-rail trains, a bunch of weaponry, a huge mine, and a whole bunch of uniforms among other things. The museum was pretty interesting because Denmark is pretty much one of the only nations in Europe that managed to save almost all of their Jews during World War II, generally by smuggling them to Sweden and it was definitely cool to see how they did that. Some artifacts in particular stood out from the museum. One was a letter written to home from a political prisoner (first photo below). The families of the prisoners had to do their laundry, so prisoners would send letters sewed into their clothes and these full-length letters could easily have fit in the palm of my hand. I just thought this was really impressive. The other artifact was a little grosser and I couldn't make myself take a picture of it but it's interesting nonetheless. It was an old piece of human skin with a Nazi Swastika tattoo on it. Very gross, and I'm really baffled that they were able to put that in a museum at all. I feel like that wouldn't work in the States, so there's an interesting difference. My teacher told us the story behind it. Apparently, the museum doesn't know how they got it. They were just looking through all of their stuff in the basement and found it. There was some debate over whether to display it, to simply keep it in their archives of stuff, or to give it a burial, since it is human remains. Ultimately, the obviously decided to display it.

On a final note, this museum inspired me to try to re-read Number the Stars. I managed to find a text of most of the book on Google. It was really cool, because the chapter opens up describing the girls running on østerbrogade, which is the street that I live just off of. And continues to describe all sorts of places that used to be nothing more than foreign names, but which I am now well familiar with. That was very cool.

A letter written from a prison with microscopic handwriting

Gun.
I don't know anything about weapons, so I can't give any further details than this.

The first room of the museum.

Armored truck

Christiania

2009-09-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

And now for a blog entry about one of the strangest places I have ever visited...

Last week, I was fortunate enough to visit one of the strangest places in Copenhagen, if not the world, twice. As I said in a previous blog entry I went with a friend over the weekend and then went with my Danish class the f0llowing Wednesday, so that we could see a very specific part of Danish culture. Basically Christiania is a hippie commune in one of the nicest parts of Copenhagen. It's a beautiful area and our Danish teacher tells us there is some controversy over its existence. The land used to be military land was taken over by a group of squatting hippies in the early 1970's and some people feel as though it is not right that people just live there without paying rent and openly selling hash in the streets. (They sell hash at stands like you'd see stolen jewelry and DVDs in a regular American city). The government used to look the other way on the hash trade, but since 2004 they starting raiding it several times a week. Interestingly, hard drugs of all kinds are forbidden in the commune, and from my understanding they really are not nearly as common there as you might expect. Indeed, all over Christiania, there are signs and grafitti saying things like "say no to HARD drugs." There are around 850 residents in Christiania, many of whom are children. I think Christiania is an odd place to raise children, what with all the drugs (even if they aren't hard drugs). But on the other hand, there are playgrounds, bright colors, no cars in the streets, and what actually seems like a pretty nice community, so I can see it working for some families.
Walking around Christiania is an experience. There is colorful grafitti, bizarre buildings, beaches, hash stands, and plenty more interesting things that you can look at pictures of below. Note, there won't be any pictures of the hash stands because they're quite clear that you are not to take pictures of Pusher Street (the real name).

Graffiti outside Christiania

A boat in Christiania. Those three dots form the Christianan flag. They represent the three dots on the "i"s in Christiania.

Christianian dumptruck

The rules of Christiania.

A house in Christiania. Note the Christianian flag.

Another house.

Some artwork.

A rocket ship and I. I'm not really sure if there's any significance to this rocket ship.

Extensive recycling in Christiania. Look at all the categories of recycling!

More artwork

A beach, with a strange pig-like object floating in the water.

Leaving Christiania, re-entering the European Union, which as a "Freetown" they are not a part of.

Exploring Copenhagen: A week of adventures

2009-09-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

The highlights of this last week have definitely been my various explorations of the city. Copenhagen is great because everything is so close together, so it's really easy to get around by foot, bike, or bus, which is how I spent this last week exploring the city.

My first exploration adventure was on foot to some places in the proximity of DIS. First we walked over and watched the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace, which was pretty neat even though it was pretty crowded. Then we walked over to the really gorgeous church that sits right next to the Royal Palace. Not being a particularly religious person, I've never really been that interested in looking at a lot of churches, but Denmark has some REALLY beautiful churches that even I can appreciate for their artistic value. Finally, we ended at a park filled with these strange giant plastic bubbles that I had been extremely curious since we rode past them on the way back from the airport. The bubbles were... bizarre. I think my brother summed them up best in his comment on my facebook photo of them: "I always new the Danes were light years ahead of us in supermarket bubble machine toy dispenser technology, I just did not realize they were THAT far ahead of us." In this park I also had my first hot dog in Denmark, and let me tell you, they are much more delicious than American hot dogs. They are pretty cheap for food in Denmark (only about $5!) and are covered in all sorts of delicious mustard and onion chips and other mystery sauces! If you are ever in Denmark and are in want of a quick cheap meal, I insist that you try a hot dog from a polse stand!

Soldiers lining up for the Changing of the Guard

Giant Plastic Bubbles

Inside the church near the Royal Palace

My next adventure through Copenhagen came a couple of days later, this time on bicycle. I joined up with a girl, Kate, from a nearby host family and we set out to explore Østerbro, the district of Copenhagen that we live in. We didn't have much of a plan. We knew we wanted to find the Little Mermaid statue, because even though everyone says that it's really small and not that big of a deal, we still figured we should see it, but beyond that we had no real idea where we were going. But we definitely had a blast! Before finding the Little Mermaid we found this really sweet park, which I think used to be a military fort. Anyway, it was really pretty to walk around and had an awesome giant old-fashioned windmill. Then of course, we found the Little Mermaid. It is a nice statue, out on the water but to be honest, I'm not sure why so many tourists flock to it. After leaving the mermaid, Kate and I biked down to the King's Garden and walked around the outside of the castle there. We wanted to go in but it closed in a half hour so we figured we'll spend the money to go in when we'll have a little more time.

Entryway to the old military fort

The streets of the fort

The windmill and me

The Little Mermaid

My final adventure of note this week was when a friend and I made our way down to Christiania. I have plenty to say about Christiania, but I'm actually going again this Wednesday on a field trip, so I think I'll wait til then because I don't want to be repetitive with my blog.

That's all for now!

Soccer!

2009-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

As a Boston Redsox fan, I really thought I understood what it meant to be a fanatic. I come from a family that owns enough Sox shirts to clothe a small country, from a place where Yankees fans are ostracized from society, and where every October it is acceptable to doze off a little at school, because God knows the teachers were up past 2AM watching the game as well. So yeah, I'd say I thought I knew what being a real sports fanatic meant. Apparently, I'd never seen a pro-soccer game in Copenhagen, however.
Last Sunday, all DIS students taking Danish were fortunate enough to be given tickets to the F.C. København (the ones we cheered for) v. Brøndby game, which is apparently one of the biggest rivalries in Danish soccer. Indeed, upon arrival at the stadium, one of the first things we saw was a bunch of cops decked out in full riot gear standing outside the stadium. Once inside the game, the main sections of the fans were completely segregated be team affiliation, with Copenhagen fans in the main section (below, top) and Brøndby fans off in a side section (below, bottom).
Don't let the smaller number of Brøndby fans fool you, however. They were every bit as enthusiastic, if not more so, than the FCK fans. If you have any doubts, take a look at this picture below. Now, throughout the game, we kept seeing a bunch of smoke and small red flashes from the Brøndby section. I wondered what they were until the flashes continued to be bigger and more sustained. Finally we realized, that Brøndby was in fact lighting huge fires using big red flares in the middle of the crowd. Security tried to stop them, but the crowd pretty much just ignored them and kept the flames going. (I dare you to try to pull that one in the US and see what happens.)
The game ended in a tie, which was somewhat disappointing, but that didn't stop the fights in the streets after the game. The riot-ready police officers were needed to break up fights several times on our walk home. Even a half-mile from the stadium, when some of us stopped to get pizza there was a group of drunk FCK fans who were throwing beer cans at Brøndby fans who happened to be passing by.
I'll close with one last story from the game, unrelated to fan rivalries. The FCK goalie was injured in the last couple minutes of the game and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. And what did the group of medics carrying the guy do? (Keep in mind this is in front of a huge crowd and on Danish National TV.) They DROPPED the poor guy right on to the ground. I don't really know what else there is to say about that, but I just wanted to share that story.

And here's a brief video I took of the FCK fans. The quality's not great, but you can kind of see them doing this cool weird jumping thing.

Helsingør

2009-08-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Just kidding. Nothing has been rotten about Denmark yet. However, Denmark is the setting of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays: Hamlet. Hamlet takes place in Kronborg Castle in the city of Helsingør, which is where I visited today with a group of DIS students.

After our buses arrived in Helsingør, we were all given some free time to explore the town's walking streets. The walking streets were filled with cute shops and cafes. For a while, my group entertained ourselves with the free samples that a couple stores were giving away. One store was giving free samples of various types of cheese. One of the cheeses was particularly satisfying, not just for the flavor, which was delicious, but for the fact that I understood the Danish written on it's label. "Hvidlog ogs," I knew from class means "garlic cheese." I'm pretty happy that I can pick up on a few Danish phrases even after only a couple of sections. After the cheese, we found another store giving away samples of bread with some sort of dip on top and wine, both of which I enjoyed in the street. You gotta love Denmark's 16 year old drinking age and lack of open container laws. We continued the afternoon by wandering in and out of the various shops, including the one selling those gigantic looking fish pictured above and relaxing by a really pretty fountain pictured below.

Finally, we made our way over to Kronborg Castle (below, left) more commonly known to the world as Hamlet's castle. The castle was really awesome The outside was beautiful and the inside had a lot of really old impressive things, including some tapestries and globes. Definitely worth looking around the castle for a couple hours. Of course, I kept an eye out for Jude Law, who apparently was going to be performing as Hamlet in the castle later that night.
The highlight of the castle tour was definitely the dungeons though (below, right). They were pitch dark, narrow, and at points couldn't have been more than four and a half feet high. I really had to be careful not to hit my head. Thank god, I wasn't claustrophobic cause I don't think I could have taken it. It was pretty creepy being in there thinking about all the unfortunate souls who were forced to live there several hundred years ago. You certainly couldn't have seen anything like them in America, in part because we're only 300 years old and we don't have castles, but also because I'm pretty sure someone would have hit their head on the ceiling and sued and tours would have been shut off. So I'm really glad I had the opportunity to see those dungeons.