Lost swan

I arrived in Copenhagen this morning a little later than I normally would, but not to the point where I was rushing. I stepped out of the train and went up the stairs to the above-ground area and there was a swan just sitting there on the brick pavement. I know there's water nearby, but still, it's a little far. I wonder if it was sick and that's why it somehow wandered over to Nørreport Station.

At the end of the day, I had my orientation for the first week of break. I will be spending March 8-15 in Budapest and Vienna on a short study tour with my program. I am so excited. We're going to a lot of great places. I'm excited for the Freud museum and the Mozart museum. We're also going to a really old synagogue. It'll bump me up to having dealt with three units of currency - the Euro, Danish Kroner and I believe Hungary is on the fonit. I'm spending the next week in Turkey and the week after in Russia, which will be two more.

It's going to be an awesome three weeks.

Hygge dinner - be cozy or else

Tonight was my "hygge dinner."

Hygge is probably one of the words I have heard the most since I've been here. It's this Danish concept that sort of translates at cozy, but there's a lot more to it then that and there just aren't words for them. But it's essentially what happens when you're spending time with people you're truly comfortable with.

DIS planned a hygge dinner for each student. We were split up into small groups within our programs. My friend Ruth and I were assigned to the same dinner at Cafe Stella tonight. We went, but of the 10 students that were supposed to be there, only Ruth, this girl named Melanie and I showed up. It was us and the three staff people waiting in the DIS building. I don't know why people wouldn't show up for a free meal, but we had reserved the restaurant and had to reserve our dinner as well. One of the staff people sent us an e-mail giving us a link to the menu (which was supposed to be posted in English as well as Danish, but wasn't) and letting us know that if we didn't respond, we were getting a chicken sandwich.

Kim and Morten were the two guy staff people who were with us and they were contact people for one of DIS's shared housing areas, which just happens to me about a two minute walk from DIS. We stopped there along the way and they went banging on doors to see who was around. They eventually found some boys from the business program who were more than happy to accept a free beer and chicken sandwich. Margaret, the intern with us, called Staci, another intern, who was about to head to her Danish class, but met up with us instead.

It just amused me that it was a mandatory hygge dinner. They obviously didn't enforce it, I guess they couldn't have easily, but I felt like they were basically saying, "You WILL come and you'll be cozy and like it!" I'm not criticizing DIS and I had really enjoyed the dinner I went to, but it's kind of a shame that so many people skipped theirs. It's sad to say it and it isn't how I feel, because I always like to meet new people, but maybe it would've worked better if DIS had people sign up with their friends. That's probably who most people had dinner with on their nights anyway.

Stefan's Confirmation and how many Americans does it take to bake cookies in Denmark?

This weekend was fun at the højskole. We had a mock confirmation party for Stefan, one of the Danish students here. Everyone was assigned a role. I was a friend of the family's and a semi-famous actress who had appeared on "Days of Our Lives." One of the teachers even played the drunk grandmother. We sang some Danish songs and although we didn't quite understand everything, there was enough that we either could figure out or was explained to us that made it a really fun evening.

It was weird because the parties here are normally on Saturday nights. This Saturday, they announced at dinner that the højskole had four new board games. Instead of the normal dancing and drinking, everyone was playing board games in one of the various groups spread out in the main room. It was quite a different sight. But it was definitely good to just have the opportunity to relax.

I was supposed to go to Christiania on Saturday, but I got really sick, so I didn't leave the højskole. Today I went into København to meet my friend Jackie who was going to meet up with us yesterday, but ended up being busy. My friend Carrie came along because she also wanted to leave the højskole, but didn't know where she was going to go.

We decided to bake cookies, so Jackie, Carrie and I went to the Quick Fakta, which luckily was open, even though it was a Sunday and a lot of places aren't. I tried to find the vanilla extract in the store. Eventually, I had to ask someone. I picked up a bottle and asked someone, who told me that I was holding mix for brown sauce. Apparently, they use vanilla in a powder form, not a liquid one as we do in the US. We also had to convert all of the measurements and try to figure out what oven setting to use. Luckily, Jackie lives in a kollegium with mostly Danish students who helped us out. Kollegiums are just like dorms in the US - lots of students live there in single or double rooms and there are communal kitchens and common rooms. The students living there are from several different schools, not just one like in the US where dorms are on one college's campus. Lots of students from our program live in kollegiums, but Jackie is the only DIS student in hers.

Tonight, I practiced my Danish with Siri and Lotte. Yesterday, Lotte and Peter were helping me. After I got through my homework, Peter rewarded me by playing Monty Python's "The Lumberjack Song" in Danish. Forget learning how to invite people to Tivoli, my goal is to learn how to sing it by the end of the semester. But hopefully, learning how to tell time and ask people if they have plans for the weekend will help me learn the pronunciation well enough to give me a fighting chance with the song.

Nobody buys you drinks, except the Nokia guy

One cultural observation that has been discussed in my Danish class is that at bars, guys will not buy you drinks the way they do in America.

I went out to lunch with my friend Elisabeth, who is Danish and studied abroad at American University this past fall, and we were talking about the differences between Denmark and America.

I told her I thought it was funny that guys don't buy you drinks here, and it was kind of funny, because she got all serious and said "You think that's funny? I didn't have to pay for anything in America!"

And then the guy next to us said "You want drinks? I'll buy you drinks, anything you want, just put it on my tab."

It turned out that he worked for Nokia and was trying to get people to fill out surveys. So we agreed and told him all about how we use google maps more than paper ones and how we use facebook all the time.

Short study tour, long entry

So this is a week late, because I've been terribly busy, but my short study tour was too much fun not to tell you all about it.

On Thursday, I spent much of Valentine's Day on a bus headed to our short study tour. Basically, DIS took everyone on a tour of somewhere else in Denmark (or Germany or Sweden for some students) Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The majority of the students went to Western Denmark. My group went to Aalborg and Skagen overnight and we also stopped in Århus on the way home.

The first place we stopped was Egmont Højskole. I believe I explained what a højskole is earlier because I live in one, but it's a place where Danes can go and take classes after completing high school. They're taught by college professors but they don't get grades. It's mainly a chance for them to learn about themselves and figure out what they would like to do with their lives. It's a really interesting institution. Some are specialized; the one I live in is for journalism and the arts.

Egmont Højskole started out as a place for handicapped and disabled Danes to go. Now, it's about integration of disabled and non-disabled Danes. Approximately 70 students have disabilities and 20 do not. Many of the students who do not are personal assistants toward the ones who do. They have every part of that building equipped so that anyone with any handicap can do anything. They even have sailboats and sewing machines made so one person can use it by his or herself. There were three people who gave us the tour. One was not handicapped, but one of the other men had what I think was cerebral palsy. He was confined to a chair and had difficulty controlling his limbs. The third man translated what he was saying because we couldn't understand him. We later asked one of the teachers, who admitted that they couldn't tell if he was speaking Danish or English, to give an idea of how muddled his speech was.

That night, we arrived in Aalborg. We all went out to dinner with the group and then went to a few bars. We went to the first one because they gave everyone a free beer. Then, our teacher announced that DIS was going to buy us beer as well and that it was much bigger. I wish I'd known I could substitute something else, because I really don't like beer and this one was about the size of my head. But, I drank it like a champ. We went on to one more bar, which was practically empty except for five or six of us. After that, three of us decided we wanted to head back. We weren't sure where the bus stop was (and it had stopped running anyway, which we were also unaware of) and we asked a nice couple who were going in that direction as well. They offered us a ride in their cab and wouldn't let us give them any money for it. We thanked them profusely and told them we hoped someone was as nice to them when they visit the United States this summer.

The next day, we left the hostel to visit Råbjerg Mile, which is the largest migrating sand dune in Northern Europe and moves at a speed of 15 m/ 50 feet a year, which destroys all the vegetation underneath the sand. So far, it has moved 1,500 m/ 1 mile eastward. It will eventually go from the coast of Skagerrak in the West to the coast of Kattegat in the East. The sand dunes were incredibly fun to run around in but we couldn't stay there very long because we had to move on. But, I managed not to destroy my camera like I did in the sand dunes I visited in Israel, which was exciting. In addition, I got to use the beach setting on it.

We drove on a little further and visited the Sandy Church, which is an old church that is now partially buried in sand. Then, we went to the beaches of Grenen, which is about 3 km north of Skagen, the very northernmost tip of Denmark where the Skagerrak and Kattegat seas meet. I discovered my new boots were in fact waterproof when I ran into the water to stand in both seas. Apparently, you're supposed to drink Gammel Dansk (Old Dane) when you're there, so our teachers took out a bottle and handed out shot glasses. It's pretty disgusting but it kept us all warm for a moment. It has a lot of spices in it - I think our teacher said 59. But it tastes like really gross cough syrup.

Lastly, we visited the Skagen Art Museum and the Refugium. The museum featured work mainly from between 1870-1930 by Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, German and English artists and actually showed a lot about the history and how life was in Skagen. The Klitgården Refugium has been around for a very long time. Now, it's used by artists who pay to stay there so they can relax and just worry about their work. All meals are provided for however long they stay and it's right by the beach, so they have amazing views when the weather cooperates.

On Saturday, we began the trip back to Copenhagen. We drove from Skagen to stop in Århus to go to ARoS - Åarhus Kunstmuseum (Art Museum). This one featured mainly modern art, but had some older pieces as well. The bottom floor was filled with actual rooms as art, which is not something I would've thought of, but was really cool. You walked into the rooms and they all had different lighting and sometimes you couldn't tell where the walls actually were. There was one little room where you went out onto a ledge kind of thing and all around you for mirrors which made it look like it'd be a really far drop if you fell. There were a lot of other interesting pieces, such as "Boy," a giant statue of a boy, a painting with a man shoving a cucumber into someone else's backside and a projected image of an airplane flying in circles. I saw it was attached to a string, but I didn't notice anything else the first time. Then I read the sign which talked about how man could master machines and manipulate them, but it was no substitute for natural sexual potency. The string was attached to a man's penis as he was lying comatose on a table in the middle of a field. There was also a display of a horse that was slaughtered and put into a lot of jars. It was made in the 1970's as a protest to Vietnam. Basically, some guy slaughtered this horse while his friend sang some sacrificial song and now it's art. I'm not so sure I agree with that and I'm pretty sure most of us threw up a little after seeing it, but it was definitely interesting.

Then we drove three or four more hours and finally got back to København, where I took the train and the bus and got home about an hour and a half later. I thought it was an awesome trip. It was nice to have a break from classes and I'm very excited for my week-long study tour in march.

København Central Station Post Office

There is definitely a post office right by my school. I don't remember where, but I know it's around because we passed it when they took us around the city one of the first days we were here. I've been here for about three weeks and only last week did I finally find some of the other places they showed us on that tour. But they were all the important ones, like Sct. Pedr's Bageri.

Anyway, the pre-departure and on-site guidebook they mailed out said the nearest post office was two train stops away, which is actually a lot closer than it sounds. I have a monthly unlimited transportation pass and I had six and a half hours between my last class and a meeting here in the city, so I figured I'd try and find it.

I assumed that the post office would be in central station, but the directions online said it was on this little street just nearby the train station. I see it and walk to it, but it ends pretty quickly and after going around a block or two, I accepted the fact that it only went down to 60. The address was somewhere in the 30's. I walk back to the station and decide to see if maybe that weird little street actually continues and becomes the main street I'm on, which it actually did. So I walk and I see the little red post office signs that are all over Copenhagen. I walk in and that building looks like Parliament or something. I try to go one floor, but the door is locked so I go to another one where I finally see a guy behind a desk. I went up to him and said that all I wanted was to buy some stamps. And then he pointed me back into the station. After being in there for about three seconds, I realized it had to be some kind of administrative building, but for the postal service, that's a really nice building.

Anyway, I finally made it to the post office, bought my stamps and picked out a few postcards to send to people. I got back to the city in time to have lunch at RizRaz, this awesome vegetarian Mediterranean place, and still have over an hour to kill before going to the gym and attending a class meeting.

On Thursday, I'm going to Odense for a few days with school. It's somewhere in western Denmark, as most things are when you're already in Copenhagen. So far, they have yet to tell us a single thing about it, which is what's happening at 6:30 tonight.

Shabbat in Denmark and techno party with the Danes

On Friday night, I decided to see what the synagogue in Copenhagen was like. It's actually really close to where the DIS main buildings are, it's situated between two churches and very close to St. Peter's Bakery, which is one of the oldest in the city.

Anyway, the synagogue had a sign saying it didn't allow big bags or electronics in during services, so I left all of my things in a locker at DIS. The lockers are not actually in the building, you have to swipe to get in, but you go through a door in the courtyard. I wasn't sure when it closed, but I thought it was pretty late, so I left everything there. Including my transportation pass because I didn't want to lose it since the pockets on my coat are falling off.

Ilana and I went to services and then to the Chabad rabbi's house for dinner. It was really nice to have a home cooked meal. I love eating here at the højskole, but I really enjoyed having a shabbat dinner. Another student from DIS, who is actually in one of my classes, also showed up. The Loewenthals were really great and the rabbi also told us that a lot of DIS students had already contacted them about Passover, so those will be fun seders. All the Chabad families I've come in contact with have been, but I thought it was cool that he made sure we knew how to get back to the train station so I could get home. I didn't feel judged for taking the train and bus on Shabbat.

At any rate, Ilana and I arrive at Vestergade 7 and realize we're locked out of the courtyard. We go back to her apartment, which is conveniently only a few blocks away from DIS. Her roommate is in the Architecture and Design program. Since they work them like crazy, they have 24-hour access to some of the DIS buildings, so we got her password and took her ID. However, the architecture studio is in Vestergade 5, not 7, so we called one of her roommates to get the DIS emergency number. We called it and I felt bad because the staff person was clearly at a bar or club when she picked up. She said she'd be there in 20 minutes. We started walking back to Ilana's place and then she called back to say it'd be five minutes.

She got there, let me in and said she wasn't sure when the gates closed for the night but that all students have 24-hour accesses to Vestergade 10. So from now on, that's where my stuff will be. Then she gave me a ride to Nørreport Station where I caught the train to Hillerød 10 minutes later. By this time, it was around 23:00 and it's about an hour commute between the train and the bus from the Hillerøod station to the højskole. I didn't have the bus schedule, but I was pretty sure there was one leaving around midnight. When it gets to be that late, they only come once every hour and they stop fairly early on. It's about a 45 minute walk back from the station, but it probably would've been longer because it was cold out, I had stuff to carry and I'm a slow walker anyway. I got there in time for the 0:15 bus, which didn't come until 0:30. But, after spending 45 minutes in the cold, I was just glad it came at all because I didn't think I was getting home that night. I got to bed around 1:00, after telling my story to my friends, who were hanging out in the lobby.

On Saturday, we went to the beach in Hellerup, which is a few stops down the E line of the train. It's pretty cool to look in the distance and see Sweden. I may not make it to France or Spain this semester, but I'm definitely going to Norway and Sweden. I'm so sad because one of the Norwegian girls living here told me that every year in Norway, they put on a play of Kristin Lavransdatter. It's a trilogy that I've become a little obsessed with ever since we read the first one in my viking women class last spring. Sigrid Undset is a really famous Norwegian writer. She actually had to come to America for a few years to escape Hitler.

Last night we had a techno party. It was an off-weekend for the students, so many of them went home but there were a lot who stayed. I really love being here for the weekends. I love being able to eat brunch and dinner with everyone. It's great not to spend money all the time or have to cook. Because I would probably starve if I had to cook all the time, haha. I cook at school and it's fine, but there's so much more to do here that I don't want to stay in here and cook. Everything's also really expensive here, whether you're buying food from the grocery store or in a restaurant.

Today, I did homework. I want to watch the superbowl, but I can't stay up until four when I have a 10:05 class tomorrow after an hour commute. If I feel really daring, I might take the train into Copenhagen, watch it at a pub and then sleep in the DIS building or on Ilana's floor if I end up calling her and it's OK. But I'll probably just hang out here and find some Danes to help me with my Danish homework and hope they don't laugh too much.