I've taken the next step to becoming Danish... I rented a bike for the semester!! I'll put a picture of Barney up later!! I was nervous to take on the road with my bike, but I survived! Riding your bike in Denmark is the same as driving a car. That night, I had to go with Laura and Christian to take Laura to the hospital. It's either mono or a throat infection... hopefully not mono!!

That Wednesday, I navigated my way to DIS by bike all by myself without getting lost!! Thursday was the start to our short study tours with our base course. We left Copenhagen early, arriving at the Koldinghus in Kolding, Denmark after a three hour bus ride.

This castle had a Beatles museum in it!?

My base course is Children with Special Needs, so our first stop after the Koldinghus was the Village Landsbyen Solund in Solund. This is a home for adults with special needs to live. We had Vivi, one of the leaders there, talk to us. We learned that it is customary in Denmark when one has company, to give them tea, coffee, fruit and cake. After, we walked over to the Snoezelhuset in the Village. This is a multi-sensory stimulation environments for clients with special needs. It is basically an environment designed to make you happy... so we spent a couple hours in a playground while other programs spent all day in lectures. This place was awesome and extremely interactive. There was a screen on the ground that could be flowers or fish and when you stepped on the screen, they would move away!

There is a room with a ball pit too!!

There's another room with a huge swing and hammocks and mats! One room is completely white, but when you turn the projector on, it projects an image onto the wall and "Cave", making it look real!

This one is Antarctica!! How cool!!

After playing for a while, we left for our hostel, which was amazing! It was basically a campgrounds and we got to stay in cabins!!

We went canoeing on the lake at our hostel!! It would get so windy at times that we could barely row!

A preview of the canoeing to come at the Snoezelhuset!

The lake at the hostel with everyone in their neon orange life jackets!!

That night after dinner, we had a bonfire where we made Smores and roasted Danish dough.

The dough was not so easy to bake over the fire!

Friday, we had a long list of things to do. We made our first stop at Stilling Skole, a regular public school, where they gave us tea and coffee. They gave us a tour of the school. The crazy thing about Danish ideals is that at age 3, they are allowed to use a knife by themselves. They can use potato peelers in the kitchen and use a stove... just trusted more than in the U.S. After our stop at the school, we made another stop at Cafe Galleriet for coffee, tea, fruit and pastries... these pastries were fantastic!! After, we visited Egmont Hojskole, which is a school for young adults with special needs. Coffee, tea, fruit and pastries again. The cool thing is that there are also students who just finished with "high school" who come here to be partnered up with a special needs students and see if they may want to go to school to be a pedagogue. We ate lunch there, then left on our way to the last academic visit of the day, the Videncenter for Radgivning and Specialpaedagogik. It's an organization that plans and takes on assignments for children to teens with special needs. This one was longgggg and lecture-filled, which was really hard to sit and listen to after a full and long day. But... surprise, surprise... cake, tea, and coffee! We then went to the hostel in Odense, home of Hans Christian Anderson!

Stopped by HC Anderson's house!!

We went to see the Odense Symphony Orchestra later that night, which was great, but we were all worn out from such a long day. The best part was at the end, we learned that all Danes clap in unison... literally, for 10 minutes, they all clapped together. We found this quite amusing!

On Saturday, we made our first stop at the Fyrtojet Workshop, aka the Tinderbox. It is this place for kids where they read them a fairtytale of HC Anderson and they get to act it out in a sense.

But first we stopped outside to take a picture of our Rainbow of rainjackets!

Once we got there, we read Clumsy Hans, and then went upstairs to draw a picture of the story.

Crayons and watercolors... the life of the child development program.

Then we picked out costumes and got our faces painted!

The CDD group all dressed up!
The big playground!!

After lunch (there was cake there... shocking!), we made our way to the HC Anderson Museum and then the Brandts Klaedefabrik Modern museum. This museum had a wild things exhibit with "wearable" art...

They even had a whole interactive section where you were on the green screen for a news report or recording a song for a band or being interviewed for a tv show... we were thoroughly amused by it all! It was then time to leave Western Denmark to our lovely home in Copenhagen.

Sunday, Tim and I had to go on a scavenger hunt for class... this involved going to the major parts of Copenhagen and answering questions about the different stops. One stop was the top of the Round Tower, which you have to climb this steep, slanted path to the top. It was awesome to see all of Copenhagen from the top!

You can see Copenhagen Cathedral in the middle of the picture... only a block from DIS. It was built in the 1800s!

We got to the bottom and realized that our answer sheet was all the way at the top of the round tower... so we had to climb all the way back up to the top to get it. Whoops! The scavenger hunt took a lot longer than expected, and we only got half of it done that day.

This is Greyfriar's square... just one of the many cool places we had to stop at for our scavenger hunt!

My week from Wednesday on was just sooo busy! That Wednesday, I had two field studies... one for Children with Special needs and one for Danish. We had to wake up early for our field study to Helsingor Lilleskole, a private school North of us. We took the train in and walked to the school.

The double rainbow we saw on the way to school!

We hung out in the 10th grade class, where the kids speak awesome English!! It is so impressive. They gave us a tour of their school and explained what they do there. From 7th to 10th grade, they go on a trip with their class. The 10th grade goes for 3 weeks to Gambia in Africa!! How cool is that?! And they do a lesson called "factory" where everyone gets a job and they produce and sell bird feeders that they make in their woods shop. We played a "speed dating" like game where we got to talk to each of the students. We left around lunch time and I had to go straight to DIS for my Danish field study to the cemetery. We had to talk for five minutes about one of the people we were going to stop by. We went to Kirkegaard, HC Anderson, Niels Bohr... We also went to Natasja's tombstone. She was big in Denmark... youtube natasja calabria... you'll recognize it.... and this lady started taking pictures. She pipes in to correct my teacher (Morten) as he's speaking. It was Natasja's Mom! Then we headed over to Von Shorten's (I think) tombstone (looks like a house) and this guy started talking to us. Turns out he's talking to Congress this week about the reparations from Denmark to those in the U.S. Virgin Islands who were slaves. Shelley Moorehead... look it up. And he was hanging with this girl whose family goes back in Denmark to before the slave era... who knew the cemetary was the place to be?! It was quite a coincedental day! Then we stopped at a cafe and I got a fruit pie... yum! That day I was gone from 7 to 5:30... crazy busy.

The next day, Thursday, was my practicum day! The kids had gone to the forest all last week! I was so sad I couldn't have gone with them!! Next week, we are going to a farm to pick vegetables!! Still not easy that they speak no English, but it's working out really well!! I love it!

Right after I got home, I had to go straight to Ballerup to meet my visiting family for the first time!! It's a little over an hour to get there. We had an awesome dinner and homemade ice cream!! It was amazing! Anna and I took the train back and I had to study for my Copenhagen test the next morning. Kim came over Friday night and we made dinner!!

On Saturday, we decided to go to Sweden for the day! (Sounds crazy, right?!) We took the train into Malmo and got some lunch!

We're in Sweden!!!!

They were handing out free Pepsis in the square?

We went shopping around some of the stores in the Malmo version of Stroget. It started getting super windy as we walked towards the Harbor! Can't believe a day trip to Sweden is that easy!!

So pretty there!!

Jimber and I just doing some world traveling :)

Until next time, hej hej! (That's bye in Danish!)

It's Already Been Two Weeks!?

Geez Luis, I haven't written for over a week!? It's just proof of how busy we've been in Copes! Friday was the DIS welcome party at the discotek, which was jam packed full of us Americans! I was still slowly recovering from jet lag because on Saturday, I woke up super early, before anyone else was up. So I sat in our common room in Tasingegade and watched Despicable Me and knitted :) We went to a botanical garden really close to Osterbro, where I live! It was so pretty and I got lots of good pictures!!

That night was the Tasingegade pub crawl, where Christian (our SRA) took us around to some of the bars in the city!

Here's just some of Tasingegade taking on Copes.

On Sunday, Laura, Natasha and I decided to wander around the city. When we got off the bus at the Town Hall Square, we walked into this huge basketball tournament that was there!

They had a dj and this guy who was rapping in English. It was awesome! Haha. Then we wandered over to the harbor, where a Triathalon was going on!

People swam in the harbor... which is so big!! You can see people swimming in the water!! We made our way over to the new library of Copenhagen, which is SO nice!! It's really modern and has the best view of the harbor!

On Mondays, I have my three hour seminar for my base course. It feels realllllly long. But then we have our Practicum seminar with crazy Alis who is really entertaining. I now can count to ten and ask "Do you want to play?" That night, my Danish class got together at a cafe for dinner (and DIS payed for it too!). My teacher, Morten, is awesome. He's this awkward, nerdy guy who loves film (that's what he teaches) but is such a nice guy. I had my first real Danish meal! It's called smorebrod or something like that, which is an open sandwich. Chicken salad sandwich with bacon... so legit.

Tuesday is my long day for class... I have 4 classes basically from 10 until 4. But luckily, my Classical and Renaissance Rome class doesn't start until this Tuesday!! In my developmental neuropsychology class (it's once a week, but three hours long... gross), we watched a video about a boy who has Sydenham's Chorea... this class is going to be awesome! Every Tuesday, Tasingegade has "cafe" where we all hang out in the common room and they have 5 kroner beers. It's a blast... I love where I live!

Wednesdays we don't have class, but Natasha and I had a study tour for our developmental neuropsychology class to a special needs school. I don't know how they spell it in Danish but everytime she said the school name, it sounded like super school. So... we spent the first half of our day at a SUPERSCHOOL! At the school, they gave us pastries, fruit and coffee!! Best surprise ever! At 10:00 everyday, all the students get together to sing a couple of songs and if it's a kid's birthday, they get a Danish flag. Some of the students came and talked to us about the school. Their english was almost perfect! And they all love the school, it's really cute! The school gets 8 million dollars a year from the government. And the government pays for a taxi to and from school everyday for the kids who live far away. The school has everything! Including a woodshop and a pool!

Once we got back, everybody in Tasingegade wanted to be lazy and watch a movie. But I was in the mood to do something, so Tim and I rallied a couple people to go on an adventure with us.

The crew who joined us on our rally adventure!

We went into the city and sat at a cafe by the harbor and had a beer. Then we took the harbor bus (such a cool way to see Copes) around and decided to go visit Christiania.

The Royal Palace from the Harbor bus!

Christiana... This place is unlike anywhere else I've ever been. A long time ago, the hippies all moved to this area, which is in Copenhagen, but not a part of Copenhagen. It used to be a little bit more unruly, and they were stealing the city's electricity and water, but now it is much more civilized. In Christiania, they literally sell pot on the sidewalks at picnic tables. It's very much so it's own community and can't be described, only experienced.

Thursday is my practicum and I was SUPER nervous. I managed to navigate to the school with no major problems! And the train ride to the school is on the water the whole way and I can see Sweden the whole time! I am in a class with about 20 3 to 6 year olds. I already have a best friend in the class, Isabella. It's so cute. We were outside for a good amount of the day. We walked around and picked leaves for a while. Lotte, the main teacher in my room, said she was impressed by how well I was doing :) It's really tricky when I can't say anything to them besides my name! For lunch, we had fish potatoes peas and this sauce. It was soo good! One little boy, Valdemar, took me to this hidden house in the forest and made me a sand dinner with a sand drink and a sand birthday cake with candles! It was so precious! I'm in love with all my kids! I wish I was going back next week, but we have our short study tour to Western Denmark for a couple of days!

On Friday, after class, some of Tasingegade left for our cruise to Norway! We got off the bus and instead of waiting for Christian, decided to walk towards the water... major fail and ended up in the totally wrong place. We were running so late (aka we were supposed to be there and were nowhere close to being where we needed to be...) and had to walk to the real place. Luckily it didn't leave without us!! We hung out on the top deck and watched as we left the dock!

We staked out a whole portion of the top deck!

The dinner was soo good!! (More exciting than the food we've been making here). The cruise ship was so much bigger than I thought it would be!! Look!

Here is the whole group from Tasingegade/DIS on top of the Opera House and in front of the harbor with our AWESOME cruise ship!

This cruise ship was amazing... And it's got a discotek on board!! We got off the boat Saturday around 930 and wandered all over Oslo! We saw the Opera house, a museum with Edward Munch's Scream as a main attraction, Parliament, the Royal Palace, Viking ship museum, an outdoor museum of old houses, and a million other places!

Norway back in the old days.

The viking ships that are over 1,000 years old!!

We had to take a boat to get to some of the museums too, which had such a pretty view! When we got back, we sat out on the deck again and just looked out at the water. Best life ever.

Enjoying some time to sit after being "whipped around like Japanese tourists" as Christian would say.

Overall, Norway was beautiful and so awesome! I wish we could cruise there every weekend!

Today I went for a run through the parks around us. There were these big time soccer games going on! I went by the game with Nigeria vs. Ghana! So cool! Everybody is starting to get sick in Tasingegade... hope my immune system holds up!

Until next time, peace :)