Since I have so much to cover, here are some highlights since the last time I've written...
September 19th... (practically a month ago, whoops!)
DIS bought everyone enrolled in Danish class a ticket to the F.C. København and Brøndby game! My first real soccer game!
Laura, Natasha and I at the FCK game!The fans are crazy! The FCK fans were cheering the ENTIRE game. And they all cheered and danced in unison. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWr1DaexOpg&feature=related ). Not my video, but this is one of the cheers! And this is their big song they always play/sing ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Caq3ou1MW7E ). The Brøndby fans, on the other hand, were absolutely insane. They started off making fires in the stands, which escalated to lighting flares, which they then threw on the field. Riots broke out, drawing many police and security and fights went down.
As the riot is breaking out... This would never fly in the states, so I was so shocked how much this escalated. Basically... the fans are pretty darn rowdy. FCK kept it classy though! AND they won, 2-0.
Tuesdays are our "weekday weekend" since we "don't" have classes on Wednesday. Wednesdays are designated for field studies, so we travel locally to places relevant to different classes. Every Tuesday, we hang out on our common room, aka the Great Dane. New favorite place to go in Copes is the Scottish Pub. (Why are all these places named after other locations?). They always have live music and is a guaranteed good time! And I'm slowly mastering how to get home from the city center via bus. The night buses are slowly becoming easier to figure out and I know street names a little bit now, so I can do some experimenting!
Hanna and I sporting our European outfits and our wine juice boxes in the Great Dane on cafe night.September 22nd... I'm taking a Copes History class, which is basically an architecture class. Not that easy or fun to study, but it's cool (nerdy, I know) to know all this history and information about Copes. Carsten, our professor, says we're going to know more than 95% of all Danish people after taking this class. Well anyway, we had to go on a second scavenger hunt finding different Renaissance/Baroque style buildings we were assigned. This was a lottt of walking around. Luckily, we walked by a bakery on St. Pœder's Stœde, and Wednesdays are their day they make fresh cinnamon rolls. So we got a PMA (positive mental attitude) boost with hot cinnamon rolls to eat as we walked around!
September 23rd... Thursday means practicum day!! We went on a field trip to Frilandmuseet with the kids. It's an outside museum of old Scandinavian houses. It was two of the kid's Moms, one of our teachers, and me... so I was essentially the second teacher. At the end of the day, they bought everyone ice cream... I can't complain :). Out of all the houses to go in and out of, the kids favorite part was a board that they could walk across two "hills" right by the entrance. Haha, I love them. During lunch, I tried one of the kid's liver paste sandwich... not as nasty as it sounds actually. The kids always ask me questions, which I'm slowly understanding a few words! When we got back, one of the helpers was in our class and it was her birthday. She brought these traditional Danish desserts in, which is a chocolate covered marshmallow fluff with coconut sprinkled on the outside and a little wafer covered in the chocolate on the bottom. So we sang the birthday song to her! Then I went straight to my visiting family's house for dinner, which Taylor (the american staying with them) made for us. Anna made pumpkin pie with a meringue on the top for dessert!
September 25th... Aliza and I went to a cafe called the Living Room, right by DIS, to get work done. In the bottom level, there are all these couches and tables with candles everywhere that make it really hyggelig.... Danish for saying it's cozy and homey. They use this phrase really frequently. At a lot of cafes, they have Go Postcards, that are weird/random postcards and they're free! We discovered these today! Later, Hanna and I went over to Kim's kollegium in Nørrobro. Nørrobro is the part of København next to Østebro, where I live. She made us french toast! Yummy! Then we went to Barcelona Bar (yay, Barc 010!) and successfully found our way home with the buses... Notice a pattern? I find traveling anywhere one of my big successes of any day!
Made mashed potatoes that Sunday... SO good.
September 28th... Class from 8:30 to 4:10, but my Neuro teacher couldn't come, so after our "exam", we got to go early! And exam is in quotations because it was 25% of our grade, but we got a study guide of 60 questions, in which she picked 30 to ask us... not complaining! Pretty great! We got home and I decided to make applesauce! Then Tåsingegade (the apartment place I live) went bowling in Copes. I won :) Three times! When did I learn how to bowl?
Laura and I at the bowling alley in Copes!September 29th... Field study with Copes class in the morning. Saw old Navy houses built when the Navy became a more permanent part of Copes. I never realized how close this was to me... only a five minute bike ride! Then we walked to the Citadel, which is right by the houses. You could still see where all the old bastioned walls were, like we'd been talking about in class! Really cool! Then we went to Amalienborg Palace, the royal palace. We got a tour of the palace where the Queen hosts events and parties!! We finished the tour right at the time that they do changing of the guard. We had to exit out the back door, or they might shoot at us?! That's what the guide said...seriously, or jokingly? Haha.
October 1st... Gert (Jimber's Dad) was in town for the night, so we went out to dinner right next to City Hall Square. We took him to Scottish Pub, and I now have a Carlsberg cup from there :)
Yay for Gert being in Copes!October 2nd... We had plans to do a lot of things... Shopping, visiting the Fredericksberg Castle... Instead, I felt accomplished from Laura and Aliza making lunch and recycling my cans... You get money for recycling in Copes! People are always walking around taking cans out of the garbage... but hey, you get money for it. Then I made the best applesauce... Seems to be what I do in my free time. We are leaving for Long Study Tours tomorrow!!
October 3rd... Everybody left for long study tours over this weekend and we left today. All DIS students went with their base course. I left with my Children with Special Needs class to Tallin, Estonia... About an hour and a half flight. Our class is 28 girls and two guys, with two female leaders... so a whollleeee lot of estrogen up in there. We got there by evening time and went to a place called Olde Hansa, which has food, dress and everythinggggggg like it was way back when in Estonia.
Very cozy and hyggelig.There were lots of interesting things... barley, tongue... tongue was gross.
Nina, Aliza and I at Olde Hansa!But they're house drink is Honey beer, which was amazing! Tallin is such a cool city in the fact that all of the old medieval walls are still up and they are what stand between new and old Tallin. It's really neat because once you walk inside the walls, you are in a totally different, old, romantic town. I love it!
The walls surrounding the old town! There are these stands all over Tallin that hand out free roasted spiced almonds. It's to entice you to buy them, but I enjoy getting the free almonds :)
The almonds were so good!October 4th... We kicked off the day going to a special needs school in Tallin. Then we went on a guided walking tour of Tallin, getting to see the whole inner city. We walked all the way to the top of the town and had such an awesome view!
What an awesome view of Tallin!After, we went to a second school for behavioral special needs. Then we had free time to explore the town. I bought a hand woven hat from an Estonian woman at the sweater mart! After dinner, we went to this Hyggelig chocolate cafe with the most amazing desserts. It was a white chocolate cheesecake with white chocolate on top, jam under it and a cinnamon crust... so heavenly.
The most fantastic dessert!We tried to find warm, spiced wine, but all the places were closed!
October 5th... We went to the Hellen School for the Deaf and Blind in the morning for our first visit. After wandering around Tallin for a while, we packed up for our cruise ship from Tallin to Stockholm! The ship was HUGE, but was rocking miserably.
Our ship on the right! Everyone was really feeling a little rough from it. One of our tour leaders is getting married next week, so we had a bachelorette party for her on the cruise! When we were doing Karaoke, this Estonian man picked My Heart Will Go On... aka my favorite song when I was in third grade. Needless to say, I turned it into a duet.
Karaoke on the cruise!October 6th... We were all more than pleased to get off the cruise in the morning. We got to our hotel and realized that we all got JUNIOR SUITES. DIS hooked us up, they were so nice. We visited an Autism Center in Stockholm. Instead of using a bus like we did in Tallin, we had a 72 hour transportation pass we used. Later that night, we went to the Opera to see Figuero's wedding. There was the weirdest stuff going on in this opera. None of us could stay awake, but while I was awake, I saw a guy molesting a girl in the first act and a threesome in the second act. There was some real weird stuff going on. Plus, it was Italian with Swedish subtitles, so not too easy to follow.
Our nosebleed seats at the Opera.October 7th... We went to the Stella Nova School in the morning. As we got close to the school, we see these kids waving American flags and cheering.
The sign they made for us within five minutes of taking this picture!Once we were sitting, three little boys brought in coffee cups, coffee, tea, and cookies. They wrote our name on a piece of paper and handed out each cup to us individually.
This was just too precious!Then five little girls came in and belly danced and after, four boys break danced to Boom Boom Pow. It was so adorable!
I couldn't stop smiling! So adorable!They had made us welcome signs that were hung on the door. Then we got to walk around and hang out with all the kids. When I was walking through the first room in the school, the teacher tells me "she wants to hold your hand" and one of the little girls lifts up her hand to me and we walk around. It was so cute. We wandered all over the school and then played catch for almost 30 minutes. Then we went to a cafe and had hot chocolate and chocolate cake and apple tart while we listened to a speaker. After, we had dinner and ate REAL Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. We went out after and creepy old Swedish men bought us drinks. Then I sang a lovely rendition of Love the Way You Lie with my Swedish friends.
October 8th... Nina, Aliza and I wandered around Stockholm in the morning... visited the Royal Palace and took pictures with the guard!
In front of Royal Palace!
The guard looks the least serious out of the three of us!I am collecting post cards from every place I go visit! A little reminder of the places I've been! We met up with our class and had this awesome salmon for lunch right before we left for the airport. Our flight got us back in later that night to Copes, and I had to pack right away for Paris! I went to bed at 12 and had to wake back up at 3 to get ready and leave for the airport. Five minutes after I went to bed, the fire alarm went off. We all went downstairs and this Danish girl (couldn't be older than 18) started yelling at us to go back inside because it wasn't a real fire. Someone talked back to her and she threw a beer bottle at them and then started lunging at everyone outside. Her friends were holding her back... basically, this went on for 3o minutes and at one point, she pushed our SRA into a row of bikes and then he pinned her to the ground. It was getting kind of scary, but the Police came. I went to bed at 1 (that means only two hours of sleep...) but I could still hear this girl doing her guttural speech for a while after. Luckily, she's getting evicted.
October 9th... Woke up at 3 after 2 hours of sleep. Tried to ride my bike to the metro, but the girl knocked my SRA into my bike so the wheel was messed up. Luckily, I had looked up how to get to the metro by bus. Since it was so early, I had to take a night bus and I found out later that the lady who was waiting for the bus with me works at the Copes airport. It was so funny seeing her a couple of hours later in security. I took advantage of every free second I had to nap... while waiting for the plane, while on the plane... I woke up right after they handed out pastries on the plane and the guy next to me got our flight attendants attention and got me one! So nice of him! Once I got to the airport, I found out the metro at the airport is under construction, so I had to take a shuttle to another terminal to catch a bus to take two metro lines to get to my hostel. But I navigated it all and there were two girls who were going to the same stop I was from the airport, so I helped them get there! Who knew I was good at directions? I checked in at my hostel and had two hours to spare until I was meeting Kath and Sarah at the Eiffel Tower, so I decided to walk there from my hostel! It's about an hour, hour and a half walk, but I got to see a ton of things on my way. I walked through the Louvre and Les Jardins de Tuilleries, (I want to live outside the Louvre. I love it there!), Place de la Concorde, Les Invalides and then stopped at a grocery store to eat some lunch by the Eiffel Tower. Once I met up with Kath and co., we went to Notre Dame and then walked through the Louvre/Les Jardins de Tuilleries again.
At the Louvre with Sarah, Kath, Bridget and some of Sarah's friends from Lux.Luckily, Kath and I both had to use the same line to get home, so we dropped my stuff off at my hostel and then went to her apartment for dinner. We made some pasta and had peaches, plus waffers for dessert! We then went to the Eiffel Tower at night to watch it when it sparkles on the hour! (My other favorite part about Paris!)
October 10th... 10/10/10!... I survived my night in the hostel. It's actually a nice hostel and I shared the room with three other people who were normal enough! I met everyone in Montmartre that morning and we walked up the stairs to see the Sacre Coeur. I love in European churches, how you can light candles inside. Very hyggelig. One the way to Les Jardins de Luxembourg, I got pickpocketed on the metro. There goes all my pictures from Paris. Kim met us at the gardens and we had lunch at a cafe!
Gamma Phi takes Paris!Then Kath was kind enough to replicate my walk from the day before so I could recreate all my lost pictures!
Where I want to set up a tent and live forever!By the end, we were worn out. We got banana and nutella crepes by the Eiffel Tower and watched a break dancing show with very attractive men.
Our last stop of the day!October 11th... woke up at 3:30 and got picked up by shuttle at 4. Shuttle was the genius way to go... didn't have to worry about getting lost or running late. The guy dropped me directly off at my terminal. I napped for a solid hour and a half at my gate then an hour and a half on the plane. I landed at 9:20, got into Copes by 9:50 and got to class a few minutes before 10. I was running on who knows what, but managed to be awake for class all day!
Last week was crazy with midterm papers and everything! On Friday, it was Kultur Natten (Culture Night) in Copes and you could go to all these different places. We went to the Copes Zoo and I was inches away from baby lion cubs! They were so cute!! Then we went to the Carlsberg factory and there was this trippy light show and music going on. Then we stopped in a dance studio on our way to the S train. We tried to go up the Round Tower, but the line was crazy long, so we opted out. We saw all these ice sculptures right outside Christiansborg Palace and then tried to take a canal tour, but the one before us was the last one!
On Sunday, I went with Anna to Johan and Taylor's basketball game. Anna, her friend, Marie, and I went to a cafe after for dinner. When I came home, Tåsingegade was going all out fall style. I carved a pumpkin-- we made an owl--, Umit made pumpkin soup and hot chocolate for everyone and we watched Johnny Darko.
Today, my Danish class had a field study to a bakery and then the Danish Resistance Museum... all about the resistance during WWII. In Denmark, only 116 Jewish people died. Kim and I made fajitas tonight at her kollegium :)
It won't be another month until you hear from me!
Hej hej!
