Meeting the Family…

Well it occurs to me now that I haven’t actually posted any pictures of myself or my lovely roommate, Cathrine, so I plan to rectify that today 🙂 Last weekend, Cathrine’s parents were nice enough to invite me to their family day at Tivoli and I hadn’t actually been to the amusement park here before, which made it incredibly exciting on two accounts!

Me and Cathrine 🙂

On the Ferris Wheel!!

Her mom is the nicest person ever and I also met her aunt and grandmother for the first time. Her brother, Casper, and her cousin were also there and I’d been lucky enough to meet them both a couple times before. Her cousin also brought her 3 year old daughter (who was by far the most excited of all of us to be at Tivoli) and she was the most precious thing ever! Being only 3 meant she didn’t speak a word of English because they don’t start learning it until the age of 7 or 8 but she was so adorable and her actions certainly told me where she wanted to go next (like wanting to use her own allowance to buy a ladybug balloon or going on the carousel again).

All the members of Cathrine’s family live in different areas of Denmark now but most aren’t more than an hour or two away by train and they whole family is very close-knit. I love that even when family members move into the city or across the country, everyone is still close enough to remain a tightly-knit family!

As for Tivoli, I thought it was the coolest place. They kept asking me how it compared to American theme parks and continuously said they knew it wasn’t nearly as grand – which I suppose was true in the sense that it wasn’t as big or really on the same scale as, say, Disneyland. But honestly, I thought it suited Copenhagen perfectly. All the booths were multicolored just like their buildings are here and the gardens are green and beautiful like everywhere in Denmark. And the absolute best part for me was the fact that all of the roller coasters were at the same height as the rooftops and I find European rooftops so much more fascinating than American ones. The city really looked beautiful from the top of the rides and I totally felt like I was weaving through the numerous Danish rooftops as the coasters zig zagged across their tracks.

Tivoli is so gorgeous at night

All the lights coming on is really something to see

In short, Tivoli was so much fun! The cotton candy three times the size of my head didn’t hurt either 😉 and to wrap up the perfect afternoon, Casper insisted that he, Cathrine, and I take one of those silly costume photos! Hope you find it as hilarious as I do!

Cathrine and I have gotten very close 😉

“Sometimes, the way we think about the past says more about how we live in the present…”

So in case you haven’t heard, DIS has declared all Wednesdays Field Study Days, which means no student has classes on Wednesdays, and usually a professor will have assigned a field trip on this day of the week. (Sometimes you don’t have anything scheduled though and you just have a nice day to catch up on homework, take a day trip, or just to break up classes!) Anyway, last week my Nordic Mythology class met at the National Museum to see the prehistoric exhibit and it really was incredible.

The Sun Being Pulled Along

We toured this exhibit more to give us an idea of what archeologists have found leading up to the Viking Age, which is what the class mainly focuses on, but being able to picture even a little about what life was like leading up to this time period helps us to understand the literature we’re reading in my opinion.

Basically everything we saw was astounding. Prehistoric swords and daggers that were hand carved. Golden brooches for the wealthy so skillfully detailed. We even saw some instruments they used to use and for the life of me, I could not figure out how they were played…how did the horns even wrap around their bodies?

Prehistoric Musical Instruments!

           

Priam Begging Achilles for Hector’s Body – from the Illiad

The Egtved Girl’s Clothes

Information Plaque at the National Museum

One of the pieces that stuck out the most to me though was “The Egtved Girl”. In 1921, archeologists found the few remains and the clothes of a girl that died around the age of 16 during the Nordic Bronze Age (1700-500 BC). The clothes were fascinating to people at the time because they hadn’t found many outfits like it before: a short cropped top, a skirt made out of a bunch of cords that were stitched together at the top and bottom, and a belt with a gold disc with a spike in the middle of it. My professor explained to us that when the outfit was first uncovered, people thought that there was no way a girl could have gone around dressed that scantily in any era. They thought she must have at least worn another longer skirt underneath the string one that had simply decomposed by now. My professor said this obviously had more to do with the social customs of the time that the clothes were uncovered than it had to do with evidence of the past. “Sometimes, the way we think about the past says more about how we live in the present than it does about the past.” And that really struck me. Because even with all of the different beautiful pieces around us from eras long ago, the best we can do is guess at how and why they were used, how they were made. Written accounts help and we may know more than we used to know (hopefully), but at the end of the day, we weren’t there and we will never truly have a realistic feel for how life felt back then. Our perceptions of it will always be clouded by the culture of our present.

All the same, I think that’s what makes studying history so fun! Trying to piece together bits of the past until we at least have some vague idea of what came before us.

Welcome to Small Town Danish Life

So my class’s short study tour during Core Course Week, the three day tour after our two days of workshop, went to Fanø. And most Danes don’t think much is going on there, my roommate, Cathrine, included. She looked very surprised to hear that my European Humanities program had chosen this place of all places to take us to.

Ferry to Fanø

Life on the little Danish island is hard to describe… Perhaps, the closest I can get is seeing small town life on TV and wishing life could be that perfect and charming little towns like that could really exist. Well, apparently they do in Denmark. How many people have watched Gilmore Girls? And of those people, how many secretly harbor the dearest wish to actually live in a real life Stars Hollow? The little village of Sønderho where my class was lucky enough to reside during Core Course Week is the closest I’ve ever found.

The cottage I stayed in!

It’s true that the island itself has a population of a few thousand people; I think we were told that the village the ferry goes directly to, Nordby, has about 2,000 people there. But if you travel the 16 kilometers to the other side of the island, you reach the sleepy Sønderho and get one of the most incredible experiences of your life! There’s a rule on the island that all the houses built within the main zone must be built with a thatched roof so all of the houses automatically have that first look of charm and quaintness to them. And then on top of that, everything about the town was so unique and quiet, the roads were never busy, I saw cars parked but very rarely did I see anyone driving down the street, and everyone was very friendly! We dined at an inn that dates back to 1722 and heard many stories about what the island used to be like, how it’s changed, tales of fishermen from the island – everything simply added to the island’s own personal sense of history, something that I find so exciting about the different nooks and crannies of Denmark.

The little inn! From 1722

The beach was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. A totally flat expanse that seemed endless. The tide came up so high that when we went to see it at low tide, we must have walked across at least a half mile of wet sand to get to the water. And the ground was ridged from where the tide had slowly and gradually receded, making its mark in the sand. There were long, rectangular clam shells like I’d never seen anywhere else, fish that looked like eels, countless seals, and the most gelatinous jellyfish I’ve ever seen. It was incredible.

The trip basically served as a writer’s retreat for us and we met with a poet, Jeppe, who published his first novel at the age of 22. It was around the start of our first workshop with him that I began to realize how special this program is. Our teachers can really pick almost anywhere they want to take us – they can evaluate the richness of the culture of a place, gauge how much we think they will get out of the experience. And then they can take us there and they can introduce to so many people who have already achieved everything we want to do in our lives. The workshops were so much fun, hearing about Jeppe’s decision to leave Copenhagen in preference for the quiet little town, the history of the island, Jeppe’s own career. And then on Friday, he actually workshopped some of our own writing and we had a big group discussion about selected students’ pieces.

And finally, one of the absolute best parts of the week, was the tradition of Folk Dance on Fanø. Yes, folk dance. Which means we were lucky enough to go to a real Folk Festival on Friday night. Throughout the weekend, we saw various street performances as part of the two day festival, which was so cool to see around town. One of the violinists performing at the festival met with us early on Friday to try to teach us how to dance a traditional folk dance and I think it goes without saying that it didn’t go too well…but we tried our best! And it was so much fun! The music that night was so lively and energizing and the dancing was contagious. We all took turns attempting to dance with each other, some of us found locals to dance with, and no, we weren’t at all good, but it was so much fun! And a really amazing bonding experience to finish Core Course Week off with.

Streets of Sønderho

Fanø in the morning

The Magician and the Professor

So this past week was Core Course Week, which means regular classes were cancelled and every core class had two days of workshops and a three-day study tour. This post will focus on the first day of my class’s week, which started with the two days of workshops (other programs had their three-day study tour first).

On Monday, we met with the author of the book we had just read for class, The Prophets of the Eternal Fjord, Kim Leine. He told us about some of his inspirations for the book and actually shared a lot about his early childhood and the path that led him to become a writer. He is quite a popular writer in Scandinavia, having won the Nordic Council Literature Prize for that novel two years ago. The book was translated into English about a month ago and just hit American markets.

Site of Major Fire in the 1790s

He was truly an amazing person and we were lucky enough to get to go on a walking tour of Copenhagen with him. Certain parts of his novel had taken place in Copenhagen during the 1700s so he took us around to a few key spots where significant events had taken place in the book! For instance, he showed us where the great fire at the end of the book started, the church it really did burn down in Danish history, the site of the bar that the protagonist frequented as a student, and a small courtyard that resembled the one that the protagonist lived in. One of the coolest things about reading this book was that we actually recognized the street names in the books. The main character actually lived on Norregade, right down the street from where the DIS Front Desk is located.

Church burned in one of the fires but has been rebuilt now

Courtyard like the one Morten Falck lived above!

Having fun!!

Throughout the day, Kim told us a little bit about what it’s like to be an author as well. One thing that really stuck out to me and I think will stay with me was what he called “The Magician and the Professor”. He said that when he writes, there is a magician on one shoulder that helps him to bring magic to his writing and lets his creativity flow. But just after that, while he is still free writing, the professor stands on the other shoulder and constantly tells him that something isn’t right or it doesn’t sound right or flow well. He says he needs to send the professor on a walk for a while so that the magician can do his work first. I know this idea has been expressed in different ways before but something about the way he explained it really did feel so original and thoughtful. Meeting Kim Leine was absolutely one of my favorite parts of the week! I think we all learned so much from him that day.

Kim Leine and The Prophets of the Eternal Fjord

All I Did Was Blink!

Everyone that’s ever shared a space with someone else knows that sometimes problems arise. This may be particularly true when you live in an apartment where everything belongs to someone else and you’re really only borrowing everything – dishes, sheets and bedding, pillows, blankets, keys, laundry equipment, etc. Well, I made my first mistake last week. Fortunately, this wasn’t an entirely real issue. I was washing my dishes immediately, like a good roommate, and one second my sponge was scrubbing the bowl and the next, the bowl smacked the edge of the sink and was in two pieces…

I can’t even describe how horrified I was! The bowl slipped in my soapy hands, I blinked, heard a crash, and it was in two large pieces! And it was Cathrine’s bowl. In retrospect, I realize this wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened or anything but it was the first thing I’d damaged since I’ve been here and these aren’t my dishes or anything. So I panicked and stared at the two pieces and kept obsessing over the fact that it had been a whole bowl full of cereal not ten minutes before this occasion. I finished washing both pieces and then took them into my room to try to fit them back together. They actually went back together quite nicely but I couldn’t find glue so I tried to put it out of my mind until Cathrine came home.

She laughed when she saw it and absolutely could not have cared less. She was so great about it. So at least this was a good first bump to get over. I felt so badly and was so apologetic and she told me it was a cheap bowl from Ikea and promptly threw the pieces away, telling me not to worry about it. I still want to find another bowl for her though…at the very least because we’re now only down to two bowls!

Unfortunately, Clean Laundry Is a Necessity…

Well after putting it off for a good 3 weeks, I finally figured I should try my hand at laundry here. Now I don’t know if all Danish washing machines work the same way as the ones in my apartment building, but it was a pleasant surprise to find out that mine actually have soap included in the machine and I shouldn’t need my own. Unfortunately, our machines were out this week and I did need to find my own…just my luck.

Not really a big deal at all but soap usually being included wasn’t the only foreign concept to me in this new laundry room. First off, we have to make appointments to use the laundry room. Which is actually a good idea because you definitely avoid the problem of lugging all your dirty clothes downstairs just to realize there aren’t any open machines. However, being that this was my first time doing laundry here, this was yet another factor causing me to put off learning how to actually wash my clothes. Admittedly, I’ve never lived in an apartment building in the US, only on campus, but I don’t think appointments are usually a requirement for the laundry rooms there.

Next up, you can actually select the exact temperature of water you want your clothes washed in! There are like six options! Of course their options are also in Celsius. Cathrine, my Danish Roommate, was walking me through the whole process for the first time and when I told her my three options at home were hot, warm, or cold, she laughed at me. Apparently that was just as weird a concept to her as picking a precise temperature was to me. I finally chose 40 degrees Celsius based on her advice, but I really wasn’t sure.

And finally, she asked me if I used the dryer or “tumbler” as if she expected me to say no. That was when I realized that I actually had seen her hanging her clothes on a rack for the past couple weeks. I told her I pretty much used the dryer for all my clothes and she seemed very surprised but taught me how to use it. The thing about this tumbler is that the time starts off at about 6 minutes and you up it from there for a certain price; I think it’s 2 kroner for 6 minutes or something. Not ideal but understandable and yet another way the Danes promote sustainability in their lifestyles. I think I’ll probably adopt this eco friendly way of drying clothes while I’m here too.

I think my one saving grace in this whole process was that the card machine you use to pay for the laundry is similar to the one I use at school so at least that aspect wasn’t so foreign to me. Cathrine was gone by the time my appointment actually came around but her best friend, Maria, lives in the same apartment complex and was nice enough to help me out 🙂 I think the takeaway from this experience should be that one way or another, I got clean laundry at the end of it!! Yay first times!