This past weekend I went with my host family to Lalandia. It was quite a fun weekend, full of chlorine, bowling shoes and uno cards. It made me think of my family vacations when I was a kid.
Lalandia had a small waterpark, with some indoor water slides, a wave pool and a partially outdoor water slide, which was kind of cold by the way. The indoor water slides were quite fun, though not the most compatible for a two piece suit, but I figured it out lol. The wave pool was fun, I enjoyed splashing Benedicte :] The outdoor slide was insane, basically no regulations, no lifeguards at the top to tell you what to do, so guess what happens? Masses of people just run up and jump in together, creating a fast moving barricade of bodies. The slide starts inside and then runs outside of the building and drops you off back inside on the floor below. The craziest part was all the people, you would just get stuck in a mass of bodies, strangers crashing into you or nearly laying on top of you as you plow forward. The pool where the slide drops you into is probably the most irritating part lol, remember that barricade I mentioned. Imagine getting thrown into a 6ft deep pool already full of people and having ten people drop in right behind you...kind of a problem. People had a tendency to get trampled in that landing pool. At one point I fell in and when I tried to get up another kid landed on top of me and pushed to the floor of the pool, and after that more people landed on top of me, stepping on me and kicking me. I did actually panic for a second because I could not find my way up, I thought of all the places for me to drown don't let it be in a kiddy waterpark with an 8 year old boy standing on me! Eventually I started kicking the people and trying to get up, I surfaced and found Daniel who was starting to get worried because I never came up, I survived lol!
We went mini golfing and bowling, neither of which am I excellent at, but I can hold my own. That mini golf course was not designed for children! It was way way to hard, therefore I say I did good comparatively :] Bowling was fun, I manged to get a mixture of strikes, spares and gutterballs, interesting combination lol. Thomas is ridiculously good at bowling so he won, and Daniel beat me too, but we were really close! We played UNO for a few hours, which was fun because I haven't played that game in many many years and their family made up extra rules to make it even more complicated. They also attach points to the cards you have left over in your hards when someone wins, and the point of the game is have the lowest number of points at the end. Guess who won overall....thats right, ME! I did a little happy dance and told Daniel that he can be better at bowling because I am better at UNO :] We also went to play badminton, its super popular here, the only time I've played it is in PE in middle school, so needless to say I was not spectacular. Daniel tried to teach me different moves and made me practice, suddenly I remembered why I hate coaches, they make do things over and over and over again! The next day my muscles were in so much pain, I wanted to hit Daniel for making me practice so much lol.
Monday rolled around and it was time to leave Lalandia, we took our time driving back and stopped for lunch in some small town close to the shore. Here I learned that Danes will use a knife and fork for literally everything, I ate a chicken club sandwich and potato wedges with utensils, I also discovered that mayonnaise is like ketchup here, they dip fries in it :\ yikes! On the trip home I experienced one more new thing, a Danish Hospital. Don't freak it wasn't for me, I know i'm clumsy it would be pretty normal but not this time lol. Thomas's father had a problem while were in Lalandia and was taken to a hospital, so we went to visit him. The hospital was a smaller one but did not look like a medical facility at all, it just looked like an old building! It was even in a neighborhood, from his father's room I saw apartments and a playground twenty yards away. He is doing very well, he was very talkative and in good spirits so I'm pretty sure there is nothing to worry about anymore.
The week went along just like any other, you know train, class, avoiding homework, until Thursday. Thursday was like one of those movies where literally everything can go wrong, but for me unlike in the movies it didn't end up "alright" in the end! So my day starts off in the morning cramming for my two upcoming tests. I grab for my belt so I can leave to catch the bus and make my way to Copenhagen, small problem...my belt broke! Those who know me know that belts are not a fashion accessory for me but a daily necessity to keep my pants up. So I walk to the bus with my saggy pants :[ and Sierra is waiting for me by her street. I can see the stop, just over a block away and 6 minutes to get there, no prob! Next thing we know we see a bus pass us...WHAT! That was our bus, and it was 4 minutes early...we run for it but there is no way we could make it and the driver couldn't see us. NOOOOO!!!
The next bus wasn't for twenty minutes and we both had tests in our first class. So we both are in bad moods after that but there was nothing we could do but wait around. The next bus was late and when we pulled into the train station lot our train was already there, NO!! we almost knocked a woman over way trying to get of the bus, and then we sprinted the entire pathway towards our track, not an easy feat when your pants are nearing your ankles! While I was running I kept having to reach behind me and grab my jeans. We just barely made the train, hallelujah! When the morning goes according to plan we have an extra 10-15 before class starts after we arrive in Copenhagen, which we both planned to use for studying, well that clearly wasn't going to happen anymore so we frantically try to study on the train.
This is when the universe really stuck it to us, our train broke! So we had to get off at the Hellerup station and wait for another train...fantastic, we were already going to be late for our tests, now we were going to be EVEN later! We arrive in Norreport and jog the ten minutes to DIS, again difficult with saggy jeans. While we are jogging Sierra literally strips the belt off her pants and helps me put in on so that we can run! Is she a great friend or what lol. I am sure that all the people on the street were very confused as to why there were two girls running down the street both tugging at one of the girls' pants. Eventually I got to my class, belted and barely breathing to take my test! Not sure how that test went, probably not so good. My next test was in Danish, I probably should have studied the culture part more! At the end of the day I thought oh man will this day never end.
I met up with Sierra again after class and we did some shopping, mostly me saying things looked cute and Sierra trying them on,we kept joking that with the way our day had gone what else was going to happen that day? Little did we know that while we were casually strolling along Stroget laughing and shopping the next bad thing was lurking behind us! We go to a shwarma shop to buy some food and I put my back pack down to get some money. What do I find? My front pocket is open and my wallet is gone! Fantastic! So we went walking around Stroget again, going back into every shop we visited and asked everyone if they had found a wallet, I even checked every garbage can in a 2 block radius, nothing :[ My whole life was in the wallet and know somebody else has it. Not the happiest day of my life to say the least. I'm starting to get everything together again but it is so complicated being in another country and there are still a few things I am having problems with. From what I have heard it is common in Denmark that when a person steals someone's wallet they will turn it into the police a week or so later, and then they can track me down, they know where to find me since my Danish Social Security card was in there! I'm just hoping and praying that whoever it was will turn it in and that it can get back to me somehow.
Since Thursday things have looked a bit brighter. On Saturday I met some more Danes, Thomas and Christina had a family over that they have known for many years. Very nice family and the mother has lived such a life, she traveled around the world for a year in her twenties! I was just a bit jealous, but hey maybe I can do that someday :] After that I went over to Sierra's house with her host family and we made a feast of banana breads with an assortment of flavors, the craziest one was a banana, chocolate, raspberry, hazelnut and marzipan bread, can you say sugar coma? It wasn't too bad actually, you just have to eat small bites at a time lol :] Today I went over to Lindsey's house and we went ice skating on a frozen lake, amazing :] It was a really pretty way to see the lake, though a bit scary at first looking down into a dark blue abyss. I fell twice, which considering my track record was impressive! I attempted to make an ice angel, but it just wasn't working lol. And now I am here, writing this blog and avoiding the Danish homework that has been staring me in the face for the past few hours, it might be a good idea to get to that!
Good night for me, but good day to you!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
To be or not to be....
Plenty of new experiences this week!
I met a bunch of Danes this week. Benedicte was on holiday this week for school, so some of the family came over so they could spend time with her. Tuesday night I met Thomas's sister, her two kids, Anna who is 18 and Kristian who is 22, and I also met Kristian's girlfriend Frederikke (yes that is how you spell it!). They are quite a lively bunch! Anna is in her last year of high school and loves to watch Disney movies with Benedicte, they watched a few on monday and then she brought four Disney movies over for Benedicte to see. IKristian and Frederikke are studying history at the University of Copenhagen. Kristian is a magician, he showed me some card tricks and this crazy trick where its like he can predict the future, pretty sneaky stuff. Frederikke and I had a lot to talk about, she speaks english really really well! Frederikke lived in France, just outside of Paris, for a few years when she was younger, and then she went back for a few weeks to study French. She went to America once, to North Dakota, and she didn't like it too much lol. It was nice to talk to some people around my age, we talked about the education system, which is very different from the American higher education system.
On Wednesday Lindsey and I took the train to Helsingor, north east of Birkerod. We walked around the coastal town in the freezing weather! We got attacked with frozen ice snow pellets, they kept hitting me in the face, quite a lot of screaming happened! We went to the Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, or more popularly known as Hamlets Castle! To be, or not to be. That is the question! The castle was really cool, we went on a couple of tours. We went to the dungeons, where I swear is saw some old blood stains!! We were sooooo cold so we decided to head back to the train when the castle closed at 3. We were starving so we tried to find some food, easier said than done! Many of the restaurants were closed and the one's that were open were so expensive!! We decided to just head back to the train station and see what food we could find there, again easier said than done! We kinda had no idea where we were :] We remembered that the train station was a big old brick building, so we thought okay well walk until we find the brick building! Small problem, there are a lot of big old brick buildings in Denmark! Eventually we found water so we walked towards that and followed the coast until we found the station. We ate 7/11 food for lunch, I think I eat something from 7/11 almost everyday!
Once again we had trouble with the trains and almost missed the one we needed to get home, I did however encounter a large problem! I forgot to punch my ticket at the train station, and of course within a few minutes of being on the train the ticket checker came around, so naturally I started panicking! You are fined like a hundred dollars if you don't have a valid pass or stamped ticket. The ticket checker guy finally gets to us and I hold up the klippekort and show the guy that I have 3 punches left and that I was supposed to punch 2 but that I just forgot because we didn't know what train to get on and then it was about to leave and I was really sorry and a lot of other probably incoherent babbling and asked if there was anything I could do! He gave me a stern look and told me to get off and the next station and run to the ticket machines to clip the card and I could get back on. I was so happy that he didn't fine me I just about hugged him! I got off at the next station and ran for the nearest ticket box, got it punched and sprinted back to the train just before the doors closed, then I proceeded to hunt down the ticket guy to prove to him that I did get it punched! I learned later from Thomas that I was extremely lucky, normally he said the ticket people show no mercy!
I bet you thought this adventure was over, ohhhh no, not quite yet! We are at Kokkedal station and walk over to our 500s bus that will take us home. The bus is parked and dark, so we assume that it must be time for the driver's break. We stand outside for a few minutes and wait for the driver to come back to the front. The bus driver comes back and opens the front doors for us, I stepped up and went to walk through the door when all the sudden I feel the doors start to close on me! I mean like I was squished against the metal pole in the middle of the door. So I kinda fall backwards off the bus, but still feel a pain in my leg, I look down and see that my leg is still stuck in the door, and I couldn't get it out! Lindsey and I look at the bus driver and he is like laughing and saying something in Danish. We have the most confused look on our faces and are like What! Eventually he opens the door so I can get my foot out and then I climb back on the bus, the doors stayed open this time. Lindsey and I sit down and she goes "What just happened!" So I guess what I've learned from this situation is that public transit hates Alyssa!
I got home after this interesting adventure to meet more Danes! Christina's brother, Martin, and his two kids, Agnes age 12 and Gustav age 9. They are a lot of fun! I had some great conversations with Martin, who works for Vestas, which is a wind turbine company, the maker of the turbine that I got to go inside a few weeks ago! Agnes and Gustav did not say too much to me, they are shy to speak with their english. But we were able to communicate a bit. The group stayed the night, but since I had classes today I did not get to spend much time with them. They left after dinner this evening, they have quite a long drive, something like 3 hours.
I am going on a short trip with my host family this weekend, we are going to Lalandia for a long weekend. So I get to miss class on Monday :]
I met a bunch of Danes this week. Benedicte was on holiday this week for school, so some of the family came over so they could spend time with her. Tuesday night I met Thomas's sister, her two kids, Anna who is 18 and Kristian who is 22, and I also met Kristian's girlfriend Frederikke (yes that is how you spell it!). They are quite a lively bunch! Anna is in her last year of high school and loves to watch Disney movies with Benedicte, they watched a few on monday and then she brought four Disney movies over for Benedicte to see. IKristian and Frederikke are studying history at the University of Copenhagen. Kristian is a magician, he showed me some card tricks and this crazy trick where its like he can predict the future, pretty sneaky stuff. Frederikke and I had a lot to talk about, she speaks english really really well! Frederikke lived in France, just outside of Paris, for a few years when she was younger, and then she went back for a few weeks to study French. She went to America once, to North Dakota, and she didn't like it too much lol. It was nice to talk to some people around my age, we talked about the education system, which is very different from the American higher education system.
On Wednesday Lindsey and I took the train to Helsingor, north east of Birkerod. We walked around the coastal town in the freezing weather! We got attacked with frozen ice snow pellets, they kept hitting me in the face, quite a lot of screaming happened! We went to the Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, or more popularly known as Hamlets Castle! To be, or not to be. That is the question! The castle was really cool, we went on a couple of tours. We went to the dungeons, where I swear is saw some old blood stains!! We were sooooo cold so we decided to head back to the train when the castle closed at 3. We were starving so we tried to find some food, easier said than done! Many of the restaurants were closed and the one's that were open were so expensive!! We decided to just head back to the train station and see what food we could find there, again easier said than done! We kinda had no idea where we were :] We remembered that the train station was a big old brick building, so we thought okay well walk until we find the brick building! Small problem, there are a lot of big old brick buildings in Denmark! Eventually we found water so we walked towards that and followed the coast until we found the station. We ate 7/11 food for lunch, I think I eat something from 7/11 almost everyday!
Once again we had trouble with the trains and almost missed the one we needed to get home, I did however encounter a large problem! I forgot to punch my ticket at the train station, and of course within a few minutes of being on the train the ticket checker came around, so naturally I started panicking! You are fined like a hundred dollars if you don't have a valid pass or stamped ticket. The ticket checker guy finally gets to us and I hold up the klippekort and show the guy that I have 3 punches left and that I was supposed to punch 2 but that I just forgot because we didn't know what train to get on and then it was about to leave and I was really sorry and a lot of other probably incoherent babbling and asked if there was anything I could do! He gave me a stern look and told me to get off and the next station and run to the ticket machines to clip the card and I could get back on. I was so happy that he didn't fine me I just about hugged him! I got off at the next station and ran for the nearest ticket box, got it punched and sprinted back to the train just before the doors closed, then I proceeded to hunt down the ticket guy to prove to him that I did get it punched! I learned later from Thomas that I was extremely lucky, normally he said the ticket people show no mercy!
I bet you thought this adventure was over, ohhhh no, not quite yet! We are at Kokkedal station and walk over to our 500s bus that will take us home. The bus is parked and dark, so we assume that it must be time for the driver's break. We stand outside for a few minutes and wait for the driver to come back to the front. The bus driver comes back and opens the front doors for us, I stepped up and went to walk through the door when all the sudden I feel the doors start to close on me! I mean like I was squished against the metal pole in the middle of the door. So I kinda fall backwards off the bus, but still feel a pain in my leg, I look down and see that my leg is still stuck in the door, and I couldn't get it out! Lindsey and I look at the bus driver and he is like laughing and saying something in Danish. We have the most confused look on our faces and are like What! Eventually he opens the door so I can get my foot out and then I climb back on the bus, the doors stayed open this time. Lindsey and I sit down and she goes "What just happened!" So I guess what I've learned from this situation is that public transit hates Alyssa!
I got home after this interesting adventure to meet more Danes! Christina's brother, Martin, and his two kids, Agnes age 12 and Gustav age 9. They are a lot of fun! I had some great conversations with Martin, who works for Vestas, which is a wind turbine company, the maker of the turbine that I got to go inside a few weeks ago! Agnes and Gustav did not say too much to me, they are shy to speak with their english. But we were able to communicate a bit. The group stayed the night, but since I had classes today I did not get to spend much time with them. They left after dinner this evening, they have quite a long drive, something like 3 hours.
I am going on a short trip with my host family this weekend, we are going to Lalandia for a long weekend. So I get to miss class on Monday :]
Monday, February 14, 2011
Travelling and Danish kids and such!
Well I have started thinking about my travel breaks, have yet to actually book anything but I have been talking to my friend Amy, she also lives in Birkerod, about travelling together on our long weekend and our first week of spring break. Right now we are thinking Germany or Sweden for the long weekend and maybe Switzerland and Italy for that week of spring break. And something else I'm realizing....its expensive! But, definitely worth it!
Thursday my Danish Language teacher took us on a field trip for class, to a grocery store to practice the food names. I had almost 4 hours to kill because I had a meeting at 6 that night, so I hung out with Alana from my danish class, she's great. We sat at a coffee shop and just talked for over an hour. I love meeting new people :] My meeting at 6 was my very first Sustainability Task Force meeting, it was fantastic! The Task Force is a group of 11 people, faculty, staff and 5 students who had to apply and were chosen by the staff. We were brainstorming what things we want to work on this semester, like Earth Week events and habitat restoration volunteering! I'm so excited to get to work with everybody, we all come from different backgrounds and have different expertise so I think we will definitely get some great things accomplished. After the meeting I was walking with two guys from the task force to the train station and we went into a little convenience store and got a bag full of free pastries! Can you imagine the smile on my face...FREE SUGARY GOODNESS!
On Friday I met a bunch of students from Benedicte class at school, they have these cooking groups, they are supposed to go to everyone in the groups house and cook a meal together and socialize. So when I got home on Friday afternoon the house was filled with pre-teens lol. So I met 5 of Benedicte's classmates and I tried my best to entertain them seeing as I was the token American in the room! I think the best part of being around them was that I heard one of the boys say "take a chill pill" I could not stop laughing! I asked the kids if any of them had ever been to America, one of the boys had and so we were talking about where he went. I said I was from Washington and he goes "oh i've been there, when we went to albany!" I was like uhhhh you're talking about DC, I live in Washington State, which is on the other side of the country from there. Every time I say I live in Washington to a Dane, they always think of Washington DC? Washington State is bigger then DC, and in my opinion better :]
I did not end up staying to eat dinner at my house with all Benedicte's friends, I went over to my friend Sierra's house for dinner, she lives really close. Sierra did all the cooking and I did all the laughing when she made mistakes, like dropping potatoes out of the wok that she was trying to "toss" them in with seasoning. Then we danced around the house to music from her laptop lol. A very successful Friday night in my opinion :]
Saturday was basically a lazy morning, in which I pretended to do some homework when really I was watching tv online and scoping out prices for plane and train tickets :] I went on a walk with Thomas, Christina and Benedicte in the afternoon, it was really long but soooooo beautiful. We walked to a huge lake a few kilometers away and then walked around it on some trails. The sun was setting and it cast a gorgeous orange glow on the trees on the other side of the lake. I can't wait until summer comes so I can walk around the lake more and not be frozen :]
Sunday was awesome! I met my friend Lindsey, who lives about ten minutes away, and we took a train to Malmo in Sweden to spend the day! Navigating and understanding train stations is not something I am very good at, we almost missed our train! We were quite confused and saw this train with its doors open so we just wandered on to it. We asked a random guy on the train if it was going to Sweden, he responded with "Uhh I think so, i'm not really sure", that was comforting! We stayed on the train anyway and lucky for us it was going to Malmo!
I've also decided that unlike most Danes, I like Sweden :] Unfortunately we went on a Sunday which meant that many places were closed or opened later in the day, but this did give us the opportunity to just wander around and get lost, we are really good at that :] We saw this cool building called the turning torso, which was built curving around, it looks awesome! Then we walked around and found this pretty castle that had a museum inside, it looked pretty sweet so we'll have to go back another time! After that we spend some more time wandering around. We found this beautiful old windmill, it looked like something out of a story book, quite enchanting :] We walked through a garden by a small river, I can't wait to go back in the spring to see the flowers bloom and the trees have leaves! I felt like I was in Paris, walking along the banks of a river, tall trees and flowers all around me.
We made our way over to "Malmo City" which is where their main shopping streets are, so like all college girls in a foreign country we shopped :] Lindsey bought some shoes, lace up wedge booties with some serious height! We went very american for lunch and ate at mcdonalds :\ I know, I know but it was cheap and we could actually understand what I was ordering! Right when I am starting to have the faintest of grasps on the Danish language, I end up in a country where I can even attempt to pronounce the street names! Now the most important test for whether or not I like the country....the coffee! Basically I wish I could go to Sweden everytime I wanted a good cup of coffee :] We went to this coffee place called "Espresso House" and I couldn't be more in love! I mean better than Starbucks in my opinion, and much better than Denmark's "Baresso" We got better coffee and more coffee for a cheaper price than at Baresso! Just thinking about that delicious mocha latte makes me smile :]]
We made our way back to the Malmo train station to head home. I had to use the bathroom so badly and guess what...they make you pay to use the toilet in train stations, guess what else...i didn't have any Swedish Kroner...so basically no bathroom for Alyssa. We had to ask a security guard to tell us which train to take, then where we could find the track. We followed the guards directions to a lower level but still couldn't find the track, and I still had to pee! That is when we discovered that lots of coffee, plus fast food, plus exhaustedness equals crazy Alyssa and Lindsey. Phrases like "where is the stupid 1b" and "stupid Sweden making you pay to pee, who does that" were uttered while laughing! We eventually found the track and got on our train and made it back to Kobenhavn central station! We also realized that we didn't know where to go in that station either! Being lost and confused is kind of our forte :] We missed our train home, so we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one, so we thought okay lets go into a store and waste time. So Lindsay and I are looking at scarves and rings, being american and singing along to Rhianna, and we decide to go see how long till the train comes. We find a reader board and it says half a minute till our train leaves and we still needed to get to our platform! We take off running towards Spor 9, almost knocking people over as we sprinted down the stairs. We reach the train with our arms waving, crying "Wait, Wait!" I hit the door open button with my fist and we jump in right before it leaves! So much excitement in one day :]
Now i'm watching Grease with Benedicte and singing along to the music :]
Thursday my Danish Language teacher took us on a field trip for class, to a grocery store to practice the food names. I had almost 4 hours to kill because I had a meeting at 6 that night, so I hung out with Alana from my danish class, she's great. We sat at a coffee shop and just talked for over an hour. I love meeting new people :] My meeting at 6 was my very first Sustainability Task Force meeting, it was fantastic! The Task Force is a group of 11 people, faculty, staff and 5 students who had to apply and were chosen by the staff. We were brainstorming what things we want to work on this semester, like Earth Week events and habitat restoration volunteering! I'm so excited to get to work with everybody, we all come from different backgrounds and have different expertise so I think we will definitely get some great things accomplished. After the meeting I was walking with two guys from the task force to the train station and we went into a little convenience store and got a bag full of free pastries! Can you imagine the smile on my face...FREE SUGARY GOODNESS!
On Friday I met a bunch of students from Benedicte class at school, they have these cooking groups, they are supposed to go to everyone in the groups house and cook a meal together and socialize. So when I got home on Friday afternoon the house was filled with pre-teens lol. So I met 5 of Benedicte's classmates and I tried my best to entertain them seeing as I was the token American in the room! I think the best part of being around them was that I heard one of the boys say "take a chill pill" I could not stop laughing! I asked the kids if any of them had ever been to America, one of the boys had and so we were talking about where he went. I said I was from Washington and he goes "oh i've been there, when we went to albany!" I was like uhhhh you're talking about DC, I live in Washington State, which is on the other side of the country from there. Every time I say I live in Washington to a Dane, they always think of Washington DC? Washington State is bigger then DC, and in my opinion better :]
I did not end up staying to eat dinner at my house with all Benedicte's friends, I went over to my friend Sierra's house for dinner, she lives really close. Sierra did all the cooking and I did all the laughing when she made mistakes, like dropping potatoes out of the wok that she was trying to "toss" them in with seasoning. Then we danced around the house to music from her laptop lol. A very successful Friday night in my opinion :]
Saturday was basically a lazy morning, in which I pretended to do some homework when really I was watching tv online and scoping out prices for plane and train tickets :] I went on a walk with Thomas, Christina and Benedicte in the afternoon, it was really long but soooooo beautiful. We walked to a huge lake a few kilometers away and then walked around it on some trails. The sun was setting and it cast a gorgeous orange glow on the trees on the other side of the lake. I can't wait until summer comes so I can walk around the lake more and not be frozen :]
Sunday was awesome! I met my friend Lindsey, who lives about ten minutes away, and we took a train to Malmo in Sweden to spend the day! Navigating and understanding train stations is not something I am very good at, we almost missed our train! We were quite confused and saw this train with its doors open so we just wandered on to it. We asked a random guy on the train if it was going to Sweden, he responded with "Uhh I think so, i'm not really sure", that was comforting! We stayed on the train anyway and lucky for us it was going to Malmo!
I've also decided that unlike most Danes, I like Sweden :] Unfortunately we went on a Sunday which meant that many places were closed or opened later in the day, but this did give us the opportunity to just wander around and get lost, we are really good at that :] We saw this cool building called the turning torso, which was built curving around, it looks awesome! Then we walked around and found this pretty castle that had a museum inside, it looked pretty sweet so we'll have to go back another time! After that we spend some more time wandering around. We found this beautiful old windmill, it looked like something out of a story book, quite enchanting :] We walked through a garden by a small river, I can't wait to go back in the spring to see the flowers bloom and the trees have leaves! I felt like I was in Paris, walking along the banks of a river, tall trees and flowers all around me.
We made our way over to "Malmo City" which is where their main shopping streets are, so like all college girls in a foreign country we shopped :] Lindsey bought some shoes, lace up wedge booties with some serious height! We went very american for lunch and ate at mcdonalds :\ I know, I know but it was cheap and we could actually understand what I was ordering! Right when I am starting to have the faintest of grasps on the Danish language, I end up in a country where I can even attempt to pronounce the street names! Now the most important test for whether or not I like the country....the coffee! Basically I wish I could go to Sweden everytime I wanted a good cup of coffee :] We went to this coffee place called "Espresso House" and I couldn't be more in love! I mean better than Starbucks in my opinion, and much better than Denmark's "Baresso" We got better coffee and more coffee for a cheaper price than at Baresso! Just thinking about that delicious mocha latte makes me smile :]]
We made our way back to the Malmo train station to head home. I had to use the bathroom so badly and guess what...they make you pay to use the toilet in train stations, guess what else...i didn't have any Swedish Kroner...so basically no bathroom for Alyssa. We had to ask a security guard to tell us which train to take, then where we could find the track. We followed the guards directions to a lower level but still couldn't find the track, and I still had to pee! That is when we discovered that lots of coffee, plus fast food, plus exhaustedness equals crazy Alyssa and Lindsey. Phrases like "where is the stupid 1b" and "stupid Sweden making you pay to pee, who does that" were uttered while laughing! We eventually found the track and got on our train and made it back to Kobenhavn central station! We also realized that we didn't know where to go in that station either! Being lost and confused is kind of our forte :] We missed our train home, so we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one, so we thought okay lets go into a store and waste time. So Lindsay and I are looking at scarves and rings, being american and singing along to Rhianna, and we decide to go see how long till the train comes. We find a reader board and it says half a minute till our train leaves and we still needed to get to our platform! We take off running towards Spor 9, almost knocking people over as we sprinted down the stairs. We reach the train with our arms waving, crying "Wait, Wait!" I hit the door open button with my fist and we jump in right before it leaves! So much excitement in one day :]
Now i'm watching Grease with Benedicte and singing along to the music :]
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Denmark being awesome!
The last week of my life has been full of interesting places and people.
Wednesday was my first field study of the semester. Field studies are basically short field trips with your class to relevant places which always take place on Wednesdays. This field trip was for my Danish language and culture class, we went to Christianborg Castle, which is where the Parliament meets and where the Prime Minister has his office. The Castle isn't used for housing anymore, and hasn't been for quite awhile. The current castle is a young building, I think something like only 80 or 90 years old. This is because the previous two castles burned down! Someone had it out for the Danish Royalty! We got to go down below the castle to see that it was built on top of the ruins from the first Danish royalty fortress. It was pretty sweet! After the field trip I bummed around Kobenhavn with someone from my class and we ate some chinese street food :]] YES!
Now my short study tour! Alright so the study tours are like extended field trips to awesome places that are related to your studies. This short study tour was three days and we traveled to various places in Denmark, we went to the islands of Funen and Aero.
Lets start from the very beginning of the trip, I needed to be at DIS at 6:45 am because my class was leaving at 7 am. Do you know what time I needed to get up so that I could complete my packing and commute to DIS, 4:30! If you know me, you know I do not like morning!! Oh and lets add the fact that there was a bus strike that morning, so basically I had to get up early and I was scared out of my mind that my bus wouldn't run. I would have to walk over 30 minutes to get to the station and catch my train if the bus didn't come. I book it to my bus stop that morning and find out that it is running, thank God! Later I found out that my bus line was basically the only one that was running that morning...talk about a miracle!
I made it to DIS on time! We spent the next 3 hours on the bus driving to our first stop, the Johannes Larsen Museum, a famous Funen painter who was inspired by natural landscapes. I loved his work, full of vibrant colors and natural places. The museum was actually in Johannes Larsen's house! After this cultural stop we got back on the bus to drive to our next location, an Ecovillage which has 30 adults and 33 children. We were given a tour of the village by a couple who were part of the original group that created the village. We learned a bit about permaculture, saw some animals and learned about how to build housing with natural materials. These houses were pretty amazing! They use mussel shells as part of the foundation, and then natural materials for building, natural materials for insulation. We learned about one guy who wanted to use recycled materials for his house, so he called some people and was able to get old bricks used in streets or something donated to him from time to time, he spent two years...two years, cleaning off these bricks so he could build with them, talk about dedication!! Our tour guides took us to their house where they have a ton of green solutions, the coolest was the miniature windmill they attached to the roof to get power and the solar panels on their roof for heating.
After the Ecovillage, we drove to Kerteminde where we were going to stay, our hostel was surprisingly not as sketchy as I imagined it would be! We went and explored the town a bit before meeting up for dinner, they town is so cute! We found this delicious and cheap :] bakery in the town. I was saying that I kinda missed the rain on the bus, and boy did i get it! It started raining when we were walking around so we ran to the restaurant to dry off.
The next day we left Funen and took a ferry to Aero, the view from the boat was fantastic! After we got off the ferry we explored the town for a bit before meeting up with a guide. Again, this town was like a disney world background! The houses were brightly colored and the streets were brick, basically perfect. After our little walking excursion we met up with our Aero guide, we drove around the coast of Aero to look some windmills and a central heating plant running on solar power! The windmills were SO AWESOME! We got to go inside one!!! I know they are contraptions of metal, but I think they are quite pretty :] After the windmill we went to a local central heating plant, apparently these are common in Denmark, but this one is powered through solar energy. It was really cool to see all the different types of solar panels that the plant uses. And unfortunately while we were still at the plant the batteries in my camera died :[ so no pictures after that lol
We went to an organic restaurant for dinner that night, and man was it delicious :] Danish people really know how to cook. After dinner we headed for the hostel in Marstal, here I experienced my first sketchy hostel. I was kind of worried I would walk out of the bathroom with some foot fungus attached! But hey I survived!
The next day we went to check out an organic farm. The weather was unbearable! It was windy and rainy and I was definitely not prepared clothes wise, the wind was so strong that I couldn't walk forwards at times because I was getting blown backwards! I didn't bring my camera this time because the weather was so awful and I knew we'd be outside for most of it. The man who gave us the tour owns the farm with his family, it was more of a farm to produce food for his family and not for selling really, but they do rent out an apartment type place by the week in the summer to get some income. The farm was really cool looking, from what I could see with my hoods pulled over my face to avoid the hail! He really understands ecosystems and having plants and animals work together. They we went for a couple kilometer walk along the coast up on some cliff things, so beautiful, I was kicking myself for not having my camera! After the walk we took of for an organic brewery, and of course our tour guide/ farm owner was the manager! The brewery has a line of organic beer, so we had some taste tests. Twenty college students and free beer...you do the math.
After the brewery we headed for the ferry again and set off on our way back to Kobenhavn. Quite a fantastic long weekend! I've decided that I want to see some more islands in Denmark, they have 406. So 3 down and just 403 to go! Guess I should get started soon :]
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Oh Kobenhavn :]
I really need to start posting blogs more often, I feel like something new happens every day here!
To start off, I have decided I love Copenhagen street food :] Cierra and I did some wandering last week when I had a break between classes, we decided to try the street vendor hot dogs....may I say yum! I love them :] Then later that day Sierra, yes they are two different people, did some wandering when I had a a couple of hours between things to do, we came across this little chinese food stand...again delicious! So basically I love danish hot dog stands and I love danish chinese street food :] We also saw this festival type thing going on right near DIS, not quite sure what it was but they were singing karaoke to a bunch of english songs, quite entertaining, and then there were these people dressed up like Waldo from "Where's Waldo". I had my first strange Danish experience lol. My day was going so well until I left my reusable water bottle with my favorite caribiner attached to it on the train home :[
I went to a mall in Lyngby with my host family on friday afternoon, I loved everything in it except the prices, those I was not too fond of! But I did buy another reusable water bottle, and it came with a caribiner :]] Friday night I helped my host mom get some party stuff ready for the next day, it was her sister's birthday on Saturday so they were having a girls night. And the semi-finals for the handball world championship were on!
Saturday morning we got up early to go surprise Christina's sister for her birthday and have breakfast with her family. I bet she was surprised when she opened the door and here is this girl that she has never met standing outside waving a danish flag and singing happy birthday lol. I met Christina's sister and her husband, their 3 kids and then Christina's parents. They were really nice to me and we ate a lot of good bread :] I did learn something new, Danish people put their babies outside when they go to sleep. They put them in their little snow suits, put them in their strollers and then just put the baby outside, and go back inside, eventually they go and get the baby again. I was really shocked when I saw Christina's sister go put her newborn on the back porch, but apparently its a culture thing, and no babies have been taken yet! Christina's father got kicked out of the house while Christina and her sister and their friends had a girls night, so he came and hung out with us for the night, he is a really nice man, from Italy! We took a long walk around the area against the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset, I don't think I've seen an ugly sunset here!
On Sunday I went to church with my host family again, we went to a different church though because Benedicte was singing, the church was just beautiful, its like 800 years old and has awesome drawings inside, again I did not understand a single word but it was still enjoyable :] Christina's parents and Thomas's father came over to the house to the spend the afternoon with us, so we had a huge lunch and everyone relaxed, we had to gather our strength for the Handball World Championship game later that day, goooooo Denmark!
So handball...what can I say about handball...other than it being awesome it inspires a lot of pride in Danish people, and it truly shows how good natured the people of Denmark are. This game was so intense, I was taken back to how I felt when the Seahawks played the Steelers in the Superbowl of 2005. We had a miracle goal in the last seconds of the game and tied so we went into overtime. Denmark fought hard! but in the end they lost buy 2 points. This is when you see how nice Danish people are. The Danish was sad of course, but still seemed sincere in their congratulations to the French, well except for many Hansen. And then my host family says they played a great game. All I could think was that if this were the states people would be ranting about how we should've won and that they refs made bad calls, but no, they Danes were proud of how their team played.
I had a bit of a day today, first I miss my train, then I catch the next one and the operator comes over the loudspeaker saying something, how would I know he's speaking danish! Then the next thing I know we pull into the next station on the route and get onto another track, red flag number one! I just think oh okay we'll still get there anyway. I zone back into my ipod and when I finally look up I see that literally everyone has gotten off the train, What! So I scramble for my things and run for the door to figure out whats going on, I see another train going to Kobenhavn and it looks like people that were just on my train, so I run to get in before the doors close. I asked a girl what happened and she told me that when the operator made that announcement he was telling us that the train was broken so we needed to switch trains at Holte. Oh right I thought, that would happen in a foreign country where I can understand a single word people say!
I managed to get myself lost today after classes were over too. My brand new caribiner broke on the train this morning, what is it with those trains and my stuff! So I went on a wild goose chase across the city to find a store that would sell me a caribiner. Everywhere I went they said, we don't sell them but a store over that way does, so I go and they continue to tell me to go somewhere else. Eventually I didn't know where I was anymore and I was still caribinerless, so I did what every smart person does when they are lost, wander some more! Then I saw it, the neon "Norreport" sign, I'm saved! That's my train station by the way. I head in that direction and go into a store called Tiger, its basically made for study abroad students, they have everything you would need for a few month stay in Copenhagen, I wander for a bit and what do I find? A caribiner! Yes! Now you may think its silly that I get so worked up over a caribiner, but you don't understand, its like chap stick to me, a necessary part of my day! I put everything on them, waterbottles, keys and then can attach it to anything, its my lifesaver! So i got two, blue and green :] Is it sad that the most exciting part of my day was finding a caribiner?
I've come to the conclusion that I kinda enjoy being lost, I found some places that I probably never would have seen if I wasn't lost, and nothing beats that elation when you realize you know where you are again :]
To start off, I have decided I love Copenhagen street food :] Cierra and I did some wandering last week when I had a break between classes, we decided to try the street vendor hot dogs....may I say yum! I love them :] Then later that day Sierra, yes they are two different people, did some wandering when I had a a couple of hours between things to do, we came across this little chinese food stand...again delicious! So basically I love danish hot dog stands and I love danish chinese street food :] We also saw this festival type thing going on right near DIS, not quite sure what it was but they were singing karaoke to a bunch of english songs, quite entertaining, and then there were these people dressed up like Waldo from "Where's Waldo". I had my first strange Danish experience lol. My day was going so well until I left my reusable water bottle with my favorite caribiner attached to it on the train home :[
I went to a mall in Lyngby with my host family on friday afternoon, I loved everything in it except the prices, those I was not too fond of! But I did buy another reusable water bottle, and it came with a caribiner :]] Friday night I helped my host mom get some party stuff ready for the next day, it was her sister's birthday on Saturday so they were having a girls night. And the semi-finals for the handball world championship were on!
Saturday morning we got up early to go surprise Christina's sister for her birthday and have breakfast with her family. I bet she was surprised when she opened the door and here is this girl that she has never met standing outside waving a danish flag and singing happy birthday lol. I met Christina's sister and her husband, their 3 kids and then Christina's parents. They were really nice to me and we ate a lot of good bread :] I did learn something new, Danish people put their babies outside when they go to sleep. They put them in their little snow suits, put them in their strollers and then just put the baby outside, and go back inside, eventually they go and get the baby again. I was really shocked when I saw Christina's sister go put her newborn on the back porch, but apparently its a culture thing, and no babies have been taken yet! Christina's father got kicked out of the house while Christina and her sister and their friends had a girls night, so he came and hung out with us for the night, he is a really nice man, from Italy! We took a long walk around the area against the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset, I don't think I've seen an ugly sunset here!
On Sunday I went to church with my host family again, we went to a different church though because Benedicte was singing, the church was just beautiful, its like 800 years old and has awesome drawings inside, again I did not understand a single word but it was still enjoyable :] Christina's parents and Thomas's father came over to the house to the spend the afternoon with us, so we had a huge lunch and everyone relaxed, we had to gather our strength for the Handball World Championship game later that day, goooooo Denmark!
So handball...what can I say about handball...other than it being awesome it inspires a lot of pride in Danish people, and it truly shows how good natured the people of Denmark are. This game was so intense, I was taken back to how I felt when the Seahawks played the Steelers in the Superbowl of 2005. We had a miracle goal in the last seconds of the game and tied so we went into overtime. Denmark fought hard! but in the end they lost buy 2 points. This is when you see how nice Danish people are. The Danish was sad of course, but still seemed sincere in their congratulations to the French, well except for many Hansen. And then my host family says they played a great game. All I could think was that if this were the states people would be ranting about how we should've won and that they refs made bad calls, but no, they Danes were proud of how their team played.
I had a bit of a day today, first I miss my train, then I catch the next one and the operator comes over the loudspeaker saying something, how would I know he's speaking danish! Then the next thing I know we pull into the next station on the route and get onto another track, red flag number one! I just think oh okay we'll still get there anyway. I zone back into my ipod and when I finally look up I see that literally everyone has gotten off the train, What! So I scramble for my things and run for the door to figure out whats going on, I see another train going to Kobenhavn and it looks like people that were just on my train, so I run to get in before the doors close. I asked a girl what happened and she told me that when the operator made that announcement he was telling us that the train was broken so we needed to switch trains at Holte. Oh right I thought, that would happen in a foreign country where I can understand a single word people say!
I managed to get myself lost today after classes were over too. My brand new caribiner broke on the train this morning, what is it with those trains and my stuff! So I went on a wild goose chase across the city to find a store that would sell me a caribiner. Everywhere I went they said, we don't sell them but a store over that way does, so I go and they continue to tell me to go somewhere else. Eventually I didn't know where I was anymore and I was still caribinerless, so I did what every smart person does when they are lost, wander some more! Then I saw it, the neon "Norreport" sign, I'm saved! That's my train station by the way. I head in that direction and go into a store called Tiger, its basically made for study abroad students, they have everything you would need for a few month stay in Copenhagen, I wander for a bit and what do I find? A caribiner! Yes! Now you may think its silly that I get so worked up over a caribiner, but you don't understand, its like chap stick to me, a necessary part of my day! I put everything on them, waterbottles, keys and then can attach it to anything, its my lifesaver! So i got two, blue and green :] Is it sad that the most exciting part of my day was finding a caribiner?
I've come to the conclusion that I kinda enjoy being lost, I found some places that I probably never would have seen if I wasn't lost, and nothing beats that elation when you realize you know where you are again :]
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