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 :]
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