Meeting up with family and traveling to my second European country

Well, it's been a while since I've last blogged, mostly because I used to have too much free time and now I never seem to have enough of it! I got a gym membership so I go there frequently, and I often meet up with my DIS friends between and after classes. My school work has increased lately and I have a group project for every class at the moment! It seems that group work is more common here than in the states.
So last weekend I met up with my parents at the Copenhagen airport on Friday and together we flew to Stockholm, Sweden where Andrew was waiting for us to take the train together to Uppsala where he is studying for the semester. It's a small city, and Andrew seems to really like the size of it because he already knows his way around a bit. Copenhagen is much larger but that's one of the reasons why I love it. I can always seem to find some new place to explore! Anyway, we stayed at a really nice hotel which was about a ten minute walk from Andrew's nation, or apartment complex, where he lives. If you want to know more about what the nation is, ask him!
So we enjoyed a meal out together that night at an Indian restaurant, which consisted of lots of curry and rice and chicken and lamb and herbs..... mmmm. The place was a shelter from the biting cold of the city and left us warm, happy, and very very full.
On Saturday we walked to the nearby cathedral and spent a while admiring its beauty, in the architecture, paintings, and windows, and reading about its history. After a lunch with Andrew's friends at one of the nations, we traveled to Gamla Uppsala, or old Uppsala, where we saw the viking burial mounds (basically big hills covered in snow). The museum had artifacts that had been uncovered from the mounds so far, as well as facts and speculations about this ancient society.
We had dinner at a nearby pub and then spent the rest of the evening catching up at the hotel. We had an early rise the next morning to get to the airport to go back to Copenhagen.
The weather here in Copenhagen seemed balmy compared to the frigid cold of northern Sweden. My parents got to see two days of sunshine, which is practically more sunshine than I had seen in the past month here!
They were able to crash in the living room of Signe's and my apartment. We ate a fantastic Sunday brunch at the restaurant right across the street, then took a walk to the cemetary/park nearby. In the states (a phrase I find myself saying very often) our cemeteries tend to be very bleak and are very seldom used for anything other than visiting the graves of loved ones. Well here the cemeteries double as parks. There are wide paths, and a variety of trees and plants, so people are often going on walks, runs, or bike rides through the cemetery. I'm sure it will be even more beautiful and filled with color and life once springtime comes!
The graves are also different because many of them have square hedges around them and there is a lot of space for each plot. This cemetery, located in my neighborhood of Nørrebro, is also where the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen and the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard are buried.
We also went to a museum that is free on Sundays, called the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The famous Danish beer, Carlsberg, is somehow connected to this because the owner helped fund the museum (or something like that) in the desire to support the arts in Denmark. The museum has a large collection of statues from all different places around the world and different eras. There were everything from statues from ancient Rome around and before the time of Jesus, relicas from 1500 BC Egypt, to modern French sculpture. It was a fascinating place!
On Monday I had classes and meetings so I sent mom and dad with a map and some directions on some sightseeing adventures. Unfortunately, there was a bus strike this weekend and that affected their travel at one point, as well as bad directions from strangers, causing them to get very, very lost. So it became a long and frustrating day for them, and I was unaware until they got home because they had no way of contacting me during the day! Luckily, Signe had decided earlier that she was going to make us all a traditional Danish dinner and my parents were more than appreciative of this. We had frikadeller (like fried meat balls), cold potato salad, and tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Yum!
Tuesday I had the morning off because my class was cancelled, so that was great timing. We went to the most famous bakery in Copenhagen, Sankt Peder's Bageri, and mom and dad got pastries there, then we took a bus to a different bakery that sold gluten-free products, that I had been meaning to check out for a while. I got a piece of carrot cake which truly made my day! Everyone else takes baked goods for granted, but not me. When I am able to buy good gluten free bread or baked goods, I am so excited and appreciative. I always tell people that if there was a cure for Celiac Disease, I would never want it because it's a big part of who I am and I have no desire to change that. I would never appreciate food as much!
The last thing we did together before they left for the train station was to visit the Danish Resistance museum, which has artifacts that outline and explain the Danish involvement during WWII. Denmark was occupied by Germany for a few years because the Danish government let them be there. The Danish citizens eventually protested against their government's position in the war and there was an underground resistance movement, which is fascinating to read about!
Luckily they were able to make it back to the central station just fine, and now I'll see them again in May when I get home. Andrew, though, will hopefully come to Copenhagen and visit me here!

Copenhagen, I love you

Last semester, Katy introduced me to the movie Paris, je t'aime, which is a collection of 20 short stories about love in Paris. These include various couples, being present or former lovers, parents and children, and random acquaintances. In one of the clips, an American woman travels to Paris and falls in love with the city.
Today, I went to class in the morning and had a meeting afterwards, then I was headed back on the bus to my apartment. I was enjoying the relaxing bus ride back, and I had just pressed the stop button on the seat in front of me when I realized that I had never grabbed my keys when I left in the morning. While unpacking the day before from my weekend away, I had put my keychain on my desk and never remembered to put it in my bag. Not knowing what to do, I got off at my stop and walked over to the apartment door. After a few seconds I remembered that Signe's sister, two doors down from us, has a spare key. Unfortunately, this was further complicated by the fact that I somehow misplaced my cell phone this past weekend, presumably in the hotel. The phone had numbers for Signe, her sister Maja, and her brother who also has another spare key. I took my chances and pressed the button next to Maja's name at her apartment door, but there was no answer. I walked over to the bus stop and waited a few minutes for the next bus to take me to Radhusplads, the city square near DIS. Twenty minutes later, I was at DIS asking the housing department if they had a cell phone number for Signe. They only had her home number, which doesn't do much in the middle of her work day. After chatting with friends for a little while, I remembered that I could access my cell phone records online, so I studied my list of calls and made an educated guess as to what her number might be. I borrowed the housing department's phone and got right through to Signe, who was at work only a ten minute walk from DIS. I got directions and set off for Signe's workplace, Journalisten, and took a few wrong turns but eventually figured it out.
Signe gave me her keys and I left the building and stepped out on the Copenhagen cobblestone street. It was then, after a frustrating few hours had passed, that I stopped, took a deep breath, looked around and realized how incredibly beautiful the city was.
I am now starting to feel a connection with Copenhagen, even if it means simply recognizing a few words on an advertisement on the side of a bus, knowing the correct bus ettiquette, or a successful grocery shopping trip. I smiled like a fool on my way back to Radhusplads (which I can now pronounce) to take the bus home.
So, Copenhagen, I love you. I love the biting cold and all the clothing layers I need, the small park nearby where I go running, the various graffiti found throughout the city, the delectable roasted almonds for 25 kroner from the sidewalk stands, the convenience store where I get my hot cocoa/coffee in the morning, running to the bus stop, chatting with Signe after a long day, and so much more. This weekend I get to share the city with Eileen when she comes to visit for three days! I cannot wait. Two weeks later I get to show my parents around too! I am so fortunate :-).

Classes so far

My classes have only met three times each so far, but there is much to tell already about them. The academic program that I am studying with here at DIS is Migration and Identity, which deals with issues surrounding immigration in Europe. I am taking two classes that fall within this program: the core class, Cross Cultural Encounters in a European Context and Human Trafficking. The academic program is important partly because of the two different study tours with the group. There are about 40 students in my program, and it's mostly girls. I have some good friends within the program so far, so that will make the study tours more fun! Next weekend is the short study tour, and I'll go to western Denmark. I don't know too much about the trip so far, just that it lasts from Thursday morning to Sunday, and that we'll be staying at a hostel. In March I'll be traveling to Bulgaria for a week for the long study tour.
On Wednesdays, no one has classes and its a day for field studies, and this week I went on a trip to the US embassy for my Human Trafficking class where we listened to two speakers talk about how they combat trafficking in various ways, including ad campaigns that encourage people to report suspected trafficking, writing a report on the status of all countries and trafficking, etc. Some of what they said we already knew, but it was interesting to hear it from their perspective.
So immigration is a very appropriate subject to study in Denmark because they are known through Europe as having a strict immigration policy. After 9/11 especially, there was a rising nationalism in Denmark and the government elected in November of '01 made it difficult for anyone to immigrate to Denmark, and even to get asylum in the country. This becomes a serious problem when there are immigrants from Middle Eastern countries where there is conflict that are seeking asylum, or protection in Denmark, and they cannot meet the demands of the government to get asylum. Recent figures show that even the small country of Denmark has about 2,000 asylum seekers every year, and that larger European countries, Germany for example, receives about 20-25,000 every year. Last year, about 18% of asylum seekers in Denmark were granted asylum. On Thursday, we had a speaker in class who was a legal advisor working with asylum cases and she explained the complexity of the process and how many of the applicants end up living in centers for years and years due to discrepancies in certain laws. For instance, people may not be able to prove that they have individual risk of discrimination, torture, etc. in their home countries. To do this, papers are needed to prove it and some of the applicants don't even have proper ID so they cannot complete the process. But, because of the state of certain countries, asylum seekers won't be accepted by their home countries so Denmark cannot send them back home. Instead, these people live for years and years in centers where they are unable to work or become self-sufficient at all, and must just wait.
A semester-long project that we will be all participating in is helping the asylum seekers publish the next edition of NewTimes, a magazine that is produced by the asylum seekers in the Danish Red Cross asylum centers. They want to tell their stories, but the magazine is produced in English and many are not proficient in the language, so we are going to be interviewing them and helping them tell their stories in English. This Wednesday we will be going to meet those involved in New Times and be assigned to specific people and stories to write. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this project turns out. I'm sure I will learn a great deal more about the asylum process too. To see the website for New Times, visit http://newtimes.dk/.

Christianhavn and Vestvolden

This morning I am truly feeling adjusted to my new environment! I took the bus to DIS and left enough time to get coffee nearby before class started. There is a convenience store on the same street as DIS, Vestergade, and they give a discount to DIS students. About 50 kroner or $10 for a punch card for ten coffees/hot chocolates. Best deal in the city by far! To put it into perspective, coffees tend to go for about 20-25 kr. Any more complicated (and delicious) drink is even more! My Migration and Identity course was fascinating this morning and I was far more awake than last week.
Without planned activities this weekend from DIS, I was able to decide how to spend my time. Saturday, my friend Emily Manz, a fellow Woodstockian, and I decided to venture out to Christianhavn. We had heard about it from orientation leaders and wanted to check it out for ourselves. Also- I was craving a restaurant meal that I didn't have to prepare! Christianhavn is a fascinating area. During the sixties, the area which was former military barracks, was settled by hippies and became a self-governing community where the people do not pay rent or taxes. The community is known for selling marijuana, but the police have been entering Christiana many times recently and raiding the area. One of the restaurants within the community had a sign outside it reading something like, "One of the safest places in the country. Over 15oo police raids over the past year"! I asked my professor this morning how a place like this has been allowed to continue. He told me that it is one of those institutions that exist merely because of tradition. There is much public discourse over Christianhavn and whether or not the community should be allowed to remain in its current state or if its independence should be revoked and the citizens pay taxes.
When we were walking around the area, one of the things that stood out is that there is graffiti everywhere- on signs and all over buildings and structures. The graffiti is so interesting and beautiful in some places. There are also many various artistic expressions such as a hand carved out of a dead tree trunk. We looked around in a shop that had various hand-crafted items and everything was so creative and beautiful. After walking around this part of Christiana for a bit, we left through the arch that reads "You are now entering the EU," in search of a place to eat. On the way, we asked a woman walking on the street if she would kindly take our picture. She unexpectedly asked us if we wanted to come with her to the market, she pointed nearby and said "Come, come. Its so close. Come to the market withe me." We were wondering what she was actually talking about, and I was picturing a food market of some kind. She led us into a small courtyard where a man stood by a door with stairs leading down into some room. Without knowing at all what to expect, we followed her and found ourselves at a Danish yard sale/flea market. A number of men and women were behind tables with various clothing and knicknacks spread on each one. There were tables of Danish desserts and coffee which we were told to help ourselves to. After finding a few treasures and chatting with a man who had just gotten back from visiting his children in New York for the holidays, we left in search of a meal. We found a great cafe that had a menu in English and had some delicious food that included chai milkshakes! Sooo good. Figuring out the bill took quite a while, especially when we didn't realize that the tax was already included in the price of the food. One good thing about eating out in Denmark is that you don't tip waitstaff! We have been told that the waitstaff already receive enough pay so people do not tip.
The other part of Denmark that I got to see this weekend was some of the suburbs outside the city. Emily lives in the suburbs with a host family, but since I live in the city, this was my first experience in Denmark outside of Copenhagen. DIS sponsored an activities fair last week with various organizations sending representatives to try to recruit DIS students to join them. One of the clubs was a hiking club, so I went on a hike with them on Sunday to Vestvolden. For most of the trip, we were actually just walking alongside a path, so it wasn't exactly what I call hiking, but apparently this isn't the normal hiking trip with the club anyway. One of the reasons for the trip was to see some history. This structure held weapons during WWI to fight the Germans if they came, but they didn't. After 7 miles of walking, exhaustion set in and I had to fight to stay awake on the train on the way home!

Here is my long-awaited blog!

Well I've been here in Copenhagen for almost a week so I figured I'd start my blog. Also- I finally have my laptop working.. it turns out that it's much harder to find a power converter here than I thought.
Anyways, I arrived in Copenhagen Airport on Sunday and then had a couple days of orientation, and yesterday was the first day of classes. I was relieved to start classes because orientation was tiring and took up all my time!
So one of the highlights of my week was figuring out how to use the public transportation (at least the few buses that take me from home to near the school). I live in the part of the city called Nørreport, pronounced Neu-po, or something like that. I only have a ten minute commute to DIS where my classes are, and most other DIS students have a much longer commute so I'm fortunate to be so close. I just realized yesterday that I have been pronouncing my roommate's name wrong when I heard her pronounce it to someone else.. I have been pronouncing Signe like Sig-nee, but it turnes out that it's pronounced See-neu. She's been really great helping me with anything I need, showing me around the city, and most importantly, helping me grocery shop.
It turns out that I'm not exactly the cook that I thought I was.I was telling Andrew last night that I had this completely idealized view of what it would be like cooking my own meals! At home it seemed much easier with all the ingredients and recipes on hand, but now I look around at the food in the grocery store and I can't seem to think of anything to cook. I have been living off simple meals of sandwiches from the bread I brought from home, but that is almost gone. After my first grocery shopping trip here, I came home with tuna, mayonnaise (mostly because I could tell what they were), some delectable raspberry jam, peanut butter (not exactly a traditional Danish food), raisins, orange juice boxes (the word for orange is applesin!) and cocoa powder, which I thought was hot cocoa mix. Hm... not exactly the best ingredients for making a meal! Last night I emerged from a nicer grocery store that has a variety of organic foods and I got gluten free crackers, canned fruit, and a gluten-free baking mix. I'm sure I will eventually learn how to grocery shop for myself, but it may take a while! My roommate cooked me two great meals in the first two nights: steak, homemmade french fries, and salad, and then curry vegetables and chicken over rice. So mom, I miss your home-cooked meals already!
For classes, I am only taking four, and they are: Cross cultural encounters in a European context, which deals with issues of immigration, then Human Trafficking, Environmental Issues and Policy, and Danish Language 1, which begins in an hour from now. From what I can tell, the classes seem fascinating and I'm excited to get more involved with them. My main issue right now is figuring out how to be awake in my 830am classes...
The last thing I'll say in this post is that we had a scavenger hunt throughout the city of Copenhagen (pronounced Cue-bin-how) as a part of orientation on Tuesday. Here are some pictures from that:
This is the building for the Danish Parliament. One of the things that surprised us the most was that there is no security here.. at all. The buildings are so beautiful though.





This is where the prince of Denmark is going to live after renovations are completed. The queen lives in a building opposite this one, and our guide pointed out that these buildings are quite humble compared to those of most royalty. Lastly, there are a crazy amount of bikes in Copenhagen! There are bike lanes on the main roads and even stop lights for bikes!