Copenhagen

General notice: So I know my English in this blog is terrible- I try to read stuff over and screen for some of the worse mistakes, but I still miss a lot. I forget words in English too now, it’s terrible. You’d think my Spanish would be getting better and my English worse, so they’d even out a bit, but it just seems like my English is getting worse, and that’s it… Apologies for the atrocious English…

During the two weeks after fall break, I had some papers due, 4 scholarships to apply for, a few midterm exams, 800 pictures to upload and tag, a mountain of laundry to wash, and an election to follow. It was rather busy. Election Day was crazy, or rather, Election Night, since all the exciting stuff was happening from 12-6:30 am my time, and I don’t have access to a tv, so I had to keep refreshing the internet every few minutes. Of course at this time, the internet decided it would be the perfect time to break on me. At the same time I was supposed to be editing a 10 page history paper... What ended up happening was I fell asleep for a half an hour about every hour, and finally went to sleep for good around 4:30 am my time, without finishing my paper, once Obama had won 200 or so electoral votes. I figure he was going to be ok then, but asked my mom to call me when it was official.

Apparently my mom called me around 6:00 to tell me, and I answered the phone and talked to her, but I completely don’t remember. So I woke up at 7:45, approximately when I should be eating, and had to quickly put the finishing touches on my essay, shower, get to IES early and print my paper. I was not very awake all day. Spain is obsessed with American politics, so Obama was on the front page of every newspaper, but I really wish I could have been home then. It was just really strange to walk around and feel filled with energy and like something is different, when everyone around you is going on as if it’s just another boring day. I slept a lot on Thursday (:

This past weekend we had Friday off, so I went up to Copenhagen, Denmark to see Ariella and Stephanie from Case. My (extremely expensive) flight left on Thursday afternoon, and after almost missing my connecting flight in Zurich, I got into Copenhagen, where Ariella met me in the airport. We took the metro and bus back to her place, a collegium, or dorm for Danish students. Her dorm was really strange, it was called Keops, and was made up of singles, with doors that opened to the outside. Instead of having hallways inside, the hallways were outside, where it was freezing cold.

But the room itself was nice sized, with a little mini kitchen, AND the bathroom had heated floor tiles. I was really excited about that last part for some reason… We just stayed up late that night talked and caught up- it was just nice to be around someone who’s known me for more than 3 months.

The next morning we got up and took the bus to downtown Copenhagen to walk down the pedestrian street with all of the shops. We stopped in a few of them and I bought a new hat, since it was ridiculously cold there. As we kept walking we went by the Round Tower, the Rundetårn in Danish, and took a quick look inside Helligaands Kirken. Ariella had me buy some Danish pastries, which were delicious, and also try a bunch of different types of licorice, which were apparently “very Danish” but in my opinion, very disgusting.

We got lunch at a kebab place near where she’s got class, and the guy made me order in Danish. Apparently Ariella goes there a lot, and so do a lot of students, so since he guy there knows that it’s all students, he makes them order in Danish. He would be like “Do you want cucumber?” And wouldn’t do anything unless you said “Yes, I want cucumber please, or no I do not want cucumber, thank you.” When I went “mmhmm” for yes to something, he was like “No, no mmhmm,” and repeated whatever it was I was supposed t say in Danish. It was funny.

Danish itself is funny… it sounds sort of like you’re gagging and about to be sick when it is spoken, and it apparently isn’t pronounced anything like how it’s written. Also they don’t have a word for please- you just say thank you after everything, like “Could you move your chair, thank you?” Interesting. So we ate where Ariella had classes, and I said hi to Stephanie, who knew I was there. I also said hi to 2 other Case kids I know who are studying there as well, and who were really surprised to see me in Copenhagen.

Then Ariella had a health and disease class, so I went with her and studied for my Catalan test while she took notes. It was kind of nice to have a science class, but I found her professors more interesting- they were 2 Danish residents from the hospital that the classes were at. They barely had accents. For most Danish people, when they speak English, it doesn’t really sound like they have an accent, but rather that they just speak a little bit different, like maybe they had a slight speech impediment as a little kid that they’re over now. The younger people have even more perfect English, and even know all of our slang, because their TV is actually all American shows, that are still in the original English- they’re not even dubbed or subtitled in Danish. That makes me feel pretty unaccomplished, language wise…

After her class we went grocery shopping, headed back to the dorm, cooked dinner, and chatted some more. Stephanie and her friend Katie came over, and we caught up, and got ready to go out. They all knew this girl named Karen, and it was her birthday, so they were all meeting up at Studenthuset, the bar for Copenhagen students. They had me drink something that pretty much tasted like mouthwash- again, something “Very Danish” to make the most of my time there, and we chatted with some of their Danish and Finnish friends from the Copenhagen Business School. There were plans for a dance club, but for some reason there was a cover charge (there wasn’t supposed to be), and it was late, so we just headed back and crashed.
On Saturday, about 30 minutes after we were supposed to, we got up and headed out to be touristy for the day. The day started at Rosenburg Palace, where the royal gardens and the treasury are located. Denmark still has a figurehead royal family, who everyone there loves, so she still had a lot of the jewels, but the ones that she had given to the museum were gorgeous. I want to steal aaaaall of them! The palace itself was also very pretty on the inside, although a big dark. Because it’s so cold there, all of the walls were covered either in giant tapestries, or gilt leather.

From there we went over to the harbor, where all of the pretty pictures of Copenhagen are taken. Unfortunately, it was raining and cloudy and freezing all weekend, my pictures aren’t as pretty, but they’re still cute. It’s this one part of the canal that has a bunch of boats moored by the side, and it lined on either side by multicolor houses. Along the canal there was actually set up a little Christmas market, with Christmas carols being played by the post office band and lots of people wandering around. There Ariella had me try a Pølser, which is again, “very Danish.” It’s pretty much just a hot dog, with everything on it.

Afterwards we continued past Frederikskirken to Amelienborg Palace, where the royal family lives today. Queen Margareth was actually not home, but since we couldn’t go in anyways, we went to the shore and walking along to the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid is the symbol of Copenhagen, and about the size of a normal person. It’s head and arm have been cut off before and it’s been spray paint and in general abused, but somehow it’s still a symbol of the city.

Then we looped back around toward the Danish National Museum (Nationalmuseet), went by an Anglican stone church and soldier’s barracks on the way, and stayed at the museum till it closed. We grabbed dinner at a restaurant and went back to her place. Later on we met up with a few of her friends at a local club, called Rust to go dancing.

Clubs there are very different than in Barcelona… apparently bar culture is so strong that when people go to clubs, they just stand around the bar and talk- the only guys on the dance floor are usually foreigners. In general Copenhagen seemed less European than everywhere else I’ve been- people actually give you personal space, guys don’t do the manpurse thing, nor do they dance, and of course everyone speaks perfect English. Strange…

On Sunday morning I packed up all of my stuff and we went over to the island that the airport is on (which is still part of Copenhagen), and met up with a Danish friend of Ariella’s. He lives in Christianshavn, the harbor area of the island, and he had offered to walk us around Christiania since Ariella hadn’t been there either. Christiania is interesting… It’s this town of 850ish people that’s right in the middle of Copenhagen, and is sort of self-governing. In the 70s the area was unoccupied army barracks, and so the people who lived near broke in and started building stuff there. It eventually turned into a squatter’s town, where people governed themselves and just built houses on the land. It actually made for some really interesting architecture, since everything there was done by hand, as cars are prohibited there. Around the area encircling Christiania we stopped into a few other churches, and then I hopped onto the metro toward the airport.