London Study Tour

DIS, the school that I'm studying at here, has what they call "core courses" which usually are similar to what your major is at home.  Throughout the semester, you go on two extended trips with this class; one to western Denmark and one week long trip somewhere else in Europe.  I went to London with my core class, European Trends in Communication, last week.  I've never been to London before so I was definitely excited.  I also love these trips because they're completely planned for us and as you probably have figured out by now I much prefer to be led around by a guided in a super touristy group than to try to figure out big cities on my own.

Big Ben and London rain with some friends

Day One:

We left for London early Sunday morning, checked into our hotel and went into the city for the first time for lunch.  One of the first things I noticed about London was that it reminded me a lot more of America than anywhere else I've been in Europe.  There are Fridays restaurants, TJ Maxx's (didn't exactly have time to shop though), LA Fitness, Costco, etc.  So being the Americans that we are, for our first lunch on our own we were determined to find the fast food chain Chipotle.  It's a super Americanized Mexican restaurant with really good burritos, etc. that they don't really have anywhere else in Europe.  We found Chipotle, ate our burritos, then, being the stereotypical Americans we are, killed some time in Starbucks (which they also don't have in Denmark or anywhere else I've been) before meeting up with the group again at the National Portrait Gallery.  We walked around the National Portrait Gallery for awhile as a group.  It's basically just a museum of portraits of famous people.  It was all right.  Definitely not one of the highlights for me but still kind of interesting.  After leaving there, we went to the London Eye which is a giant ferris wheel that takes about a half hour to complete one rotation.

In typical London fashion it wasn't exactly a bright and sunny day.

Some of my classmates in our little bubble way up above London.

It was kind of a bummer that it was so dreary out because it made it hard to see too far away but it was still a really cool, and kind of scary, experience.  After the London Eye we walked over to where we were eating our first group dinner.  DIS feeds us really well on these trips and for dinner we had a three course Indian meal.  Not really sure why it was Indian food.  I heard one of our tour leaders say that they were trying to feed us different types of food that we wouldn't normally eat in Copenhagen.  Whatever the reason it was delicious.  Spicy but delicious.  I like spicy.  Then it was back to the hotel where we all crashed since we'd been up since 5 that morning.

Day Two:

Our second day in London marked the beginning of our business visits.  We had a continental breakfast at our hotel then it was off to a law firm called Schillings.  They work with reputation crises of high profile individuals such as Tiger Woods, JK Rowling, etc.  We talked with them about managing reputation and the like because our core course is focused primarily on communication.  One of the most recent topics we discussed in class was the importance of reputation, how to manage reputation, etc. so the lecture fit in with that.  After Schillings we ate lunch on our own then met up with the group again for a lecture from a freelance journalist and media studies lecturer.  She talked about the changing landscape of television in the UK and showed us a bunch of video clips.  After she finished with her schpeal we headed off to the British Museum.  Meredith and I made the mistake of going to the bathroom before we all left for the museum so of course our group left us behind and we were wandering around London on our own for awhile but we eventually found the museum and met up with everyone else.  We had tickets to a special exhibit about Shakespeare which was surprisingly interesting.  They made a mini replica of the Globe Theater (didn't have enough time to see the real one) in the Museum.  It was neat.  After the museum we had some time on our own before meeting with the group again for a group dinner at an Italian restaurant.  So of course we went to Platform 9 and three quarters from Harry Potter.

Unfortunately we Muggles didn't make the cut.

DIS gave us the directions to the wrong restaurant so we showed up about 48 minutes late but no one seemed to care (probably because it was their fault).  We ate soup, pasta and some sort of pudding for dessert.  Then we had the rest of the evening on our own to do whatever we wanted.

Day Three:

We began our third day in London with an hour long bus ride out to Wimbledon.  This was definitely my favorite visit of the trip.  Our visit started with a mini lecture about branding and how Wimbledon distinguishes itself from other tennis tournaments, etc.  Then came the fun stuff.  We had a really great tour guide who led us around the grounds for about an hour and a half.  

Wimbledon was unreal.

Before I say anything else I have to talk about what our tour guide told us about the grass there.  Wimbledon is the only tennis tournament that uses grass courts and they therefore have to take extreme measures to make sure that the grass is perfect.  And I mean perfect.  Our guide told us that they have a separate 100 square meter location that is sectioned off into square meters.  On each of the square meters there is a different type of grass.  There is a tennis player robot who they make skid on each meter of grass for 13 hours a day for 13 days.  They then evaluate which type of grass holds up the best and if one is better than the grass that is currently at Wimbledon they replace all of it.  They also have one employee (poor guy) whose job it is to count every single blade of grass.  Our guide said that at the last count there were 54 million blades on Center Court.  If it starts to rain during the tournament they must cover up the courts as soon as possible so the grass doesn't get damaged.  Apparently they have competitions each year to see how quickly they can cover Center Court.  The current records holds at about 22 seconds.

During the winter they have to use artificial sunlight to keep the grass healthy.

The grounds are beautiful. 

After leaving Wimbledon we had a group lunch at a Lebanese restaurant.  It was a bunch of tiny samples of food that everyone shared which was fun.  They had hummus!  We were all stuffed by the time we left and headed off to the Hampton Court Palace.  This is where Henry VIII (and all of his wives) used to live.

I wouldn't mind living there

We got a tour of the palace then had some time on our own to wander the grounds which were huge.  There was also a maze that we got lost in for a little too long.  After leaving the palace we had the rest of the evening on our own.

Our backyard is just a little smaller than this

Day Four:

We started the day with yet another business visit.  This time we went to Fishburn and Hedges which is a PR agency in London.  Two young employees talked to us for awhile about what PR is and what exactly they do as employees for Fishburn and Hedges.  After their presentation we had lunch and time on our own then we met up with everyone again at BBC.  

BBC headquarters 

At BBC we got a guided tour around the premises.  I was most looking forward to this visit in terms of relevancy to what I'm studied and was slightly disappointed that we didn't really have any time for questions or anything.  We were given a public tour (there was a couple families with us) which was still very interesting but not as personalized as I was hoping it would be.

Some friends and me outside the BBC building

On the tour we got to see some of the studios where they film their shows, we were shown how a green screen works and we played a version of the show The Weakest Link - Meredith won.  We had the rest of the evening on our own so a couple friends and I went to the Tate Museum which is full of modern art.  In order to get there we had to cross the bridge that the death eaters destroyed in Harry Potter.

Oh no the Death Eaters destroyed it!

Just kidding - phewf!!

Then it was back to the hotel for an early bedtime.  All of these days were exhausting

Day Five:

Thursday was our last full day in London.  We started the day with a bus ride out to Oxford.  Before touring the actual campus of Oxford we stopped at a palace.  It was another gorgeous palace but our tour guide was awful.  She was old and just talked about tapestries the whole time.  

Blenheim Palace in Oxford

Then it was off to Oxford the actual school.  We had some time on our own for lunch before meeting up with the group for a tour of the grounds.  I learned a lot.  For example, I had no idea that Oxford doesn't really have "classes" in the traditional American sense.  Our guide said that about 80 percent of lectures are optional and students instead learn primarily from a tutorship program.  They are paired with a professor who meets with them often to keep track of their progress.  Each professor has about seven students.  I also didn't realize how many colleges Oxford has - around 40 I think our guide said.  But he said to think of the colleges more as fraternities in America.  Students live in the colleges and belong to a specific college but there aren't really classes there because they don't really go to classes in the traditional sense.  It was all really interesting.  And beautiful of course.

One of the colleges at Oxford.

Oh and one more Harry Potter tidbit.  We saw the area of Oxford where a scene from Goblet of Fire was filmed.

Look familiar?

How about now?

Once we finished the tour it was tea time!  This was another highlight of the trip for me.  We went to a fancy hotel nearby Oxford and had high tea.  First they came around with tea in teapots for everybody - sugar cubes and all.  Then came the towers of goodies.  One of our tour leaders told us that you're supposed to start at the bottom of the tower and work yourselves up.  So, you eat the finger sandwiches first then the pastries and end with the desserts on top.  This is so that you fill up on the "cheap" foods before getting to the good stuff on top.

Yum!

After tea we were bussed back to London where we had the rest of the evening on our own.

Day Six:

Friday was our final day in London.  It began with a lecture at the University of London about communication and social media.  After the lecture we had some time on our own so we just wandered around for a little bit before meeting up for our final group lunch.  We ate at Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen.  The goal of the restaurant is to give young unemployed people a chance at a career.  I think most, if not all, used to be criminals.  Jamie Oliver takes them off the streets and instead gives them an apprenticeship in becoming chefs so that they can do something productive with their lives.  Pretty cool concept.  I think there's a TV show about it.  And the food was delicious.  Our first course was antipasto and Italian bread.  We had salami, mozzarella, olives, etc.  Then came the main course.  I ordered a fish which was great; I hadn't had fish in awhile.  And for dessert I ordered a brownie with vanilla ice cream.  Needless to say I was uncomfortably full after all this food and didn't eat dinner that night which was fine because it would've been an airport dinner.  We took a bus to the airport after lunch and got back to Copenhagen late that night.

All in all it was an unbelievable trip and a great mix of touristy things with educational visits.  It was sad leaving but I have to say that I have yet to find a city that I'd rather be studying abroad in than Copenhagen!

Copenhagen!! (finally)

I've been living in this city for more than two months now so I figure it's about time I write about it.

Photo credit: Momma Graf

Copenhagen was the last stop of my and my mom's Eurotrip.  We spent a night together here before it was time for me to go off to the airport to meet up with my peers for the next four months.  It was tough saying goodbye but I was ready to start the next adventure.

The place where I'm living is kind of in the middle of nowhere.  I think it's the farthest away from our school buildings of all the kollegiums (basically a hybrid of dorms and apartments).  But I've become best friends with the people I live with so that makes it all worth it.  We each have our own bedroom and bathroom and share a kitchen with everyone else on our hall.  There's about 24 people per hall and 400 people total in the kollegium.  Seventeen of us are in the Danish Institute for Study Abroad program and the others have mostly been there for a few years as they're studying in Danish schools (most are Danes but some are from other countries as well).

A random picture of one of our kollegium's courtyards I found on google.

I'm taking five classes here: European Trends in Communication, European Union / US Relations, International Reporting, Danish Language and Culture, and Holocaust and Genocide.  My favorites are probably EU / US Relations because I admittedly didn't know much about that before coming here and find it very interesting as well as Holocaust and Genocide for mostly the same reason.  I also like the format of Holocaust and Genocide a lot; there's no PowerPoint slides or anything - the professor just talks at us and leads discussions which I find helps me learn the most.  Our only grade is a 10 page paper that's due at the end of the semester that we can write about any topic relating to any genocide which should be interesting too.  European Trends in Communication is my "core class" which means that throughout the semester I go on a couple trips with that class.  Earlier in the year I went to western Denmark with them for a few days and we went to a Danish television station as well as an art museum and talked with their communication department.

A rainbow walkway on the roof of the art museum we went to.

Sunday I leave with them again to go to London.  We find out our itinerary today but what I know so far is that we're going to be visiting BBC and Wimbledon while in London and talking to representatives of their companies.  I'll also be going on a trip to Hamburg in November with my Holocaust and Genocide class to visit concentration camps which I hear is a great experience.  Our professor is incredibly knowledgeable about the subject so I'm looking forward to that too.  He also leads a trip to Auschwitz and told us that he often gets in trouble for pretending to be a tour guide there.  Another fun fact is that they don't call professors "professor" here.  If we want to address them we have to use their first name because they don't really believe in class distinctions which has taken awhile to get used to.

I also have what's called a visiting family here.  Because I live in a kollegium, I don't live in a Danish house or anything so I signed up to have a "visiting family" who I can essentially hang out with whenever our schedules line up.  So far this has only happened once but I really like them.  They're a family of four: a son, daughter, mom and dad.  They had me over for a traditional Danish dinner one night in October and it was great to get some real food - we cook for ourselves in the kollegium so my dietary staples are mostly rice and pasta.  We ate dinner and dessert then I just hung out with them for a couple hours afterward talking and watching TV.  I really like their daughter Mia who's 17.  Last year she studied abroad for a year in America and she was really interesting to talk to about cultural differences and everything else.  We're going to meet up again mid-November because that was the next time that both of us were free.

Besides classes and traveling, I've also done some touristy things around Copenhagen.  When my mom was here she and I visited The Little Mermaid statue, I've climbed a couple towers which overlook Copenhagen and my friends and I visited the Louisiana Art Museum one day which has a lot of modern art and a beautiful outdoor area.

Kind of anti-climatic but there she is

Louisiana Museum with three girls I live with - you can see Sweden in the background (!)

Tomorrow we're hoping to go to the local amusement park Tivoli because it's supposed to be decorated really well for Halloween and everyone tells us we need to go.  Also, the other American girl who lives on my hallway and I've become good friends with and I are attempting to plan a Halloween party for all the Danes who live on our hallway.  So I'll have to let you know how that goes.

Other than that, DIS gives everyone Wednesdays off and most classes coordinate field trips on those days.  So for that I've gone to Danish parliament, the Danish Museum of Resistance (twice), a cafe, the US Embassy, and that might be it so far.

Also, yesterday I officially became a Danish citizen!  So now I can go to the doctors and get all the welfare benefits which is pretty exciting.

Oh and the language here is impossible.  I'm in a Danish class and trying to pick some of it up but you really don't pronounce half the letters in words.  For example, I live in a town spelled Hvidovre.  This is pronounced something like: "vee-doh"

Okay well that's all I can think of for now - London on Sunday!!

Travel Break One: Berlin

Leaving the airport after landing from Norway and realizing I was going to be standing in the same terminal again in less than seven hours was one of the most depressing facts that I have encountered since being here.  I got back to my kollegium where I'm staying in Copenhagen around midnight and my flight from Berlin left the ground at 8:30 the following morning.  I figured I'd get back to my room, quickly unpack and re-pack and fall asleep ASAP.  Not quite.

A quick run-down of my minor (major) panic attack upon touching down in Copenhagen:

I was traveling to Berlin with a girl who I live with and one of my best friends here, Sasha.  She was already in Germany visiting a family she knows, so the plan was that I would meet her in Berlin.  Pretty good plan, right? Wrong.  We never solidified where exactly we were going to meet or when either of us were arriving in Berlin and where.  I figured I'd land after Norway and turn on my phone to a bunch of texts from her about this logistical information.  Wrong again.  I later found out that the reason we couldn't connect with each other was because her international phone had plugged in my number wrong.  But I didn't figure that out until the next morning.  So after freaking out about this for a few hours, I decided I'd just fly into Berlin and hope to find her / hear from her after I got there.  Luckily, I woke up to a message from her the next morning and we met at the train station and ended up finding each other no problem.  But still.  Traumatizing stuff.

The next morning I made it to the airport, flew to Berlin and asked how to get to the train station where Sasha was arriving.  The lady at the information center said to take a train which was another obstacle altogether.  There were ticket machines at the station, so I waited patiently in a long line to try to get my train ticket.  There was a slot for debit cards so I figured this meant they accepted cards.  How foolish of me.  So then I found an ATM, got out some euros and tried again.  Turns out the bill the ATM had given me was too large.  So then I went to a random vendor and asked him for change.  Said he couldn't do that, but that there was a ticket counter upstairs that could probably break up.  Of course.  So I went up there, asked them to break it and the lady said it was too big (it was a 50 euro bill) but that she could just get me a ticket with my card.  Of course.  I guess no one said international traveling was easy.

The beautiful train station that I spent so long trying to get a ticket for.

After finally connecting with Sasha in Berlin, we met up with a friend of a friend whose place we were crashing at.  We were both pretty wiped from traveling that night so we didn't really do much and instead planned on doing Berlin in a day the next day instead.

So the next morning we woke up, googled what to do and see in Berlin and spent the day being the ultimate tourists.  Our first stop was the East Side Gallery, a section of the Berlin Wall that is completely covered in graffiti.

East Side Gallery

It started raining on us pretty hard, so we decided to dry off a little during a metro ride to Berlin's old Olympic Stadium.  Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside because there was a soccer match there later that day, but we walked around the outside for a bit which was pretty cool.

The rain had let up a little by this point, so we decided to go back to the center of the city and wander for a little.  We saw some more sections of the Berlin Wall, stumbled upon the Holocaust Memorial and saw other monuments (they seem to be everywhere you turn in Europe).  There were also some really gorgeous gardens that we came across in the middle of a fair that was being held.

Sasha with more sections of the Berlin Wall

Holocaust Memorial - very abstract memorial designed with "stelae" of different sizes and heights to symbolize the confusion of the Holocaust

Brandenburg Gate - built in the 18th century as a symbol of peace

Beautiful pond / gardens we happened to come across

That night was our second and final night in Berlin, so we decided to go out and see the city at night.  Somehow Sasha and I got into the most exclusive club in all of Berlin and supposedly the third most exclusive club in all of Europe.  The bouncer must've blinked or something when we got up to him.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun but people in Berlin don't understand the concept of sleeping.  We went to sleep around 7 am because people stay up so late there and woke up at 7:30 am for our flight.  After a 40 minute flight and an hour bus ride back to our kollegium, we were home and had successfully completed and survived our first week of traveling.

Travel Break One: Norway

One of these posts I swear I'll actually talk about Copenhagen.  But before I forget everything I did two weeks ago (and go on my next travel break in 5 days) I figure I should write about my trip to Norway and Berlin.  The program I'm in, Danish Institute for Study Abroad, is pretty much nothing short of amazing in terms of how much time we get off for travel.  We never have more than two weeks of classes without a week off for traveling (sorry Mom...it's a different type of learning I promise).  So, two weeks ago I was in Norway and Berlin, Sunday I leave for London for a week and two weeks after that I'm off to Milan, Budapest and Madrid for ten days.

I think it's safe to say that Norway was the prettiest place that I have ever been.  And also the coldest and rainiest.  I got rained on every day of my break.  In Berlin I think it was just bad luck but in Norway that seems to be the norm.

Day One:
Saturday of our week off the group of us going on the Norway trip flew out and landed in the Bergen airport.  It was raining.  From Bergen we took a bus about two hours to Flam where we stayed for most of the trip (Saturday - Tuesday).

And this was just on the bus ride there.

Once we got to the hostel that we were staying at and unpacked a little, we went to lunch where I had a salmon sandwich (I think it's safe to say I had salmon in some form for every meal in Norway except maybe breakfast).  Then we went on a boat ride through the fjords which was unreal.

After that we had dinner (giant buffet...I had five different types of salmon. I counted) then we all went to bed.

Day Two:

We woke up pretty early, had breakfast and packed a lunch because we were heading off to go hiking all day.  We took a train ride that claimed to be the most beautiful in all of Europe up to the top of a mountain.  I wouldn't doubt it.  

The train took us up to Myrdal (at the very top) and we walked back down to Flam (...very bottom)

The hike was about 13 miles.  It was mostly downhill.  But 13 miles is 13 miles and I have not been to a gym since July.  I was definitely feeling it the next morning but, again, Norway is the most beautiful country ever and by some miracle it didn't rain on us once the whole hike (which took about 6 hours).  I took nearly 100 pictures of this hike alone so I'll spare you and just put a few of my favorites on here.

Meredith hiking the trail

It might not have rained but it was definitely still cold up there

Water was unbelievably clear

After we made it down the mountain we all put our feet up for an hour so before eating a well-deserved dinner.  More salmon of course.

Day Three:

The third day started with a climb up to a waterfall.  It rained.  There was mud everywhere.  I will admit to falling flat on my butt twice while climbing down the mountain.  But then again I think everyone fell at least once.  The rain stopped for a little at the top - long enough to snap a few pictures - before it started again during our descent.

A rare sunny moment in Norway

No, this was not taken against a green screen

After our waterfall hike we ran over to our kayaking trip.  We were a little late because everyone took forever getting down the waterfall hike because of the whole mudslide situation.  The following pictures are courtesy of Meredith since I was too scared to take my camera out of its extremely water proofed bag during the kayak trip

We always seemed to end up in the back of the group

Another rare sunny moment

We kayaked to another waterfall hike then kayaked back to where we were staying.  It rained on us off and on and we must've been kayaking wrong because Meredith and I somehow managed to get soaked during the trip too and no one else really did.  So after we put the kayaks away, Meredith and I ran back to the hostel where we each took the longest and hottest showers of our life.  Then it was off to our salmon buffet again.

Day Four:

This was our last day in Flam and we spent it on a farm.  Definitely different than the other days.  We biked up another mountain to a woman's farm.  When we got there the woman gave us a tour around the place and we helped her make cheese for a little before eating a lunch that was all made from things on her farm.

On the right you can see everyone walking their bikes up the hill because it got too steep

Some of the houses on the farm

After lunch we biked back down the mountain (in the rain) and got a train to Bergen where our flight would leave from the next day.

Day Five:

This was our final day in Norway and we had most of it to ourselves to wander the town of Bergen.  After a little tram type ride up a mountain in Bergen, Meredith and I decided to hike back down instead of taking the tram down. 

Post tram ride, pre hike

From there we pretty much wandered aimlessly all day.  In the rain.  We saw the fish market and a few other touristy things before heading back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to our flight.  Landed in Copenhagen around 10 pm.  Got back to my kollegium around midnight.  Had to be at the airport again at 7 the next morning for my flight to Berlin but more on that to come...