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!!