Thursday, February 28, 2013

Civic Disobedience

Today was like any other Thursday: I went to class, learned some things and started heading home when I stumbled upon a large gathering of people marching around city hall. It turned out to be a massive student demonstration protesting the proposed changes parliament has introduced to the higher education system. The crowd had flares, banners, megaphones and flags. The police were leading the procession, ensuring that the demonstration kept a semblance of order. They even stopped traffic at a major intersection so the crowd could cross safely. The demonstration blew my mind. Here's why:

As an American, what they were demonstrating against doesn't compute with me. Higher education is state funded and is free for anyone who wants to pursue it. If you want to go to college, you don't have to pay for it directly; it's all covered by taxes that you're parents have been paying for you up to this point. On top of that, the government pays you to go to college. The current stipend for attending college is about $1000 each month. The demonstrators were protesting a reduction of this stipend to about $800 according to what my Danish politics teacher has said. Even my Danish language teacher has said that the stipend is predominantly used to buy designer clothes and coffee. I guess it's a big deal for my Danish counterparts but I just don't get what there is to be angry about. Perhaps these demonstrators would be better utilized if we put them on a plane and sent them to the US to protest the fact that we have to pay upwards of $45000 per year to attend college; and unless you have a work study or job, you don't get paid a dime to attend. Maybe they don't realize how good they have it.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Little Things

When I first arrived in Denmark, everything was so different that it was hard to pinpoint the small, minute differences between my homeland and Denmark. Now that I've spent some time here, I offer a random list of things I've noticed and thought were interesting:

-Blockbusters still exist here
-7Eleven is expensive: a small slushy costs over $3
-Baresso is the Starbucks of America/Dunkin Donuts of New England
-Netto (the most common grocery store) doesn't stock what I would consider standard dry stick deodorant
-Shawarma at a kebab shop is a better deal than McDonald's
-those biking hand signals we learned in elementary school are actually used
-New Jersey stereotypes exist overseas. Store clerk: Where are you visiting from? New Jersey. Oh like the Sopranos. Yes... just like that.
-teenagers wear snap back hats of teams they couldn't name one player on. BONUS: if the kid wearing the Utah Jazz hat on the street could find Utah on a map, I would give him a cookie. DOUBLE BONUS: the team I have seen represented the most is the NBA team formerly known as the Charlotte Hornets, who are now the New Orleans Hornets, who are soon to be the New Orleans Pelicans.
-you can get Ben and Jerry's here... and it's even more expensive (about $10.50 a pint)
-magazine covers with gratuitous nudity are permitted on the shelves right along with the rest of the magazines
-nobody cares about baseball
-the only sports magazine here is GOAL
-they have a different definition of a "not very strong" beer
-nobody picks up dog poop on the sidewalk
-licorice is the flavor of choice for candy and even liquor
-based on sound and without understanding 98% of the words, some of the music would make it on the radio in the US if we knew about it; and some of the songs are good and also in English
-movies come out way later here
-nobody makes small talk on the train; although nobody really makes small talk on trains in America either
-Pandora doesn't work
-all the buildings look cooler and the sidewalks are cobblestone
-the crows aren't all black: they have gray and are called hooded crows I believe
-the pigeons still only move if you get within inches of them
-scarves are a necessity
-did I mention that you can find Blockbusters in business here?

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Hel! Sing! Borg!....Copen! Ha! Gen!

I had my first taste of European football yesterday. I went to a training camp match between FC Kobenhavn and Helsingborg IF, a Swedish club. Since the match didn't mean anything it was only 40 kroner to get in and the attendance was only 1,087... I counted? It was great to see a game for such a good price. The fan section for Helsingborg was worth the price of admission itself. They were constantly chanting and swaying together throughout. For a small group they were surprisingly vocal. They had flags and banners and even a bunch of bright red flares that blanketed the pitch with pink smoke shortly after kickoff. There's no way they'd get into the stadium with those in America.

Unfortunately I didn't plan well enough for the cold weather inside the stadium. I had figured it would at least be a bit warmer in the stands; I was wrong. I ended up standing much of the game just to keep the blood flowing and by halftime I could have sworn my toes were going to be frostbitten. Luckily my FCK scarf kept my face from getting unbearably cold.

The first half was pretty uneventful and neither team could capitalize on their opportunities. In the second half, FCK got the scoring started with a well placed header off a cross. But the lead didn't last. After an FCK attacker blew a perfect opportunity to take a two goal lead, Helsingborg countered quickly and received a penalty kick for a trip in the box. Their kick taker scored the PK to tie it up. To my confusion, when he scored, all the FCK fans started clapping; it turns out he used to play for the team.

In the 86th minute, after a series of well placed passes, Helsingborg put another in the back of the net to stun the crowd and secure the upset. All was not lost, however, because as the game neared its end the video board announced that a restaurant attached to the stadium would be offering free soup to everyone after the game. As I spooned the tomato soup into my mouth and tried to urge its warmth down to my numb toes I was satisfied with my first football experience despite the loss and bitter cold.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Hump Day

Yesterday I had a busy Wednesday. First up was a guided tour of Parken, the stadium that FC Kobenhavn calls home. Going in, Geena and I completely failed to take into consideration that the tour would be all Danes. So when the tour guide asked a question that ended with 'danske', I was that awkward American who says, "I speak English..." Fortunately, every time the guide gave his spiel in Danish and we headed to the next location, he provided us with the abridged version in English. The stadium was really cool, yet surprisingly minimalist, given that I think it's the largest stadium in Denmark. The home locker room wasn't anything to write home about aside from the hot tub (there wasn't even a team logo anywhere), but it makes sense given the Danish mindset of simplicity. After visiting the stadium, I can't wait to return to see a real game.

Later on in the evening I attended Dans2Go at Det Kongelige Teater (Royal Theater) with my Danish Language class. As we were searching for our seats it was with much surprise that we discovered that our seats were in the second row. This meant I had to be a lot more discrete eating my mini O2 cookies during the show. The ballet/modern dance performance was broken into three parts and each one featured dancers moving their bodies in directions and positions I don't believe they are intended to be in. While I may not be a dance enthusiast and I wasn't a big fan of the second act which featured eight men and no musical accompaniment, I could appreciate the hard work and dedication that these people put on display for a packed audience.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Fastelavn

Today my family and I went to a DIS Fastelavn celebration. Fastelavn is a holiday similar to Halloween in Denmark where children dress up in costumes and eat candy. However, my favorite part of the holiday is the sweet iced buns that everyone eats. For Fastelavn, I went all out and wore a full skeleton suit that my host family had lying around. The whole family dressed up, and though Jonas was against wearing a costume at first, he came around in the end. 

At the party, we ate our share of desserts and then broke barrels with sticks. This tradition is similar to breaking pinatas at parties. But the meaning behind the barrel breaking is different here. In the past, they used to put a live black cat inside the barrel and break it. It was supposed to get rid of any bad luck that the cats represented. Now they fill the barrels with candy; PETA wouldn't be too happy if they kept the cat thing going. The person to break the barrel and release the candy is awarded queen, regardless of whether it's a boy or girl. After the candy is on the ground, you keep swinging at the barrel until the last piece is knocked down. The person who achieves this feat is the king. I was the king of my barrel, and Jonas was queen of another. We also bobbed for apples and some people ate buns dangling from strings. I only succeeded in soaking my head in the bucket, but Jonas snagged one without a problem. It was a fun time and great to experience an annual Danish holiday. 

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Observation of Tourists as a Tourist

Disclaimer: If you are my sister, I apologize for not updating for a decent amount of time. A college student writing about how classes went during the school week isn't exactly riveting stuff. On that note, I have a brief observation to share.

As I was walking along Strøget today I came to the realization that in Copenhagen I, an American, am less a tourist than many of the born and bred Danes that live far outside the city and are only visiting for the weekend. I see Danes spinning their maps around, trying to figure out how to get to Nyhavn from Frue Plads and asking other people for directions. Even though my Danish is still at a remedial level, I could tell a lost Dane where to find Christiansborg Slot, no problem (in English). I'm not trying to boast or anything. If a Dane were studying in NYC for the semester I'd consider him less of a tourist than me there if I visited for the weekend with my camera and map. I just felt proud at that moment in time, looking around at the confused or lost people, knowing exactly where I was and how to get where I needed to go.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Month in Review

Today marks the beginning of my fifth week here in Denmark. The time has flown by but it's not like I've just been hibernating with my Netflix account like I do in winter in Vermont. So what exactly have I done the past 4 weeks? (Including what I did the past few days.)

-Visited 3 different royal palaces: Fredensborg, Christiansborg and Frederiksborg
     -Visited the queen's quarters in Christiansborg Slot
     -Toured the elaborate interior of Frederiksborg Slot

-Visited 2 museums: ARoS and nationalmuseet
-Ate a plethora of new foods: leverpostej, curry herring, Danish rye bread, mackerel in tomato sauce, frikadeller, an assortment of pork lunchmeats, plus many more and even some calf's tongue
-Visited the western cities of Aarhus and Odense
-Mastered the art of building open-faced sandwiches and eating everything with a fork and knife
-Visited numerous architecturally astonishing churches
-Met Swedes in Helsingor
-Made friends from all over the US
-Essentially got adopted into a new family here in Denmark
-Played handball with Danish children
-Learned the ins and outs of the Copenhagen public transportation system
-Bought an FCK scarf
-Tried a bunch of tasty new beers, schnapps, and licorice (and banana?!) flavored liquors
-Tried Danish candy; made my family try American candy
-Started learning the complex language that is Danish
-Wandered around aimlessly
-Climbed rundtaarn
-Adapted to waking up earlier than 10AM for class
-Stopped a blind man from falling onto the train tracks
-Ate shawarma
-Made brownies
-Listened to Danish music
-Got my fix of soccer and handball on TV
-And of course I went to class Mom


I went back to Frederiksborg Slot to go inside it this time:
Frederiksborg Slot in white


Just inside the slot

My new little sisters

The church inside the slot


One of many intricate ceilings


My Danish family minus Jonas

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

A Trip to Western Denmark

The past three days have been jam packed with fun activities. My Strategic Communication class took a trip to the Western Denmark cities of Odense and Aarhus to get a taste of Danish life outside of Copenhagen. Our schedules were booked solid throughout the three days and it was a nice time to get to know the other people in my class, especially since we'll be spending even more time together in London in a little over a month. I'll try to make this simple.

Day 1:
We visited TV2, Denmark's most watched television station since 1990! It was much like the TV stations I have seen in the US but it seemed a lot less stressful. Monitors everywhere of course, but most of the employees there were getting paid to watch television all day; not a bad gig.
Also on Monday we had a short Hans Christian Andersen walking tour from a DIS professor that included visits to where the author lived growing up, the church where he was Christened, the insane asylum his grandfather was placed (now a nursing home, go figure), and other places he frequented during his time in Odense. After this tour we headed to Aarhus. At night we were left on our owns to walk around Aarhus and check out the relatively nonexistent nightlife of a Monday in February.

Day 2:
We visited the municipality of Aarhus and learned about how it was designated as the cultural capital of 2017 for Europe. It's hard to get any recognition in such a small country when everyone immediately thinks of Copenhagen as the only real city in Denmark, but the city is a really cool place from what I gathered in my time there. After the town hall tour, I got the chance to visit M2Films, the media firm in charge of making many of LEGO's commercials that are seen on TV throughout the world. The setup the guys at M2Films are working with is unreal, equipped with the latest Apple desktops and Adobe software. After this tour we headed to ARoS, an art museum in Aarhus that exhibits some very interesting pieces. The most well known aspect of ARoS is the rainbow panorama walk at the top of the building, but the next time you're in Aarhus I strongly recommend heading to the bottom floors to see the Boy and also the 9 Spaces. Give them a quick Google search to see the quirkiness of these art exhibitions. Tuesday saved the best for last, at least for this art non-aficionado. We headed to RaceHall for some good old-fashioned go-kart racing. All 35 of us or so raced on one huge track in a free for all for the ages. During the qualifying stage I managed to clock the best lap so I entered the main race with the pole position. Unfortunately, after losing some traction on the first lap and hitting some back of the pack traffic around lap 7, I could only hang on to a 3rd place finish in the 15 lap race. Not too shabby in a race of 35, though.

Day 3:
This day was mostly spent traveling and eating brunch and listening to a lecture at Aarhus University, but the highlight of today was a visit to the Jelling Stones, one of Denmark's most important monuments. It established the monarchy in Denmark, is the first mention of the name Denmark, and also established Christianity as the new religion of Denmark by the viking king Harald 'Bluetooth.' (The technology is named after him because he connected Denmark.) It's really just two mounds of grass and two big stones with runes on them but the story behind it is very cool. If you made it to the end, good for you! I probably would have stopped reading once I hit Day 2. Check out the pictures from our festivities on Facebook.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Klasse Fest, Frederiksborg Slot and More

The past two days have been jam packed with various activities and such.

After class on Friday night I went to Klasse Fest with my host family. It was a potluck dinner and gym activities for my two little twin sisters here. All the food everyone brought was delicious, especially the frikadeller of course. After dinner we played different games as a whole group. As the only American there (technically there was a woman who was originally from the US but has lived in Denmark for 16 years so she doesn't count) it was a little overwhelming at first. But of course, games are games regardless of where you're from so it was really fun. We played a game of tag where when you got tagged you formed a growing chain of people as well as a game similar to ball tag where if you got hit with the ball you had to remove one limb until you were hopping around with one leg and your arms behind your back. During this game, I had a little 'confrontation.' When I got hit with the ball I put my left arm behind my back instead of my right and apparently this was unfair. Given my miniscule knowledge of Danish so far, I could only stand there helplessly with the wrong arm behind my back as I was berated by a 10 year old boy. The best part was that I got to test out my handball skills. Applying my goalie experience from water polo, I thought I'd give it a go in net and I experienced mixed results. I let in more goals to children than I'd like to admit but afterward my host brother assured me that I was actually pretty good.

This afternoon I toured Frederiksborg Slot in Hillerod with my host family minus the kids. The castles around here never cease to amaze me. There's nothing like them in the US so they're always unreal. This castle in particular was built mostly in the 17th century and Christian 4 used it as his home. Claus told me that the king would use a small island in the lake around the castle to have parties with women. When the queen became suspicious she rowed over to the island only to find no women because the king had seen her coming and rowed them away in the opposite direction. After the castle I got my first real taste of Danish pizza. I was not disappointed, although it was strange for me to eat my Hawaiian pizza with a knife and fork. Then we went to the mall in Hillerod to find chocolate chips at the Bilka. The mall was pretty standard sized despite Maiken being convinced that every mall in America had to be much larger. The Bilka was like a mix between a Target and a grocery store. After some heavy digging we found chocolate chips and unfortunately along the way Claus got the idea of making me try calf's tongue for dinner one night. It didn't look very appetizing but I trust that Maiken's a good enough cook to make it eatable. 

Bonus: My parents sent me candy from the US that you would never find here so I could let my family try it. Last night I had them try Nerds Rope. It was much sweeter than the candy they're used to but they still liked it; at least they said they did.

Frederiksborg Slot






I didn't know they outsourced from Jersey. (This is not where we ate)


My Danish Hawaiian pizza