Foooooood...

"Sacred cows make the best hamburgers."

- Mark Twain

As I am sure you are all aware I have had issues with food since getting here, and after my mom had to tell me very seriously that my diet of mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs was not healthy, I decided to be brave and try to cook.  So yesterday I put on my big girl pants and went to the grocery store.  Not only did I buy meat I also had to ask the people in the grocery store questions.  For those of you who don't think this is a big deal, think again because truthfully I am terrified of talking to strangers.  Anyways I decided my first real cooking experience in Copenhagen should be the most obvious choice of anyone deciding to cook in a foreign country.  I decided to make cheesecake, yup cheesecake.  Let me tell you it was the best cheesecake I have ever tasted, because I had to put more effort into making this cheesecake than I have ever put into making anything.  Not only did I need to translate all of the ingredients into Danish to find them in the grocery store, I also had to change all the measurements into metric and temperatures to Celsius.  In the end though it was so worth it.       

And my roommate Daniel and his girlfriend Laura were nice enough to model the half-eaten cheesecake.  Laura is currently staying at our apartment until she finds one for herself and I would like her to stay forever for completely selfish reasons.  First she mopped our floors and did the dishes and then tonight Daniel and her cooked us a dinner of lasagna and apple pie.  It was amazing.

Even though they don't look like it was amazing they actually thought it was(they said I took too long to take the photo so they couldn't smile anymore, boys!)

Also this past weekend we finally got good weather!  So on Saturday we hit the beach.  

 

This is Marcos, Seonaid, Krys, and Niklaus.

I did not go all the way in but Niklaus and Krys had a lot of fun in the water.

At the beach they were selling these peas which are huge! I could not believe that they were normal peas, unfortunately at this size you don't eat the shell only the actual pea.

Then on Sunday we walked into town to see what was going on, and there just happened to be an Ironman triathlon.  We were at the finish line when the first guy crossed the finish line.     

 After swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles this guy was still nice enough to walk around the crowd and thank his fans.  

 After that we bought some pastries and went to sit by the water at Nyhavn, which is the place with all the pretty colored houses that you see in all the pictures of Copenhagen.

After Nyhavn we decided to go and explore Christiania, unfortunately we ran into issues when it came to getting around the triathlon.  We ran into issues because the city is made up of lots of canals which requires the crossing of bridges.  Well the bridge we wanted to cross had the triathlon crossing it so we didn't really know where to go.  I again put on my big girl pants and asked one of the security people if he could give us an alternate route to get around.  He didn't give us an alternate route he just moved the barricades and had us walk alongside the runners inside the barricades!   

So after watching incredibly fit and dedicated people we decided to go in the complete opposite direction and go to the free town of Christiania.  This is a walled town within the city of Copenhagen where buying marijuana is legal.  I mean like people having stands set up in the street with marijuana on display.  There are no photos allowed within Christiania but here is a photo of the entrance gate.

And finally today I met my mentors! The four lovely ladies are Danish students who have volunteered to help international students find their way in Denmark.  So first we went to a cafe where I was able to get a hamburger(with bacon :)  and then we went and got ice cream.  It was a really good day.

If you couldn't tell this last week had a lot to do with food, which is probably why I am in a much better mood than my last post.  Not only did I get to eat meat, but I also got over my fear of going to the grocery store.  So from now on no more mashed potatoes for 3 meals a day 7 days a week.  

Random Danish Facts:

There is a holiday in Denmark called Fastelavn.  When this holiday was started the people used to put a black cat in a barrel and then hang the barrel from a tree.  Then children would hit the barrel with a bat until they broke the barrel and the cat was dead.  Then that child would get a crown.  Horrible, right?  Today it is less horrible because they only put a picture of a cat on the barrel and then fill the barrel with candy.  

The honeymoon is over...

"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable.  It is designed to make its own people comfortable."

-Clifton Fadiman

* I promise this whole thing is not about me being annoyed, but if you want to skip that part move to the pretty pictures at the bottom.  

You know that period when something is new and everything about that new thing seems amazing and fun? Like nothing could possibly go wrong?  I had that period here in Copenhagen.  The first week everything seemed amazing.  I was exploring a city, I was meeting new people, doing cool things.  Well that period is now over and I have moved onto the period of annoyance.  I once read that the stages that students study abroad go through are 1. honeymoon 2. negotiation (i.e. annoyance) 3. Adjustment and 4. mastery.  Unfortunately this same article said you are supposed to be in the honeymoon phase for 3 months, mine lasted about a week.  Now it seems like the differences between here and home are like great chasms instead of little cracks.  One of the big things that seems to have helped make the switch from honeymoon to annoyance is the price of things.  This is not only limiting me doing things it is also limiting my eating options. And by eating options I do not mean limiting the restaurants I can go to, because I have only eaten out once since I got here, but by limiting the things I can even afford in the grocery store.  So far my diet has consisted of potatoes, eggs, and noodles.  So this annoyance could also be caused by my starvation.  Another great concern is that stores close at 5:00 PM, at the latest.  I never really thought about how convenient the U.S. is until I came here.  So if you just need to run to the grocery store because you are out of milk, well to bad because you are going to have to wait until 10:00 tomorrow morning because that is when the stores open again.   These feelings of annoyance at the cultural differences are also probably exaggerated by my annoyance at practical things that I take for granted at home.  For example, up until this afternoon I did not have a phone.  So I was supposed to meet someone at a train station at a certain time, unfortunately that person ended up having to do something else but had no way to contact me so I was left waiting for 20 minutes before continuing on my own and this has happened multiple times.  Also I haven't been able to get a bike yet.  I have looked at this craiglist-esque site but of all the e-mails I have sent out no one has e-mailed me back.  So currently I ride the metro at least four times a day and each time I ride the metro it costs $2.40.  Add all this to the fact that I am trying to learn a foreign language for 3 hours everyday, that I haven't been sleeping well, and it basically has been cold and rainy since i got here and you get me just being really really annoyed.  Hopefully the logistical/practical things will be sorted out soon which will release some of my anxiety/annoyance.  Also according to the article in about 6 months I should be on to the adjustment/acceptance phase.

However that being said I am still glad I came.  I am meeting amazing people that I hope to become good friends with.  I am "learning" a new language, and yes those quotation marks are completely intentional, and I am in a beautiful city.  Today all the international students went to the Kongens Have or the King's garden and just sat around talking, enjoying the two minutes of sunshine we had.  Now Kongens Have is probably one of my favorite places that I have visited so far.  This beautiful park  has fairytale themed playgrounds for little kids, perfectly manicured formal gardens, and  grassy fields full of sunbathers and teenagers playing soccer.  This park is also the grounds of Rosenborg Slot, which is home to the Danish crown jewels.  Also Rosenborg slot is a castle surrounded by a moat! How cool is that?     

So these are some of the awesome people that I have met.  The guy is Marcos, from Brazil, then Seonaide is in the middle and she is from New Zealand, and Krys is from Germany.  

 The group again this time Hannah from the Netherlands is in the middle and Niklaus from Germany is next to Krys and two random people that I don't know.

 And this is about half of my Danish class plus more random people.  Add to the people mentioned above Berit from Germany, Keven from Australia, and Francisco from Italy.

This picture is interesting not really because what it is of but because of the reactions of some of the other international students of seeing this.  I don't know if you can tell but the picture is of a group of soldiers practicing their drills.  When I see this I don't really think anything of it.  This is perfectly normal for me.  However for a couple of the other students that I was with this made them extremely uncomfortable.  Seonaide who is from New Zealand just wanted to get away as quick as possible.  She said that in New Zealand the police don't even carry guns! Now to me as an American that just seems absolutely foolish.  This has actually been a big topic of conversation.  Even my Danish roommate wanted me to explain to him why the U.S. needs so many guns.  Its one of those topics that you never really think about until someone needs an explanation.  

More cool facts you didn't know about Denmark:

-Lego was invented here (and there is the world's largest Legoland which I am totally going to go visit)

-the Faroe Islands used to belong to Norway until the King of Norway lost them in a drunken poker game to the King of Denmark.  

And I thought Russian was hard...

 "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.  If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart."

Nelson Mandela

My original plan when starting university was to study Russian.  After two semesters of struggling through what I thought was the most difficult language on the planet I gave up.  Little did I know that I would one day wish that I was still learning Russian instead of this crazy language known as Danish.  I had my first Danish class today and let me tell you, it is the craziest thing I have ever seen.  The gist of what I have learned so far is that basically if you have a 6 letter word you just pick like three consonants out of that word and just mumble/not even say the other letters in the word.  Take for example this word, selvfølgelig, this word is pronounced se fo li.  Now if you count that out you have a 12 letter word and you only pronounce 6 letters.  How does that make any sense? Not only is the language incredibly difficult to understand, it also does not help that the course is a 3 week intensive study.  I did not quite believe when they said intensive that they actually meant intensive.  Today was the first day of class tomorrow I am supposed to know, by heart: number 1-20, the alphabet, how to introduce yourself, and how to say your nationality.  One of my classmates asked the teacher if it was ok to start crying right in class or if they should wait until the get home.  On the positive side I am think am feeling way more comfortable in the city and in my apartment.  My roommates are super nice and I don't feel like I need to tiptoe around anymore.  I also think I have a grasp on the metro/train system.  Another positive is that I found Netto, which is the Danish equivalent of Aldi's, so I have now added spaghetti to my diet of mashed potatoes and bread.  Mom you should be so proud of my cooking skills.  Yesterday Kate and I went to the National Museum.  All I can say about it is that it is a museum, basically like any other museum.  However after the museum we saw Christianborg Slot, which is where the parliament currently meets.

 The guards  stand in these awesome little stands when the weather is bad.  I think they totally look like little toy soldiers.

After walking through Christianborg, Kate and I decided to wander.  Now tell me in what other place can you wander and just come across a castle?  This is Rosenborg Slot which houses the crown jewels.  The castle is surrounded by Kongens have or the King's garden, which is just a huge beautiful park.  

I was trying to be artistic in this next photo.  As you can see I am not really an artist.

I just love the colored buildings with the red tile roofs.  

Interesting Denmark Fact:

In her spare time Queen Margrethe II translated the Lord of the Rings trilogy into Danish and drew the illustrations.  How cool is that?

  

The joy of being a tourist

I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.

Brigitte Bardot

Today I went on a FREE walking tour and it was the best idea ever.  First of all it was free and second it was a great way to see the major sights and figure out what I want to got back to and actually tour.  

The building above is Copenhagen's Town Hall, Radhus.  In front of the town hall is a square and what better to have in Copenhagen's Town Hall square than a Native American band?

 

The picture on the left is a statue that is on the front of the town hall.  The statue is of Bishop Absalon.  Direct quote from the tour guide, "Notice anything different about this bishop? If you look closely you will see that he has a sword.  He was a bad-ass bishop"   The second photo is the entrance to Tivoli.  Tivoli is the second oldest amusement park in the world.    

 

The public mailboxes in Copenhagen are so cute!

This is the bad-ass bishop again, this time he has an ax.  Apparently there was a group of Pagan pirates who were terrorizing Copenhagen.  He went to their village and chopped the heads off of their 7 headed statue of their god.  When he wasn't hit by lightning on the spot the pirates decided his god must be much greater than their gods and so the surrendered without a fight.  

Hans Christen Andersen seems to have lived in about 200 places throughout Copenhagen.  This was one of those 200 places.

This photo was taken solely to show my lovely friend Suzy Rasmussen that I would think she was a lot cooler if she was of Danish descent.

 These two pictures are of a palace that were the true story from the movie "A Royal Affair" took place.

These photos are of Amalienborg Slot, the home of the royal family.  The palace is actually made up of 4 different buildings connected by underground tunnels.    

When the flag is flown that means that one of the royals is in residence.  

This particular building is the home of the Crown prince, his wife, and his four children.  I found it really interesting that the Prince's children attend a normal public school and that the Prince and Princess try to give their kids as normal a life as possible.  

Copenhagen Opera House

Nyhavn is actually pronounced Nehoun which is not what it looks like it would be at all.

This is the most photographed place in Copenhagen after the Little Mermaid.

These were trampoline like things in the middle of the park.  If there weren't little kids jumping on them I definitely would have tried one out.

After our tour we went to a floating beach and ate koldscal, which was like a soupy yogurt with cookie chunks in it.  The other two girls in the picture were two Aussies that we met on the tour.  

Not what I expected...

So I have now been in Copenhagen for 28 hours.  But lets back up to yesterday to begin my tale.   So I left O'hare at 8:50 PM.  Thankfully I sat next to not only one of the most attractive men I have ever seen but also one of the nicest.  His name was Erik and he was actually from Copenhagen so I spent about two hours of the flight asking him every question that I could possibly think of.  After a quick layover in Munich, I arrived in Copenhagen around 4:30PM.  The best decision I have ever made was asking my mentor to meet me at the airport! Without her I would still probably be sitting in the airport crying.  Not only was she able to figure out which train we were supposed to take she was also able to help with the luggage which was a godsend. Then we arrived at my apartment:

I really like my room.  The previous girl who lived here had left me a letter giving me all kinds of advice so that was really really nice.  One thing about the bathroom is that the shower is not separated from the rest of the bathroom at all.  I took a shower this morning and have no idea how to take one without getting water all over the entire floor.  But other than that I think this will be a good place to live for the next year.  For my first night here Kate, another girl from my university, spent the night because she could not get her keys until the next morning.  So we headed to Bilka, the nearest grocery store, and bought ourselves bread, potatoes, butter, milk, potato cake, cheerios, and Carlsberg beer.  So our first dinner included bread, mashed potatoes, and beer.  I am not a beer drinker usually  but it was a novelty type situation buying alcohol from a store when I am only 20.   

  

 This morning we went and found Kate's apartment.  These are the view from her room:

The houses all have cute red tile roofs.  If you look closely you can see the windmills out in the water and if you look even closer, past the windmills, the land you see is Sweden.

and finally today I got to try my first Danish Danishes!!!!!!