Wait...I have work to do?

Ok I know I didn't get around to my usual weekly post, and seeing as how my last two posts were about a trip that happened almost three weeks ago now, I just wanted to say I'm alive! Barely. For some reason, all my teachers recently thought that maybe there should be some studying involved in study abroad, and I've been hitting the library all day since Saturday. I had two exams today, and I admit I haven't exactly been diligently doing the reading for either of those classes all semester...which meant last minute cramming and waking up at 5 a.m. this morning. In addition, I had a paper due for my Hans Christian Andersen class for which I was supposed to find at least two outside sources to support my topic, but had absolutely NO LUCK at all in doing so. After several emails back and forth with my teacher explaining my dilemma, she finally told me that she liked my topic anyways and to forget all about outside research. Win for me. Tuesday done. Moving on to a political campaign video for the most disorganized and undirected class I've ever taken, Political Rhetoric. Try organizing an entire political campaign for a political party you've never heard of until two months ago in a political system you haven't grown up understanding. It's not easy. Next is an 8 page research paper on how Harry Potter fufills the hero myth, originally due Thursday (bad news since I haven't started) but I got an extension to Friday. Another win for me. Other than that, all I have to worry about is avoiding my new obsession with deep-fried waffles, topped with warm nutella and vanilla soft serve. I'm not kidding, one bite will change your life.

Back to the books. Leaving for Russia this Sunday! Just have to get through the week...

PS- It's finally starting to get in the 40s (8/9 celsius) here and it's amazing! I have a whole new outlook on what it means to be cold after surviving a Danish winter, so having it be 45 and overcast is absolutely amazing. But since my mom was nagging me continually to put up a picture of myself in my rabbit fur hat, here's evidence of a colder time:



My friend Holly and me before seeing a movie in February. Side note: Holly and I are going to Greece together at the end of May. I. AM. SO. EXCITED.

Winning London, part 2

Picking up where I left off...

Stonehenge is a bunch of rocks
We woke up early Wednesday morning to take a bus to Stonehenge. It's in an open field in the middle of no where. It was crazy cold and windy, which kept me from being able to concentrate on anything except shivering, let alone what our tour guide was saying. I did take a ton of pictures though, but after a while, you realize you just have 100 pictures of rocks at different angles and it stops being cool. Here's a random selection:







Probably my favorite part was actually visiting the giftshop afterwards and investing in an awesome Stonehenge plastic cup that's like those ones everyone had when they were little of different Disney movies, where there's a layer of watery glitter and charm things floating around when you shake it. I had one of the 101 Dalmatians when I was a kid. Pretty sweet. This one has a cartoon rendition of Stonehenge with floating moons and stars.


Taking a Bath
After Stonehenge, we made our way to the small town of Bath. It was such an architecturally beautiful little town. We had time on our own to explore and get lunch before meeting the group for a tour of the ancient Roman Baths, a natural hot spring where Romans came to socialize way back when. We got to look like uber tourists and listen to an audio tour on one of those huge black cell phone looking things. Observe:



Later in the afternoon, we sat down for tea at Sally Lunn's tea house. Apparently she's famous for her buns, which also makes for an entertaining rhyming scheme: Sally Lunn's buns. Very fun to say over and over. They were actually pretty good. Almost like huge hamburger buns, but flakier, and topped with butter and cinnamon sugar. We also had a bowl of clotted cream (kind of like whipped butter but it doesn't have as much taste) to spread on them as well. I ended up having three (including my own) because some girls didn't want theirs. Then I felt sick. Here is one:



A group of us then took a beautiful walk around the town and by the water. It was so nice and relaxing. Take a look:



For dinner we stopped at the most adorable cottage on the way back to London called The Pear Tree. It had all wooden tables and dim lighting and a fire going. It kind of reminded me of Camp 18 on the way to the beach at home, but smaller and quainter, better food, and no animal heads. It was very cozy and enjoyable. And when we left you could look up and see all the stars, because we were in the middle of no where, and it was just a moment of great contentness because it had been such a good day and everyone was in a good mood and we were having so much fun.

Walking across Abbey Road is easier if you're the Beatles
I'll skip over most of Thursday to the part where Holly, Hillary, and I went on a quest to find Abbey Road. More specifically, the crosswalk the Beatles walked across for their album cover. We found it, and attempted to take an imitation shot. But this proved more difficult than expected. There was a lot of traffic, and to really get a good picture, we would have had to ask a stranger stand in the middle of the street, dodging fast cars and buses and bikes, while we slowly walk across in attempt to look something like that iconic image. There were other tourists there too, and it was pretty comical to watch everyone try to take pictures of themselves walking across. I'm sure people who live in that neighborhood are so over the amount of visitors they get to this random little crosswalk. Here are our valiant attempts:





Notice that Holly actually took her shoes off in the second picture in an effort to make it look more authentic. Props to Holly.


Miley Cyrus wrote the national anthem
That night we got to see Billy Elliot (so great!) and then somehow managed to get a good amount of our group to all go out together, including our teacher Jonas. We ended up at the most quintessential Eurotrash club called The Zoo. We hung in a back room that had it's own bar and everyone was dancing and having a blast. Since coming to Europe, every time we're out and Party in the USA (the Miley Cyrus hit) comes on, it's a cue to every American girl to start screaming and freaking out from excitement. It's like the new age national anthem or something. Somehow we all become really proud to be an American when that song comes on. Well it came on that night at the Zoo, and EVERYONE (guys and girls), all 20 of us or whatever, promptly sung every word at the top of our lungs and had our hands in the air. It was probably the greatest three minutes of my whole week.

Perspective
Friday we visited The Telegraph, which had such an impressive newsroom that made me fall in love with wanting to be a journalist all over again. Here it is:



We returned to Copenhagen that night. All in all, it was an amazing trip. All the exploring I did made me want to do more exploring in the other cities that are a part of my life (Portland, DC, Copenhagen). And I think the trip was the first time it really hit me how much of a valuable experience it is to travel abroad. And not even travel abroad, but just leave home, leave what you're comfortable with. It's only by leaving that we can fully appreciate what we've left behind. I've definitely found that to be true since being here. Leaving Portland for DC has made me love Portland that much more, and leaving DC for Copenhagen makes me miss the fast-paced District more than I ever thought I would. Even leaving CPH for London for the week made me appreciate Copenhagen's unique qualities, the same way returning to CPH from London made me look forward to the next time I'll get to spend time in England.

I've been back in Copenhagen for a week now and things are just coming along. I feel like we're at the point where things aren't as novel anymore, and we're just living our lives, but living them in a different city. It seems odd to have such a normal routine in a foreign city, and sometimes I can't decide if I'm ok with it. But it's actually kind of nice. Although I'm still on the lookout for fun things to do and new things to try! Obviously. Ok I'm off to bed. Hej hej

Winning London, part 1

I'm going to have to do this post in two installments because otherwise it'll be way too long. I'm also going to try and divide it into sections with themed headers...

My week in London last week was amazing. I honestly didn't want to come back. There were several reasons for this, but the familiarity of England to home and the amount of sun I experienced definitely had something to do with it.

America is paranoid and I need to learn how to travel light
We left Feb. 28, so I guess two Sundays ago at this point, and arrived in London after an extremely easy two hour flight. In fact, my whole morning at the Copenhagen airport was probably the most relaxing time at an airport I've ever had. Going to school so far from home, my last three years of flying have been characterized by waking up at 4 a.m., having too much luggage for one person to grogily manage by herself, carry-ons that weigh almost as much as my actual suitcases, and sweating profusely from running around with so much stuff. It's no wonder I hate flying. But this trip was different. We got to the airport about two hours early, breezed through check-in, dropped off my one bag (that wasn't bursting at the seams!), and strolled through security with my one purse. It actually felt weird to not have more things, like I had forgotten something. At security, we didn't even have to take our shoes off or walk through the sensors holding our boarding pass (boarding pass and passport went through the belt). My friend Charlotte and I got a big breakfast at a sports bar and relaxed for an hour. I also saw a Starbucks, which is the first one I've seen since coming to Denmark. We completely forgot that we had to go through customs and started walking to our gate about 15 minutes before boarding. Luckily, that was easy as pie too, and we showed up with plenty of time. Anyways, lesson learned? Americans are insanely paranoid when it comes to flying. We all just need to take a breather and realize that no one is hiding a bomb in the sole of their shoe.

Disappointment followed by euphoria
My first hour or so in London was slightly tainted by the fact that it took me about two seconds to lose my Danish SIM card on our tour bus when I was switching it out with my European SIM card (probably shouldn't have been doing that on a moving bus. But sometimes I'm overeager and do things at impractical times). It dropped on my seat and when I went to reach for it, POOF, into a black hole. I seriously looked everywhere and couldn't find it. Mystery forever. Once I got over that though, the week was great. Monday was perhaps my favorite because I got to spend a lot of time on my own exploring the city. It was so empowering and rejuvenating to navigate a new city by myself. I absolutely loved it. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was just another person in the hustle and bustle of everything. I hate traveling in a huge group of Americans in a foreign place because it attracts so much negative attention. I'd much rather do it all on my own. And London was so much busier and livelier than Copenhagen. People walked with purpose, they spoke to each other on the Tube...as opposed to the Danes who maintain strict silence in places like public transportation and seem to constantly be on a leisurely stroll. While it's nice to be part of a culture that lives life at such a different pace, London is much more of a "me" city. So anyways, I did some shopping at TopShop on Oxford Street and later in the afternoon, wandered to Harrods by myself. Harrods has the most overwhelming shoe display I've ever seen. I was in shoe heaven. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I bought a pair of black leather ankle boots instead to secure my memory of the room. I did take a picture of the Veuve Clicquot champagne bar though, a champagne that seems to have become a staple at family gatherings at home and that I have learned to love. Here it is:



After Harrods, I got on the Tube to meet the rest of my group for dinner. Riding the train, listening to my iPod, and writing in my travel journal, by myself in London, I was actually in a state of bliss. I loved the independence. Dinner was at this awesome, hip place called 1001 that had a barbecue and outdoor picnic benches, as well as an indoor lounge type area full of hipsters with Mac laptops. Plus a DJ playing tunes by Bob Marley and the like. It had a great atmosphere. Cafe 1001 is also the host of London's only weekly short film screening, called Short & Sweet. The films we watched were weird to say the least.

Seeing the sun is the key to happiness
Every day in London was beautiful and sunny. I was ecstatic. You could literally feel the energy of our group rise becuase everyone was so pumped to not be surrounded by fog, snow, and dreariness ALL THE TIME. On Tuesday afternoon, after a visit to a local PR agency called We Are Social, my friend Holly and I had the most wonderful afternoon walking around London. We visited the Tower of London (just the outside, we didn't go in) and then got a vanilla ice cream in a chocolate dipped cone and ate it by the water as we people watched and looked at the Tower Bridge. Here's a picture:



Afterwards, we made our way to Big Ben and Parliament and had a great walk by the water. Here's me in the sun and the wonder that is Parliament!



All the exploring I did in London made me want to do more exploring in the rest of my life, not just in Copenhagen, but even at home in Portland and at school in D.C. Of course, the sun helped in terms of actually wanting to spend time outside, but still. It was so exciting to discover a new place for the week and it made me want to be more conscious of exploring the other cities that are a part of my life. Ok I think this is the end of part 1. I'm off to bed. Another post will be up soon!

My Life in Pictures

Ok I'm finally getting around to posting pictures that will give you an idea of a week in the life of Hadley in Copenhagen. Enjoy!



This is the street I live on, Agertoften. It's only five minutes from the S-tog (the train system) stop that I walk to every day. My stop is called Kildebakke.



This is my house at Agertoften 32 in Gentofte.



Here is my school, the Danish Institute for Study Abroad. Not too exciting. The green doors on the left are technically the main entrance, but everyone goes through the basement door on the right. Our classrooms are across the street in two different buildings. Just two minutes away is the walking street Strøget, which I frequent on a daily basis. It's the main part of downtown where all the shops, cafes, department stores are. H&M is as ubiquitous here as Starbucks is in the States. I swear there's an H&M every block. And it's not just the regular store. There's H&M women's, H&M kids...there's also an Urban Outfitters, TopShop (which I can't wait to go to in London), the department stores Illum and Magasin, Georg Jensen, and tons and tons of clothing stores, shoe stores, fur stores, cafes, etc. Here's a picture of the Georg Jensen store (a Danish designer I had never even heard of until the night before I left).







These pictures are from The Living Room, a super cozy cafe right by DIS that I go to at least three times a week. Upstairs by where you order there is counter space and high stools to sit on, while downstairs has wonderfully comfy chairs and couches, lit only by candlelight, and depending on the time of a day, a fire burning in the corner fireplace. In the very back of downstairs is a tea room with silk, Asian-inspired cushions to sit on. The hot chocolate with fresh whipped cream is amazing, but so are the cappucinos, chocolate cake, brownies, mocha milkshakes, and chicken wraps. You can't go wrong here. It's perfect for hanging out when I have long breaks in between classes and is a typical Friday afternoon meeting place for my friends and me.



This is my gym that I try to go to at least three times a week. I have to bike for about ten minutes to get there and back, which isn't so bad. Although it's hard to be motivated to do it when it's snowing or very windy. Here are the bike traffic lights I see on my way:



Hopefully you can kind of make out the little bike icon at the top of the light. They're pretty cool!



Just for fun...Fastelavnbolles still being sold at a bakery off of Strøget. SO GOOD!

Why I Will Never Be a Photojournalist

First of all, sorry for the delayed post. I had an exhausting weekend with a combined 10 hours of sleep from Friday and Saturday that culminated in waking up sick and unable to breathe on Sunday. Then I (surprisingly) actually had work to do for class this week, so time got away from me. Luckily tomorrow is Wednesday (= no class), so I have a mellower night.

Last week was a mashup of experiences that I tried to write down along the way in order to broadcast them here, but I'm not sure if I'll remember them all. Most amusing to me, I learned why I will never become a photojournalist when Anders Clausen, my teacher, articulated that "one of the greatest skills of a photojournalist is patience." Ha, I said to myself as I instantly quoted him in my journal. Seeing as how I am one of the most impatient people in the world, this amused me. At least my subject matter for my three-picture story/photo essay is pretty cool: a half-Iranian guy who grew up in Jutland (the mainland part of Denmark; Copenhagen is on Sealand, the largest island of Denmark) but now lives in Malmo, Sweden with his wife and one-and-a-half-year-old son and another on the way. He used to be a professional cyclist but now works in this bike shop called Pedal Ateletan, where I take pictures of him. He speaks basically perfect English, and obviously Danish, plus some Persian and German and French (I think), and is pretty knowledgable about a lot of things so it makes for good conversation. He and the other person who work there full time, plus their apprentice (they have a boss but he got in this bad bike accident a couple years back and now isn't totally mentally stable and freaks out apparently if there are too many people around, so I can't take pictures when he's there and have never actually met him) aren't really that busy or do a lot, so the atmosphere isn't the best for dynamic picture taking. But it's been fun hanging out there, plus I've gotten some free pastries and coffee out of the gig. Sounds good to me. Moral of the story: I'm good at eating and talking, not so much taking pictures.

On to other highlights of my week...I invested in fur. A white, rabit fur hat to be exact. It is fabulous and the softest thing in the world. Fur is pretty big in Copenhagen. You see fur coats, fur hats, fur scarves, gloves, hoods, etc, on a daily basis. It's not really a must have, but definitely something uniquely Denmark that I can take back to the States (though I don't know when it will ever be as cold at home as it is here, so it might become an obsolete item when I return).

I developed the bad habit of eating Nutella off of a spoon. I don't know how they make that stuff so good, but last week I started eating it all the time. I would dip cookies in it, eat it off a spoon, put it on bagels, put it on bread. I swear it goes with everything. I've since realized that eating that much chocolatey goo on a daily basis probably isn't that good for you, and have cut back. But having no self-restraint tasted great there for a while.

I ate the best oranges I think I have ever had. The second I dug my thumb into the peel, juice would squirt out at me and start running down the sides of the orange. Plus there were no seeds for some reason. It was the sweetest, tangiest, most delicious orangey taste in the world. The dried out, impossible to chew, ugly oranges at home are like mold compared to what I ate last week.

I went to an all-you-can-eat brunch on Sunday afternoon and didn't leave for three hours. While the price was pretty steep at 129 kroner (about $25), it was like paying for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes, potatoes, pasta salad, chicken, soup, homemade bread, granola, yogurt, juice, tea, coffee, veggies, and more that I can't even remember. And you could get up and go through the buffet line as many times as you wanted. The place was called Cafe Castro in the neighborhood of Norrebro. There were fake palm trees inside that I desperately wished were real. Speaking of palm trees, I found myself daydreaming during European Storytelling yesterday of screwing the whole travel around Europe on your own and have a wonderful adventure saga during my travel break and flying to Palm Springs for two weeks instead. The weather here is seriously starting to depress me and if it snows one more time and/or if I don't see the sun in the next 24 hours, I might punch someone in the face. Needless to say, I am not flying back to the States to wonderfully sunny Palm Springs during my travel break. I am having my European adventure (part 1. Part 2 comes in May).

The first week I will be traveling to Russia- Moscow and St.Petersburg- on a DIS sponsored trip. I have to take a corresponding class called Russia Past and Present that's only one credit where we learn about Russian history and language. It's only met twice so far by I'm really enjoying it. Russia is a pretty fascinating place and my teacher is incredibly enthusiastic about it. He's Danish but Russia is his passion. He speaks fluent Russian, used to live there, and has been on this DIS trip maybe 15 times. We will be there for a week and I'm definitely looking forward to it. I get to see Swan Lake in St. Petersburg too so that's a major bonus! The second week I'll be visiting Cherin! (Erin, but I like to call her Cherin because putting a Ch in front of people's names is just more fun) I fly to Geneva on April 4, stay with her a couple days, and then we'll be flying together to Budapest. I've heard really good things about Budapest so I'm pumped. Planning for the trip was slightly stressful though. I found myself opening about 20 tabs on Internet Explorer so I could compare airline prices across multiple sites. Plus not all the websites list prices in USD. So you have to try and convert in your head. Then you think you've found the lowest price and wonder if you should just buy now or wait and see if it gets lower. You decide to buy now, but have to tack on $10 for baggage check, which makes it more expensive than the price listed on the other website that wasn't making you pay for baggage check. But then that website stops working. So you go back to the original. Ahh, exhausting. You get the point. All in all, flying from Copenhagen to Geneva, Geneva to Budapest, and Budapest back to Copenhagen, plus a hostel in Budapest for four nights, is going to cost me about $430. I'm staying with Erin at her homestay, so I'm saving money on lodging there. Not too bad.

Perhaps the biggest event of this past weekend was the wedding I attended. Talk about a cultural experience. It was pretty much family time 24/7 last week and into the weekend. Several people were here from out of town and all the wedding planning was done by extended family in about a two or three-week span. So it was pretty hectic. Plus we kept having tea and pastries in the afternoons because the family was always around. Not good for my eating habits. The story: Michael is my hostparents' nephew. He's equally both their nephews. My hostdad is one of nine kids (I think it's nine. Eight or nine), my hostmom is one of four. One of my hostdad's older brothers and my hostmom's oldest sister are married. Michael is their son. Hence, he is both Aksel's nephew and Helle's nephew. So, Helle and Aksel have some family friends who had a Phillipine girl come live with them as an au pair about a year-and-a-half ago. Her name is Gemma. Super sweet...she and Michael are over a lot so I have spent a decent amount of time with both of them since I've been here. But anyways, Gemma started cleaning Helle and Aksel's house once a week a while back, maybe right after she got here. Since Michael is around a lot, they eventually met, started talking, the rest is history (you know how these things work). So it was their wedding I attended on Saturday. And if they hadn't gotten married before March 1, Gemma was going to have to go back to the Phillipines. So anyways, it was a huge family effort/affair that I got to be a part of, which was pretty cool. Michael's dad is a baker so he made the cake from scratch (it was amazing), Gemma made homemade spring rolls (also amazing), Nils (father of the family Gemma was staying with) made homemade rolls (everyone knows how much I love bread, so obviously, those were amazing as well), you get the idea. They got married at City Hall downtown, which is a great old building that I loved, and had some sort of art exhibit on the first floor, which was great. After the ceremony, we headed to the reception area to set up. Note: this means I arrived at the reception at 11:30 a.m., after having gone to bed at 2 a.m., waking up at 7:30 to meet Dean (Iranian cyclist man) for breakfast/photographing him eating breakfast by 9, and walking to City Hall by about 10:15.

Ok so onward...people started arriving around noon to the reception. I obviously didn't know anyone and don't speak Danish. But some of Gemma's cousins and a sister who lives in Norway came for the wedding, so I wasn't the only one who didn't speak Danish or didn't know anybody. What proceeded was nine hours of food, food, and more food. We ate lunch, convened in a different room for coffee and cake, then reconvened later for dinner. I should add that drinking was heavily involved, although I refrained (at least until five). Still not used to alcohol with meals. The whole day though was a great cultural merging that was pretty incredible to observe as an outsider. I'm sure Mr. Sweeney, my high school anthropology teacher, would have loved looking at it through his "anthropological lens." Just picture it: Gemma speaks limited English and has been in Denmark less than two years. Michael is Danish, speaks great English, but still, it's obviously not his or his family's first language. Gemma has barely any family around, and is getting married in a foreign country without her parents or her two kids who are still in the Phillipines. When Michael made toasts, he would say them in Danish first and then translate to English so everyone could understand. And when his mom and a few others made their speeches, they were in a heartfelt broken English but moving nonetheless. Imagine trying to write a wedding speech, with all it's emotion and sentiment, in a language that isn't native to you. Later during the reception, Gemma realized she missed a call from her mom (from the Phillipines), which led to tears and sadness, but consolation from her new husband. I guess love conqers all. Needless to say, the whole thing was extremely fascinating to watch. And I haven't even mentioned the Danish wedding traditions.

First of all, if everyone starts banging on their plates with their fork and knife, the bride and groom have to kiss. If they start stomping their feet, the bride and groom have to kiss under the table. If they start pounding the table (or some other sort of clinking, clonking, making noise, I can't totally remember), the bride and groom have to get on top of chairs and kiss. If the bride leaves the room at any point, all the women in the room get up and kiss the groom, and if the groom leaves the room, all the men get up and kiss the bride (on the lips). I think Gemma was a little surprised when this happened to her. Also, the bride and groom dance the wedding waltz and everyone surrounds them, clapping to the beat. As they keep dancing, we keep moving closer and closer towards them until they can't move anymore. Then a bunch of the guys pick up the groom, take his shoes off, and cut off the tops of his socks. Uhhhhhhhhh, what??? This was definitely the most bizarre and when I inquired, I received no logical explanation as to why this happens.

So at 9 p.m. I was still at the reception, helping clean and bring things to the car. I had probably had a few too many hard ciders (their striking similarity to Hansen's soda made them a little too easy to down) to be doing heavy lifting in heels down flights of stairs at this point, but I'm still alive. After the car was loaded up, I ended up going out with two of the kids from the family Gemma had been staying with. They are fairly close to my age, a brother and sister, and I pretty much hung out with them mostly at the wedding. We had a lot of fun, but by 2 a.m., exhaustion + too much alcohol had gotten the best of me, and I just had to go home. My night owl habits of the past month finally caught up to me when I woke up Sunday with a stuffed up nose.

I've since been trying to take it easy, because next week is my long study tour to London! And I definitely don't want to be sick for that. I'm still trying to put together a sort of slide show of my week so you can see all the places I see on a regular basis. Hopefully it will be up before I leave for London. I think my friends and I are coming to our first culminating bout of culture shock and are ready to go somewhere else for a bit. One of my friends had her iPhone and other items stolen on Friday, I had my scarf stolen Saturday, another friend got yelled at in Danish and then (softly) punched in the stomach on her way to catch the train on Sunday (WTF, people are so weird), we're all getting sick...we're ready for a refresher. A week in a new place. I will refrain from writing more because I'm sure this post is getting a little daunting.

Hej hej

One Long Week

Wow, I feel like this past week lasted forever. I think I was really thrown off when I went out on Tuesday (we don't have class on Wednesdays)and didn't get home until 6:30 the next morning. That definitely disoriented my week. I'm going to make this post a series of observations I've made and experiences I've had because I don't have a coherent theme in mind.

- I finally got myself to the gym for the first time and it felt so good to just sweat. The gym is called Fitness World and it's a chain around Copenhagen. The one near my house is about a mile away so I ride my hostmom's bike there and back. I know Portland has been compared to Copenhagen a lot because if its similar bike culture, environmentally conscious attitudes, etc, but I don't think we could ever achieve the same bike-friendly atmosphere as Copenhagen because Portland is just too hilly. Copenhagen is extremely flat for the most part, and it has bike lanes and even bike traffic signals all over the city. I didn't realize until I started riding the bike to the gym that they even have bike traffic lights- how cool is that? Another thing is, at the gym, none of the girls really wear athletic shorts or even athletic clothes in general. Every woman I've seen on a treadmill or eliptical is wearing long spandex (I'd be so hot!) and they also don't exactly have running shoes or workout shoes, just regular tennis shoes. And while I'm talking about athletics, in Denmark, if you want to participate in a sport, you have to join a club team. There are no sports teams associated with schools or any high school sports teams. My recent experiences at the gym combined with this team sports fact made me realize how integral team sports are to the American high school experience. High school sports teams are a huge rallying point for school spirit, determine social hierarchy, get people into college, and have an entire community rooting for them. I just never really thought about how unique it is that we have that experience.

- I visited the oldest patisserie in Copenhagen this week called La Glace. It is right by my school and has all these adorable old women in green aprons working there, making homemade pastries and cakes. A cup of coffee is the equivalent of 10 dollars. I got what looked like a chocolate frosting ball filled with a thick cream. Oh my god it was so flaky and delicious. I devoured even more pastries this weekend because today was the holiday Fastelavn (I'm not even going to try to tell you how to pronounce that- it's almost like "festalaun") that is kind of like Halloween in that kids dress up. But the day is centered around the activity of beating a barrel full of candy (though historically the barrel had a black cat in it and the goal was to beat the barrell until the cat fell out or died or something and whoever does that is King of Fastelavn. so weird) until the barrel breaks and all the candy falls out. The Fastelavnsbolle are the traditional pastry made only during Fastelavn and are usually covered in frosting and have a whipped cream inside. Amazing.

- I started my photojournalism semester-long assignment this week. We had to find someone we don't know to take pictures of for the whole semester and create what is called a three-picture story or photo essay. On Monday, after wandering around for almost two hours in the freezing cold, I finally got a guy who works at a bike shop to say yes to being photographed. I returned on Thursday to take pictures and it was great. He actually wasn't doing anything that exciting, so the pictures aren't amazing, but he's a really cool guy who was easy to talk to and I'm excited for the opportunity to get to know a Danish person pretty well. He's actually half Iranian and lives in Sweden with his girlfriend of ten years and their one and a half-year-old son. And he reads more online American news media than a lot of Americans I know. He's really well informed and speaks, in addition to Danish, English, German, some French and some Persian. So impressive. He used to race bikes professionally and now just works at this shop.

- I literally can't do homework here. I had to write a three page paper, double spaced, this weekend, and it took me two whole days. That's ridiculous. Because I'm never busy and don't have anything to do most of the time, it's really hard to be focused when I need to be. My life at home is so much busier than it is here. On one hand, it's nice to have the break while on the other, I don't know what to do with myself. It's definitely an American thing to be busy and stressed all the time, but I have to say, I think my hummingbird personality runs better on that. Though I'm not complaining about a life full of tea, pastries, and taking naps!

Being abroad is such a disorienting experience. In an act of drunken homesickness at 4:30 this morning, I wrote to my friends about how much I missed them and wished they were here to help me feel more grounded. I think my friend Maddie put it pretty well when she responded by saying that the one reason studying abroad helps you define yourself is because you are forced to look internally to be the person you want without any external familiarity. That just totally clicked with me. You are surrounded by a bunch of people you barely know in a city that's completely foreign, and it's easy to sort of lose a sense of yourself. It makes you really aware of the way you're behaving towards others and check yourself in terms of the way you're spending your time and who you're spending it with.

Ok, I'm off to bed before I get too deep and insightful. Haha. Thanks for reading! Oh and here's a link to the website for La Glace. Look at all the cakes!

Warning: Attractive People Everywhere

The rumors are true. Everyone in Denmark looks good all the time. I mean all the time. Every time I step outside, my eyes can barely scan fast enought to catch all the wonderful fashion choices these Danes make, not to mention their flawless skin and almost unreal blonde hair. Granted, it would be an overstatement to say that every Dane is like this, but they sure as hell look better than any American I see on the street on a daily basis. Especially the men. Danish men have great style. They pull off tight jeans, sweaters, pea coats, and scarves while totally maintaining their masculinity and making them that much more attractive. I swear something's in the water here. They all look so great all the time. I'll have to take some stealth pictures one day and post them here for you all to gaze in awe at.

Last week went by pretty fast and was fairly busy- as evidenced by my failing to do my usual Sunday blog post. I only had two days of class because we don't have class on Wednesdays, and Thursday morning, we all left with our core courses for our short study tours to Western Denmark. My core course is Communication and Mass Media, and we traveled to Ebeltoft and Kolding for the weekend. It was my first time staying in hostels, and they really weren't bad. I actually think we spent more time on the bus over the three days than anywhere else, but at least that allowed for a lot of napping. Thursday we stopped to see the historic Jelling Stones (pronounced Yelling) which were really anticlimactic and the second of the two was contained inside a big white box because apparently it's crumbling from within, so we couldn't even look at it, which I thought was pretty funny. Thursday night we got to spend at the European Film College and meet Danish and international students who go there. Their campus looked like a really depressing prison in the middle of no where. But it was interesting to get to see an international college experience. Plus there is a huge theater on campus that shows movies every night, and we just happened to be there the night they showed Twilight: New Moon, so that made my weekend. Haha. Friday we traveled to Odense to visit the headquarters of TV2, one of two broadcasting companies in Denmark. My friend Charlotte and I were pretty confused the whole time because the guy presenting to us was trying to explain how TV2 is funded through advertising but is also a public service network. Maybe something was lost in translation, but after two hours of lecturing, we still weren't quite sure why they were a public service channel that's privately funded.

Later, we drove to Kolding (pronounced Kolling) and had the night on our own. We went out to one of the bars down the street from our hostel and had a great time. I won't elaborate too much to avoid self-incrimination, but I wasn't feeling too hot the next day and I almost lost my leather jacket. Luckily, I went back to the bar and my jacket was hanging on a hook on the front wall. I was pumped to say the least, except now it's permanently infused with the smell of cigarettes from spending the night in the bar. We went to the Trapholt museum on Saturday morning and the castle KoldingHus- I wish I could remember enough about their significance to repeat it here, but unfortunately, I don't. I wasn't being a very good cultural observer on Saturday. We got back to Copenhagen that evening around 5 and I told myself I wasn't going to go out, but of course, I ended up at The Happy Pig.

I've never been the kind of person who likes/wants to go out all the time...but it's so accessible and part of culture here for people my age that I find myself out every weekend, Friday and Saturday. I even almost went out last night too because of the superbowl. A couple bars near our school downtown were showing it, starting at midnight. I don't even care about the superbowl! I never watch it even at home. Long story short, I didn't end up going, but still. I think I'm going to have to cut back eventually, for the sake of my wallet and my liver. But for now, it's always pretty fun to go out, and a great way to meet people and check out different neighborhoods.

I think that's all for now. Classes are super easy and I find myself with nothing to do all the time. It's kind of nice. Now I'm just waiting for all the damn snow to melt. Even though I've significantly improved my cold weather wardrobe, it's exhausting to be this cold all the time. It hasn't been above 0 degrees celsius (so 32 degrees farenheit) since I've been here, and it's usually lower. Today it was -5. So lame. Everything just looks grey and depressing. On days when the sun comes out, I get so excited because the city just looks so much prettier. Maybe I'm suffering from seasonal whatever disorder. What's that called? Hmmm can't remember. Ok I'm signing off!

Hej hej