Odense Pictures

Danish farm on Western Zealand

Windmill! So green.

Island where women who got pregnant out of wedlock used to be sent

Chillin with H.C. Andersen

One of H.C. Andersen's hundreds of paper cuttings.

So Danish.

Cool restaurant

H.C. Andersen's childhood home

H.C. Andersen's childhood home

:)

REALLY old houses


No wonder Denmark is the happiest country in the world...they get to live in these houses! So jealous!

Probably the biggest half-timbered structure I have seen to date. <3>

Beautiful old pub/restaurant with some Viking architechural features.

You have noooo idea how much I want this house. Built in the 1630's. GORGEOUS.

Just look at that BEAUTIFUL detail work!

The walk/don't walk signs are images of H.C. Andersen!

Two Weeks Already?!

Hello faithful followers! I am sorry I have not posted in a very long time, but I have been crazy busy, as I'm sure you can imagine. Since it has been a long time, I'm afraid this post will be a little big long, so I am going to try to break it down a little into categories. I'll tell you a little about my observations and then I will tell you some of the stuff I have been doing.
The Danes: The way they were described, the Danes sounded cold and aloof, but this is not the impression I have gotten at all. They are incredibly patient and understanding people. If you get lost and ask for directions, they will either give you very detailed directions or (more likely) they will actually take you were you need to go themselves. In talking with other DIS students, someone said that their train broke down and they had to walk on the tracks to the next station to catch a train that was waiting there for them. The student said that the Danes treated it like it was any other day and nothing out of the ordinary was going on. This amazes me, because I know that Americans would have been fuming to have to put in this extra effort. The Danes are also very considerate. The trains are always very quiet; the Danes really believe that you are entitled to this peace and quiet, and so they don't speak, or if they do, it is very quietly. In addition, Danes seem to be very trusting people. I guess there was a special on this on 60 Minutes, but they just leave their babies outside in their strollers while they go into a store to do their shopping...no joke! I have seen it! They are very well bundled up, but it is something about the fresh air in winter...anyway, it's definitely something that Social Services would take away your kids for in the US. The Danes are also very active: they bike a lot of places and I have seen many people running, even in this weather.
Public Transportation: Recently I have perhaps been unfairly hating on public transportation. There is a lot of construction going on, so sometimes the train isn't running through stations it should be, or it is delayed, etc. Which would be fine if I could understand what the screens say...but they are in Danish, so I can't, which leads to a lot of confusion. The other day the train was evidently stuck somewhere (something about the cold weather makes them not run well, I guess) and I ended up 30 minutes late for class, even though I was actually early to the station. I guess there are not normally all these problems, but the weather was made things difficult.
The Food: Mmmmmm. The Danes eat a lot of potatoes and pork, especially with gravy. I have yet to experience pickled herring, so my fears of eating terrible, strange things have been put to rest. I have loved every meal we have eaten, though I do miss American breakfast. I will need to start running soon or eating all this bread will make me fat. In addition, I have discovered the phenomenon that is Sankt Peder's Bageri (St. Peter's Bakery). They make the most WONDERFUL things, and their cinnamon rolls are huge and yummy and only cost 12 kroner! (That is about 2.40-2.50 in USD). I am determined that one of these days I will work up the courage to order in Danish. (To order a Danish, you say, "Jeg vil garne have et stykke wienerbrod." [with the slash through the o])
My Host Family: I love them! They are so nice and helpful and understanding. They even make my lunch everyday, since they are making one for Mathias and Julie anyway. I have to say, I have now experienced the anti-clothes-ness now. I have seen my host dad in his boxers, my host mom in her underwear, and my host mom in her bra. I was proud of myself for not even reacting to this situation, but on another matter I lost it entirely...On Wednesday we ordered pizza and they cut it with SCISSORS. Like, they busted out the scissors and cut the pizza like it was paper. I couldn't help it...I think I actually laughed through the entire meal. I will say that Mathias is very quiet and shy, but I am determined to make him talk by the end of the semester. I want more than 1 word answers to my questions!
The Weather: I think I mentioned in my last post that it is unseasonably cold here. We are also getting like record breaking amounts of snow, which, coming from NH, isn't actually saying much. We got 4-6 inches Wed., and they couldn't really handle it. I don't think they have the capability and manpower to remove the snow, and the streets are still really slushy and messy. This slippery mess combined with the cobblestones (far older and more uneven than those in Boston) is a near lethal combination. I am expecting a wipe-out any day now.
The Academics: So far I like my classes, though my core course and cancer course have an excessive amount of reading. However, all my teachers seem good, and I especially love my Danish teacher. She is so much fun. The academics are a little different from Gettysburg (the science classes expect more class participation and do a little less of the "I lecture, you take notes" approach that I am used to), but nothing I can't handle. I will say that it is a little difficult going to school with people from other schools, as they definely have a different character to them. Gettysburg is pretty laid back on the outside...outright competition for the better grade/right to appear smarter is frowned upon a lot there. However, here I have to take classes with people who go to Cornell, Brown, Yale, etc., and some of them are rather pretentious, which is a difficult thing to swallow. I love the experiential learning style at DIS. We have Wednesdays off from classes so we can do field studies. This past Wednesday, we went to Odense to see the Hans Christian Andersen museum for my Hans Christian Andersen and the Danish Golden Age class. It was pretty sweet, and the town was soooooo cute, but we ended up spending more than double the time that we spent at the museum on a bus. I was going to add pictures, but this doesn't seem to want to let me, so I will have to add them in a later post. I promise I will add them once I get this figured out, especially since I have actually uploaded them to my computer. Anyway, I guess that is it for academics for now. Oh! I was elected as a class representative for my Complexity of Cancer class, which basically means if people have concerns about the class they can talk to me and I am sort of a link to the teachers. Woot for overachieving!
Well, I am off to Kronborg Castle tomorrow in Elsinore (where Hamlet takes place!) so I should get to bed. Godt weekenden!

Cold in Copenhagen

Wow, I can't believe it's already Friday! I guess I still have to talk about the rest of orientation! Wednesday morning I got to the train like a pro juuuust on time for the train. When I got there, there were people on the platform, so I stopped to catch my breath when I suddenly realized that there wasn't anyone around. The train had chosen to stop at the other end of the platform, which is at least 100 meters long. So I had to sprint to the end and thankfully they waited for me and I got to Copenhagen on time. We were supposed to be meeting in groups of six at different meeting spots throughout the city for a scavenger hunt, which included six different locations on a map besides the meeting point. My group was supposed to be meeting at the "acrobats" statue. I found the street no problem, but the only statue I saw was a man on a horse...not really what I had in mind when I thought of acrobat. Luckily another girl in my group ended up there too and we wandered back down the street and found everyone else. Turns out the acrobat statue had been removed. Anyway, our first stop was Christiansborg Slot, which was the first place the king lived, but now houses parliament, etc. We were already freezing and it was windy and snowing. They had free coffee for us, which warmed us up. A little.
Next stop was The Black Diamond, which is the Royal Library. The inside was really nice and unbelievably quiet. They had a lot of posters on display about global warming and other political/environmental topics, which we looked at for a while while we warmed up some, joined another group and planned our next move. We had seen the harbor bus going by earlier, though DIS had told us it wouldn't be running this time of year, so we asked someone just to be sure. They said it was, which meant that if we took it we would be saved about a mile of walking, since our next stop was Amalienborg Palace, which is where the Queen Margarethe II lives. So we walked out to the dock, where the schedule said the harbor bus would be there in 5 minutes. So we waited. And waited. And waited. While we waited, a girl in our group asked us riddles, which kept us out there waiting...we would have quit long before then if it wasn't for those riddles. Eventually we gave up and walked toward the Black Diamond. We were waited to cross the street when someone yelled "Here it comes! Run!" So all twelve of us sprinted, laughing down the pier and managed to catch it. We rode to Nyhavn, the most photographed street in Denmark, and from there we only had to walk a few blocks to the palace. We got there just before noon...when we were supposed to be finished with the scavenger hunt. So we won't be winning any prizes, but we DID get to see the changing of the guard, which is so much more impressive than the changing of the guard at Arlington. They march across the whole city every day with a full band! It was so cool! We decided it would be best to forget the rest of the scavenger hunt and get back to DIS, since I don't think any of us could feel our extremeties at that point. I saw one of the girls a few hours later and she still hadn't stopped shaking. It was a shame that we didn't get to finish it, because it was a really cool idea. If only we didn't walk in on the coldest January in like 20 years! The rest of the day was spent exploring and going to a program meeting for our core course. Anyway, I'm going to post about the first two days of class later, because my computer is dying, and I'll try to post pictures too. Hej hej for now!
~Kyla

"Good God, what are you drinking!?"

Hello from Copenhagen! I have so much to write about, even though I've only been here two days. I guess I'll start with arrival. First of all, the flight over was torturously long. I also got my backpack searched in both Logan and Reykjavik, and the guy in Iceland was VERY thorough, even going through my journal and jewelry case. I got into Copenhagen at noon in Danish time, and left the airport around 1. We were brought by charter bus to ITU, where we listened to a few presentations, got our money for our transportation pass, cell phone, etc. My host family came around 3-3:30, and they drove me back to their house. When my host dad (Peter) went to pick up my bag he told me he shouldn't be doing this because he had a hangover. The day before was his birthday and he had stayed up until 4 am drinking with his brother. When I got there, we pretty much talked and unpacked and ate dinner (which was delicious by the way). The past two days DIS has had a lot of orientation stuff, including Survival Danish. Hah, if I survive Danish, it will be miraculous. It is a really diffucult language to pronounce, and it sounds like German met French and had a baby, because some of the sounds are very French, but the spelling looks more like German. And nothing is pronounced as it looks. It makes it all the more difficult for me to learn because I have a cold and my ears are all plugged up, so I can't hear myself, so I can't hear the way I am pronouncing something. I have been laughed at a LOT so far.
The commute is not bad at all. It is a little more than five minutes to walk: I take the S-train into Copenhagen from the Karlslunde stop to Norreport (the o is supposed to have that funny little slash through it), which is about 25-30 minutes, then walk 5-10 minutes to DIS. I got terribly lost coming home yesterday. I got off the path home too early and wandered around for 30-40 minutes in the wrong neighborhood totally lost and confused and carrying all my books, which must weigh at least as much as my suitcase did. I have bruises on my shoulders. Luckily I saw some people out walking and they pointed me in the right direction. When I walked in my host family said they were worried and were about to call the police. Cool. Good first day.
So far I've been mistaken as Danish once. This morning when I was walking down the street a woman approached me with a flyer speaking rapid fire Danish and this is what it sounded like to me: awjrieojid;a ajfjiafjejio aeaeae aejrioaemiofafja glug ajeiliawejrfa;. I interrupted her to say "I'm sorry I don't speak Danish". She seemed surprised and asked if I lived in Denmark. I wish I had said yes just to see how she reacted. We'll see how many times this happens this semester.
At the surface, it doesn't seem like America and Denmark are that different, but when you look at it more, it's vastly different in cultural expectations. First of all, they don't have words like "excuse me" or "please" and such in their language, so they barge through crowds without saying anything (not even undskyld, the Danish word for sorry). The trains are practically silent, and anyone who speaks loudly is given a death glare. I've been told that when they toast, they just raise their glasses and say Skal (with a little degree sign over the a); they don't clink glasses. One kid in my Danish class clinked, and recieved shocked stares. Evidently they are also anti-pants. Though my host family hasn't done this yet, DIS warned us of this and Joey has already experienced it: they just go around the house in their underwear. Also, they don't have a lot of medicine we have, so when I put Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold in my water, Peter had no idea what it was and exclaimed "Good God, what are you drinking?!" Even after I explained he didn't really seem to understand, so it's totally possible he thinks I'm doing something illegal.
Survival Danish was fun, despite the difficulty. We took a field trip to a grocery store to learn a few Danish words for food, and I'm starting to learn that Danish is a very literal language. For example, beef is oxkod (the kod has a slash through the o), which means "ox meat". We learned about their 39830284923 different kinds of milk and bread. By the way, Danes looooove their bread. When I had a snack, it was bread. We had bread with dinner. And guess what breakfast was? Yup. Bread with jam or cheese or butter (or all three!) and some fruit. We also had this delicious dessert called smorflode (slash through both o's), which is kind of like chocolate covered marshmellow, but SOOO much better. We also had wienerbrod (slash through o), which is what we call a Danish. "Wienerbrod" means Vienna bread, so evidently they stole it from viennese bakers. We had it from the best baker in the city and it was like heaven in my mouth...soooo delicous.
Anyway, my computer is dying and this post is getting long, so I will sign off here. Hej hej!
~Kyla

The Adventure Begins!

Hello! As I'm sure you are all aware, I will be spending this semester in Copenhagen, Denmark with the Danish Institute for Study Abroad. I received my host family information last Friday, and I am very excited! I will be living in Greve, Denmark, which my host family says is about a 25 minute train ride from Copenhagen, and their house is a 5 minute walk from the train station. Not bad, considering some Gettysburgians have AN HOUR long commute! I am staying with the Birk Nielsens: Susan manages a travel agency and Peter has his own company and works with a company out of the Netherlands promoting and marketing their products in the Baltic and Nordic area. They have two children: Julie is 17 and in high school and Mathias is 14 and in primary school. Their school system must be different over there because Peter said that one of Julie's majors is Spanish, and that she was excited that I spoke some. Huh? Majors in high school?? I guess I'll have to brush up on my Spanish, because I am really rusty, since I haven't really spoken it in 3 years! The extent of what else I know is this: they live a few hundred yards from the beach, they have two cats (though I don't know their names) and they just got back from a two week vacation in South Africa. Peter is the one who wrote the e-mail, and his English is great! Plus he also seems really funny...we'll get along well, since I laugh at everyyything.

I went in early in the morning to Kingswood and spoke with my English teacher, Mrs. Brewitt, who has traveled all over the world, and she says that Copenhagen is her favorite place, so now I'm wicked excited! I'll be flying out of Boston Logan tomorrow at 8:35 pm with IcelandAir, then changing planes in Reykjavik, Iceland before landing in CPH at noon (their time) on Sunday. I guess I have a whole bunch of workshops the first day, then I will meet my host family and head home with them. I am excited and nervous! I had a momentary panic attack today because I tried to print out my boarding pass and it said that there was no record of me. I booked with Vayama, so I thought it didn't go through and I was panicked! Turns out the 1 that I so carefully denoted when I wrote down my confirmation code was actually an I. It all turned out fine, and I've got my boarding pass now. I picked up my kroner (Danish currency) today, so now I'm pretty much set. Except for some packing...so I guess I should go! My next post will be from the happiest country in the world! Fahvel (farewell) for now!
~Kyla