"A little bit of snow and...BOOM!"

Hello everyone! So I swore I was going to be better about updating this, but I'm still playing catch-up a little bit on my reading, so it didn't happen this week. However, after my study tour I should be good to go. But I have to update about the past few days! So here goes...
Saturday: We went to Helsingor both to explore the town and to see Kronborg Castle, which inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet (Helsingor obviously being Anglified to Elsinore). They aren't totally sure if he ever actually visited or not, but our guide said that he definitely either visited himself or someone who did visit described it to him. But I'm getting ahead of myself in all my love for Hamlet. The bus dropped us off in town and we had about two hours before the tours were going to start so we could explore and eat lunch, etc. We headed straight for a bakery that someone recommended; supposedly it is the oldest bakery in Denmark. I am not sure of the validity of that statement, but it was DELICIOUS. There I ordered in Danish for the first time: weinerbrod. I was in a little bit of trouble when she asked me what kind I wanted. I actually reallllllly wanted the cream filled one, but since I only knew how to say raspberry (hindbaer), that is what I asked for. And she didn't even laugh at me!! Though she did correct my pronounication of hindbaer, but I was just totally excited that I finally worked up the guts to order in Danish. After the cafe/bakery we wandered up and down the streets looking into shops. It was unbelievably cold, easily the coldest day since I've been here, and the wind was killer. We had to walk to the castle, which is sort of on a peninsula (the original fortress before Kronborg was nicknamed "The Hook" for this reason). We weren't sure we were even going the right direction, and it was easily at least a mile there, so we were totally frozen by the time we got there. However, it was totally worth it to see a REAL castle. My favorite part was probably the chapel, which is the only part that has all the original carved ceilings and such. It seems pretty much everything in Denmark has suffered through a fire at some point. Anyway, I learned a lot of cool information which I promptly forgot; Denmark is the longest running monarchy in the world, and thus it is a little difficult to keep the monarchs all straight, especially when the kings are all either named Christian or Frederik. Literally. They alternate those names with every first born son so there will always be a king with one of those names. Two things I do remember: one of their kings married a 14 year old girl when he was 31ish. Ew. And they had this banister that ran down a stairway next to the Knight's Hall (where they had balls) which was designed to be peed in. For real. The nobles just aimed at it and it ran down and was collected in buckets by servants. Eww eww. Oh! And the king that lived there was a smart bastard. After the herring started running low he decided to tax a certain percentage of every ships' cargo that was passing through that very narrow straight (at the time Sweden was owned by Denmark and there was a fortress on the opposite side). If he thought that the cargo was worth more than the captain claimed, the captain had to sell the cargo to the king for that price. I'm sure he got many valuable things this way, but one of them is this huuuge, really valuable tapestry.
Sunday-Tuesday: Not too much excited happened. Just classes, prep for our short study tours. Also I was appointed as class rep in both my cancer class and Nordic Mythology (along with Katie Dempster in NM...way to represent, Gburg!). AKA I'm an overacheiver. Tuesday we were supposed to get this huge snowstorm and EVERYONE was freaking out. My Danish teacher thought that we should have afternoon classes cancelled and she told us to get out of the city ASAP or we would be stuck here. She said that busses/trains were already being cancelled. The commute was a little crazy in that I was like a sardine on the train and it was only 3:30 in the afternoon, which is unheard of, and I had to wait two stops before I could sit down, which also has never happened. I overheard one Dane so eloquently put it, "It's crazy, a little bit of snow and...and...BOOM!" It's so true. The Danes don't know what to do with the snow at all.
Today: Today is Julie's birthday! This morning we woke her up by coming into her room carrying Danish flags and singing the Danish birthday song. Well...Peter, Susan, and Mathias sang and I pathetically waved a flag since I didn't even have a hope of learning the song. WikiAnswers claim that the lyrics are as follows:

I dag er det "Name of person celebrated"'s fødselssdag
Hurra, hurra, hurra!
Han sikkert sig en gave får
som han har ønsket sig i år
med dejlig chokolade og kager til.

Hvor smiler han, hvor er han glad
hurra, hurra, hurra!
men denne dag er også rar
for hjemme venter "Mom and Dad, whoever birthdayboy lives with"
med dejlig chokolade og kager til.

Og når han hjem fra "school, place of work" går
hurra, hurra, hurra!
så skal han hjem og holde fest
og hvem, der kommer med som gæst
får dejlig chokolade og kager til.

Til slut vi råber højt i kor:
Hurra, hurra, hurra!
Gid "Name of person celebrated" længe leve må
og sine ønsker opfyldt få
med dejlig chokolade og kager til.

Yeah. That wasn't happening for me.

Breakfast was a sit down affair with lots of bread, HUGE cinnamon rolls, crepes and melon. It was delicious and I was so full afterwards that I felt a little sick. Anyway, on your birthday the Danish flag follows you everywhere, so the whole house looked like Denmark pride threw up in there, but I really liked it. I kinda wish we did the same thing. Julie opened her gifts during breakfast, and afterwards they all got ready to go to work/school. Since I had nowhere to go I cleaned up and took a nap. Then I did homework all day. Bleh. But I am finally almost caught up! YAY! Afterwards, Susan's dad and stepmom and Julie's best friend (also named Julie)came for dinner. We ate at a local restaurant, and it was pretty fancy. I got some salmon dish for an appetizer and a steak like thing for dinner, per Peter's warning not to get more salmon. I was really craving fish, but I was glad I listened. The salmon is evidently raised in some sort of hatchery, and even if they didn't tell me that I could have guessed it because it tasted like fake seawater. I guess maybe I'm a little bit of a seafood snob coming from New England, but I expected Danish seafood to be on par...I mean, we ARE on an island here. I guess I should try it again later. But the steak. OH. MY. GOD. So delicious. I can't even begin to describe. I'm pretty sure this will be my only fancy meal of the whole semester, but this was a good only one. It was heavenly.
Tomorrow I am leaving for my short study tour, and I will be gone until Saturday. First we are going to Odense, then we are going to Aarhus. I will report back on details later, but it is definitely time for bed! Oh! And from now on pictures will be separate posts because I have yet to successfully post text and pictures in the same post. Anyway, goodnight!