Cultural Immersion!

So much has happened the past few days, I barely know where to start! Classes have now gotten into the full swing, and they're actually all really interesting. I'm taking a class on child development, particularly children with special needs, &then every Thursday I spend in an after school with kids with special needs. Thursday's my first day there, so that should be really exciting. Other than that, I'm already swamped with work for my classes. It's way intense, especially since I'm taking 5 and a half classes.

My Danish class is not only the Danish language, but also Danish culture so we go on "field trips" to experience the Danish culture. To fully experience the culture, we went to a soccer game Sunday evening. FC København (FCK) played Brøndby IF (BIF) at Parken Stadion, which is FCK's home stadium located in Indre Østerbro (Inner Østerbro), part of Copenhagen. Going to a European football match was like a dream come true. All the fans are so intense, &not only do they all show up wearing their team paraphernalia, but they all know all the songs &cheers, and bring huge flags of their team. FCK vs. BIF is the biggest rivalry throughout Denmark, and BIF is known as a very rowdy team. Their fans are the definition of soccer hooligans, but what an experience! Each team had their own fan section, where the fans were super intense. The Brøndby fans even brought flares which made it look like a huge section of them were on fire. I've never seen anything so intense. The game ended with a 1-1 tie, unfortunately, but the last 5 minutes were drama filled! First, a Brøndby player collided with FCK's goalkeeper, which we would find out the next day actually broke his elbow, so FCK is out a goalkeeper for quite a while. So the goalie was down on the floor, &the medics came out. There were 3 of them, but I could've sworn that the last one was drunk. He stumbled to the goalkeeper &was way slower than the other two. When they finally got the goalkeeper onto the stretcher, the one that was stumbling ended up tripping &then dropping his corner of the stretcher so that the goalkeeper fell on his head! How absurd is that?! Naturally, the Brøndby players were laughing hysterically. Then, as we were getting on the bus ride home, we saw a riot break out between FCK fans &Brøndby fans. Even though there were extra policemen there, thank goodness we were already on the bus. This was also my first adventure on public transportation in Copenhagen which surprisingly wasn't that bad. It is MUCH cleaner than in New York &unlike New York's schedule, every train or bus runs promptly on schedule. So if you're one minute late to the bus, forget about it. Promptness is a very big thing in Denmark, you should never be late for anything. [Here my dad would say that one should always be early, because early is on time &on time is late. Luckily, that's something I've stuck to because I hate being late.] Just so ou guys can see what the danish language looks like, here's the fan song for FCK, titled "Vi Elsker FC," though I'm leaving out the translation because it'd be much longer &can be quite dirty:

Det er kampdag klokken den er kvart i bold
Jeg tager FC - trøjen på
Og selv om tøsen tigger om et søndagsknold, så siger jeg nej nu må jeg gå
Nu er der kun en ting der tœller, det må enhver da kunne forstå
Her eksisterer kun FC
Her regerer kun FC
Nu handler det om FCK

Op og stå - vi elsker FC
Op og stå - vi elsker FC
Op og stå - vi elsker FC
Vi er for rå
For vi er FCK

Nu er der kun en ting der tœller, det må enhver da kunne forstå
Her eksisterer kun FC
Her regerer kun FC
Nu handler det om FCK

On Saturday, we went to the little town of Elsinore and Kronsborg Castle, which is the castle that Shakespeare's Hamlet is based off of. The Castle is really old &beautiful, and looks over Sweden, which is just 5 km away, over the sound. In the courtyard there was a stage set up, because there was a production of Hamlet going on. Jude Law was playing Hamlet, and was in the castle at the same time we were! Even though we didn't get to see him, it was still really cool to know that we were close by!

Friday evening we went on a canal tour, which was absolutely gorgeous. It was sponsored by my program, which also meant that it was totally free. We got to see so many sites from the boat, it was great. We saw the Opera House, The Black Diamond, the statue of the The Little Mermaid, the Royal Family's plaza, the number two best restaurant in the world [yup, the world. it's located in Copenhagen] and so many other beautiful things. It was a great, fast way to see the city as well as spend time with friends on the boat, without having to walk everywhere &cross the canals multiple times.

My program brings us to other countries during a break to let us experience special needs schools to compare and observe. So in a week or so I'm going to Western Denmark, but in October, I'm heading to Stockholm, Sweden and Tallinn, Estonia. I'm super pumped to go to both, because I've never been to either of these countries, though I've heard that Tallinn is absolutely gorgeous. &how often can someone say "oh yeah, I've been to Estonia?" So that should be really cool.

Tonight I went out to dinner with my Danish class, &successfully managed to order myself a chicken sandwich &a beer! I know that sounds really simple, but Danish is such a guttural language that it is insanely hard for me to speak, and learn. Plus, nothing is pronounced like it's spelled. So to order, I had to say "Jeg vil gerne have en sandwich med kylling også en øl" which translates to "I will have a sandwich with chicken, also a beer." Though the word "kylling" which means chicken is insanely difficult, because there are 3 words that all sound extremely similar in the Danish language [they all sound exactly the same to me] which are chicken, kitten and bitch. So, needless to say, you need to by careful when pronouncing it. Tomorrow I'm going on another field trip with my Danish class, and meeting up with my visiting family, so hopefully that will give my Danish a boost!

I will be sure to update again soon, &let you all know what's going on in my life, but in the meantime here are some pictures!


a] Kronsborg Castle


b] view from Kronsborg Castle, that's Sweden on the horizon line!


c] FCK fans right after the whole stadium burst into their song, before the game started. 1992 was the year they became a club.


d] FCK fans holding up gold cups for all the championships they've won


e] the [rowdy] Brøndby fans going all out with flares. Security didn't even find this odd or alarming...


f] FCK's goalkeeper after the EMT in the front right corner dropped the stretcher