Julemåneden [Christmas Month: My last week in København]

Wow. I absolutely cannot believe that I am sitting at my completely empty desk in a completely empty room waiting to leave for the airport. My time in København went by so quickly, I want to rewind and go through it all again. Luckily, my experiences are not quite over, and I leave tonight to meet Kelsey in Salzburg, Austria and continue on for 2 weeks in Europe! I'll have to rally to get the energy to continue, and though parts of me really want to go home, especially since all of my friends are now at home [if they're not delayed in various airports because of the snow] but I know that traveling will be AMAZING.

My last week in Denmark was amazing. On Sunday, we had a birthday dinner for my friend Josh, who was on my trip to Rome. It was a nice way to see each other and say an early goodbye. It was also a nice celebration for him, since it was his 21st birthday. The next day, Monday, I had my one and only final from 3-5. After my final, I went to Bente's house for dinner. She lives about 20 minutes outside the city in a lovely suburban area. She cooked traditional Danish food for me, it was magnificent! I'm not quite sure what they were called in Danish, so I'll try and describe them in English. There were pickled cucumbers, and these hamburger type things, but without buns. Over the pseudo-hamburgers was sauteed onions, which was SO good. As a side dish, there were potatoes, with this delicious, special Danish sauce. The whole meal was absolutely fantastic and so filling. Bente even made dessert! We had Ris a la Mande, which is the rice pudding type thing, with almonds in it, &a warm cherry sauce over it. It was to die for good. Everything was absolutely delicious, so hopefully I'll be able to get the recipes. She also gave me the prettiest ornament from Georg Jensen. It's a beautiful gold heart that hangs on a red string, I love it! Hopefully I'll be able to come back to Denmark one day to visit her, or hopefully she'll come to New York!

The next day, Tuesday, I went with some of my close friends, Alex, Aubrey and Laura to the largest mall in Scandinavia. Funny how you go to a completely different continent, different culture &you still end up in a mall. It was only a 10 minute metro ride away, and we got to pass the Bella Center along the way which is where all of the Climate Conferences are happening. I've never seen so many people standing in such a long line in such freezing weather. But the mall was a great experience: I finally bought myself a pair of boots! A little late, since I couldn't send them home, but it's all good. After the mall, we decided that we would go to Christiania's Christmas market. Christiania is a part of Copenhagen that is very special...essentially, people are living there illegally. It's state owned property and people that live there don't pay house taxes or anything. However, it's more commonly known as the drug center...you can easily go there to get weed, or anything harder that you might want. Because of this, I hadn't yet been to Christiania, but every Dane I spoke to said that I must go. So after the mall, the 4 of us took the Metro to Christiania for their annual Christmas market. Walking into Christiania was a little sketchy, but then once you were in, it was like you were no longer in Denmark. It was honestly kind of like walking into a tent city on the lower east side of New York City. People were sitting around fires that were started in garbage cans to keep warm, and there were just booths around the edges of people selling things. They don't want people taking pictures, so I can't show you, but it was definitely different than any other part of Denmark I've seen thus far. The market itself was inside luckily, because at this point it had started to snow. We wandered around, but most of the things were kind of hippie-ish. I did buy a gorgeous pair of earrings though, that were handmade by the woman selling them, similar to the Made by Mara booth in the Union Square Markets. After shopping, I headed out to dinner with my group of friends from my core class. There are 7 of us, and it was so nice to just catch up and talk with friends. After dinner, we headed to karaoke, which always proves to be a fun time.

Wednesday was another jam packed day. Alex and I woke up early to catch a train to Malmö, Sweden. It's amazing that we can just take a train across the water to Sweden, don't need a passport and it didn't take more than an hour. Malmö is sort of just a much smaller version of Copenhagen, which makes sense, due to the fact that Denmark ruled Sweden for a long time, and they are close in proximity. It was lovely just walking around Malmö, and it even started snowing! Many people from Copenhagen head to Malmö to go shopping because it's not outrageously expensive to get there and the prices are exactly the same, but when compared to the US dollar, something that is 250 SEK versus 250 DKK is much cheaper. With the Swedish kroner you divide by 7, versus the Danish kroner you divide by 5. After walking around Malmö, we came back to Copenhagen to go to a "dinner bop," Christmas themed! We all went to Brittany's room, and it was a nice small gathering, with Brittany, Laura, Aubrey, Alex and myself. We tried to have everything red &green themed, and then have some latkes, but alas, that did not work out too well. The latkes ended up being a no-go, but we did have red &green peppers, as well as snap peas in our stirfry, so it was good. As a salad, we had spinach leaves, with dried cranberries &goat cheese: very green &red and very delicious! We also attempted to make the Ris a la Mande for dessert...it actually turned out pretty well! During dinner, it had begun to snow, so by the time we headed outside, Copenhagen was covered, and it stuck!! Both Brittany and Aubrey are from California, so they LOVED the snow. Ironically, we were headed to the Ice Bar, on the one night it decided to snow in Copenhagen. The Ice Bar is part of the Ice Hotel, but it is literally a bar that is all ice. All of the walls are ice, all the cups are ice, all the tables are ice, etc. You get these huge blue parkas to wear to keep you warm. We all went there, and had an amazing time, though it did get a tad chilly. After the Ice Bar, we headed to Mojo's Blues Bar to listen to some quality live music before heading home for the night in the snow.


Alex, Me, Aubrey &Laura at our Christmas dinner bop!


All 5 of us in our huge, warm blue parkas in the ice bar! As you can see, all the walls around us are completely made of ice, as are our cups.

Thursday we decided to sleep in a bit, and then Laura, Alex and I went to the Planetarium. I always forget how much I love Planetariums, Aquariums, Zoos, etc. But it was loads of fun, plus we got to see an IMAX movie, about the sea, and how global warming was affecting everything. It was cool to see how even the Planetarium related things to COP15, the environmental conference going on in Copenhagen my last 2 weeks here. After the Planetarium, Alex and I met up with our friends from our housing to go to a last final dinner at Hard Rock. It was nice to get everyone together for the last time.

Friday was really the last full day that most people had in Copenhagen, and was the day that DIS had their closing ceremony. I went to say goodbye to many of my friends, and my teachers, which was really sad. I got to say goodbye to all of my friends from my core class, which was so nice. Then, after the ceremony, Alex, Laura, Brittany and I all went out to our favorite restaurant, The Laundromat Cafe for dinner. Because Friday was most peoples last nights, my whole hall went out together Friday night. There's a night club across the street from my apartment, and it just so happened that one of our favorite singers, Medina, who is very popular in Sweden and Denmark was going to be there that night. So naturally, we all decided to go to the night club, La Hacienda, to see Medina. It was completely packed with people, both DIS students and Danes. After seeing Medina, we stayed for a bit more, but then headed back. At 5:30 AM, all 3 of my roommates left, which was sad, and also meant I was living in a huge, empty, quad by myself. But it was sad to say goodbye.


my group of friends from my core class at the DIS closing ceremony.

Yesterday, Saturday, was just spent packing and cleaning as was today. It's so surreal, that the whole semester is over. It flew by. I feel as though I just got to Copenhagen. I've never been good at goodbyes, and these were harder than usual, because it's not like you're just going to see them when you go back to school next semester. We're all spread out all over the country and you never really know when you'll see them again. Hopefully, though, we will all get to see each other again soon.

Now, I'm leaving tonight to meet Kelsey in Salzburg Austria, then Venice Italy, then Brussels, Belgium &finally London before heading home. I'm sure it'll be a great two weeks, with tons of new experiences! But for now, it's not hej hej Danmark, it's vi ses: it's not good-bye Denmark, it's see you later.

November through December...

Wow, where has all the time gone?! I don't even know. I have 2 days left in Copenhagen. It's so surreal. Unfortunately, I've had so much work that it's been hard updating my blog, so this will be a long update on everything since Rome, which is about a months worth of time.

So I had a lovely weekend after getting home from Rome to ease myself back into Copenhagen. On Monday evening, my Danish teacher invited my whole class over to her house for a "hygge" [a Danish word for cozy atmosphere] dinner. She made the traditional Christmas dinner which was duck, potatoes &a sauerkraut type thing. Surprisingly delicious, even the sauerkraut which I was not expecting. Then for dessert, she made us Ris a la Mande which is possibly my favorite Danish food ever. It's essentially a slightly vanilla-y rice pudding with chunks of almonds &then on top of that, you put heated cherry sauce. It is so savory &delicious. Something that I also noticed was that most Scandinavian countries have very white houses, with large windows to enhance the natural light, when they do get it, which isn't very often in the winter.

That Wednesday, my Developmental Psychopathology class took us to an Autistic School, which was actually amazing to see. It was fascinating to see how much our daily life activities could be altered to better benefit people with autism.

Then skip forward a week to Wednesday, Nov 25th, the day before Thanksgiving. Normally, I would expect me to get super homesick at this time because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. However, Mom &B came to visit me in Copenhagen!!!! It was absolutely magnificent. They were here for 5 days, including Thanksgiving day. Of course, I don't have an oven or anything really to actually make a Thanksgiving dinner, so we took my friend Aubrey out to dinner. We went to the Carlsberg Glyptotech museum, which was amazing. It's the museum that houses Degas' statue of the little Ballerina girl. I've always loved Degas and it's been one of my life dreams to see this statue, so I finally got to see it, &it was such a great experience. Then I took them for lunch at The Laundromat Cafe...of course, it was delicious as usual! Later that night we went to Tivoli which had just opened with all of the hygge Christmas decorations. It was so beautiful.


me &b in Tivoli!

The next day we went to see Amalienborg, which is where the Queen lives, as well as the Marble Church directly across from Amalienborg. After the Marble Church we walked to the Round Tower, which was a great experience. Built by Christian IX, the Round Tower used to be an observatory and watch tower. You can walk up to the top of the tower and look out over the city of Copenhagen. Not only does it give you a great view, but it was nice because it was something that I hadn't yet done in Copenhagen. After spending some time up top, we headed to lunch at this cute little cafe/restaurant where B had her first alcoholic drink! :] Later that afternoon, we headed to the Jewish Museum in Denmark. A tiny little museum, but stock full of history. I won't go much into the detail, since a lot of it overlaps with a previous post, but it was fascinating, especially being able to see all of the old relics. Then comes the best part of the whole day. Grandma &Grandpa paid for us to have an amazingly delicious Italian dinner (tusind tak!! translation: a thousand thanks!) It was such good food, and it was nice to be with family, especially in Copenhagen.

The next day was a lot less hectic...we slept in and started our day at the Rosenborg Castle, which houses all of the Crown Jewels. Let me tell you...makes anything less than like, 5 carats look like a single grain of sand. It's pretty much ridiculous. It was really awesome being able to see the crown jewels though. After that, we walked along the water to get to the statue of Den Lille Havfrue, aka The Little Mermaid. The sun was actually out which is a first in Copenhagen, so even though it was chilly, it was still great. Of course, after all that walking, plus with Mom &B still being jetlagged, we decided that it was nap time. After our nap, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. It was an awesome night, and it was great being able to see The Little Mermaid and the Crown Jewels because I hadn't yet seen either of those.


some of the crown jewels


me, b &mom in front of the little mermaid!!

Unfortunately, that was our last day together &they left to go home on Sunday. But it was AMAZING having them come to visit. We had so much fun getting to see Copenhagen, and it was great seeing them over Thanksgiving.

Just a few days after, on December 1st, I went to go see Paramore in concert in Denmark. I decided that music was such a huge part of my life, that I had to see a concert while I was in Copenhagen, and since I have already seen Paramore 3 or 4 times live, I figured that would be a good concert to see abroad. The concert was so different from what I expected, though. Because they don't get to tour Europe often, instead of playing at smaller venues the way they used to in the US, they played at a huge venue, &the line to get in was outrageously long. It was also amusing to see the Danes, who take amazing pride in their language, sing along to every single word in English. Despite the large crowd though, the concert was still fantastic.

The next day I went with my pop culture class to go see the South Harbor. It is very similar to 5 Pointz in New York. For those of you who don't know, 5 Ptz is a whole deserted factory that has since been converted into the heartland of graffiti in Brooklyn. The work itself is amazing, with portraits of Biggie &Tupac, as well as many other things. South Harbor was very similar...it is the only place where graffiti is really tolerated. Spray cans are lying everywhere, &all the walls are covered in peoples tags. It was great to see similarities between the two cultures.


some of the graffiti in South Harbor

That Saturday, I went with some friends to see the Nutcracker, or in Danish: Nøddeknœkkeren, performed by the Danish Royal Ballet. While you would generally expect the story lines to be the same, they surprisingly weren't. I mean, the same general story line was the same, but there were so many different aspects to it. There were so many additional characters, and plot twists but the dancing itself was still amazing, and I am so glad that I still got to go see the Nutcracker this year.

The next day, I went to my visiting mom, Bente's house. She is like half an hour out of the direct city center, and it was awesome to get to see her apartment. In Denmark, they go visit the graves of their loved ones once a season to decorate them, so I went with Bente to decorate her parents grave. After that, we went to see the shore, even though it was freezing, &then ate lunch at this adorable cafe that was round and made out of glass so that we could look out at the shore. Bente is so sweet and it is so nice to have someone show me the more cultural things about Denmark that I never would have seen otherwise.


Bente with her parents grave. It's tradition to cover it with pine, then stick red tulips [specifically made to survive the winter cold.] On Christmas Eve, Bente will return to light a candle near her parents grave.


the shore: it's still beautiful even in the freezing cold.

After that nice relaxing weekend, work started picking up, while classes were winding down. On that Tuesday, we had our final reception for my main class, which was really sad. We all got together and DIS provided food and wine for everyone. Our teacher Rita gave a speech and it was a great way to say goodbye to everyone, though it was really sad. The reception was hyggelit though, so it was lovely to be able to hang out with friends &just relax.


my close friends &our teacher, Rita, at our reception. Aili was sick and couldn't make it, so we drew a picture of her so she would be there in spirit.

On Friday, Hanukkah started at sundown. Luckily, it was also the last day of classes, so a group of friends &I all went out to dinner at the Laundromat Cafe, which was great. It was the last time that we were all really able to hang out together, since the next week was finals &the weekend after everyone is leaving. It was nice to be able to just chill out and have dinner with a group of friends &not have to worry about work for a while.

About this time, COP15, the environmental conference is also just starting. There were tons of protests and Copenhagen was suddenly full of tourists and very important people from all over the world. There are tons of things in Copenhagen that relate to the climate conference, but I'll update more on that in the next post.

That was a very, very quick summary of my past month, up until last Friday. I will update all about Finals Week &my adventures by the end of this week, because there will be a lot more stories!! I'm so sorry again about the delay, but if I don't have internet while traveling, expect another long wait until I'm back in the US to update you on my 2 week Europe Extravaganza!

When in Rome

Again, sorry for the delay in posting, but as we get closer and closer to finals, I get more and more pressed for time. By the time tonight is through, I will hopefully be up to date.

So on to Rome! This was actually my least favorite place that I visited on my trip. I'm not really sure what it is about the city, but I just did not enjoy it the way I have with most other cities I've been too. Anyway, on a Sunday morning we checked out of our hostel in Florence and headed to Florence's main station again, this time to take a train to Rome. We had bought our tickets in advance, and were assigned seats. Getting our suitcases onto the train was an adventure...luckily they had small storage places for them at the end of each car. The seats were arranged in groups of 4, with a table in the middle. Carolyn &I sat opposite one another, sharing the window. The people that sat down next to us were insanely sweet. It was a mother and her deaf son, who was about 25 I believe, from Australia. They were the nicest people in the world and the whole hour and a half train ride we spent chatting away about various topics, with the mother signing for the son. It was such a cool experience, and I love meeting new people that have interesting stories to tell. The son was flying back home after his travels, but his mom was going to Rome to fly to Turkey for a friend's wedding. They were so nice and the mom spoke some French, so between her French, &my Spanish, we were able to decipher some of the announcements. The countryside of Italy that you see in between Rome and Florence is absolutely gorgeous. Granted, it was a tad cloudy, but even still, it was so picturesque.

From Roma Termini (the train station) we figured out how to get on the Rome Metro, and get to our hostel which is near the Spanish Steps. Unfortunately, the whole time we were there, we didn't get to see just the regular Spanish Steps because we happened to be there at the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall. Because of this monumental event, the Spanish Steps had a tribute to the Berlin Wall on the steps, with fake pieces of the wall decorating the steps.

I went to Rome with my study abroad program, DIS, and because I went with them, they took care of the days activities and such. After traveling by ourselves for a week and trying to figure out the transportation system as well as food, and maps and which sites were the ones that were most worthwhile to see, it was so nice to have someone else that actually knew the city take us around Rome and worry about all of those things. The first day we did sort of walking tour, in quite rainy weather. We hit all of the touristy spots such as the Trevi Fountain (of course I threw a coin in!,) the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Ara Pacis and other important places. In the middle of this walking tour, the skies opened up. I mean, REALLY opened up. It not only poured, but HAILED. So that was an interesting way to just see the city and experience the insane random rain storms that Europe loves to have for literally 5 minutes, and then the weather will be fine.


throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain!


Me, Carolyn &Aili in front of the Trevi Fountain


the Pantheon


the Ara Pacis

After our walking tour, we all headed back to our rooms to take a nap, because we were all worn out from traveling and wanted to nap before dinner. DIS paid for us to have dinner at this place near our hotel in which we were given wine galore. We were all so tired though, that we just ate quickly and headed back to the hotel to pass out, since we were walking up early the next day.

We were all up bright and early the next day to go to the Colosseum, which was so cool. We were able to skip the lines and go in to wander around and see the inside of the Colosseum. I did not realize how cool it would be to actually go inside, but it was awesome to experience something so old.

After the Colosseum, we headed out to the Forum Romanum, which is the definition of ruins. Never in my life have I ever seen so many old things all in one place. And they are legitimately old, not just a hundred or so years. We got to see the old Senate House, the Temple of Saturn, and so many other ruins. Admittedly, it was really cool, but it was a little too much time spent there, and I didn't know enough about the ruins to find them interesting for that long. Overall it was really cool to see these ruins though. Then we went to various other really important churches, but the one that sticks out the most in my head is the Capuchin Crypt. It was actually kind of creepy. It was a long stretch of rooms that were decorated with Capuchin Bones. I wasn't allowed to take pictures in it, but there are a lot of different rooms: the crypt of the skulls, crypt of the pelvises, crypt of the leg bones &thigh bones &crypt of the three skeletons. As depicted in their names, each room is decorated completely with that type of bone. It is one of the scariest, creepiest, coolest things I've ever seen.


not my picture, but clearly the room of skulls. scary, yet awesome, yeah?

Then we had dinner on our own, and we headed out to this gelato place. It was supposedly ranked by the New York Times as the best gelato place in all of Rome. Definitely good gelato, but the second gelato place we found in Rome was SO many better.

The next day was probably my favorite. We woke up early to go to the Vatican Museum and Vatican City. The best part is that we got to skip the line, which was awesome. Our group also got an actual tour guide, so we were able to learn everything about what we were seeing, including all of the old statues and such. I love tour guides for exactly that reason. Also, I just find it amazing how much knowledge they retain, it is absolutely amazing. The best part of the tour was seeing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It was so elaborate, I can't believe that Michelangelo painted all of that in only 4 years. As a group, we all had lunch together, paid for by DIS. There were appetizers that just kept coming, pizza that just kept coming &wine that just kept coming. It was amazing. I don't think I've ever been that full in my entire life. Then we headed to St. Peter's Basilica, which was another really cool experience. We climbed the dome, and saw a beautiful view of the city, as well as seeing the beautiful facade of the Basilica. That night, a whole group of us went out to dinner by the Pantheon, which was delicious. The restaurant gave us free sparkling wine, which was delish. Then comes the gelato. This is hands down the best gelato I've had since I was in Europe. We would return to this same place once a day for the rest of the trip. I got chocolate amaretto &chocolate coconut. Both of them were to die for, but the chocolate amaretto was hands down the best gelato/ice cream I think I've ever had. Ever.


Me &Aili in front of St. Peter's Basilica



view from the top of the St. Peter's Basilica Dome into the center of St. Peter's


La Pieta, in St. Peter's Basilica

The whole next morning was spent in Ostia Antica, which was about an hour ish away by train, but it was a really cool experience. Ostia used to be the old trading port, so everything is in ruins. We got to see an old theater, &the ancient Roman toilet system. They had running water under the toilets, and actually kept them relatively clean. We also got to see the original statue of Cupid &Psyche, which was in what used to be a completely marble room. The train into and out of Ostia was this rickety, old, subway type car that was just completely covered in graffiti. In a way, it almost reminded me of home. That afternoon we met up with my friend Alex, who lives in my building in Copenhagen and was in Rome, though not our trip. We wandered about for a bit, and it was nice getting to see her in Rome. That night, we decided not to go out, but found a place to buy cheap bottles of wine &so we all hung out in the hotel &drank wine together.


cupid &psyche


ancient toilets in Ostia



graffitied train to Ostia


Carolyn, Me, Aili &Alex in front of the Trevi Fountain at night

The last day, we went to go visit the graves of Shelley and Keats, Circus Maximus &the Baths of Caracalla. Keats grave didn't even have his name on it, we only know that it is his grave because his friend is buried next to him &put up a memorial type headstone for him. It was awesome to also see the Baths of Caracalla, which were actually huge, in comparison to what I thought they were going to be. The rooms were super intense &there were mosaic floors, as well as mosaics along the top, closer to the ceiling. For lunch, we headed to the Jewish ghetto, which wasn't too large, &had amazing food. Then we wandered around, did some window shopping in stores that we can't afford, and then all met up as a group for dinner. DIS took us out for "appetizers" because it was a girl on our trip's birthday, so we all had sparkling wine &appetizers, then headed out to dinner. Dinner was like food that just kept coming, &tons of refills of wine. Essentially, it was amazing, not to mention that they gave us delicious tiramisu for dessert! We were leaving Rome the next day so we decided to just buy more bottles of wine &chill out in the room again, which was nice and relaxing.


Keat's grave, labeled: Young English Poet


Aili, me &Zach at appetizers

The next day, we just packed up all of our stuff &got on the bus to the airport. After two weeks of traveling, I must say that it was really nice to be back "home" in Copenhagen. It's a city that I'm familiar with, and it was nice to be in a comfortable, known environment and be around my own stuff. Overall, Rome was not one of my favorite cities, but I am really glad that I got to see it, and all the history involved. It was fascinating, and plenty to see. Again, I am so sorry that this entry is kind of short &not really in detail, but studying for finals awaits... I'll update about life back in Denmark soon!