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 ¬ 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!
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