Thanks everyone!

Well- tomorrow it ends. My four month journey in Denmark. It is so crazy how time flies. By this time tomorrow, I will be flying over the Atlantic Ocean to Newark Airport. Philly I've missed you... oh but Copenhagen will always have a special place in my heart.

Things I will miss: My friends from small group at Copenhagen Christian, my DIS friends, my host family, the s-trains, hearing Danish, seeing candles lit everywhere, seeing so many blondes, seeing little kids in snow suits, all the black clothing people wear, gosh, I'll miss everything about Denmark.

Thanks all for following me on my journey abraod. I've actually really enjoyed blogging, so I may occassionally post, however I will probably change the "How I'm Copin' in Copenhagen" title. Mange tak everyone!

-Jenna

8 Days?

Hey everyone! Sorry my posts haven't been as frequent. I have been really busy with writing finals. Thankfully it is almost over! This week has been really stressful. I counted and over the past couple of weeks I have had to write over 8 papers. Ah! I am just so glad the bulk of it is over. On Monday, I have one final on Monday for my Virtual Worlds and Social Media class, and then I am done!

This is insane. I leave Copenhagen in 8 days. I know I keep saying this, but I cannot believe how fast my time abroad has been. I have had a wonderful experience, but I also am ready to be home and to see my own family and to go back to what I am used to and what I know.

Next week after my final on the 12th, I have about five or six days to do some last minute touristy things in Copenhagen. I still have not gone up the Round Tower, or seen the crown jewels in Rosenborg castle. I also need to go back to Nyhavn and check out the Christmas markets for longer. I also have some Christmas presents I still need to get for my friends.

Last Saturday was Jane's birthday (Dec 3rd). She turned 10. I also went to Tivoli with my buddy network. The buddy network is where they take 10 Danes and 20 DIS Students and we plan different events to do around Copenhagen. We got to walk around, drink some Gløgg, see all the pretty lights and decorations (Russian themed this year), and I even got to ride a roller coaster called the Demon. This was all on DIS. So awesome! Check out some of the awesome decorations-

After walking around in the cold, we went to eat at Grøften, a traditional Danish restaurant where many famous Danish celebrities eat. I eat a meal called the "Shooting Star" (I forget what it  is called in Danish, sorry) which has fried fish, shrimp, bread, caviar, and thousand Island dressing all on top. I am not the biggest fan of TI dressing (ha, TI dressing), but it was still really yummy!

Yummy!

The next day, my host sister, Jane was in a Santa Lucia ceremony. Technically, this ceremony is supposed to happen on the 13th of December, but for some reason, Jane's scout troop did it last weekend. The girls dressed up in white, usually wear a wreath on their head (they just had a star head piece instead) and walk down the aisle singing "Santa Lucia... Santa Lucia" and carry candles. One girl, usually the tallest gets to wear candles on her head. Unfortunately, the girl they chose to have wear the candles had wax running down her face toward the end. I think she is ok now. Technically this is a Swedish tradition, but I suppose the Danes have taken on this tradition, too.

Jane is the on the right, furthest from me.

Sorry it's kind of blurry. So many blonde little girls!

On Wednesday, in between all the craziness of my paper writing, I went on a field study with my Livability class to Malmo, Sweden. It may seem crazy to many of you readers, but think of it like this, Malmo is only a 30-40 minute ride from Copenhagen. It's kind of just like going to another state, believe it or not. Souther Sweden looked very similar to how Denmark looks. Supposedly if you go up towards Stockholm that's a little more different.

Jakriborg, a cute little residential community built to look like it was from the 1800s. There is are currently 1,000 on a waiting list to get into this community!

The turning torso tower. When you looked at it, it looked like it was moving and was going to fall down on you.

It was really cloudy, but that is the Øresund bridge which takes you between Denmark and Sweden

 I have to return my monitor back to DIS sometime this week, so my access to a computer will be limited (see last post about my water spilling on computer drama). I will try to update one more time before I leave, but can't promise anything. If not, thank you all so much for reading my blog and sticking with me through this incredible journey! I can't believe I am leaving so soon. I will miss Denmark very much and I feel that I have grown and changed greatly in the four months that I have been here. Vi ses, Danmark! 

Sorry

Hej everyone! Please don’t kill me…. But I don’t think I am going to writing about Part II of my trip. ::runs away as people throw things at her::. I am just really swamped with work and it has been almost two weeks since I have even been in Paris and Vienna that I don’t even think I could write as well-written a report of my time there then I could have a week ago. I have pictures up on Facebook you can check out and feel free to send me a message or ask me about any part of my trip- I would be happy to tell you anything. My one or two (or three or four) sentence thoughts on each city:

Paris- The Eiffel Tower is beautiful, but this city is totally over-rated. The way Hollywood portrays Paris as some super wonderful, fairy tale land, in my opinion is not necessarily true. As I have been told, Parisians do not like Americans, and I felt that with most of the French I dealt with in my 3 days there. Also, two my friends were pickpocketed so that also has a big affect on my view of the city, too.

Vienna- Way less touristy than Madrid and Paris- reminded me of Copenhagen in that respect. Great metros, run 24 hours on weekends, which is really nice. The show we saw we saw was a total tourist trap (they made it seem like we were seeing a show in a huge theater), but it was still really good, heard some Mozart and some opera and saw some ballet.  Also, I got to see where Sigmund Freud worked and saw “the couch”. Very cool!

Anyway, I am now back in Copenhagen and back to a pile of work. I can’t believe I used to update this thing one every five days! I hope everyone has a lovely Thanksgiving! Tonight I am going to my friend Elise’s house to have Thanksgiving dinner. It will be really nice. Tomorrow I am going to London with my Literary London class! I am so pumped! I love British culture. I think it started when I was seven with my love for the Spice Girls and grew with Harry Potter when I starting reading that at age nine. I also really love British music like Kate Nash, Lily Allen, Oasis, Keane (well they are actually Irish but w/e), Katy Tunstall, just to name a few. I will write about that on my next blog so stay tuned!

I cannot believe that I have less than a month in Copenhagen. It has been such a wonderful experience. I wish I could stay another semester, but that wouldn’t really work since I am graduating in May. It’d be like oh yeah… Eastern University? I go here? Haha I almost feel that the traveling I have done has taken away some of the cultural experiences of being in Denmark. I was thinking about it- when this experience is over, I will have been traveling almost four weeks of my time in Europe. I am here for four months, so that means ¼ of my time has been spent outside of Denmark. I feel like I am just beginning to understand Danish culture and now it is almost over! I don’t know if this necessarily a bad thing, I just think that I never expected to feel that traveling around Europe may be hindering my cultural immersion into Danish culture. Just something I have been thinking about…

Well thanks for reading. Coming up next time- my whirlwind weekend in Londontown!

Hello! It is time for another blog post. By now I am starting to have a routine on what I do during the week.

This past Thursday (September 15) , I went with my Livability in the Modern City class to the Lousiana Museum. It was really cool. Right now, until Oct 2nd, they have an exhibit about "Living". There were some interesting collections of art that had to do with how people from other cultures live and how where they live is structured.  It was unlike any museum I'd ever been to. You could actually walk outside of the building and there were some pieces of art and could even see the water/ Sweden! Very cool. Here are some pictures you can check out. The second one was a shadow screen where the board would light up according to shadows. The last picture is the view from outside the museum.

That night I got back and went to an election party at my host family's friend's house. They sat around and watched the progress of the election. My host family was hoping the conservative parties would win, because the liberal parties would raise taxes even more, which in Denmark is already at 50%. There are 7 political parties in Denmark and I cannot even begin to explain how they all work because I do not fully understand it myself, but all I know is that the liberal parties won. Now keep in mind, the "conservative" parties in Denmark= liberal parties in the US and the "liberal" parties in Denmark= even MORE left- wing than Democrats. I don't really think that there are our Republicans have counter-parts in other countries, but perhaps someone could prove me wrong.

This weekend I didn't have anything planned or do anything, which was very nice. I went to Tivoli Garden on Saturday with my host mom, Anne Marie, my host sisters, Eva and Jane and their friend Sinne. I had a lot of fun, even though I was really tired. For those who don't know, Tivoli Gardens is an amusement park that is located in Copenhagen. It is apparently the 2nd oldest amusement park, the 1st being Dyrehavsbakken, which is also located in Denmark. We also had ice cream, which was nice. I love ice cream! Wish the weather was better, but oh well.

This week I have a lot of assignments due, so hopefully I will be able to get them all done. Still no luck with moving the internet so I can be on later than 9PM my time. My host mom has to order a special cord online, so hopefully they can move it in a couple of weeks.

Until next time...

~Jenna

To be or not to be...

Yesterday I went to Kronberg Castle in Helsinør, which is where Shakespeare’s Hamlet was set. I don’t think Shakespeare had ever been to Denmark when he placed the play there, but rather, found out there was a castle in Denmark and decided his play should take place there. 

The castle was really cool. We were very close to the border of Sweden. I could see Sweden just over the water. Denmark apparently used to own southern Sweden, but lost the land due to a war. Denmark has apparently lost many wars.

Before going to the castle, my friend Lacey and I walked around the town a bit. I stopped and had lunch. There was a little fair going on in the town. Hot dogs, or pølser as they say in Danish, are apparently the thing to get while in Denmark. I had one on the streets of Copenhagen, and it was pretty good. They use a different kind of ketchup than Heinz, which I am going to need time to get used to. We also went shopping. They had some really good deals at this store called Saint Tropez. My friend Lacey was able to get a pair of pants and two shirts for $60, which is really good. Things in Denmark can be really expensive, aka, $8 for a cup of coffee.

The castle was pretty cool. We first went to the soldier’s quarters and that was kind of freaky. It was very dark. I think that it was also a dungeon of some sort. We then got to see the ballroom and where the king would eat his meals. Apparently, when the king wanted to give a toast it was a big deal so his workers would have to yell throughout the castle that the king was giving a toast and all must come to see it.

The castle was not as nice as I had pictured at least from the inside, but the outside was very cool. It was neat to be able to see Sweden, and to say that I was at the castle where Hamlet took place. We are all really tired by the time we left; everyone was asleep on the bus.

At five, I met a group to go over travel plans for our two weeks travel break. The first week I am going to Portugal, but then I will be able to join them for the 2^nd week. I think we decided we are going to Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Prague. I will be going from Paris onwards. I feel so much better knowing I have somewhat of a tentative plan set. I also might be visiting my cousin Philip in southern Germany and my friend Meaghan in Switzerland one weekend in October. I am really excited to get a chance to see Europe! In November I will be going to London for a weekend with my Literary London class. That should be really fun!

 Afterwards, my friends Allie, Frances, and Mariya tried to find somewhere to eat dinner. We ended up settling for this place called Mama Rosa, where we had pizza/ lasagna. It was very good, but very expensive! Will not be going out to eat for a while…

After that, Frances, Mariya, and I met Lacey and we had a few drinks. I am starting to get a cold and was feeling really tired so I didn’t stay out very late.

I was supposed to go to Tivoli Gardens today. They weather is going to be really nice today- sunny, 72 degrees (which is warm for Denmark). However, my host sister, Eva isn’t feeling well so hopefully we will go another weekend. I really wanted to go to church today, but no one is willing to go with me. I feel sort of discouraged, because I would like to go to church while I am here, but I feel that I am one of the only Christians in a sea of many non-Christians. I have asked a couple of friends to go, but they are busy with homework/other things. If you believe in God, please pray that I will be able to eventually make it to a church and find just one friend that is willing to go with me. Maybe I will have to suck it up and just go by myself. Perhaps I will try to do that next week.

I think my host mother, Ann Marie, feels bad that Eva is sick so she is going to have some cake/ roast some marshmallows. I invited my friends Marisa and Emelye to come since they live so close. So at least I will be doing something sort of fun today.

I really should get started on my homework. Next weekend I will be going to Jutland, which is Western Denmark with my Positive Psych class. I don’t really know any details, but I’m sure we will talk about it tomorrow in class. Sorry I am not posting any pictures today. I am feeling really tired. Perhaps I will post them in a couple of days on my Facebook/ here.

Thanks for reading!

~Jenna