It’s okay. No chicken pox were had. But of polka dots and chickens, there were many. I’ll get to that later.

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Tuesday of this week, Jackson and I finally managed to make it to Malmö, Sweden to investigate the land of his ancestors. We wore our matching Van Gogh socks from France:

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Lots of cool architecture

And giant lamps (Jackson for size)

Malmö City Hall

Sankt Petri Kirke (St. Peter’s Church)

The Turning Torso office building in the distance, usually a tiny speck on the coastline visible from Copenhagen

Malmöhus Slot (ruinous castle)

At the end of the night, we found this charming little cafe cluttered with mismatched and second-hand chairs and sofas: Café Alé

We got gingerbread cheesecake, orange-cinnamon rice pudding, and hot chocolate, as per usual. The whole bill was about the price of an average hot chocolate in Copenhagen. Ha!

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When we got back to Copenhagen, we did a little Christmas shopping:

And listened to some ukelele music being played by some boy from Los Angeles in Gamel Torv:

Then we went to Charlie Scott’s, the little jazz bar I meant to become a regular at, but never got the chance. Finally, I sat down and had a real drink while listening to some beautiful bass and jazz clarinet!

My first Irish Coffee. I couldn’t finish it. I tried so hard.

Jackson and I were the youngest ones in the room by about thirty years.

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Wednesday: Sorry for the blur, but you just have to see the decorations one of our bus drivers put up!

Literally the cutest. She was also wearing a Santa hat, and there was a stocking hanging in every window.

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We went to Our Savior’s Church in Copenhagen because I’ve been wanting to climb that beautiful spire for months, but it was closed because of the rain and the slick steps…. ):

Still pretty, though, and we got to witness some musicians putting on a performance for these youngsters, who quickly became tired, sprawled out on the floor at our feet, and began petting each other on the head:

All of the kids in Denmark wear full snow suits, despite the lack of snow. It’s great.

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To make up for Jackson’s tower-less-ness views of Copenhagen, we ran over to the Round Tower for my third time:

At least the view never gets old.

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Check out these find-and-label charts they put up:

Can you see how they correspond? So neat!

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Then I shipped Jackson off to the Netherlands so I could go on my last study tour with my core course, all the way to Tre Kroner and the Munksøgård eco village, home to chickens and those with green thumbs:

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We toured a building made entirely of straw, un-fired clay bricks made from the ground under our feet, and logs from the surrounding forests:

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But the best part was the toilets:

These are instructions. The toilet (if you can tell from the picture) is actually divided into two sections, and you have to be careful about where you put your shit (our guide’s words, not mine!) Twice a year, they fertilize their fields with all the urine. Craaaaaaazy stuff, man.

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A trip to the Bastard Cafe, a board game bar in Copenhagen, followed, and I came close to winning Catan. I also got this:

Hot chocolate…. Yummm… (Hot chocolate and hot cocoa are two very different things in Europe. Cocoa is what we are used to in the States, where chocolate powder is mixed into milk/water/cream. But hot chocolate is a glass a hot milk with chocolate chips or chunks on the bottom that have to be stirred in. The result is a suspended chocolatey goodness, and the last few sips are always pure chocolate rather than the powdery dregs of “hot cocoa.”)

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We then ate dinner at “Rub and Stub,” a volunteer-run restaurant which uses donations and leftover foods from other restaurants and food banks to make all of their dishes. Therefore, the menu changes every day, and you never know what you’ll get! (The name could be better, though. It frankly just reminds me of putting out a cigarette.) Our class was unfortunately lectured because four plates were thrown out due to confusion on everybody’s dietary restrictions, and food waste is the worst enemy of the restaurant. Embarrassing, I must say.

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I’ve also discovered I can tolerate Rose Wine:

I finished the whole thing, though it was a lot fuller than a normal glass of wine when it first arrived, quite dauntingly.

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WOW SORRY FOR THE LONG POST. I just have so many pictures I want to share! Last snippet! (It’s long, but mostly pictures.)

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I went to the Louisiana Museum with Sara yesterday to see the new Yayoi Kusama exhibit, the same artist who designed the crazy tulip sculptures that were at the train station in Lille, France:

Yes. Those things are supposed to look like penises. Kusama really appreciates nudity and freedom of the human body.

A lot of her work focuses on “infinity”

^ I think this one’s my favorite! The floor beyond the tiny platform where we stood was covered in thin layer of water to enhance the reflections, and apparently Maria fell in once! Tehe.

The sticker room: upon entering, a man handed us a sticker and let us put it wherever we wanted: the couch, the tables, the lamps, the cutlery lining the dining table, the ceiling if we could reach (I couldn’t). I put mine on the as-yet blank sign that read: “No stickers beyond this room.” Ha.

Playing the sticker piano!

The entire Louis Vuitton store once partnered with Kusama and painted the outside of its giant New York store. Insane.

We finished the night with this little oddity, some sort of modern sculpture that took up the whole room and was made up of giant fake ants, human body parts, some sort of neon gel fluid, fruit, and Plexiglas. Why…..?

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Okay. Thanks for sticking with me through this post, if you made it this far! I’m off to walk the sunny streets of Copenhagen for a bit before hopping on my plane to Amsterdam! The last frontier. Can’t wait.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards/ vriendelijke groeten,

Lizzy-wa