Category: Denmark

“Uhm. Bleed.”

“Yes. Bleed. The less we bleed.”

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This was the start to a beautifully-crafted dialogue that lasted about an hour, conducted by two extremely attractive (sorry, Jackson) Danish soldiers/ sergeants-in-training. Not a bad way to begin a Wednesday, if I do say so myself…

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But how did I come to interact/ spy upon these two tall, blonde, uniformed “funny-guys,” as they called themselves? All through the patronage of DIS, my friends. I mean, Mom.

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I had a field study with  my Danish Language and Culture class to the Danish Defense College, where Denmark trains 15-25 men and women every year to become linguistics officers–that is, the soldiers who will translate/ interpret for others on foreign missions. It was my favorite academic DIS-organized trip to date! The college organization was interesting, and I learned quite a bit. We were also taken on a tour of the training obstacle course, hence the sweating/ blooding (or bleeding..) motto. ‘Twas quite entertaining, and I managed to bruise my shin.

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We also got to throw some practice grenades! (I took pictures instead… HA!)

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Then I met up with Tessa from UW and a couple of other girls to visit Den Blå Planet, or The Blue Planet. It is the laaaaargest aquarium in all of Scandinavia. Whoop whoop! (Unfortunately, there is only so much water one can contain within panels of glass before it makes more sense to rent out snorkel gear, so the overall effect of its vastness was meh.)

Swim away!!!

A tank tunnel. Quite impressive. (Note the senior citizen group that we were essentially following around the entire time.)

These…. Are…. Piranhas…. And the strangest thing was that they didn’t move. At all. They just sat there with their beady little eyes unblinking, as though waiting for some sign of life TO KILL. Although, upon reading one of the high-tech touch-screen displays located at every single tank, I learned that piranhas mostly eat only dead creatures. Very interesting, indeed.

Beware the suction!!!

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On Thursday, I listened to some more hipster street musicians. I tell ya, they are out in full force right now.

They even sang Treasure. 10/10.

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Soon, I am off to see the Royal Danish Ballet perform “Short Time Together: A modern ballet about the speed of life.” Color me excited. I am finally going to whip out one of the three dresses that I normally wear all the time at home but which are considered grotesquely over-the-top amongst my fellow legging-clad and sweater-wearing DIS students. Yippee!

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To close the day, I will leave you with yet another fascinating dialogue, this time conducted between myself and The Significant Other:

Jackson: Jonathan’s going to let me build a gardening plot when I get back!

Me: In the dead of winter…?

Jackson: Yeah. But you know what does grow in the dead of winter?

(Simultaneously) Me: Love.    Jackson: Onions.

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The romance is overwhelming. I can almost not handle it myself, at times.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

I come to you again from the beautiful Copenhagen Library, and today, I have a great view of a new and troublesome friend, seen in this post’s main photo:

Poor little guy. I can’t tell if he’s trapped or if he is just enjoying the view, because, you know, he’s stuffed.

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So some of you, assuming I have more than one mom, will be glad to hear that I successfully hauled my butt to dancing yesterday. And thank heavens I did! It turns out there was in fact some sort of festival afoot in the streets of Copenhagen this weekend. Around four in the afternoon, as I was passing the glass markets (apparently that is the English/ tourist name of my beloved little weekly side-stop on the way to dancing), I started hearing some distinctly hipster music. Low and behold (what does that mean, anyway?), a stage was set up in the middle of the square, surrounded by food trucks. I had to resist all temptation to buy a Special Pork Sandwich with chili sauce. Ugh. I can practically taste it now. Except I can’t. Because I never tried it.

Here’s an artsy shot of the first group, though the sun kind of rips through the scene and blurs the stage into oblivion. It only seems appropriate for this hipster band. They had a drummer, a guitar, a string bass, and a girl with a killer voice. Also, there was this fantastic crazy dance man who stood right in front of the stage the entire time and did these really interpretive, super groovy movements to the beat. Every once in a while, he would raise a hand to the sky or to the stage, as though The Music and The Heavens were one. It was pretty intense stuff, and it made me glad that Jackson wasn’t there to join him. I would post a video of his genius dance moves, but I don’t know how to convert the formats… (Any advice, Daddio?)

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Monday, I did about eight pounds of homework, checked out three new books at the library, and finally fell asleep way too late. My new haul includes:

Left to right: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Time Machine. I’m starting on the right, though I still haven’t relinquished my hold on The Deathly Hallows. I run to it whenever life gets too boring or I just feel like I need a good pillow-soaking cry fest. Because that’s healthy sometimes. Right?

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Segue (apparently not spelled “segway”… news to me) into a side note: none of my sisters read enough! Biological or otherwise (with regard to sisters)! I got the most incredulous looks from Sara (non-blood-relative) and Maria every time I started tearing up or talked about my Super Emotions that were triggered while reading TDH. Maria simply decided to point fingers. “You’re so weird,” she said, a look of utter disbelief and is-she-fo-realz? on her face.

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Sara Lee, my blood sista from the hood, decided to lock away her judgements toward me and my attachment to characters when I had to be led, half blinded by a wall of tears, out of the theater in second grade. The movie was Spirit, an emotionally-charged Disney movie starring a young wild stallion. She ran to my mom for help, thinking she had personally hurt me or caused some sort of emotional damage to my very soul by taking away the popcorn too quickly. Silly girl. She forgets that my first real emotional-fictional heartbreak came when I was a mere three years old. My dad had to carry me out Tarzan, my first big-screen show, as I sobbed and hiccuped. Not because of the tragedy presented at the end of the movie (no spoilers), but because of the simple problem only a three year old can recognize. “I want to-” hiccup “live-” sob “with-” hiccup “Tarzaaaan…..” Being the genius small one I was, I recognized that this was not, in fact, possible. Hence the tears. That was the start of my great adventure through other realms. If I can’t visit Hogwarts in person, I can sure as heck visit in my mind.

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Right. But I’m supposed to be talking about places I actually can visit in person. Like, the places I am actually visiting at this very moment, as I type away in the half-lit cozy living area while Sara Not Lee blogs about shoes. And no, that was not a complete sentence. I am a mess.

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What I was trying to get at before I jumped into the world of my traumatic youth and my ever-present attachment to the unreachable world (did I mention I once chopped a sizable portion of my hair off with safety scissors because I thought I was Mulan?), was the fact that I have been reading more during my travels than I have since early high school. That 25 minute train ride twice a day feeds the fire. Plus, I have a six hour train ride to Stockholm this Sunday. I predict I’ll be halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring before any of my three sisters opens another book “for fun.” Sad life.

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Also, I had cheesecake today.

So yes. Not a bad afternoon.

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Back to homework. I’m working on three different essays as we speak, not counting this one. Ta-ta for now!

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Venlig hilson/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

I’m sorry. I know it has positively nothing to do with Copenhagen, but it has everything to do with Europe. I mean, it takes place in the UK, there are mentions of Albania, I shared my time reading between various Danish and German cities…. That counts for something, right? Again, I’m sorry, but this is literally all I can think about right now. I was a bit late hopping onto the Hogwarts Express, and I managed to never be fully sucked into the series, so I have successfully spread out the reading over at least fourteen long years. This is the climax of my literary experience as a human being. I attempted The Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time in first grade. I failed miserably and didn’t manage to finish the book until my teens, but this has been a long and slow journey, nonetheless. THERE ARE SO MANY FEELINGS. I have spent the last couple of days crying. I was even sobbing at one point, though now I cannot remember which drastically heartbreaking and brilliantly crafted scene set me off. Honestly, J.K. Rowling is a genius. Pure literary genius. I’ll have to wait about a year to watch the last three movies (it’s a thing), but when I do, my HP journey will finally be complete. End monologue.

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Right. The travelling thing. The abroad thing. The Copenhagen Thing. What have I been doing with my life the past few days aside from escaping it in the wee hours of the morning to journey valiantly alongside the dark, unforgiving, mind-shattering life of our dear adolescent wizarding hero?

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Wow. I have suddenly forgotten what I have been doing with my life. I somehow closed my internet and my nearly-complete blog post has been destroyed. I do not think I can carry on. *sigh… I’m gonna go eat some Nutella and see if I feel up to finishing later. I hate myself.

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Okay. Sorry. Let’s backtrack, I guess.. “… of our dear adolescent wizarding hero?”

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Not much, actually.

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Ha! Just kidding. I’m not a hermit, Mom. And in fact, on Wednesday, after mulling it over and fuddling about for a couple hours, I finally decided to grab the antlers by the top or something and explore the very birthplace of Harry Potter himself. That’s right. I am going to London! The drawbacks: I have yet to pin down a travelling mate. Whoops. I’ll sort that out later.

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On Thursday, I purchased more food in Danish! Huzzah! And I actually formed full sentences this time! Mind you, I still ran away afterwards, despite my original plans to stay in the cafe and do some homework, but there’s always room for progress.

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On Friday, I had some coffee at a cute little cafe/ sitting room with my European Art professor because I am one of the two class reps. We got to discuss the class/ expectations/ experiences thus far, etc. It was fun. And free.

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Afterwards, I ran home to visit a little cabin-turned-cafe in Birkerød with some other girls from my town and the next one over.

Here was my advertising message sent from Mikayla: “Would you have interest in going tomorrow afternoon to this lake in Birkerød where there is a restaurant/ cafe (in what used to be a royal hunting cabin where a secret love affair took place between the queen and her doctor)…?” I mean, how could anyone pass up such a ridiculously detailed description?

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And today, I went to Tivoli! Yaaaay! ‘Twas gorgeous and charming.

      

We took a picture of our faces at some point, but it is on Maria’s phone, so I will acquire it in due course. Don’t wait up!

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But honestly, I think I enjoyed to walk to Tivoli better than the park itself. There was some sort of mass jam session going on in the streets of Copenhagen today, and it was wonderful. I’m not sure if it was planned, or if everybody was just trying to take advantage of one of our last snatches of summer.

  

I listened to the little jazz/ reggae band for about ten minutes and ended up dancing with a little girl who could barely stand. Eep! Not pictured are the opera singer, the violinist, the pianist, and another jazz band out in the streets. There was also an adorably un-entertaining street magician, and he was American! Nobody laughed at his jokes. Not even sympathetically. He finally opted for: “And if you don’t think I’m funny, just go ahead and stare at me like I’m a wall!” Again, he was met with blank stares and dead silence. Poor guy.

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Alrighty. I think that sums it up for now. It’s nearly 1am here, and my eyes are weighing me down. I’ll have to see if I can muster the strength to go swing dancing tomorrow. And, though it is the 19th now, I’d like to say happy birthday to my number one Daddio!!!! Happy day, you old coop!

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

What more could a girl want, right?

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On Tuesday, I began my morning with a Royalty in the Land of Equality visit to Rosenborg Castle, King Christian IV’s little summer home. And by “little,” I mean “gorgeously ornate and not small in the slightest.” The home is now a museum containing some of the most treasured items of Denmark’s past. Now, I’m talking about some intense stuff.

BEHOLD, the coronation crown of Christian IV, the most famous Danish King. Seriously, zoom in on this picture so you can see just how ridiculous this crown is. Yes, those are diamonds. Yes, those are tiny cherubs. Yes, that is gold and those are pearls. This guy does not mess around with his accessories.

  

And speaking of accessories, these are the crown jewels. I am normally not a fan of gigantic stones and sparkly things, but I would wear that tiara so good………… These are some of the current Queen’s favorite things to wear on big events. Can’t blame her.

And then there is the ballroom. (I danced this time.)

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After Danish, I had yet another field study for European Art of the 19th Century. We travelled (for my third time) to the National Gallery, or Statens Museum for Kunst.

I finally managed to get a decent picture of the outside, to give you an idea of just how vast this museum is. It’s no wonder I haven’t gotten bored going back. There are still a couple of exhibits (albeit none of the free ones) that I have yet to see. Some new favorites:

  

I think there is a clear theme to my favorite works of art: geometry and pretty colors. Also, this last one was in a room called “Deceiving the Eye,” (or something along those lines). Guess what? That is a flat painting! Such 3D. Very trick. Wow.

I finished off my visit with a quick sketch. How’d I do?

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To end my day, I attended a homestay network dinner set up by DIS. Sara was pretty upset that we weren’t chosen to host one, so we may organize something of the sort later on. There were five extra girls at Kandice’s house, and we ate way too much lasagna along with some homemade ice cream cake for dessert.

Here’s the ice cream cake. SO GOOD. Kandice’s host mom promised to send us the recipe, because I could eat that stuff all day.

A blurry picture of their puppy, Oreo. She was so hyper! I miss my own puppy back in Seattle….

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Alright. On that homesick note, I will bid you adieu and get back to the mountains of homework in front of me.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

I say “study.” You say “tours.”

Study.

TOURS.

Study.

TOURS.

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Yes. My life with DIS basically consists of study tours, field trips, reading, and flight-booking. Oh, and bugs. My room has been relatively free of spiders for the last week or two (KNOCKIN’ ON THAT WOOD), but I finally found another intruder a couple days ago. I was too tired to deal with it, so I left it trapped under a cup until last night, when I realized IT WAS ALL LUMPY AND STUFF in its back end, which of course were EGGS. As in SPIDER EGGS. Needless to say, I almost burst into tears, tried to flush it down the toilet (took two flushes), had to read three chapters before I could forget a bit (though that backfired when RON WEASLEY started talking about spiders, too), and then finally fell asleep amidst a fit of spider nightmares. It was horrible. I am still shaken.

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Also, on the subject of flight-booking, I need a personal travel agent. Planning trips is just horribly stressful and I do not like it. This morning, I even found myself wishing for half a second that I could do a London study abroad instead of, like, graduating and stuff, just so I can go to London. All of the cheap flights are only on my busy weekends. It is terrible. My life, man. I just want to look at pretty museums and listen to accents like Rebecca!!! (Rebecca has been my roommate in Seattle for the past two years and is currently studying art for a month in London, though she is a Computer Science major. The lucky duck….)

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I feel like this blog will be too lengthy now after this ranting, so I will probably break up the last few days into two? Is that fine? Kay, cool.

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In fact, this post will just be a ranting post, and I will supplement it with my Monday adventures, which consisted of shopping with Sara, running into Maria, buying a watch (finally), and taking a look at the Trinitatis Church, which is connected to the Round Tower, or Rundetårn.

 

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I also ventured into the LEGO store in Copenhagen. (Did you know LEGOs are Danish???)

Check out this adorable Nyhavn LEGO model. The back of the store is filled with candy-store-like dispensers filled with all different types and colors of LEGOs (main photo for the post). I told Jackson we will be going back to buy some and build something the next time he is down here. Muahahahaha. I refuse to grow up.

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Alrighty, guys. You’ll hear from me again in about… thirty minutes.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

GUESS WHAT I GOT TO SEE JACKSON. Very adventures. Such tired. Wow.

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Hamming-it-up outside Kronborg Castle, the setting for Hamlet! We also got a tour through the castle by Horatio himself, and he tried flirting with me and stabbed Jackson in the neck during a reenactment. ‘Twas fantastic.

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The castle facade, looming over its enemies to the soundtrack of marching soldiers (all of the sounds were rigged to motion sensors)

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A meal fit for kings at the Louisiana museum for modern art. I became a member haha…

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Some of my favorites (people, art, and paintings):

        

Yes, there was even art in the toilets.

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Sunday:

Entering Kastellet, an old military fortress

Jackson and his dream windmill house inside the fortress

The map! The place is actually shaped this way!

Here, you go Mom! I finally found your favorite statue in Copenhagen (by accident)! We hung around and just stared at it for a while because it was so cool.

An amazing close-up

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Some more sight seeing followed. You’ll see me with the famous Little Mermaid statue on the water, and then you’ll see Jackson with The Other Little Mermaid statue. Different sculptors, I think…

  

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Then we went to the Statens Museum for Kunst again, because how can you pass up a free museum full of beauty?

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There were also some… very interesting Modern art pieces, including an entire home that was crafted to perform as “The Naked Magician”‘s living space. Not sure I would want to be friends with this guy.

The only clean thing in the entire home was the inside of the microwave– perhaps a purposeful juxtaposition to the typical first world home?

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We finished off the night with dinner in Nyhavn. I finally tried some smørrebrød, a super typical and traditional Danish dish in the form of an open faced sandwich. (Ours had smoked salmon, liver pate, beets, bacon, cilantro, and other unidentifiables.)

  

Note that neither of us are looking at the camera, as we are too busy gazing into each other’s eyes. Because romance and stuff.

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On Monday morning, I began Core Course Week with DIS. This week, I am spending every ounce of class time with my core Sustainable Development in Northern Europe course. We spent the day travelling around Nørrebro (cleverly nicknamed NørreBronx), and learning all about urban livability and public spaces. On the topic of art:

Some cool street art/ grafitti

A library in a small community garden, with a bring-one-take-one set-up. Adorable!!!

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Afterwards, Jackson and I wandered around the city a bit, discovered some new lunch stops, ate lots of pastries and drank some of the best hot chocolate around, and visited Christiania:

I’ve heard lots of cool things about the place, and it is technically a “must-see” in Copenhagen, but we were pretty uncomfortable in there. It used to be a military barracks, but was taken over by squatters in the seventies and has continued its existence as a relatively independent little village. The inhabitants all make their own houses, quite a few people live here, and some of the art was really cool. However, the weed trade is real.

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I had to say goodbye to Jackson Monday night, but not for long! We just booked tickets last night for Paris in November. Hashtag Romance.

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Yesterday (Tuesday) I spent more time exploring with my core course. We found this awesome tree in my favorite park (Ørstedsparken), and then we got some free, organic, vegan dinner and smoothies at Botaniq near Nørreport Station. I had some delicious pinto bean stew and left way too full.

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So yes. I believe that counts as being up-to-date. I am currently in a flurry of catching up with school/blogging and packing, because TOMORROW MORNING I LEAVE FOR HAMBURG. Should be great. I’ll be travelling with my Sustainable Development course again, and we start off our trip with biking around the city! Wish me luck!!!

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Venlig hilsen/ besten grüßen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa!!!

I’M BEHIND. BECAUSE I AM BUSY EXPLORING THE WORLD AND SEEING THE THINGS AND TASTING THE CHOCOLATE (lots of chocolate) AND BECOMING THE ENLIGHTENED YOUNG THING THAT SOCIETY EXPECTS OF ME. Sorry, Mom.

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Friday morning in a nutshell:

1. Field study with Equality in Scandinavia and my ridiculously entertaining and hilarious instructor Steffen (seen below leading the class on a bike in a standard Polo outfit while holding an umbrella to hold off the torrential rain/thunderstorm that ensued immediately after we began our tour)
2. Continued attempts at ordering coffee in Danish, with little success
3. Field study to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, with special entrance to the director’s office and the workshop of the assistant professor for the sculpting department
4. I BOOKED MY TICKETS FOR ICELAND

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^Professor Steffen

This adorable 400-500 year old building with extremely beautiful and ornate decoration (and copper roofs!) still remains amongst the throng of modern buildings crowding the rest of the street.

A sculptor’s workspace. So clean. So tidy.

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Then Sara met up with me so we could travel over to Nørrebro.

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She can be seen here looking extremely classy in the beautiful garden graveyard that houses Hans Christian Anderson, Kierkegaard, and many other well-known and good-doing Danes.

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This is a typical grave. The surroundings had a very interesting effect on the feel of the area– people were respectful, but not sad and mournful as in other graveyards. I feel like this design can help us celebrate the lives of those lost rather than despairing over their gone-ness. (Sorry, having trouble forming poetic sentences at the moment.)

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Then we walked over to Superkilen, a large new urban park in the heart of the neighborhood.

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There were hundreds of Albanians gathered in the Red Square (part one of the park), pre-gaming for the Denmark-Albania game that night. I was supposed to go, but the airport pull was stronger. A little upset about that, but I’ll live.

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Me and my little buddy modeling-it-up at Mimer Square, the second part of Superkilen.

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My Sustainable Development in Northern Europe class returned to this park on Monday and learned the ins and outs of its design, creation, ideas, and functionality from a fantastically compelling architect and urban planner. One of my favorite quotes of hers: “People are more radiant than the sun.”

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We finished off our Friday by waiting in the airport for The Significant Other, but he ended up ruining our surprise plans by sneaking up from behind. I’ll recount the adventures that followed in my next post. Until next time!

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

Hold up. That is not the correct name. Yes, yesterday I saw both Judo AND Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. But they are not one. I wish, because that would be amazing and probably cheaper.

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To kick off my Wednesday, I was taken on another fantastic study tour/ field trip through DIS, this time for my Classical and Renaissance Rome course, which will BE TRAVELLING TO ROME later. But anyway. As a teaser, we visited Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, a gigantic museum housing countless statues, portraits, and all-the-moneys from the time of the Roman Empire. Nearly all of the statues were missing noses, arms, hands, or uhm… manly appendages. HA! Poor suckers. There was actually a gigantic case of noses and ears that had fallen off during transport and what have you, but I was running to catch up with my extremely fast-paced professor and failed to take a picture. Instead, here is a portrait of The Great Caligula:

I think he’s pretty cute, but according to my textbook and my professor, he was “raving mad.” Something about *PG-13 ALERT* impregnating his sister and then cutting out the fetus and eating it or something? He was trying to emulate Zeus’ actions during the birth of Athena. So yeah, I guess he was probably raving mad. Or just Roman. Since they, you know, watched men fight to the death for entertainment and all.

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Also, my favorite statue in my favorite room of the museum:

I did not get a chance to figure out what the statue was, but I could definitely chill here for a while.

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Some broken men:

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AND THEN I FOUND THIS GUY:

I had the special, which was schnitzel, which was not a form of sausage as I had thought upon ordering, and the waitress treated us like such Americans it made me sad. “English menu, of course?” Ah, well. She was nice.

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BUT YEAH. Judo followed me here all the way from Seattle. That PNW bond cannot be broken. Fo’ rlz.

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This is Judo standing six stories above the geographical center of Copenhagen, suspended by a plate of plexi-glass. It was terrifying.

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The view from the top of The Round Tower! I also should have gotten a picture with this Irish guy who was trying to point out things on the Swedish coastline from up here, but I didn’t. ‘Twas adorbs.

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Speaking of adorbs, we ended the night in Nyhavn with nougat ice cream and two other flavors I can neither remember nor pronounce, topped with jam and whipped cream. We also got to listen to a group of three super attractive Danish seventeen-ish-looking-year-olds jammin’ on some acoustic hipster music in the middle of the street. WordPress won’t let me share their beauty with you, though, because it doesn’t support the file type. *sigh*

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A spectacularly busy, glorious, and exhausting Wednesday if ever there was one! More adventures are abound this weekend.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

“Should we dance another one?”

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I know, right? The silliest question. Needless to say, dancing in Copenhagen is pretty fantastic. Double dances seem to be the norm, all of my partners have so far been especially talented, and the accents are many. The only way this could be made any better is if I were joined by some friends from back in the states. (OH WAIT. That will happen this weekend. Color me excited.)

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Since the dance was free, I decided to pamper myself with some cheesecake from a pretty large weekend market tucked away near the train station.

I know it’s not the greatest photo, so I’ll describe it: a delicious, creamy, crunchy, mouth-watering composition of chocolate crust, New York cheesecake, chocolate mousse, Oreo, caramel, candy, and brownie. So yeah. I had to take breaks between bites. (:

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The rain has continued, and with it, the slugs are out. The many, many, slimy, gigantic, slimy, mushy, slimy, disgusting slugs. They are everywhere. Walking to the bus stop in the morning is reminiscent of hop scotch. But on the plus side, some of the Danish slugs have shells:

Pretty, right? Apparently they are all called snails here, shell or not, and they are all considered disgusting. Oh well.

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Today, I had this fantastically saucy and flavorful bagel sandwich for lunch before wandering over to the National Gallery of Denmark, or Statens Museum for Kunst. (Kunst means “art.”) Some of my favorites:

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A super colorful room created from squares of over a thousand different colors created from only three original pigments, starring Jordan and Sam:

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And a bird’s-eye view of the cafe inside:

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Plus the beautiful grounds around the back:

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We liked the museum so much (and left so much of it unseen), that we decided to form a nature/ art/ brunch group (entitled “Kunst Crew”) with our sights set at exploring the city, enlightening the mind, and pleasing our taste buds. Can’t wait!

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Until then:

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

‘Tis true. I am finally a Dane.

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Just kidding. But I am feeling the rhythm of things, now. Homework is a constant chore lingering in the back of my mind (and most of it is reading, which I haven’t been used to), and I can now count to ten in Danish. Woo-hoo!

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On Thursday, I was reminded that it does, in fact, rain in Copenhagen:

It was pretty, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t really prepared for it. I bought a cute, cheap, portable umbrella though. (:

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On Friday, I got to visit a museum DURING CLASS instead of, you know, listening to lecture. So that was fantastic. My European Art of the 19th Century class took a walk over to Thorvaldsen’s museum so we could catch a first-hand glimpse of the work we’ve been learning about:

This one was my favorite. It is called Gratierne med Amors pil og Amor med lyren, or Graces with Cupid’s Arrow and Cupid with the Lyre. The coolest thing about the museum was that some works were plaster casts and some were in the marble stage. I found lots of duplicates from different stages in the sculpting process.

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On Saturday, Sara and I went to an Allerød community fair (a little get-together in the next town over). We saw belly dancers, ponies, and Danes in cowboy hats dancing to Alan Jackson.

It was pretty great.

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Also, Danish pastries. (I was reprimanded for calling the one in my hand a “Danish,” since it is technically a spandauer.) The other cake-looking pastry is a studenterbrød, which is just a conglomeration of a bunch of leftover pastries mixed together in this super dense sweet that I had to take breaks from between bites.

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Then we went for a bike ride around the lake near our house. So pretty so pretty.

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I finished off the night with chicken tikka masala and Ghirardelli brownies at Tonia’s house.

Check. Out. That. View.

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Now off to swing dancing!!! (I’m going to make this a regular thing.)

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa