Category: Europe

It has happened. Inevitably, that point in the school year has approached when my life is just too busy or too exciting or too sleepless or too homework-heavy or too exhausting for my body to handle. After a week in Sweden and a weekend with The Significant Other and ten nights of Not Enough Sleep, my body has given up. Rather than sending a postcard or a letter of resignation, though, my immune system has decided to send a kindly message in the form of snot and tiny ravenous monsters with enormously sharp claws that seem to have lodged themselves in my throat two mornings ago. This is it. This is the end.

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I mean, not really. Luckily (kind of, more on that later), one of my classes was canceled Tuesday morning, so I only had two classes to consider skipping. Though it was only the first day of sickness, and I knew there could be worse yet to come, I decided sleep and rest was the only way to aid in my recovery. I sent some emails and canceled swing dancing (again… sigh…) before crawling back in bed to drink tea and watch the last half of Sleepless in Seattle.

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And it paid off! I felt about a million times better, by sick standards, when I woke up Wednesday morning. I’m at about the same now as I was yesterday, with frequent nose-blowing and infrequent coughing, but it could be a lot worse. I am quite proud of myself and my ability to make tea.

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Let’s back up to the weekend:

When I arrived back in Denmark Friday night, Jackson was already here and ready for adventure! And by “adventure,” I mean “a weekend of inactivity.” It was actually the best. We only really did the types of activities one would do on a weekend at home, rather than on a weekend abroad. It was relaxing and wonderful.

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Saturday, we only left the house to walk to the grocery store. Then we spent the day baking baking and watching You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. ‘Twas adorbs.

Note the excitement on my face. I’m still trying to finish this cheesecake!

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Sunday, I had these big plans to explore Roskilde, a town over to the West of Copenhagen that is home to several historical museums, a viking ship museum, and a cathedral. Unfortunately, the trains kept getting canceled while we waited, and then once we finally got on the right one, I ensured that we depart one stop too early. Long story short, the 1.5 hour trip ended up lasting closer to three. By the time we got there, we were starving, but once we finished dinner, all of the museums and attractions were closed. So basically we are the Best Tourists Ever. We did manage to stumble into the cathedral after visiting hours to listen to the local boys choir sing, though. It was positively amazing, as most boys choirs are. Gosh, I can’t even explain it. The acoustics, the decor… I can’t.

The inside

The outside!

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Monday, I brought Jackson along with me to Creative Travel Writing, and my professor told him he could only stay if he participated. He took this a bit out of hand and ended up talking more than any other single person in the class. Yeah. Never taking him out again. One of my friends in the class told me this afternoon that she would have left her boyfriend in the hall. Ha! Then we wandered around, ate random food, ordered hot chocolate in Danish (I was so close! I just forgot how to say “whipped cream!”), and then we watched a movie in the library. I know, I know. Party animals, we are.

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There were also various photo shoots:

The royal stables with Christiansborg in the background

The changing of the guard in front of Amelianborg Palace

Riding bikes

My love bug next to the neighborhood Love Bug. HA! Wow, that was gross. I don’t actually call him that, I swear.

The LEGO store

And random dancing. Because sometimes, you just gotta dance.

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And then he left! Gah! Next stop is Paris in November. (:

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Wednesday, I braved the sickness and wrapped myself in as many layers as my rain jacket would permit, and then I tried commuting via bike for the first time. Won’t be doing that again. I rushed to get to the train, got there just in time, arrived to a bike car that was totally full so that I had to stand in the passageway for the full 25 minutes with my bike, panting and sweating profusely and unable to take off any jackets for fear of my bicycle toppling over. But wait, it gets better: when I arrived at Nørreport Station, I discovered that there are no bike tracks on the stairs, because it is technically against the rules to use a bike on the train at this station. I had to carry my bike up two or three or ten flights of steps (it’s all a blur, really), ride down Nørregade alongside cars, pedestrians, and construction (there are no bike lanes on this street for some reason), and then find some illegal parking near my classroom. It was quite the adventure.

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The day was fun, though. My Sustainable Development course had a bike tour around Copenhagen led by Bianca Hermansen, a ridiculously cool urban planner and bicycle infrastructure fanatic:

Note the dress, flowing sweaters, and stiletto boots. This woman is amazing. She was also holding a latte for the first stretch of the tour.

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Some bike paths in the area. This is one of the paths Bianca deemed to be less-than-perfect. (Can you believe that?)

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I went home for a few hours to do some homework and be warm before heading back out into the cold for a cooking course with Scan|Design. They seriously coordinate the best events.

These are the ingredients for the dressings of the Danish “hot dogs” that we made. They were not hot dogs at all, but apparently that is what Danes call sausages once they are all done-up with the buns and dressings. I was on the home-made ketchup and mustard team. We also made fried onions, fresh buns (soooo squishy!), remoulade sauce, pickled cucumbers, and the sausages themselves. We had to stuff actual pork into actual lamb intestines. I tried and failed on my first one. Oh well!

Here’s Angel doing some of the dirty work while I was drinking cider and champagne!

Natalie doing the cooking. OH CRAP!!!! I just realized that they told us we could take the aprons, and when I ran out to catch my bus, I was in such a rush that I didn’t grab one. Hmph…… This is sad.

But check out that hot dog, am I right?

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So yes. I would chalk this up as a successful week, despite being sick. Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting the Glyptotek again with my European Art class before partaking in Copenhagen’s Culture Night!!! I am so excited and have no idea what it is about, but I’ll be sure to give details once all is said and done. Until then…

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

The ballet was wonderful! More modern than ballet in many aspects, but fantastic nonetheless. A great way to spend a Friday night, though I didn’t get home until after midnight! (Granted, that was way before either of my host sisters… Tehe.)

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Our view from the second etage inside Det Kongelige Teater, or The Royal Theater.

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There were three pieces, and they each lasted nearly an hour. It was a long night, but I was never tired while watching. The lighting was fantastic. Our seats were fantastic. The musicality was fantastic. The choreography was fantastic (albeit a tad strange and quite mature at times). The male dancers finished every piece dripping with sweat, which gave the performance a very real aspect compared to showcases such as Swan Lake, where perfection and idealism is key. Also, the third piece was accompanied by an orchestra, which was fantastic.

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In the middle of the second piece, the lead female dancer began a solo improv around the other dancers, while they sat/ stood frozen and silent, and she created a huge wailing ruckus. Then she stood at the edge of the stage and began a string of rapid Danish before stripping suddenly to just panties and socks. She then lay on the stage panting for at least a minute while the audience and her fellow dancers stared at her in an edge-of-seat quiet. Then she sat up and got dressed again while speaking yet more Danish. The dance continued while I sat clueless and wishing that I knew a bit more Danish besides introductions and information about my studies.

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But all was well because the audience was served free champagne in between the first and second piece.

Step up your game, PNB! Ha. Just kidding. I wouldn’t have been able to drink it yet back home anyway.

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As a final remark, I present the Queen’s box and the theater ceiling:

  

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Alrighty, time to finish up some homework and pack away my stuff for Stockholm! Woot! Woot!

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

“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