Two Things I Love: Ireland and Frankie!

First of all: So so soooo sorry for not having updated this in a while, and for failing to Skype like everyone I told I would skype. Things got surprisingly busy!! And this week is no exception, but luckily I finished my paper earlier than planned and took this time to (quickly) update the last two weeks since I won't have time from now until when I'm back from Rome!

Before I left for my study tour, I went riding with my host sister Laerke, which was SO nice! It felt so good to ride again and especially on suchhh cute ponies! Despite the fact that it was freezing, it was so fun and I hope I get to go riding again before I leave!

So- IRELAND: Greatest of all countries, mainly because of the accents

We were in Belfast, which is Northern Ireland, and part of the UK. I don't think I can possibly recap the entirety of Northern Ireland politics I learned, but here's a short rundown.

There are the Catholics/Nationalists/Republicans. They want to be part of the Irish Republic and resent British forces in their country.
There are the Protestants/Loyalists/Unionists. They want to remain part of the UK.
The IRA (Irish Republican Army) is the paramilitary group of the Nationalists.
The UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) is the paramilitary group of the Unionists.

Basically, they have been fighting each other since the 60's. One thing after another, between British soldiers killing 14 marching nationalists on Bloody Sunday and the IRA bombing and killing unionists. They reached the Good Friday agreement in 1998, but tensions are still very, very high. Consider these points:
- Almost everyone in Northern Ireland goes to a segregated school (Catholic/Protestant) (not universities)
- Almost everyone grows up in segregated neighborhoods
- A good percentage of families would not approve of cross-community marriages
- Children writing "Kill all Tieges" (slang for kill all catholics, and spelled wrong, it should be Taigs)
- Certain sports jerseys banned in bars for fear of violence
- Using one word over another can identify your entire background and stance on the issue (your name, your primary school, gold/orange, Ulster/6 counties, Derry/Londonderry, how you pronounce your H)
- They have more 'peace' walls around Belfast now than they did when they reached the Good Friday Agreement
- The nationalists want the national language to be Irish, therefor the unionists created a new 'unionist' language Ulster-Scots
- Kids my age witnessed and heard about their classmates being shot for wearing the wrong school uniform through the wrong neighborhood walking home

Our time there was really interesting, and it was crazy to see such a segregated culture in something we usually think of as so similar to ours. There were times in our trip where my classmates and I really just wanted to ask "Can't you just suck it up and get along?" but there were other times when we understood where they're coming from, like when they talk about their best friend, father, uncle, or husband being murdered. But at this point, far fewer nationalists even want to join the Republic of Ireland due to their shitty economy, so we're not sure what the fighting is for other than over past feuds. Which is just silly. But, regardless, I learned a lot about some really interesting stuff that really makes you think. A lot of people we talked to tried to compare it to American's tensions between whites and blacks and now with middle eastern cultures, and as much as you don't want to admit it sometimes they seem similar. I'm still shocked and dismayed that such a segregated culture exists in a country I always considered perfect green rolling hills full of wooly-jumpers, but studying it really helped me to actually understand where they are coming from, even if I don't agree.

While we were there we...
- Toured Falls Road with a former IRA member who spent 10 years in prison. he was pretty nice and less scary than you would expect (how can anyone with an Irish accent be scary though...?)
- Toured Shankill Road with a former British soldier who pulled body parts out of the rubble of an IRA bombing
- Visited Derry/Londonderry, the site of the Bloody Sunday massacre (don't know it? youtube the U2 song) and talked with the Bogside artists who painted murals along the road where the massacre happened commemorating the lost and trying to reach peace
- While in Derry, rolled down a lovely green Irish hill.. where Chloe rolled through dog shit hahahaha
- Visited the Titanic experience museum at the shipyards where the ship was built
- SAW THE SCRIPT IN CONCERT. and yes it was awesome. stay tuned for videos.
- Visited the BBC Northern Ireland
- Had tons and tons of my new favorite foods: beef stew, potato and leek soup, and Guinness.
- Visited the Northern Ireland Parliament and talked with a member of the Alliance party (the biggest of the few parties working towards integration and peace.. and by biggest I mean 8 members, compared with the two largest Unionist and Nationalist parties, with 38 and 29 members respectively)
- Visited Queen's University in Belfast
- Visited Trinity University in Dublin
- Went on a musical pub crawl in Dublin... yeah it was as awesome as it sounds.
- Discovered the best Irish pub in Belfast with cheap(ish) drinks, live traditional Irish music every night, and lots of Irish couples being merry and dancing
- Had a class Irish dancing lesson. Really wish there was a video of that!

Then, we flew home on Saturday night and after sleeping allllll day Sunday I anxiously awaited Frankie arriving on Wednesday!!!

After lotssss of trouble with his flights (first flight being delayed an hour an a half, barely making his next connection, and a 7 hour flight for someone who hatesss flying), he finally arrived!!! :D
.... without his suitcase :(
So we spent all of Wednesday relaxing and on hold with the airline, who eventually said they would deliver it to my house on Thursday. Which was helpful except we had tickets to see La Bayadere with my class that night and sadly sweatpants aren't really allowed.
Luckily, Frankie and my host dad Bjarne are similar sizes!
La Bayadere was beauuuutiful, of course. Probably less exciting for a super jet-lagged Frankie than it was for me but he was a good sport :)
Spent all of Thursday navigating a cold and windy Copenhagen, and I use the term navigating loosely. Despite being here for 2 months I suddenly forgot how to read a map (even though I was known as 'the' google map in Belfast) and we ended up just seeing a lot of the same circle of Copenhagen in my quest to find the Black Diamond. But, we did see some important stuff and got some good pictures!
Friday we FINALLY got his suitcase by going all the way to the airport between my classes. Annoying, but worth it so Frankie could wear his own clothes again. Major props to Bjarne for lending Frankie his:
- Pants
- Jacket
- Gloves
- Scarf
Friday after class we explored the city a little more, got my favorite lunch crepes, went up the round tower, and accidentally spent like $30 on candy... most of which he left me here to eat by myself.. uh oh. We also played cards with my host family (one of my favorite activities ever) anddd while I didn't win, I did beat Frankie, fair and square (he would tell you otherwise!)
Saturday we spent a cold day at the Copenhagen Zoo! Got sooo many pictures of the most adorable of animals, and spent lots of time with the polar bears (who were very disturbingly and violently eating half of a horses head... so not okay), and the cutest of monkeys.
In our effort to go to a nice dinner Saturday night, we took a recommendation from my host dad, who said it had gotten great reviews but he didn't know about the price range or food type. Upon arrival we quickly learned- before being explained the menu situation we were served a potato-egg-caviar dish. Then the waitress explained the 4 course meal to us which included stuff neither of us liked, and cost a whopping 600 kroner ($104) per person. Naturally we freaked out cause we can't, and don't want to, afford a meal like that, and so we very awkwardly and politely explained to the waitress that we weren't aware of the price situation before we came, and that if we could pay for our first course and service we'd be very grateful. She was so nice about it of course but we felt sooo bad, but saved ourselves a whole lot of money and then went to a delicious Italian restaurant! Lesson: when you see caviar, make sure you figure out the price super fast!/ maybe restaurants should update their websites with prices so people don't have that confusion in the first place!
Sunday I had to take Frankie back to the airport :( and now we're looking forward to Tyler Place 2013 in just two months!! :)

Upcoming Adventures:
1. This week of assignment hell
2. March 22-24: Scotland to see my favorites Erin and Jim!!!
3. March 25-30: Rome with my art history class!
4. March 30 - April 4: Dad visits Copenhagen!
5. April 12-16: London for Stevie's 21st and exploring London with Faye!!
6. April 16-20: Milan to visit my one-on-one Ginevra and her family!

Stay tuned for pictures and videos on Facebook! :)

Love,
Colleen

Cooking in Denmark!

So on Thursday I accidentally overslept by an hour (I did actually wake up, there's evidence in a illegible text to Frankie, but I must have fallen back asleep) and would have been unacceptably late to my first class. My second class had been cancelled and with my third class of the day not being until 3, I decided to sleep in till 10. When I woke up at 10, I had an email that my third class had been cancelled! Great day. So I got inspired to bake/cook dinner. I chose to make a very American dish, and a personal favorite- macaroni and cheese. I went with a Martha Stewart recipe (also very American), but choosing a recipe was just the start. I also made the New York Times recipe for the best chocolate chip cookie.
First I had to halve the recipe. Then, I had to convert everything to the metric measurements... which was just a hassle. And then I had to translate everything into Danish. And then I had to check for the ingredients. At least two hours had passed until I was ready to go to the grocery store!
I biked to the grocery store, which is right down the main road, which I was pretty proud of. I'm also very proud of myself for finding all of my ingredients and only needing to ask for help once! I discovered chocolate chips are apparently not a thing here and so I ended up buying lots of bars of chocolate. I also solved the mystery of the existence of baking soda in Denmark. Then, I biked to a cheese shop right next to the train station (because I couldn't find parmesan or gruyere cheese at the grocery store). And I'm very proud to say I managed to buy those cheese in the (relatively) right amount from the nice old man who didn't speak any English!
I spent the rest of the afternoon asking my host sister Cecilie where various things were in the kitchen and made my cookie dough. Then it chilled for 24 hours. Next I baked the macaroni and cheese (half on the stove, half in the oven) and despite how nervous I was about it.. it was a success! Very cheesy and fattening and American. Not Kraft or Annie's but pretty good. I don't think my host family was very familiar with mac and cheese but they seemed to like it! As a side dish I wanted to do a parmesan roasted asparagus or green beans.. neither of which I could find at the grocery store. So I grabbed some zucchini instead... only to realize I actually grabbed cucumbers (they look very similar!). But no worries, they tasted good as well.
On Friday I baked the NY Times cookies and they were also a moderate success. They came out thinner than i would have liked, but I'm chalking that up to the difference in ingredients and probably some math errors on my part. What matters is that everyone likes them!

In other news, lately I:
- Went to see the Dans2Go ballet program at the Royal Danish Theater (and am seeing it again with a different class this week!)
- Got a lovely package from my family containing the essentials... tissues, contacts, peanut butter, and Reeses
- Managed to survive a week by myself while my host family skiied in Austria
- Skyped the Villanova career center in an attempt to start looking at internships for next fall
- Emailed/Skyped potential new Tyler Place employees to answer their questions
- Successfully (I think) taught Charlie, the 7th grade boy I'm tutoring, how to solve for a variable
- Went dumpster diving and worked with an asylum seeker from Afghanistan on a photo essay to be published in a magazine in Copenhagen
- Made friends with Bertram, that cat who never likes foreigners (I was the only one feeding him so I'm not sure he had a choice)
- Booked my flights to London, Milan (almost), and Scotland
- Most exciting...
FRANKIE BOOKED HIS FLIGHT TO COME VISIT :D

Here are some baking pictures, and more new ones will be on Facebook soon!

Love,
Colleen

Travels in Sweden!

Just got back from a whirlwind adventure in another city in Denmark and two cities in Sweden! And I'm exhausted and fighting the worst sinus infection ever sooo I apologize in advance if this blog post is lacking, but I felt the pictures I uploaded needed a lot of explanation.

So first we started in Helsingør which is like an hour north of Copenhagen. We had the best tour guide who teaches what sounds like a really cool class, Royalty in the Land of Equality, but i don't have enough room in my schedule to take it :(. Also, he is Danish but speaks English with a British accent... further proof of his awesomeness. We looked at Kronborg Castle (where Hamlet takes place!) but couldn't go inside as it was closed :(. Still pretty cool though! This was just the courtyard where we were.

I should also note our whole tour of Helsingør was the most rainy, cold, and dreary day imaginable. So no one was really sad when we got on the ferry for the 15 minute ride to Helsingborg in Sweden!

Then, we drove about an hour up to the coast to visit Ladonia (GOOGLE IT). It was definitely the coolest part of our trip. Long story short, this guy built a bunch of structures out of driftwood on a beach in Sweden. Then, the Swedish government got pissed and told him to take it down or they would. But he sold it as an art exhibit so they couldn't touch it and then declared it the nation of Ladonia (You can apply for citizenship online here http://www.ladonia.org/). Pretty fucking awesome. Seriously, google it. But what we learned that google didn't tell us was that people got kind of upset over this guy and his art and some threats have been made... so whenever he goes to Ladonia a police car escorts him as far as possible, costing the Swedish tax payers some ridiculous amount of money. So they're understandably upset. Other cool things we learned were that one of the national anthems is the sound of a pebble dropping.. and the King is a pair of shoes. Pretty sick. Sadly, my pictures don't even BEGIN to do it justice. The hike was way harder than anyone (including my teacher) expected. None of us had been before though. It was super steep (steeper than the picture seems) and beyond slippery. There was obviously snow, and fallen leaves, and lots of slippery rock surfaces and moss and ice. Honestly, I'm surprised our class made it back alive, in one piece, and without any serious injuries. I think if they do this trip in future years there may be an insurance issue haha.

But, once we got down to the structures it was SO cool!! I can't even describe them and the pictures sort of suck cause it was so overcast, but google (really, google it) has way better pictures. We spent a while exploring and going over the rocks and taking a million pictures, hopefully my classmates got some better ones! The only annoying part was all the driftwood structures were held together with nails sticking out every which way, and I got a little tiny snag in my coat :( but better than that in my hand ha. Surprisingly, everyone made it up the crazy cliff as well. Less surprisingly, everyone was exhausted and so sore the next day.

So after Ladonia we had tea and biscuits type thing at a little restaurant. It was supposed to be 'fike' or 'fika' which is like 'cozy conversation' in Swedish (except I'm sure that's not how you spell it). Then we headed to our cute hostel and had dinner, some delicious ice cream for dessert and watched a popular Danish movie. They told us it had 'dark undertones' which apparently in Scandinavia means the whole movie is entirely depressing. After that everyone was happy to get some sleep.

The next day we drove down to Malmo (can't figure out how to add the two dots over the o) which is a small but very up and coming city in southern Sweden. We had a cool architecture tour by another DIS professor who showed us the very old parts of Malmo (see the pic of the houses with basically slanting frames), but also the really new parts. There was some housing exhibition where Scandinavian architects built and designed their own new types of housing, all featured right on the water in Malmo with a nice view of the bridge from Malmo-Copenhagen. It was super cool but also super cold. It's funny that the houses really didn't look on the outside like super chic houses, but the interiors were probably much cooler, and it probably looks way better in the summer.

Then we visited Sydsvenskan, a fairly big southern Swedish newspaper. While we were in Malmo we really focused on how the city is dealing with its large immigrant population. At Sydsvenskan, we talked to them about how they dealt with the declining role of newspapers and also how they tried to reach a more multicultural audience, not all of whom probably speak Swedish. It was definitely interesting.

That night, we did a comedy workshop with a stand up comedian in Malmo. It was pretty fun, but her main exercise was to have us go around and anonymously write bad things about how we presented ourselves.. not the most fun, but generally amusing. We had a good dinner at a restaurant in Malmo after. On our trip was the 31 students in our class plus two others. We also had our awesome teacher Helle, the most chill teacher who's up for anything, and likes to have DIS pay for our stuff.. she gets away with it because she taught at Stanford. We also had Billy, a guy who we think is in his mid 30's (highly contested and we never got a straight answer from him), who is from Dublin but moved to Malmo about 6 years ago and works at DIS designing catalogues and brochures. He was awesome. Being from Malmo, he took our whole class + Helle out to his plan C Malmo bar (turns out not many are open late on Tuesday nights.. weird). He took us to a Malmo microbrewery and convinced them (in his little Swedish) to open up the entire upper floor for us.. awesome! But the best was yet to come... Helle and Billy had DIS pay for the first beer for everyone! Great class bonding. Billy even invited his cool Californian girlfriend and we all had a great time.

On Wednesday we started the day with a trip to SVT (I think), a big TV station in Malmo. We got a cool tour from the head of news production, and then had an awesome discussion with him. He talked a lot about how Malmo gets represented in the news due to its large immigrant population. Apparently, being born in Sweden doesn't make you a Swede if your parents or grand parents or great grand parents were not born in Sweden. They praised America for calling what Swedes would call a '3rd generation immigrant' a '1st generation American', until we reminded them that we call illegal immigrants aliens. So we all have our problems. We also watched clips of how Fox and the Christian Broadcasting Network portrayed Malmo during a rough time to America. They 1) pronounced the name wrong, 2) listed facts with zero sources and 3) blamed the Muslim immigrants for everything and 4) interviewed a man who they listed as a 'head of something important' in Malmo, who has actually been convicted and arrested several times for his incredibly racist remarks. The people of Malmo are not too happy with Fox and CBN. Billy (in the pic) also got his friend who works there to show us an awesome show he does where they interview artists about how they came up with their songs (Chris Martin of Coldplay NBD). A pretty cool visit.

After, Billy took us for falafel, a traditional Arabic food that's popular in Malmo. However, the combination of ordering Arabic food in Swedish was pretty difficult and I, being the picky eater that I am, was not super pleased with the dish. However, afterwards Billy gave us a tour of Malmo and got us (DIS paid) baklava (turkish or arabic I don't know?)! I liked that a bit more. He also pointed out his house and where he DJs, and his DJ name.. wait for it... A boy called Billy. Greatest. Lastly, we went to a Jewish community center where we talked to a rabbi who moved to Sweden with his wife from NYC to better serve the Jewish community there. It's kind of crazy, he admits that he lives in fear of many attacks and threats from other ethnic minorities in Malmo yet he will stay there forever. When we discussed the roots of anti-semitism he kind of dismissed most of our ideas but didn't really offer up any of his own so we didn't get very far on solving any major world problems. But it was interesting to see how western immigrants are treated better than Middle Eastern or African immigrants, yet the Jewish people still have a really hard time in Malmo.

Thennn we went home and I slept the whole hour ride. I'm still exhausted! But it was really nice to come back to home cooked meals again! When I tried to recap the trip to my host family I couldn't even remember everything because I was so tired.

Last part I promise! Today we first had a mini presentation by two people from an organization that I unfortunately can't remember. But they're working on a campaign to stop discrimination in Copenhagen, especially in the nightlife. I haven't heard of much of that happening, but I have heard that  a bar near DIS, A Bar (australian bar), doesn't let in many minorities. Apparently some bars around the city won't let in minorities because they feel those are the people usually causing bar fights, buts its basically discrimination. After the presentation we got a tour of a nearby neighborhood, Norrebrø, by Hiba, a 23 year old muslim girl who studying to be a dentist. She offered to do our dental work for free! :) She gave us a tour of her old school, a k-9th grade private arabic school. I have to admit it was weird seeing so many people in head scarves and with arabic writing on the walls, but she told us some pretty interesting stuff. The school had such good grades that the education department was suspicious of cheating (because why would minorities ever be smart apparently) and had people watch over their exams, but found no cheating. Her school had some of the highest grades and ratings in Copenhagen. Kind of reminded me of how the technical high school, traditionally for people not going to college, had the best academics of our public schools haha. The kids were SO cute and so friendly!! She also showed us around the neighborhood, including an area thats pretty run down and covered in graffiti. Apparently the government used to own a house there specifically for youth, kind of a place where they could live together and do whatever youth did back then (i think mostly drugs). Then, the government sold it to a super christian organization whose name I can't remember, and they promptly tore down the building because the people inside weren't following Christian rules or whatever. And now every year there are riots on the day it was demolished, and the drugs have spread into the city instead of being in one house. Hiba was not pleased. We also learned that no mosques have been approved for building in Copenhagen (maybe all of Denmark?) yet. For now, they worship in normal buildings where they just put down carpets in rooms for prayers. And showed us a 'ghetto' in Copenhagen (below), apparently one of the worst that is considered the 'lowest of the low'. To be a ghetto in Denmark, there are a few requirements it must fill. I believe they include having a certain percentage of immigrants, a certain number of inhabitants who have committed crimes, and maybe a certain number of apartments? Anyway, looking at this 'ghetto' it appeared WAY nicer than places not considered ghettos at home. It was crazy. Like I would probably live there. My host family said there aren't any real ghettos here though, at least not in comparison to the USA, because of their strong welfare system. Pretty crazy. Then she took us to a great Turkish restaurant where I got a chicken shish kebab which was deliciousss!

And then I came home and wrote this novel... AGAIN. Sorry I keep doing this to you guys it just kind of happens somehow. But if you skimmed all the stuff above, the gist of it is that I had a great time in Sweden, learned a lot about the issues with Denmark and Sweden's immigration policies, and bonded with all my classmates after we saved each others lives several times during our hike, and braved lots of cold walking tours and different foods together. And now I'm ready for some serious relaxation! Hope you enjoyed the forever long blog post again! At least this time I included pictures :)

Lots of love,
Colleen

10 Things the Danes Are Born With...?

Ten Things I'm Convinced The Danes are Born With...

1. An amazing immune system

Naturally, being true to myself, I've come down with a cold. The gross kind where I'm constantly sniffling, sneezing, and struggling to breath through my nose. First of all, I see no boxes of tissues... anywhere. Luckily for me, I had this same congestion when I left the US and so I had a spare pack of travel tissues. A life saver for me today. But whenever I blew my nose around other Danes, like on the train or while walking on the sidewalk, they all stared at me like I had the grossest disease ever. I was perfectly clean about it, sneezing into my elbow and all that stuff. It's like they've never had a cold before! My last piece of evidence to support this probably wrong assumption is that when I went to the 'apotek' (pharmacy) for some tissues, decongestant, DayQuil, NyQuil, etc. I found none of the above. Except for the tissues, I did find a pack of travel packs (my classmates will be thankful probably, less sniffling) and a single box of tissues. No super packs of eight or anything like you find at home. And most disappointingly.. no Puffs Plus :( If you know me well, you know how attached I am to my Puffs Plus in times like these. Sadly, all I could find in terms of decongestant was a nasal spray... gross. But I'll try anything at this point. And it is for these reasons that I have materialistically concluded that the Danes simply just don't get sick, which is ironic because they have free health care.

2. An innate sense of cleanliness

Things are just clean... everywhere. The streets of the major city are clean, even after I saw them a night or two ago filled with cigarette butts and broken glass. There's far less gum stuck everywhere, and they don't even have big trash cans. They have trash cans about the size of the one in my apartment at Villanova, and there are green footsteps leading up to each of them, as if they needed to remind the already-clean Danes to not litter. My host family's house is super clean, so I'm trying to adjust my sometimes normally usually always messy philosophy. A home cooked meal which definitely took a lot of pots pans and things looks like it was never made, and a dinner is cleaned up within seconds. I simply don't understand!

3. Avoidance of lung cancer?

This is probably very wrong and perhaps offensive to any Danes with lung cancer (which I don't intend it to be) but I'm still shocked at the number of people who smoke in Denmark. And according to my host mom, its mostly younger people who smoke! They definitely grew up with at least some of the anti smoking culture that came to power as we got older. They are smokers everywhere, which is even more shocking in such an otherwise health centered society. I just assume that if lung cancer was as prevalent here as it is in America, less people would smoke, or especially take up smoking knowing that fact.

4. Extra hours in the day

From what I've heard from others in host families, and from my own, freshly made bread is often a staple. As is a home cooked dinner every night. As are both parents working full time jobs. Therefore, the Danes must have like, 27 hours in the day to get all of this done. Clean houses + children + fresh food + full time jobs + sometimes working pretty late = impossible.

5. Trusting nature

Only in Denmark could you leave your dog tied up to your baby stroller (tied to nothing with no lock) outside a store in the middle of winter with no fear of the baby being stolen (or freezing, but more on that later). While it has happened sometimes in the past, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it does in the United States; There, babies are stolen from much less convenient places, aka requiring more effort to intentionally steal a child. It's also illegal in Denmark to carry a handgun, knife, pepper spray, or really any kind of weapon (as far as I know). There's a much lower crime rate here than at home. Not saying this to comment on any gun control arguments; simple to state that in a safer place it's not necessary to carry such safety measures that are a staple for many US residents. Babies can run around in a city and manage to not get hit by bikes, cars or pedestrians. They pay high taxes to take care of themselves as well as the less fortunate in the country, and trust that people won't abuse the system. Not that their system doesn't have its flaws, they just seem to be a trusting people.

6. Blonde hair and long legs

Everywhere.

Good thing I'm not that insecure about my appearance or anything..

7. Excellence in biking

Children who struggle to ride a tricycle in America are successfully mastering a real bike in suburban and city areas in Copenhagen. Somehow pedestrians know how to navigate cycle-crowded streets, whereas I look like a deer caught in the headlights whenever I see a bike approaching me. I have a deep fear of continuing to get in the way of it and somehow seriously injuring a Dane.. not the way I'd like to be welcomed into the country. I don't know how they learn so much bike etiquette and excellence at such a young age and so my only explanation is that they're born with it.

8. Naturally skinny

I don't think I've seen anyone overweight here in my 15 days, despite the availability of delicious danish varieties around every corner.  I'll chalk it up to the otherwise healthy diet, smoking, biking everywhere, high cost of food and alcohol, high tax on cars and gas, obsession with football and handball, and the blond leggy genes.. definitely makes sense now.

9. Patience

If I lived in a country with a national language that everyone spoke, and still encountered Americans and other foreigners asking me questions in my not-native language everyday (or butchering phrases in Danish, which isn't hard to do), I'd get a little pissed. But so far everyone I have ordered from, asked for help, or talked to hasn't seemed at all upset with my lack of Danish. I'm sure they get used to it, but still it must take a certain amount of patience. I think that those who promote the 'live in America, speak English' (even though America has no official language) argument should pop over to Europe for a day where almost every sign is doubled in English... even though they have an official language.

10. Timeliness

Somehow, the Danes are always, I repeat, always, on time. It's been talked about in every into and orientation to Danish culture we've had here- the Danes don't accept tardiness. Last week, we had about ten guests over for dinner. They were invited at 5:30. Pretty sure the doorbell rang at 5:30 sharp and they were all there, despite having come from different places. Same scenario this past weekend. A family with two small children were invited over at 3pm, and (I checked this time) arrived at 3:03. So sharp! I don't know how they do it, especially when so many people travel by public transportation which has a reputation for becoming delayed due to the smallest weather convenience. My host mother told me she and her colleagues were to interview what was looking like a pretty sure thing candidate this morning, but she arrived 20 minutes late with no excuse or concern for her tardiness. Needless to say, she is no longer so certain of a candidate. Even my art history professor today arrived five minutes before the start of class, and was apologizing about his lateness. He blamed the S-tog, and informed us that he's usually there before anyone else. I don't know how the Danes do it but somehow they get everywhere right on time.

Classes and Culture

Hello! So I think currently it's actually colder at home/Villanova than it is in Denmark... HAHA welcome to my life! Except for you guys it'll probably last a week and for me at least another month. Anyway I'm not going to give a recap of everything I've done this past week because no one wants to read another book. So I figured I'd just tell you about some of the cultural differences I've noticed so far that are pretty cool!

1. There are babies running around everywhere in adorable little snow suits. Their attitude towards children seems pretty different from what I can tell so far from that in America. First of all, I'm pretty sure both moms and dads get maternity/paternity leave when they have a kid, which is a lot more accommodating than policies at home. And they trust the people around them a lot! Moms and dads and couples are walking around Copenhagen all day with their babies just running down the streets. You can also leave your baby in a stroller outside a store while you're shopping inside, and very rarely will any harm come to your kid. Definitely not something anyone would ever do in America. I think actually I heard a story that a Danish woman tried the same thing while visiting American and got arrested for child endangerment or something. They also ride with their kids on the back of their bikes, or in like carriages attached to their bikes. It all looks pretty foreign and dangerous to me, but everyone does it and everyone seems very happy. Also the snow suits are just beyond adorable, these are the most bundled up kids I've ever seen and when I have kids I will most certainly be buying all of their clothing here. Plus, I think a lot of children are allowed to sleep outside or are put outside when they're crying (from what I've heard). That's probably why they have lungs of steel and are able to play sports outside for hours when its like in the teens.

2. They have so many political parties! At least five but definitely more. However, they realize they need to compromise between them all, and they seem to function far better than the political system in America. My friend and I were curious as to how opposing they are, since Denmark operates under a constitutional monarchy and social welfare state idea. As far as we could tell, none of the parties really oppose those ideas, although I think there is some small party that wants to abolish the social welfare state. But otherwise, they just differ on ideas of how prominent it should be. I'm not sure about the other policies, but it's pretty refreshing to be in a different country instead of the consistent liberal conservative arguments at home.

3. Biking! Everywhere all day every day. I don't know how their faces don't freeze off but they don't. Other than my first biking experience the day I arrived, I'm waiting to get back into it until it's maybe above 30 degrees and not slushy from the snow. But the public transportation is super accommodating to bikes and so are the streets! Naturally I seem to get in the way of bikers because I don't know how to navigate through them like the Danes do but everyone seems so safe and natural about it. Most stair ways going down to the train have a ramp on the side for bikes, and there are bike racks everywhere. There's also one or two bike cars on the train. Definitely can't wait for it to get warmer so I can try and be truly Danish and bike everywhere.

4. Public transportation here is the coolest thing ever. They have the train (S-tog), regional trains, the metro, and buses. Its all so easy to use!! I take the train into the city every day and its awesome. Its comfy and fast and generally reliable. Most Danes actually find them really unreliable as I guess sometimes they get delayed due to weather, but compared to public transportation at home I think it's awesome. The insides of the trains are really nice and everyone stays generally quiet. Plus, they have free wi-fi, which is just awesome. Of course, whenever I plan to catch a certain train, I miss it; now I just leave and catch the next one.

5. Danes in general seem really informed about world news, even about American news and politics. They also aren't afraid to talk about politics with you, or so I've heard. Most of my teachers say that Danes don't really do small talk, and so it's not abnormal for them to bring up issues like abortion or gun control. But the GREAT thing about them is that they generally don't judge you for your ideas, as long as you can support them. Which is my general stance on all politics and so it's awesome that most people here are similar. Very refreshing from the close minded ideas of 'I'm right and you're wrong' that you usually get.

6. Danes LOVE throwbacks!! I've been in a cafe when they played Destiny's Child 'Soldier' and Usher's 'My Boo'. And when we went out Saturday night there was one bar that basically only played American throwbacks. Love it.

There were some other things I wanted to mention that naturally I forgot but I'll write about them when I remember! Also meant to tell you a bit about my classes..

At 8:30 on Mondays and Thursdays I have cross-cultural communication, which is my core course. Basically it means that's my main area of study here and we go on a short tour to northern Denmark, and Kullen and Malmo in Sweden. Then we go to Belfast for a week. So far it seems pretty cool. The instructor is the head of the communication department here and she seems nice. We've watched a bunch of videos of different cultures communicating, through ads and comedy which I like a lot.

Then I go to Danish.. As hard as I thought French was, Danish is even harder. And for once, I think it'll be the vocab, not the grammer, that is hard for me. It's like nothing is pronounced at ALL the way it's spelled, and it's really hard for me to remember words if I can't picture the spelling in my head. It's completely different from English French or Spanish and I am struggling already. But, our Danish class did go to a cute cafe last night for a (free) dinner and wine which was nice; we all bonded over how hard the language already is. Luckily I have 5 people already fluent who can help me! :)

And then my last class on Monday/Thursday is International Advertising, which also seems pretty interesting. It's a lot more marketing than it is like designing ads, which is new for me. We have our main professor who likes to think of himself as our 'coach' instead of our teacher, and who was the head of a lot of companies involved in international advertising which is cool. We also have another part time teacher who currently works in the field.

On Tuesdays/Fridays I start at 8:30 with Journalism vs. Public Relations which definitely wins the prize for coolest teachers. It's taught by two professors, one for PR and one for journalism. The PR teacher is a guy who's super funny, and works as the head of press for an organization here called DIGNITY, which is the Danish Institute Against Torture. And the journalism professor is a woman who used to be a broadcaster for one of Denmark's biggest TV news stations... and she was on dancing with the stars... and she ran for parliament. She said she wasn't a fan of/didn't know there would be so much tabloid publicity with dancing with the stars, and her politician career was fairly fleeting. However, she quit broadcasting for a specific reason that she hasn't revealed to us yet. I think now she runs her own journalism company of some kind and might still commentate on TV news? Either way she's pretty cool, and the two of them together are hilarious.

Anddd lastly I have History of European Ballet, which I only had for the first time today. It seems kinda boring but interesting nonetheless because it's about ballet. The teacher is an older guy who teaches theater stuff I believe, and is kinda grumpy but really passionate about ballet. Also we're going to see 4, maybe 5, Royal Danish Ballet performances so I'm not complaining. Plus it looks like we're going to spend a lot of class time watching ballet variations so still happy.

I've been here for over a week now and only slightly adjusted to the cold! But I will continue trying to update this and take as many pictures as possible! :)

Love
Colleen

First Few Days

So the first few days have been super busy and so I probably won't be able to write about everything or in great detail but I'll try to give a run down of what's been going on since I arrived! The airplane ride was pretty interesting, there were lots of other DIS students on my plane and I ended up sitting next to one! The plane was awesome (minus the tiny seats) because each seat had a tv on the back with free movies, games, and music. And the movies were like new movies not out on DVD yet! Airplane dinner wasn't as gross as I've heard, it was actually pretty good. I watched the Dark Knight Rises, and then unsuccessfully tried to sleep. Once it become clear sleep would never happen, I watched Dark Shadows. Then, we landed in Amsterdam at 5:15am our time. It was pretty confusing to get to our next gate as we had to go through passport control and security, but we met up with lots of other confused DIS students and made it through. The second plane ride had a great view of the Scandinavian sunrise (which happens at like, 8:30 am)... which I mostly slept through. After waiting for baggage, we met DIS helpers at baggage claim and made our way to the adjoining Hilton Hotel to meet our host families! Before they arrived I got my shitty Piccell phone to be able to text other Danish numbers, and had a short orientation meeting. Then Tove and Bjarne Eriksen were there to take me to my new home for the next four months!

On our way home they pointed out important places. Their home is only a short maybe 20 minutes from inner city Copenhagen. Once I got unpacked a bit, we had some sandwiches for lunch and then went to see Cecilie in her handball game! They won, and it was my first introduction to the very popular sport in Denmark. It's sort of similar to basketball, only without a net and instead with a soccer type net, and much faster and more physical. We biked there, which is how most Danes get to school, work, the train, or around their community, and naturally I fell off my bike for the first time in years. Lesson learned- don't try to go over curbs that are clearly too high. I'm blaming the jetlag. We did some grocery shopping on the way home and then I finished unpacking, took a shower (in an awesome bathroom with heated floors!) and had dinner with the whole family. Afterwards, we watched Denmark vs. Russia in handball in what I think is a world cup? It's a super popular sport. Sadly I could barely keep my eyes open the whole time because I'd been up for 30 some hours at that point but by not sleeping that whole day I avoided probably the worst of the jetlag.

So Monday was our first day of orientation. It also required that I take the train (S-tog) all by myself into Copenhagen. And by all by myself, I mean with the other 900 DIS students that I saw somewhere on the train or in the metro. You can easily spot us due to our confused looks and desperate searching for maps. We had an opening ceremony which consisted of talks from people working at DIS and the director, as well as two performances by the DIS strings. It was actually pretty cool and way less boring than I expected. The only bad part about it was that we had to check our coats before we went in- and checking 900 coats took foreverrr. Then, we made our way to a DIS classroom and were split up by housing types and areas. My group was all other students in host families who live in the surrounding train stops on my line. We were split into smaller groups and then given an 'amazing race' assignment; we had 5 specific places to visit, hear a DIS professor tell us about the landmark, and get a stamp. The activity was really cool, except it meant spending at least three hours walking around in 20 degree weather with wind making it feel like the low teens. We visited the Danish Parliament, the Black Diamond library, a church in Christiantown, the Kings New Square (right by the canal with the multi-colored houses that is on like every postcard of Copenhagen) and the royal palace. They were all really cool places, and we learned a lot about how politics is built into the architecture. It was really interesting; the built the church in the shape of a Greek cross which is more equal than a traditional Latin cross, and everything on the inside was symbolic of the monarchy. In my pictures, you can see the ceiling which has the crown on it. There's a massive organ about the door leading into the sanctuary area, which seems to be supported by two carved elephants on either side of the door. Those stood for reliance, intelligence, longevity, and other things associated with elephants that the King also wanted associated with the monarchy. The royal palace architecture was also really cool. Several of the old castles burnt down, and eventually the royalty bought out 4 mansions which face each other in a square. The mansions surround a statue of a past King whose name I can't remember. Anyway the palace is very open to the public in that they can stand in the square and around the statue, whereas most palaces are gated off. The DIS professor talked a lot about how Denmark's monarchy works with their constitution- while the Queen technically has the power to veto things, she never does because she knows the people would 'fire' her as Queen if she did. The royalty are still very important for like head of state activities but are more often celebrity figures, leaving the politicians somewhat out of the spotlight unlike in America. However, my host father Bjarne said politicians are still very often gossiped about. Anyway the whole tour was really neat because we learned a lot about Danish history, the social welfare state, the constitutional monarchy, and pros and cons to all of the above. Also it was very very cold.

Today, we started the day with a housing session led by two DIS employees with lots of people also in host families. We talked a lot about how to work the transportation (S-tog, metro, and regional trains). In general, it's super easy. To get into Copenhagen and to DIS all I do is walk down my street for about 10 minutes, cross the road and go to the train station. The trains run very often so I don't have to worry about catching a particular time, and they are so clean and organized! Danes can take their bikes on specific parts of the train, and its very quiet and doesn't smell horrible like trains in new york or philadelphia. We also talked about how to live and shop on a budget considering how expensive Copenhagen is. Most Danes pack a lunch because it's just impossible to buy one in the city many days during the week. And of course we talked about how to adjust to living with a Danish family and how it would differ from our American home. Then I went to get books (for free!) for my classes. And lastly I went to a quick orientation for the communication program which looks really cool. Tonight we watched another handball game, Denmark vs Chile. And now I'm super tired after writing this novel which probably no one will read haha. I'm really liking my time here and am actually excited for classes to start because they seem so cool.. definitely a new feeling. Its been lightly snowing since I've been here and it's so pretty! See Facebook for pictures. My host family is awesome! And so nice. They've made me a delicious dinner every night and gave me my own room and bathroom! They've also made figuring out aspects of living in Denmark much easier, like transportation and communication. It's also really cool to learn about the differences of Denmark, with their super high taxes but really well functioning and happy society, and then how things operate in America. 

But really I am exhausted haha, so check out Facebook for some pics!

Love

Colleen

p.s. I didn't read over and edit this sooo sorry

Airport!

So I'm going to attempt to keep a blog while I'm abroad since that seems like something most people do, although I don't have very much faith in myself that I'll keep up with it, but I'll try! 

Anyway I'm currently at JFK airport waiting for my first flight to Amsterdam and then connecting to Copenhagen. The airport wasn't too bad, but carrying all three of my suitcases was definitely a challenge and I'm not looking forward to getting them at baggage claim in Copenhagen. Packing was a nightmare as usual, but it always is for me. By some miracle my bags weren't overweight! Security wasn't bad either, although I was surround by two groups of Russians which was mildly intimidating. The international terminal is pretty cool though. So now I have an hour and a half until I leave! I'm definitely very nervous, a little scared, super tired, but also really excited. I can't wait to meet my host family and get settled in, and start seeing the city! But I think for now I'm going to watch some It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and relax before my 7 1/2 hour flight! If I haven't already told you, I can talk via whatsapp or facebook or skype while I'm there so hit me up on one of those :)

Talk to you next from Denmark!

Love Colleen