Tasty Thai

So, Sweden tomorrow! I'm excited and am praying for good weather! It's going to be a fun weekend especially after this week (2 tests and 1 presentation)!

Tonight, my host family had one of their monthly dinners with one of their good friends, Allen and Suzanne. I was so happy because my host mom was very brave and cooked some Thai food! I was so impressed! She made my favorite coconut soup....and it tasted almost exactly like my beloved Thai restaurant in Austin, Madam Mams! YAY!!! She also tried making pad thai which was good, too.

I'm also very excited because my host family has a motorcycle, and my host dad might let me ride it on Monday if the weather is good! I've never been on a motorcycle before so that would be VERY fun!

This afternoon, though, was very sad, because one of the flights that Merianne (my friend and fall travel buddy) and I were very excited about and planning to buy was sold out! It was only $30 from Vienna to Athens (I felt so bad -because I was the one that hesitated on getting all of the tickets!) So, we have to rethink our itinerary again....and unfortunately, now the ticket price is VERY high.... :(

Well, gotta go to sleep. I have to wake up 6AM tomorrow for the trip! Hope everyone is doing well!

Lights Out

The power has gone off in the neighborhood, and luckily, my lap top still works! I’m actually really happy, though, cause it gives us a perfect opportunity to congregate. We’re forced to be together around the candles-haha! And it’s so romantic….we’re eating some yummy cakes (leftover from what I baked for my orchestra and what Linnea made in class) and some fresh apples from the garden. Jette and Linnea are reviewing Linnea’s hw and Niels is washing up for the night.

Today, I spent pretty much the whole day planning the two weeks of fall break with Merianne. It was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to go. We have a pretty ambitious itinerary. After our school field trip to Poznan and Berlin, we would like to go to: Prague, Vienna, Athens, somewhere else in Greece, Milan, Rome, another Italian city (TBD- maybe Florence), and Paris. It won’t be a very detailed visit to each city, but it will definitely be a nice sampling of a lot of Europe!

I also watched a Danish movie called Festen (The Party), and all I knew about it going in was it was about a birthday party, and it was the first of the Dogma movies. I thought it was going to be a sweet and cute movie- ha! It’s quite the opposite. I won’t spoil it- and you should see it if you haven’t yet, but it was very surprising and nothing like I expected! It had a very twisted story line, and I spent a lot of time being confused. But it was worth it!

The Running Mothers

My host mom is part of a group that we refer to as “the running mothers.” It is a bunch of her friends that coordinate times to run during the weak. It’s a really great idea. They use an internet network to record when they are going to run and others sign up to join them. Last week I had the chance to go along with them and tour my town, Vaerlose, a little more. We traveled around a small lake with beautiful trails and a nice view that’s about 5 km. The running mothers were so cute, because they have matching red jerseys with their team name which translate to Lionesses. (The husbands are lions.) And they all jog like pros together, with even the girl golden retriever, Chige.

The Cooking Trio

My friends, Ben and Merianne, are geniuses and had an amazing idea of getting together to cook Asian food last week! Yum! I had been having SUCH a craving, and the food here is expensive and not really Asian at the Asian venues. So, we prepared all day by visiting the Copenhagen China Town and cooked at Merianne’s host house. I say it was a complete success. Merianne cooked puncit (which is a delicious Filipino noodle dish), Ben cooked spring rolls and buchi (Fried sesame balls with red bean paste), and I cooked, of couse, bulgogi. The host family hopefully had an interesting experience. (I also bought some canned kimchi – which everyone got to try). And I know I really loved everything! The three of us decided we would have to get together and cook more often. Next time we will go to either Ben or my house to cook with our families. I’m so excited!!!

Meeting the People

I really love meeting all of the new people here. One day (probably like two weeks ago) when I was coming home late from after orchestra rehearsal, I met two girls who were on the same train as me. From what I understood they were from a program that invites students all around Europe for some type of architecture program. The girls I met were German and Spanish. Pretty cool. They are here for the semester as well and had just come from working on a group project. I would really like to meet them more! We exchanged numbers and will hopefully get together sometime.

A few lists from my new world

Once again, it has been a long time since I’ve written, and (of course) so much has happened.

So, today…I am going to write a lot of lists to try to sum up everything.

I never mentioned all of the weird Danish quirks:

1) Danes eat with a fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand. They don’t switch or put their utensils down in the middle of the meal. They also cut and eat, and don’t cut everything at once.
2) Special meals with friends last hours.
3) Scentless candles are very commonly lit during most meals (even the casual ones).
4) At the end of the meal, you look at the cook and say “Tak for mad.” (Thanks for the food.)
5) Danes are ALWAYS on time, and don’t tolerate being late.
6) In my family, people often take small portion for their plates, and then eat, and then take another small portion, and eat, and keep going….
7) Danes don’t really care about the rain. (I guess they don’t have too much of a choice.) But everyone acts exactly the same whether it's raining or not.
8) If something socially unacceptable happens, many Danes ignore it.
9) There's a lot of PDA.
10) Many people think of serious dating as “marriage.”
11) Wedding rings may be worn on either the left or right hand for many couples.

Fashion here is different for me, too. Mostly, though, I think it’s just because of the weather. I’m really not used to wearing layers or jackets and scarves (especially in September). But everyone seems to be very fashionable here.

1) black tights that go to your ankles, short skirts, flats, and a long jacket
2) neutral colors and red and yellow
3) skinny jeans with knee high boots that go over the jeans
4) BIG purses (like back-sized)
5) A lot of the styles are 60s-esque (think go-go girl jackets and dresses)
6) Punk = hoodies

Food here, I thought, was very easy to adjust to. I’m not a picky eater, so maybe that helps a lot, but everything I’ve tried so far is good.

Breakfast:

Option 1 (on weekdays): natural (no flavor or sugar-sometimes flavored) yogurt with
muselee or rye grain mixed with sugar
Option 2 (on weekends): slice of bread with topping (butter and choose 1: jam, cheese, meat, thin piece of chocolate) and fruit
Option 3 (on special occasions): everything above plus eggs, bacon, BBQ beans, and
wienerbrod (Danishes)

Lunch:

Option 1: Regular sandwich (inside might have bell peppers, cucumber, lettuce, butter, deli meat, liver pate, mayonnaise with horse radish)
Option 2: smorrebrod which is rye bread with choose 2: frikadeller (meatballs), pickled beets, liver pate, salmon, butter, pickles
Option 3: Cold board which is a combo buffet style of everything mentioned and more

Dinner

Of course it varies but typically:

Carb: potatoes typically
Meat: red meat
Veggie: we’ve had a lot of different things

Oh, and I had my second test today….which was (like my first test – in my cancer class,) very general over view topics and principles, but this time however, timing was a huge issue (for the whole class). There was too much to write, and not enough time to write it. L But at least everyone is in the same boat.

And by the way- I joined an orchestra called KUSO (the translation is Copenhagen’s Youth Symphony Orchestra) and it’s been a lot of fun. We meet once a week, but it makes my Tuesdays very long (7:30AM-11:30 PM). Today, though, I made and brought some sour cream pecan coffee cake and small pecan pies for the orchestra to eat as a snack during break (this duty gets passed around each week). Supposedly, a lot of Danes have never seen pecans, so it was nice to be able to let them try it!

Alrighty, I’m tired. Off to bed. I’ll have to write more later. (Tomorrow I’m meeting with Merianne- my friend from several of my classes- to make plans for the two weeks break and this weekend, I’m going to Sweden for a biking and canoeing trip! I can’t wait!)

Short Study Tour to Southern Denmark

This was written after I got back from my short study trip to Southern Denmark from Thursday September 13^th to Saturday September 15^th. Sorry I just got it up!

So, it has now been way too long since I’ve written and I keep telling myself that I will come back to recount everything from when I arrived- but that doesn’t seem to be happening. So, I’m just going to start adding entries about what happened recently and maybe I’ll eventually catch up. (Cross fingers!)

This last Thursday to today (Saturday) DIS took all students for a short three-day study tour around to different places. My program was taken to the Southern part of Denmark to learn more about medical practice there and the Danish culture. To tell you the truth, I was a little sad that we weren’t going to go to the Northern part of Denmark, which I had heard so many good things about, but looking back, I had a great time in southern Denmark and would recommend anyone visit.

While driving to the first city, I got to see my first Danish movie “I Will Love You Forever.” Supposedly the actor, Mitch Mickelson (Who was the James Bond villain with the bleeding eye) is a very famous Danish actor and a heart throb to all Danish women. The movie was very realistic with an ending I wouldn’t expect, but what I really liked was the cinematography. I don’t know anything about filming movies, but I did like how the cameras were obviously carried by someone so they bounced around a lot, and I felt like I was watching the film as an onlooker. There was also a lot of zooming into certain props to emphasize them. The whole feel of the movie was very different from anything I’ve ever seen.

We first arrived at Under Sejlet (restaurant) where we were greeted by a nice lecturer (Stig Christensen) who happened to be a world traveler and chief medical doctor of the Southern Jutland Hospital. I was thrilled to find out that we were having a traditional Danish lunch complete with pickled herring. The second place we visited was a private clinic shared between 5 general practitioners. We had a chance to talk to the physicians, ask questions, and tour the facilities. I learned a lot and had a much clearer picture about health care in Denmark. Lastly on Thursday, we visited and stayed at the first folkehojskole (which is kinda like an optional undergraduate school) in Rodding and learned about what goes on here. It’s really fascinating. Foldhojskole, or gymnasium, is a place where young adults (17+) may go for a semester or so to expand their mind and learn about what to do in life. Students live at the school and get to choose their courses, but there’s no tests or grades. It was really interesting to talk to the students and sing songs at night (a tradition during special occasions). We also had a lecture from the principal, Mad Ryknd-Eriksen.

On Friday, we went to Region South Denmark and and learned about the new changes in the municipality system. This change was made to use resources more effectively. I learned a lot about the political side of Danish medicine and hospital structure. For lunch we had wonderful chicken sandwiches at Café Karma and American style. And then afterwards we had a chance to go to Trapholt, which is a modern art museum complete with Danish chairs and paintings. The chairs had been entered into an annual contest, and I would love to have any of them!

Afterwards we visited Koldinghus castle, which had a really spooky dungeon and beautiful tower view, and then we headed to a youth hostel in Sonderborg. This was definitely a very nice hostel and that night we had a great bonfire. How fun!

Today, we rode the ferry from Fynshav (Jutland) to Bojden (Funen) - a lot of people got sea sick L and visited Egeskov castle. My fav! The castle was beautiful, but the castle grounds were even more gorgeous with so many flowers and interesting museums and places to see. It was a perfect way to end the trip.

Now, reality time, and I have to concentrate for my first DIS test on Monday- eek! Wish me luck!

Finally, a post about my first day!

I still can’t believe I’m here sometimes. It’s absolutely crazy to think I’m half way around the world from everything I’ve ever known. I left for Copenhagen, Denmark a week and a half ago for a semester-long study abroad with the Danish Institute of Study Abroad (DIS) and (ba da da da da) I’m loving it!

So much has happened since I’ve arrived, and I hardly know where to start. Since I’m so behind, I will just talk about the highlights (which, I’m sure will take a long time- everything feels like a highlight).

This is my first time in Europe, and I really had no idea what to expect. This was my first time to leave North America and travel to an unknown place completely alone. I think it really creeped me out to hear all of the foreign tongues even in just the Chicago International airport terminals. The overseas airplane was the biggest plane I had ever been on, and I almost felt ashamed to talk because my American accent was so different from every one around me.

I was so nervous landing in London, my first time on European soil, but I was so excited. After a long route to my next terminal, I had some time to explore Heathrow’s stores with the British version of the Harry Potter books, Gucci clothing, and Chanel perfume. Unfortunately, I realized, though, my camera batteries had died, and I haven’t really been able to take pictures since coming.

Arriving in Copenhagen was exhilarating. I was so tired from the three different flights and 20 hours of traveling, but the adrenaline kept me going all day. It turns out that a lot of DIS students were on my flight, and we all met up and grabbed our luggage. I think the first thing I noticed was how modern the Copenhagen airport was. The second thing I noticed was the weather. SO beautiful. It was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and slightly overcast. Literally it feels like a November in Texas. I was actually cold! Texas was 90 degrees at that very moment! Hard to believe.

Once we got to the DIS centre, everything happened very quickly. We were checking in, picking up school supplies, getting transportation money, yadda, yadda, yadda. There were a lot of students and all of a sudden, my host family was there! What beautiful people, blond hair and blue eyes and cute accents! They were such nice people from the very start.

Riding back to my new home, it was so fun to see Copenhagen for the first time. The colorful buildings, beautiful architecture, Tivoli, everything I had seen in post cards. It was all here! I think, though, one of the first things I noticed was that every one just left their bike laying around on the side walks. In the US, most people put their bikes at least next to a bike rack, but here, bikes are propped next to random buildings, trees, or pretty much anywhere. I found out later, that many of the bikes here have built in locks so they don’t have to chain it to something- very handy! Also, my favorite part: there is a bike lane everywhere! In Austin we are lucky enough to have a bike lane in most parts of the city, but here, there is a bike lane in almost every single road, even in the suburbs. So the roads have three “layers” a sidewalk for pedestrians, a lane for cyclist, and a car lane. Each lane is complete with its own street light. So at every cross section for each direction there are three different lanes and lights. Really interesting! AND because of that, it’s really easy- probably the easiest- to get around by bike. So EVERYONE does it! So far, I’ve seen old ladies with their weekly groceries, CEO’s in their nice suits, models with huge stilettos, and even a whole family (the SUV bike) – tandem with a trailer in the back for the kids!

Getting to my new home, I was very excited to find it was cozy, welcoming, and stylish. All of the furniture is very modern looking and there was even an orchid in my room- my favorite flower! The evening was spent meeting my new family (Niels, Jette, and Linnea) over a good meal, and I finally crashed around ten o’ clock.What a long day!