hej hej, københavn!

Well, I'm back in the good ol' USA! During my last week in Copenhagen, I attempted to gather my extremely mixed emotions and form coherent thoughts of some sort.. and wasn't able to. Hence, no blog posts until now.

Reminiscing was rampant last week as I said goodbye to my wonderful host family, the many fantastic people I had the opportunity to meet in the last four months, and the beautiful country that I found I had fallen in love with. At the risk of sounding super cliché, as my plane was sitting on the runway, I couldn't help but shed a tear to close this chapter in my life.

the home I had to say goodbye to.

I've only been back for two days and I've already started to realize some things that I'm starting to miss (and appreciate)..


1. riding my bike/walking everywhere.. driving will be an interesting change. I drove for the first time in 4 months today. when I turned right, instead of using the actual turn signal, I stuck out my right arm (the turn signal you use when riding a bicycle). 


2. seeing flags integrated into daily life. for example, on birthdays, the whole home, the cakes, and everything is decorated with Danish flags.


3. the spring! I'm wearing shorts and tank top for the first time in ages, which is undoubtedly awesome, but I wish I had had some transitional weather from wearing a northface and boots to 90 degree. I loved getting to witness Denmark's transformation from a thick white sheet of snow to a vibrant green.


Some things I'll have to become re-accustomed to in the States:

1. dollars. I saw a one dollar bill for the first time yesterday and stared at it for about half a minute. Also, today I went to a coffee shop and had to convert the price into kroner to figure out if I was getting a good deal (for the record, it was half as expensive as any coffee I ever bought in the Cope.)

2. driving. I drove my car for the first time today and forgot that the turn signal for the bike is NOT the same signal you use for a car. When I was turning right, I stuck out my right arm instead of using the actual turn signal.

3. children speaking English. I put in 45 hours at a practicum in a school just outside of Copenhagen for my core class. The children at my practicum were all around 7 or 8 years old, so they hadn't begun their English classes yet (they usually begin in fourth grade). There was a huge language barrier, but I found myself getting much closer with them than I expected to; I think I'm going to miss the children in my practicum as much as I'll miss other DIS students!

(photo cred: Corinne)
Tivoli at night! Tivoli is an amusement park right in the middle of the city; I passed by it on the way to class everyday. Disney visited it back in the day and it served as his inspiration for creating his own family-friendly amusement park- Disneyland. It's also the second oldest amusement park in the world (the oldest one is also in Denmark! :) ) and it has the oldest wooden roller coaster in the world! Tivoli in itself is worth a visit to Copenhagen.


I know this won't be my last time in Denmark. I'm honestly going to miss it too much to never visit again! Hopefully I can string together a thesis idea that will take me back.

In the meantime..

vi ses, Danmark :)

reading the city: literary london

Last weekend, I went to London with the DIS optional study tour!

Right after travel break, I began a 6-week course that met once a week called Literary London, which culminated in a weekend-long trip there! In five classes, we covered five centuries worth of history and literature.

I realized over the semester that I hugely preferred the DIS tours because we had opportunities to experience cities beyond the typical tourist traps.

For example, our class' first stop was Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

We saw the Globe during the international season, where they'll perform 37 plays in 37 languages! We had the opportunity to watch a rehearsal of Richard II in Palestinian Arabic. It was so surreal getting to watch a rehearsal of a Shakespeare play (even if we couldn't understand a word) on the stage of the Globe itself. Afterwards, we participated in a Macbeth workshop with whom I presume is an acting coach and expert in Shakespearean plays.

Next, our class had the option of either going to the Churchill War Rooms or an exhibit for Dickens' 200th anniversary of his birth. I consider myself more of a literature nerd than a history buff, so I chose the Dickens exhibit at the Museum of London.

That afternoon, we reunited for a traditionally English high tea, filled with finger sandwiches, scones, and the tastiest tea I've ever had in my life. I've never even liked tea all that much and it was delicious!
















It was super fancy too- jeans and sneakers weren't permitted. It was undoubtedly the classiest place I've ever been... I even learned how to properly hold up my pinky while drinking tea! I was quite sophisticated that afternoon.

Immediately after our super classy afternoon, we head over to the West End to see one of my favorite musicals, Billy Elliot!

I had seen the show on tour in Charlotte last year, but this was beyond excellent. I cried no less than five times.

The following morning, we split up into pairs to complete assignments that we would later present to the class. Some people walked along Oxford Street, looking at how Virginia Woolf's description of the street in the '20's compares to the street today, another group travelled through most of the lines of the Tube to gain a better understanding of London's transportation system. My assignment was titled "Walking the Wall," and our task was to trace the path of the ancient Roman Wall that 2000 years ago, defined the perimeters of the city. This project consumed Saturday morning and it ended up being an interesting, personalized walking tour of the city.

We later met up at the National Portrait Gallery which was far more fascinating than any other museum visit I've been to this semester, largely because of the activities our tour leaders had planned for us. We broke up into six groups of two and each pair of us analyzed a portrait from a different period of London (we did Romanticism) and presented this to the rest of the group.

We ran into this guy:

(he's pretty famous, right?)








That night, we had traditional fish and chips (which aren't actually chips, but french fries. This is something I know I should have known, but it still came as quite a shock to me) at another super posh restaurant. Honestly, the Literary London tour was the classiest weekend of my life.

Oh, did I mention I went to Kings Cross and hopped on Platform 9 3/4? Turns out my letter from Hogwarts was only 9 years lost in the mail.

ahhh, it's the Millennium Bridge! I hope the Death Eaters don't destroy it like they did in the sixth Harry Potter movie!

This is the tallest building in Europe! London was very strange for me when we first arrived and not exactly what I expected. Even though I've been to 8 countries in Europe now, this is the first time I've seen any skyscrapers! I thought that London was going to have that quaint, European city feel to it, but it ended up being more metropolitan (and overwhelming) than I expected. Regardless, the study tour exceeded my expectations in every way! 

side note: By sheer luck, out of the nearly 8 million people in London, I happened to run into my cousin, Lauren!

catching up

Once again, I've been a little off the radar. I only have 10 days left in Denmark(!) so I've been a little busy taking advantage of the limited amount of time I have left in this beautiful country. I'll spend the next couple posts catching y'all up on what's been going on in Denmarkland.

Two weekends, ago, I went on a DIS sponsored trip to Legoland! The weather wasn't perfect and we didn't stay as long as I would've loved, but it was still wonderful.

a Lego model of Nyhavn (new-hown)!

fun fact: Legos were invented in Denmark! The name itself comes from combining two Danish words, "leg godt," or "play well."

There were several Star Wars Lego models, but this one was by far my favorite because of the absurdly adorable Ewoks!

These were all life sized. I was pretty amazed by how long all of this must have taken to assemble.

Sarah and me!

hanging out with lego HC Andersen

adorbs? yup.

The next day (Sunday, 29 April... I know, I'm super behind) I went to my very first European "football" game! I'm not totally sure why, but somehow I didn't end up with any pictures to document the occasion.

On Wednesday, our HC Andersen class took a field trip to Tivoli! DIS paid for our entrance fee and the Hans Christian Andersen ride, which was a mix between his fairy tales and It's a Small World!

"The Flying Suitcase" !

I'm heading back to Tivoli tomorrow to spend most of the day, and then I'm going to a Medina concert tomorrow night!

This is part 1 of catching up. Just to give y'all a teaser of what's coming up in my next post (which will be soon, I promise) I went to London last weekend! so stay tuned..