Thursday, 1 September 2011
For Monday, our Danish Language class went on a field trip to Cafe 22, a restaurant on the western side of the "lakes" for dinner. The lakes actually look more like manmade canals and are SUPER shallow. In Jan/Feb they freeze over and everyone bikes/walks/skates over them rather than manuever over to the bridges. The sight is ver-ver beautiful. All around the lakes are paths for biking and walking, and lots of people bring their doggies there. Ducks and swans also make their home in the water.
In any case, the dinner was a pre-ordered kylling sandwich (chicken sandwich) or salad for vegetarians. I have always believed that simple can = delicious, and that was the sandwich. 2 slices of bread similar to ciabatta, chicken breast, cucumber slices, tomato slices, and garden lettuce. One end of the sandwich was stabbed with a kabob stick, and the rest of the sandwich was fanned out like you would hold a hand of cards. This is because sandwich is not meant for eating with your hands like a burger. You cut the sandwich into pieces and eat (again) with fork in left and knife in right and never letting go or switching either. The chicken was lightly pestoed and there was sweet mustard drizzled over the sandwich.
But that was Monday night. I should also mention Monday afternoon, which was my first class at DKDM (or the english acronyms RDAM Royal Danish Academy of Music). I am taking piano lessons with Niklas Sivelov, but on my schedule there is also this extra thing Monday afternoon for half an hour with Hanne. I was vaguely told that it was some practical minilesson. Eh? So I went it with no expectations at all. So the first thing she wanted to start off with was sight-reading a duet, but then she wanted to establish the key. I, IV, V, I. The most fundamental chord progression from music theory. All of it had completely flown out of my head, so we went to some scale practicing, then back to basic chord progression. She also corrected body movement and finger position, all stuff that I had been critiqued upon back in fall/spring, but deteriorated over the piano-less summer. And then we did sight reading and some melody harmonizing. Theory stuff has always been difficult for me because I didn't learn theory parallel to studying piano, so I have to catch up a lot.
So it seems all students here have both their main lesson and this mini practical thingy. I guess it's to help students handle the small tidbits like posture and theory while the professor handles the repertoire. Definitely something that doesn't exist at Peabody for us Music minors (I imagine the majors must also take some sort of "performance" class). Theory class at JHU, although it is taught by Peabody faculty, is taught at a desk and for all people musically inclined. It makes more sense for me to learn it at the piano, playing the different chords and messing around with harmony rather than attempting to write it down and hear it in my head AND have the teacher with me at the piano.
So all in all, Monday was a fine day.
For the life of me, I cannot find a CityBike. They are used very much by tourists and locals, so I am not surprised. Therefore, I decided to bring my bike from the host family to the city.
This was Tuesday. And oh heck it downpoured. I was carrying my bike up the stairs and down the stairs (because I didn't have the time to seek out the special bike elevators THEY DO EXIST but I have also found that carrying it up/down the stairs takes less time) and searching for the train compartments that allow bikes and manuevering around other bikers, etc, etc.
And for the regional train, you have to buy your bike a separate ticket! 12DKK each way! ($2.30)
Why did I do this? Well, it's for the HH&D class at Gentofte Hospital, which is a good 10-15 min walk from the train station, so I wanted to bike it. I also had a meeting at 6, and because the class ends at 5:30, I wanted to be able to bike back from the inner city station to the meeting classroom in time (I would be cutting it close b/c the next train left at 5:46 and would get there at 5:55 if all went well).
When other students started asking about modes of transportation (bus vs. train), the course assistant Johannes suggested biking straight from inner city Køenhavn to Gentofte (that's what he does). He said it took 25-30 min. A straight shot biking? Yes please. I intended on biking with him afterwards, but he had to stay behind to help the professor clean up, so he just gave me directions.
Very simple directions, really, but I still managed to waste 10 minutes searching for a certain street. I'd like to thank my dad for his genes of a mental GPS. Although I didn't know where exactly I went wrong, I knew which way was the right direction and could judge if I overshot without going too far. And I knew I was looking for a main road, so I perked my ears for the sound of cars whooshing.
And it was raining hard all the way. Hehe. Even though it was a straight shot, I wasn't sure how far I had to go to reach the inner city, so along the way I bothered many Danes and they were all super nice in giving directions.
I missed the meeting after all (but it was not an important meeting) but I personally thought that was a fun adventure. Even though biking is not as fast as having a car, it is more exercise, and exercise = stress-free. So I must get a bike for the city so I can avoid having to buy my bike a seat on the train.
And that was Tuesday 30 of august. Oh yes! I forgot to mention I also tasted shawarma. Apparently the thing you must try in Denmark. It is roasted beef or lamb. It is yum. It is $5.00. OM NOM.
(I should mention that I also managed to break the bike on my way home. Not broken, per se, just that the chain fell off the gear, so the pedals swung around uselessly and the bike coasted to a stop. But it was fixed later that night).
Wednesday the noteworthy event was Tivoli! Tivoli is the oldest? amusement park of the world, but it is also a GARDEN. With fountains and rose bushes and other flowers that I don't know the names of and lakes and willow trees and ponds and etc etc. They also have a profuse amount of restaurants and cafes inside. It works differently from Disney or Six Flags. You pay an entrance fee, and then you have to pay a separate fee for getting on the rides (either buy an all ride wristband for $40 or buy individual tickets for $4 each, although the big rides are 3 tickets each and the kiddy rides are 1 tkt and everything in between is 2 tkt.) My host family, because they have a certain gas/electricity company, can get a number of discounted tickets. I got a season pass anyway for $50, which is unlimited entrance until end of 2011. I'm not a very rollercoaster person, and I haven't yet found a ride worth riding multiple times, so I think the pass is definitely worth it for wandering around the gardens, taking pictures, maybe even studying there. ALSO they have concerts all the time there (no extra price, just entrance fee), so now I can go to see that too with the season pass. In any case, one regular entrance fee is about $30, so using the pass at least twice will make it worth it. AND the park redecorates for Halloween and Christmas (and I imagine it must be very pretty), so there are my minimum 2 times of returning :D. In any case, my host family did give me one of their discounted tickets, so I went on the skytower (which is sitting on a swing and being spun around several hundred meters in the air = great view of Copenhagen but soooooo cold and windy) and the Odin Express (a moderate wooden coaster) and bumper cars and a canoe ride through mine caverns (it was intended for kids but there were sections of complete darkness which was really scary for me, hehe).
Yesterday was also an orientation dinner for the international students at the music academy at RizRaz Pizza. We were treated to the buffet, which was for some reason ENTIRELY VEGETARIAN (despite the fact that the restaurant's main selling point was its delicious steaks served on fancy carving board "plates".) Not to say it wasn't tasty, but I am a carnivore, so I was keenly aware of the lack of meat. Herein is another point of interest: all of the students there were majoring in music, so I was the only one not quite as serious about music (one of the other DIS students Wesley meticulously searched up which professor he really wanted to study with at RDAM and described how a performing professor was better than a professor who was only ever a professor, etc, etc. And I was like, "Durp, I'll take whoever they give me," not to say his points weren't valid!). But it's always nice to see people interested in music. Music people are cool.
And today is Thursday, Day 12, the first of september.
In language class today, the discussion was on Danish happiness. Several times in a row now, Denmark has ranked as number 1 in happiness, even though from the outsider's point of view, they seem like the most obtuse, blunt, introverted, frowny-faced folk. We were watching (ironically) a documentary from CBS 60 minutes that attempted to discern why Danes are "happy." One section was about interviewing a group of Danish teenagers, who mentioned several interesting points: (1) when they go abroad, say to Italy or France, they see a lot more people openly laughing or smiling or having friendly chats than at home. (2) Danes REALLY value their family time (hence 37 hr work week and 6 wk vacation), and having more money or fancier car or bigger house is not an achievement in their eyes. (3) when you have low expectations, normal life and things that work out surprise you and make you happy.
For some reason this reminds me of a story that Suzanne (DL&C professor) told us over dinner at Cafe 22. When she and her mother went to visit America, her mother was very much surprised by all the homeless folk (not that there aren't homeless people in Denmark, but less so). She attempted to "adopt" homeless people, getting them breakfast, taking them to get some shoes, etc, etc. and only when they were about to leave and her mother was attempting to get someone else to take over the "adoption" that Suzanne put her foot down. It's something of a "social responsibility" the way she termed it, that the Danish attempt to make sure everyone is alright (back to the formulaic "everyone is equal"). Did I mention Denmark is a welfare state? Like CBS said, I don't think Americans will ever agree to giving up 50% to taxes. The richest of the Danes will never be as rich as wealthy Americans (again quoting my teacher :D), but they are still happier. It's a wonderful system in Denmark (and I don't mean perfect), but only because I think they have their unique ideology, and it probably wouldn't work with the American dream.
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