It's been a long while :P
Tuesday the 11th: It was a friend's bday party, and we went to a Cafe Dalle Valle next to Frue Plads. Apparently they have 50% off the entire menu Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. For this reason (and they have good food), I highly recommend this restaurant. It's also very popular, so either wait a bit in line or make a reservation.
Thursday the 13th: I forgot to mention a story that my Danish teacher told us...
Several years ago, a group of small girls escaped their school by climbing over the fence. They then proceeded to the nearest Netto (grocery chain), took a shopping basket, and started loading it with candy. An adult realized they weren't actually shoppers and returned them to the school. In a separate incident, a group of 3 small boys escaped their school by digging under the fence. They made a similar trip to Netto for candy and was returned to their school as well. The moral of the story is that 1) kindergarten teachers do not watch their students like their hawkeyed American counterparts and 2) nobody seems to steal kids in Denmark. :D
Friday the 14th was Kulternatten! It's a special night when many buildings in Copenhagen normally closed to the public open and host special events and stuff (example, visit the zoo at midnight, run around Rosenborg Castle in the dark with a flashlight, etc). I and some friends went to see Parliament (Folketinget) first [there were long lines everywhere!!! rather like Disney World]. Inside we saw the main room for debate--it was like for a miniature Congress, and different rooms had events by different political parties. My friend was really into politics, so every room she bugged a politician with questions. I think just wandering around would have been boring (because everything was in Danish), but listening to the politicians and my friend debate was much more interesting. There were also free balloons from each party. I wanted a red balloon, but then I realized it belonged to Enhedslisten---the super extreme socialists--and I didn't want to be walking around as if I supported them. So instead I settled for the Konservative and Radikale balloon--who are close to US moderates.
Our next stop was food. In Gammel Torv, we found free potato and walnut soup and pancake making over an open fire. We were standing in line to visit the prisonhouse (for detainees about to enter court in the next building) and passed by a sushi place selling zongzi: chinese rice cakes wrapped in palm leaves. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get into the prisonhouse, so we were glad for snacks. The prison had open cells for us to peek into, and down in the basement they held the most infamous (and probably one of the extremely rare) serial killers, an insane woman who adopted/temporarily held orphaned children, except she strangled them, chopped them up, and buried the pieces in the graveyard. At one point she moved far away from the cemetery, so she resorted to burning the pieces in a woodstove. But it got to the point where the pieces came in faster than she could burn, so she stacked them like a logpile. After 26 victims, she was finally discovered and arrested (although in court she was only charged with 8, not sure what got lost in translation). On a happier note, at the end of the tour they were selling crafts made by the prisoners. I bought some beads to support them.
Saturday the 15th: This day was reserved for hanging out with some Chinese friends, shopping and making dumplings (entirely by hand :D )! It was at a kollegium (like apartment-ish dorms reserved for students) in Ørestad, right outside of the largest mall in Denmark: Field's. It's an international kollegium, so my friend's roommates were Danish and Scottish!
Random interjection: my host mum got a Macbook!!!!! --celebration dance-- Sorry, as a Mac person, I celebrate all converts.
Monday the 17th: I keep hearing the most interesting things in Danish class. It was about janteloven: the belief or idea that no one should try to be superior than anyone else, and anyone claiming to be better or etc (such as a dictator) would only get laughed at. In this context, we learned that the Danes saved 98% of the Jewish population in Denmark--silently and secretly resisting the Nazis, but no one is celebrated today (only 1 tiny museum dedicated to the resistance) because of the janteloven: no hero recognition here. And it's the complete opposite of France, who trumpet their resistance efforts like nothing else--though my prof says it's all a lie, hehe. Lots of food for thought.
Tuesday the 18th: A BIG RAINBOW THAT YOU COULD SEE THE ENTIRE ARCH!!!! So awesomes but rain and hail are not exactly welcome. Someone got a picture and says it was a double rainbow. Well, it was interesting because you could clearly see one half of the sky grey and miserable with this rainbow and the other half of the sky blue and sun and clouds.
Wednesday the 19th: Our Danish class went on a field trip to Christiansborg Slot--the old palace no longer in use as a residence (but still used for royal events and connected to Parliament). Underground are the ruins (because several castles were built one on top of the other as they got destroyed). The tour is very interesting and the tour guide is both excellent in English and entertaining, and the ruins are cool to look at. They also took us inside the current palace. It's baroque and grand like the best of them. In the throne room, the two chairs are of different size--the queen's being taller than the king's! This was because these two chairs were originally in two different rooms and only had to look similar, nothing else. Now that they are together, the differences are clear. Anyway, because the monarchy is only symbolic, when the Queen receives dignitaries in this room, they put a nice screen in front of the chairs and the Queen stands in the center of the room on a special snowflake pattern on the woodfloor. Symbols of diminishing power :(. Also, there is a interesting painting which shows one of the kings as a small boy, except he's wearing a white dress with a blue ribbon--so he looks very girly. When this king ruled, he had the doors to this painting closed, but back in the day, the fashion was that all small children wore white dresses, only that girls had a pink ribbon sash and boys had blue. :D
That Wednesday was also the HALFWAY POINT OF MY STAY IN DENMARK (cries in a small corner). Therefore I took this day to do many fun things. I went to an interview at Fisketorvet (2nd shopping mall in the city) for possibly playing the piano sculpture that was to be installed in the middle of November. It's very exciting!! Hopefully someone will take pictures, because I certainly cannot narcissistically take pictures of myself while playing. Also, it means I will have to teach myself Danish Christmas music (their request for the month of December). Looks like my 13 years of lessons will finally pay off XD.
Afterwards, I met up with my roommate Lauren to visit Tivoli for Halloween! They went all out on decorations. You have to see it for yourself. They even replaced the central fountain with a hugenormous sculpture scene. And all these little vendors and stalls had sprung up where there was definitely empty space before. ALSO, we caught a show at the pantomime theatre! (I was lied too once more). It's about Kassander, a rich old man, his servant the clown Pierrot, his two sexy maids, his ballerina daughter Columbine, and her lover/fiance Harlequin. This particular show was entitled Kassander Loves $$. It has some suggestive scenes--so I guess Danish children are freely exposed to sex and stuff. Kassander is introduced counting his money, peeping at his maids, and storing his money in a cabinet. In a park, Columbine and Harlequin are searching for each other, and upon finding each other, Harlequin proposes. Outside the house, a macho thief has broken out of a prison, armed with a gun. He is about to break into Kassander's home when Columbine and Harlequin suddenly return home. The thief takes the opportunity to follow them inside discretely. Inside the house, we see the maids polishing Kassander's bar of gold, except that he's holding the bar of gold at his groin and the maids are crouching and rubbing on it. As soon as his daughter comes in, he shoos them away and welcomes her home. She presents the engagement ring. Seeing Harlequin in his colorful overalls, he tries to convince Columbine out of it and even attempts to give Harlequin the bar of gold so that he will leave Columbine. Pierrot scolds Kassander for trying to interrupt true love and Columbine runs outside crying, Harlequin following. While they're gone, the thief pops up, holds Kassander and Pierrot at gunpoint, and forces the maids to fill his trashbag with the money. He then leaves with the maids and the money. Harlequin and Columbine spot the thief taking off and the entire group goes searching for them. The chase is long and the thief has a good headstart. The thief arrives home and forces the maids to chug glasses of alcohol while he (turning his back to the audience) pulls at his pants (hmm, I wonder what he could be doing...) The good guys catch up and Harlequin and the thief fight. Kassander and Pierrot dive in to help and end up distracting the thief until Harlequin jumps in from behind and snaps the thief's neck (also rather graphically portrayed, with an audible crack in the soundtrack). They all return home in celebration and Kassander shows his support for true love. The show was all very fun--especially since it was pantomime.
Thursday the 20th: BATMAN LIVE OMG OMG OMG OMG. Batman Live World Arena Tour is stage performance of a Batman story touring throughout Great Britain, but they also happen to come to Copenhagen! And so very conveniently at the Forum venue, which is across the street from the music academy. Tickets were $70!! But it was very well worth it. A good show, with good use of technology and excellent acting and overpriced souvenirs and the Batmobile onstage!!! Interestingly enough, they styled the Batman actor in the manner of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne. ALSO, they clearly had not mastered the art of fighting in the air hanging by wires. It had to be done in slow-mo, where Catwoman punched Batman in the chest, 2 second delay, and then Batman was flying very slowly backwards. Otherwise the ground battle scenes were very well coordinated.
And once more, Danish class exposes me to such interesting concepts. THE OPEN PRISON! Essentially, you can have money, you need to work, you can go out to the city and visit the library etc etc do shopping because you have to cook for yourself, get yourself and education, etc, etc and then come back to the prison at night. They even get vacation days (6 wks like all Danes) and can leave every 2 weekends to visit family. And the prison itself is like nice little apartments or houses all set out in the middle of the countryside. It's rather like a free hotel. Only you cannot have a cell phone. 1) Why would you escape? and 2) if you do attempt escape, you are transferred to a closed prison (which is like regular prison). The focus is not on punishment but on re-integrating criminals back into normal society. I like this and at the same time I don't like it. What do you think?
And one more thing for this lovely Thursday: HOT SEXY GUYS ON THE TRAIN --again--- Also, it was again a busy train. A friend and I spotted some free seats and one of the guys had a British accent. So I asked if he was a student. Not really. He'd been studying in England for the past 2 years and was coming to back Denmark to finish his studies here with IB classes. Apparently his Danish is now "shit," and he wasn't really sure how to get back home to Odense. We chatted and then my friend remembered she had a train schedule to see how many stops to Odense. Then the other guy peered over. It turns out he was headed home to Munich, and at some point needed to make a transfer, so he was also curious about the train schedule. The British student was 17 and was coming back from visiting Danish grandparents with whom he had a very not-understanding conversation with. The German was returning after a three day IT conference in the city. Oh, how I kicked myself as I got off that train, for not at least introducing myself and shaking hands (if only to see if the Munich man had a wedding ring). A missed opportunity. And the British boy is too young for me, so no loss there.
Friday the 21st: Another big day! Practicing taking a history with a cardiology patient, Star Wars with my friend who had not seen Star Wars, the DIS midterm party (with free Agnes cupcakes, the most amazing cupcake you might ever taste!), and live band karaoke (a terrible experience but one that needed to be had).
Saturday the 22nd: Big research paper due next Friday, so I spent the morning at the Black Diamond library doing research, followed by shopping, cooking, eating. It was the group of friends who I had gone to Cafe Dalle Valle with. We decided to make a meal together and it in sum cost only 36 DKK per person (a group of 9 people)! That's about $7 for a 4 course meal. My Japanese seaweed tofu soup, followed by avocado spinach salad, then tortellini, then apple crumble. Wow..... And it was held at the ecohome, a set of apartments owned by DIS dedicated for those students committed to being green. It's a HUGE space.
Sunday the 23rd: I sacrificed my morning for writing the paper, but gave up in the afternoon to do pumpkin carving! It's not a tradition in Denmark, and I could not find any pumpkin carving sets, so using their impeccably sharp kitchen knives, I produced a very nice pattern of a black cat silhouette with the Danish flag in the background and the Danish daisy on the side.
Tuesday today!: Free Ben and Jerry's and fair trade bananas on the bridge today! So glad I passed by. Today our Human Health and Disease class went to visit the Panum Institute. The 1st half consisted of a fun pop quiz in the anatomy display cases. I don't have any background in anatomy, so the reference guides were helpful. The 2nd half was with a neurologist, who talked about eyesight and balance. We tested each other for visual acuity (reading letters on a white screen), visual field (if you stare at one point, can you see a flickering light on the side?), color blindness (the color dot diagrams), and depth perception (3D glasses!). Then balance testing consisted of being spun around in a free moving chair (held on a stationary base) and inverted magnifying glasses were placed on the victim so that we could see how the pupils darted around post-spinning. I volunteered for the 2nd spinning, which consisted of me sticking my head to the side and then being spun. Spun this way, when suddenly stopped and moved upright, it was like I was sitting in a chair with no ground underneath and being tipped into a cavern far below. My reflexes were 1) kicking out, 2) sliding backwards into the chair and 3) being absolutely terrified. That was a very interesting experience. Tonight I was rewarded for my troubles with a walnut brownie that was in the same room as the Queen (who was having a meeting at the Statens Museum for Kunst).
Epic travel break coming up (and my parents are visiting!) Therefore, I need to work on my paper, and surviving 2 weeks without proper internet.
See you until then!
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