København

[bredevej]

the end (!)

Tumblr told me that I created this blog one year ago today.  I must have been reeeeeeaaaaallly excited about going abroad if I initiated all this nonsense a full two months before arriving in Denmark. (I was.)

I’ve been trying to formulate The Perfect Response to my time abroad basically ever since I returned.  First, it was “I don’t know what to say yet,” followed by “There’s too much to say and I need time to organize my thoughts.”

And then: “I don’t feel like it.”  And so I never wrote anything.  It kind of feels like that one episode of The West Wing.  (Do you know that one?  I can’t think of how it goes.)

The following semi-coherent paragraphs were mostly written four months ago, edited reluctantly and at a snail's pace after that.  It never seemed worthwhile to summarize my semester in Denmark if I couldn’t create an absolutely pristine depiction of every single one of my thoughts.  Something entirely worthy of my incredible experience abroad. This is far from that.

But Tumblr says we’re one year old today so it seems like the perfect time to post what I’ve got and hope that the symbolism of this arbitrary anniversary makes up for whatever might be lacking.

______________________________________

  You would not believe the number of times that people asked me “Hey, how was Europe?” in passing during my first three months back in Ohio.  Guess.

It should be zero, right?  Surely it’s zero.  Please be zero.

The answer is six.  Six actual times. As in, people asked me that question while walking past me six times.  Six!  In those three months, six reasonable people expected an answer to that question in the 5 seconds that it takes to walk past a person.  Six.  Six times that happened!!

This type of situation is relatively exclusive to America.  It baffles Danes completely.  (Me too, Danes.)  It’s the same thing as that “Hey, how’s it going? Good, how about you? Good.” thing that happens to all of us multiple times per day while we pass each other by – does this really make sense?

This really does not make sense.  Here’s a thing: If you want an answer, stop walking.  Show genuine interest in the human being with whom you are speaking.  If you don’t care so much, don’t ask.

These people could have said “Welcome back,” or “It’s nice to see you,” or “Stop prancing about and make yourself useful”.  But they didn’t.  They asked me how Europe was in a way that showed complete disinterest in my response before even giving me the time to formulate it.

(SIX!!!!)

To be clear: I don’t expect every minor acquaintance to care even a little bit about what I’ve been doing with my life since I last saw them.  But I do wish that those who didn’t care wouldn’t ask.  I know I wouldn’t – and I also know that that’s perceived to be rude or anti-social by many Americans.

A Dane would be so confused if someone asked “How are you?” without stopping for a genuine response.  What is the point in asking?  Stop doing that.

Anyway, this whole obnoxious tirade anecdote was meant to be a brief introduction to my response to the question, “How was Europe?”  Instead, it has very quickly deteriorated into a forum for my complaints about how much don’t understand People.  (Sorry? I’m really charming.)

Let’s begin.

Let’s not begin.  How in the heck does a person articulate their thoughts regarding a semester abroad?  I’m pretty sure it’s impossible.  I could sit here and type up a whole frilly thing about how I’m an entirely new person now and how my outlook on life has changed and maybe I’d even throw in a few quotes from the Bible or Taylor Swift, but anyone who knows me knows that I don't do frilly.

I’m usually not one to speak in hyperbole unless I don’t actually mean it, e.g. “That cookie was the Most Delicious Thing I’ve Ever Eaten.”

(Was it, Emma? Was it really? What I’m trying to say is, “That cookie was great.”  I'm often like this if I’m talking about food, dogs, TV shows, music, etc.)

But if I’m talking about a real-life thing, a thing like Being In Europe, you won’t hear that kind of language from me.  And perhaps that’s how we’ll know that I really genuinely loved it.  If I’m super understated and just mumble a bunch of unintelligible MALARKY, it’s probably because I have a lot to say and don’t know where to start.

Do you see why asking me “How was Europe?” while walking past me is so problematic?  Even a normal person cannot answer that question so quickly; an abnormal one like me takes much longer.

Basically, since I still don’t quite know what to say, I’m going to talk about hygge. I like hygge so much I made a sweatshirt about it:

And also a blog.

Hygge is a Danish word (pronounced “hoo-geh”) (kind of) that has no direct translation to English.  Many Danes will tell you it means “cozy," but it means a lot more than that.

Here are two definitions that I really like:

For those of you who can only learn via references to Seinfeld, here’s an interaction between George and Jerry that I think illustrates the opposite of hygge pretty well:

-------------

George: Where are we gonna eat?

Jerry: We're gonna meet Elaine and Peterman at the Chinese place.

George: Peterman? Nobody mentioned anything about Peterman!

Jerry: Of course not; if I did, would you have gone?

George: No way!

Jerry: There you go.

George: I don't even know Peterman. How the hell am I gonna relax? I'm gonna have to be on all night! I don't like being on, Jerry. I would much rather be off!!

Jerry: Trust me, you're off.

-------------

I understand George’s frustration when he complains about having to be ‘on’ all night – that is not hyggeligt. To me, hygge (at least in part) means that nobody is actively trying to be or do anything in particular. On a personal level, and on a societal level.

Of course, any given moment can be ‘hyggeligt’, like these ones:

But a broader definition involves the structuring of one’s life in a way that is comfortable in every possible sense of the word.  Especially comfort with oneself.

Hygge is a massive part of Danish culture and is probably what I liked the most (and what I have missed the most).  Americans could certainly benefit from stopping to consider hygge every so often.  In Denmark, I saw hygge in the obvious places, like the constant abundance of candles and the long family dinners.  But I also found hygge in other, perhaps less obvious, locations (in no particular order):

Value of free time / time with friends and family

"Tak for mad”

Desire for fresh air

Attitudes toward education, religion, politics, welfare, neighbors, and money/success

Danish patriotism

General calmness and quietness

Clothing styles 

Biking

-----------------------

Copenhagen very quickly felt like home while I was there, and I think the atmosphere of hygge really contributed to that.  I like to think that my personality is quite Scandinavian, which I’ve decided to attribute to my Norwegian roots (thanks, Dad!).  I really hope to go back one day (many times).  Until then, wearing my hygge sweatshirt while drinking hyldeblomst, watching Borgen, and admiring my Danish flags will have to suffice.

[bredevej]

Love your blog! I'm looking into DIS for next spring and like a lot of the classes you took. How would you rank them in terms of the workload, professors, and general enjoyment? There is no website/blog on professor reviews or grades from previous semesters, are there? I'm way too obsessed with checking professor reviews and the grades they've assigned. Thanks!!

Hi there! The workload at DIS was very similar to my home university (Colorado College), so (without knowing where you go) you can probably expect about the same. As far as professors go, my favorites were Jesper Lohman, Matthias Bjørnlund, and Torben Jørgensen. All the teachers I had graded things tough but fair. It's hard for me to really rank them because I liked most of them fairly equally. Danish isn't a class I would take in the US but I definitely recommend it for while you're there. And try not to worry about professor reviews - everyone looks for different things in professors and I tend to think that people only take the time to review them if they really love them or really hate them, which doesn’t paint a very good picture of what they’re actually like. Everyone at DIS is great, and even if there’s one teacher you end up not liking so much, it won’t even come close to ruining your semester :)

P.S. If you want to be non-anonymous, I can probably give you more specific answers privately.

[bredevej]

The Plan

Copenhagen - Berlin - Salzburg - Venice - Rome - Bern - Paris - Bruges - Brussels - Columbus

We start tomorrow morning!!

[bredevej]

Mission Accomplished.

[bredevej]

I've been to Iceland!!

We arrived on Thursday and took the long way home from the airport so that I could see some crazy things. A lot of the landscape where we drove was formed by lava so it really doesn’t look like anywhere I’ve ever been before. It was like a different planet. One of my host mom’s favorite facts about Iceland (which is her birthplace, by the way) is that the astronauts who landed on the moon came to Iceland to practice. I didn’t get any pictures of this area because I was in the car and my camera was still packed away in my luggage, but you can just picture the moon.

We stopped by a place where loads of fish were hanging to dry. Apparently this is an Icelandic treat, and you’re meant to spread some butter on it and eat it. No thanks.

Then we visited an area that my host mom described as ‘typical Iceland.’ There were specific paths that we had to stay on because there were loads of tiny streams running through the area with water of 80-100° C. That’s 176-212° F for those of you who are playing at home. And apparently even the ground could burn your feet, or at the very least ruin your shoes. What?!

Next on the list was a place I didn’t think existed. Surely the American and European continents don’t meet, right? Wrong. They do, and they do it in Iceland. To me, plates are for eating, so I’m not going to try to explain it to you, but I’ll give you a moment to look it up if you must. (Apparently this area is gradually widening, and Iceland grows one inch per year as a result. I’m not going to explain that one either. Is Iceland eventually going to take over the world? My geologically unenlightened brain says probably. Watch out.)

Finally, we stopped at the Blue Lagoon for some relaxation. The water naturally takes on a crazy shade of blue, and it’s nice and toasty. There’s also stuff on the bottom that is apparently good for your skin, so everyone was dredging it up and smearing it on their faces, my host mom and I included. There are photos of me in the blue water with the blue stuff on my face, but they are on my host family’s camera, so I’ll share them once they send them to me.

On the way back to their house, we stopped to pick up some of the ‘world’s best lobster soup.’ It was my first time trying lobster and I can safely add it to my list of Textures With Which I’m Not Okay, right behind mushrooms.

But the soup surrounding it was very good.

On Friday morning, I speed wrote a nine-page paper about the state of the current Danish welfare system. That marked the end of my academic experience at DIS!

Then we went for a tour around Reykjavik. Unfortunately, it was rainy and gross, so we didn’t get to walk around the downtown area at all, but it looked really nice. It kind of reminded me of ski towns in Colorado – lots of color, creativity, and outdoorsy things. (I can’t believe ‘outdoorsy is an actual word. I was fully expecting a red squiggly when I wrote that.)

We visited a statue of Leif Ericson, who – surprise! – discovered North America 500 years before Columbus. Why don’t we teach it that way? I definitely never heard about Leif until well into high school, if not college. Anyways, he named us ‘Vinland’ and I said hi.

  Next up was Harpa, the opera house in Reykjavik. It's a very cool building with an all-glass exterior, created by a Danish-Icelandic artist. It has over 10,000 windows and from the outside it looked a bit like fish scales because some windows are slightly tinted or reflective. I didn’t get a photo from the outside, but here’s one that I found online:

And here’s some that I took inside:

We had some chocolate cake and tea in the little cafe inside, and it was probably the best chocolate cake I've ever had. My host mom called it 'traditional Icelandic cake' and I'm not sure what that means but it was very, very, very tasty.

Then, it was back to the house for some homemade pork and potatoes.

On Saturday, we did another tour of the areas around Reykjavik. First we visited Kerið, a volcanic crater lake that provided further evidence that Iceland is on the moon.

Seriously, what?!:

(I matched)

We saw Gullfoss, the largest waterfall in Iceland...

...followed by some geysers. Geysers are weird. It’s basically a giant pot that you could easily boil about a million eggs in except every five minutes the pot explodes and all you’re left with is a tragedy and a mess. Incidentally, it smelled like that was exactly what had happened.

I tried to get a picture of the bubble just before it explodes, like this:

But, sadly, that's not my picture, and I ended up with these instead:

That second one is especially nice. I am clearly a professional photographer. 

Speaking of using the earth to cook things, allow me to inform you about Icelandic rye bread. Just like in Denmark, rye bread is a big part of the cuisine. Except in Iceland, they put the dough into a sealed pot and bury it in the ground for 24 hours. I actually liked it even more than I like the Danish rye bread. Denmark, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry!

For the sake of comparison, here’s a photo of Danish rugbrød (not mine):

And here’s Icelandic rúgbrauð (also not mine):

We stopped at another hot springs for a bit before heading back to their house, where I received some wonderful news in the form of this announcement: “All the fish restaurants are taken, so we’ll just eat at a burger place at 8:00. But they’re good burgers.”

All burgers are good burgers.

It ended up being a hilariously American evening. The burger restaurant actually had a burger with donuts as buns on the menu. Come on, Iceland, don’t do this to yourself. Paula Deen would be proud, but you should be ashamed. They also had ‘twice fried’ fries, which were incredibly tasty and incredibly unhealthy, I'm sure. Worth it.

We went home and had cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, which is apparently very popular in Icelandic grocery stores.

The next morning, we headed off to the airport after a light breakfast. I bought some chocolate covered licorice in the airport because it’s delicious and they don’t have it in Denmark:

My host mom’s job at Icelandair made this trip even more lovely than usual because we got to fly first class (she also got free entrance for all of us to the two hot springs we visited).

I saved all the most moon-like photos for now so that you can see them all in one place. Seriously: what are you doing, Iceland!? 

All that steam reminds me of one final fun fact: 95% of the homes in Iceland are heated hydrothermally. Cool beans!

The end! Next on the list:

- Plan my trip with Spencer (my brother)

- Buy a few last minute items for the trip

- Mail some of my things home

- Spend the gift card I won for being named a Blogger of the Semester (!!!!!)

[bredevej]

Hey Emma! I really love your photos and was wondering the name of the camera you use? Thanks :) xx

Thank you!! I have a Sony Cybershot G, but unfortunately it's a few years old and I don't think it exists anymore. I also use Snapseed to edit, but apparently that's only available as a mobile app now. So that's not super helpful, but I've really liked my Sony camera and I'm sure the new versions of the Cybershot are even better : )

[bredevej]

I'm going to Iceland!!!!

[bredevej]

Guess who's going to be here in 10 days!

THIS KID, aka the coolest brother ever in the world. You can try to think of a cooler person but you can't, so don't.

After I show him around Copenhagen for a few days we are going to have an Excellent Adventure Around Europe. On the menu as of now:

Berlin

Salzburg

Venice

Rome

Bern

Paris

Bruges

It's certainly bittersweet that DIS classes end tomorrow, but having the rest of the week to plan is perfect, since we are leaving Copenhagen in 13 days and I HAVE NO IDEA HOW WE ARE GETTING ANYWHERE OR WHERE WE ARE STAYING OR WHAT WE ARE DOING.

It'll be ok. I bought a fancy folder at Tiger today so that I can fill it with loads of color-coded maps and instructions to ease my anxiety. And I think I can count on my brother to balance out my irrational need to know exactly what I'm doing at every moment in time. Spontaneity, here I come!*

*But probably not really because I like knowing what's happening.

[bredevej]

I love that the people who eat raw pickled herring are absolutely baffled and disgusted by the combination of peanut butter and jelly.

[bredevej]

This week in Why My Host Family is the Best Host Family: A few nights ago, my host family was going to be gone for dinner so this is what I came home to : )

[bredevej]

NORWAY

I'll give you more details later, but here's some photos from my weekend in Norway with my parents. Basically, I learned that Norway doesn't actually exist because I'm pretty sure I was on a different planet:

This has been a last-ditch effort to avoid writing a paper, so I guess I'll go start that now...maybe.

[bredevej]

Hi Emma. So I pretty much just read your entire blog. I'm headed to Copenhagen with DIS in the fall and found you on the website. Your blog is beautiful, and your experiences are similar to what I hope mine will be. I was especially intrigued because you live with a host family, as I'm planning, and went on the Czek Trek. Was that scary for you, are you glad you did it? One of my goals is to do stuff that scares me, and the Czek Trek is on my "maybe" list. One of many questions. -Eleanor

Hi Eleanor! I don't know anything about you but I can pretty much guarantee that you'll love it here :) The Czech Trek was A M A Z I N G. I've never had an issue with heights or with claustrophobia so I was fine. There was one guy who was pretty afraid of heights and I think his goal was to try each thing once (which he did) and it seemed like he ended up enjoying most of the activities more than he thought he would. He actually did most of the things multiple times. I think the Czech Trek is one of the most popular tours so if you decide to do it make sure to sign up early! Thanks for checking out my blog, and I can do my best to answer any other questions you might have :)

[bredevej]

C Z E C H T R E K

The bus left Copenhagen at 5:15 p.m. last Friday night and arrived in the Český Ráj region of the Czech Republic at about 8:00 a.m. the next morning. The ratio of sleeping to crumpling myself up into various strange positions that seemed comfortable at the time but would later regret was approximately 0:1,000,000.

We stayed in this beautiful castle in Český Ráj (which translates to Bohemian Paradise.) The rooms themselves left a lot to be desired, but the views of the surrounding area certainly made up for that.

The whole trip was lead by four Czechs from an organization that basically travels around the Czech Republic leading adventures like the Czech Trek. They were great and all had a very slapstick sense of humor which, when combined with a bit of a language barrier, was very amusing.

After breakfast, we were split into two groups of 20 for the remainder of the trip, and my group began with archery at about 9:30 a.m. I’m either quite bad at archery or I was somehow more disoriented by the lack of sleep than the others. I did make a pretty good improvement, however, scoring 8 points on my first try and 36 on my last.

  After lunch we switched activities with the other group so that they were doing archery and we were doing ‘ice breakers.’ Ice breakers are the devil. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think immediate friendship can be established by blindfolding everyone and making them create a square with a rope. Plus there was one activity that involved running toward one of the guides, grabbing a bandana from him, and racing back to the starting line. Since a quick change of direction like that is what tore my ACL, I got nervous and decided not to participate in that game. The hardest one was probably arranging ourselves by height while blindfolded and not allowed to speak. This involved a lot of indiscriminate waving of the arms and patting peoples’ heads and shoulders until we eventually formed a somewhat accurate line. After about an hour, it suddenly started hailing and we all went inside. Our DIS leaders said they would knock on everyone’s doors if the weather calmed down, so the three girls I shared a room with and I went back to our room and immediately fell asleep. We found out later that everyone else went back out after about 20 minutes, but missing out on two more hours of icebreakers wasn’t exactly the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

  I just realized that this post is sounding very complain-y and I don’t mean for that to be the case. This trip was probably the coolest thing I’ve done this semester, and that’s saying a LOT. The first day wasn’t awesome, but in retrospect it was probably good to have such a light day since we were all so exhausted/disoriented from the bus ride.

  On Sunday, we went spelunking. SPELUNKING! I’m so excited that I get to use that word legitimately and not be joking about it. For about 3 hours we hiked in and out of caves and even had a bit of a candlelit treasure hunt inside one of them. It was a very good thing no one was claustrophobic because there were times when we were crawling around on our stomachs through tiny passageways and then contorting ourselves like crazy to get out of rather small openings and back to the trail. What most of us were expecting to be a normal hike through the woods turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip.

  Following that, we had lunch at a nearby pub. Because the area is known for all of the outdoor adventures that it offers, it seemed like everyone there was taking a break from kayaking or rock climbing or hiking or some other fun thing. We had a traditional Czech meal, with pork and things that they called dumplings, along with spinach and cabbage.

The meal was pretty good, but the dessert was surprisingly one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Maybe we were just exhausted from the spelunking but everyone was kind of amazed by it. It was a blueberry dumpling with some yogurt on the side, and yes, it is sitting in a pool of butter. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Next was climbing and rappelling. Here’s me on my way down from the top of the ‘easy’ route.

And here’s three trek-mates climbing the easy, medium, and hard routes, from left to right.

  This is me rappelling. Ten points to the first person that can find me:

This part of the trip was also really fun. I had only ever climbed (For the record, I think “climbed” is silly and it should be “clumb” instead.) in indoor climbing gyms before so it was great to see what it’s like on actual rocks. Living in Colorado, this is definitely a thing I should be doing more often.

  Monday morning was the best part of the trip in my opinion: zip-lining, rappelling, and high rope bridging. I might seem like a person that wouldn’t be okay with heights but I actually love this stuff. We zip-lined across a bit of a canyon and the walked back on a rope bridge. Here’s me on the rope bridge:

  So cool! The zip-line itself was quite short but reminded me how fun zip-lining is. I think I had only done it once before and I’d love to do one of those mile(s)-long courses one day.

After lunch, the whole group of 40 went out for a hike in the area around the hotel/castle. There were a lot of stairs which kind of felt like death after all we’d done in the previous days, but it was a great hike nonetheless. We got some really cool views of our hotel from a distance:

From some of the trails, we could see these small boxes on the tops of various rock formations, which our guides explained contain a pen and pad of paper for climbers to sign when they reach the top. The region is known for its really excellent but incredibly difficult rock climbing and although the boxes have been in place since the early 1900’s, there’s usually only one or two signatures per year.

A few more photos from the hike:

That night, we had a candlelit treasure hunt around the castle. Our four Czech guides were dressed as ghosts and jumped out at us as we wandered around the creepy old castle in the dark. Although I hate being scared, this was actually really fun.

On Tuesday we headed to Prague and arrived at about 10:00 a.m. A few other girls and I wandered around for a bit before getting lunch and then heading back to the main square for a walking tour.

Not that anyone actually cares, but I would like to document the amount of things I bought for just $25:

Three course lunch: potato soup, beef goulash with dumplings, chocolate cake

Donut-type item

Caprese piada from an Italian street vender

Breakfast for the next morning – a roll, a pastry, an apple, and a bottle of water

Two scoops of gelato

A chocolate bar and 7 small chocolates from a very fancy chocolate shop.

Welcome to not Copenhagen. It was crazy because a lot of prices looked like similar numbers compared to what you might see in Copenhagen, except instead of dividing by 5 you divide by 20 in the Czech Republic.

On the walking tour we crossed the Charles Bridge:

And saw the St. Vitus Cathedral:

   …even though I literally stood inside this cathedral I can’t believe it exists. It was most certainly the most complex architecture I have ever seen and I’m pretty sure it’s actually impossible so I’m not sure how that works.

Here’s a photo of a WWI memorial outside the cathedral:

From where the cathedral is, there's amazing views of the city:

We also saw the famous Astronomical Clock:

And the Lennon Wall! There was a Czech guy playing Beatles and John Lennon songs in front of it :)

And then it was just one more sleepless bus-ride back to Copenhagen! This was an incredible experience that I feel like I never would have had without DIS. Of course, one can always visit Prague if they really want to, but being able to do everything we did in the Český Ráj region would be way less accessible as a measly tourist. So cool. I know I always say to check out my Flickr for more photos, but this time I really mean it because it was a beautiful four days!!

[bredevej]

Oops, I took 401 photos in the Czech Republic.

Coming soon :)

[bredevej]

Leaving for the Czech Republic in 2 hours!!

[bredevej]

Photos from Tivoli!

[bredevej]

I made a thing!!

My host mom gave me two tickets to the pre-opening light festival at Tivoli Wednesday night. The park actually opened for the season the next day and this event was only for season ticket holders! I thought Hannah and Rachel were going to have to have a battle to the death to decide who would get to come with me, but then Rachel's visiting mom was able to get a third ticket for us. 

It was the most magical place ever in the world. Pictures later :)

This video is really poor quality, partly because my camera isn't great, partly because iMovie decided to kick me out every few minutes, and mostly because i have no idea what I'm doing. Enjoy!