This morning I headed into town earlier that usual. I had decided last night after talking to my mom about the London Internship program, to see if it were feasible for me to get my visa for London while I was in Copenhagen so that I would have it by the time I got back to the US and wouldn’t have to worry about it. To figure this out, I figured I would have to go to the British Embassy. I looked it up online and had a general idea of where it was located, so I was on an adventure to try to find it. It wasn’t too difficult to locate because the area where it is located is home to many embassies, which all had their respective flags flying. However, when I got to the embassy there was a huge guarded gate in front. The guard walked up to me and asked I had an appointment. I said, “No, I just have a question.” The guard was actually very polite and informative. Long story short, I think I can get my visa processed in Copenhagen, which would make coordinating documents for a summer in London much easier. I still don’t know exactly what I am going to do, but this definitely adds a different twist to the picture.
After that adventure, I made my way to school with a couple hours to spare. I spent the time completing some last minute studying for my Danish quiz, which let me say was not worth the stress and energy I put into for studying for the darn thing. I went to my Danish class at 1:15, and found that my regular professor was not there. Now him and his wife have been expecting a baby, which was actually due last week, so our class was waiting for the day when he wouldn’t be in class. Instead, there was an intern who simply handed us our quiz, said we had 30 minutes to complete it, and when we were done we could leave. It was rather easy, and it took me only about 15 minutes. I then went back over to the lounge in DIS to wait for about an hour until my second class of the day, which was rather uneventful although I think this was probably the first class I can say our professor sort or taught us something.
After class, I simply came home, talked to my dad on Skype, watched a couple ‘Bones’ episodes, ate dinner, and now I am about to crash. I was going to go over to the hojskole tonight, however I am starting to feel very tired and simply want to relax and go to bed early. Afterall, I need to rest up for a busy week in London next week!
Friday, February 26, 2010
25.2.10 – London, London and More London
Today was an interesting day for a number of reasons really, however it began as usual. First, I had my business class today. The schedule for the class was rather fragmented. She began by addressing several of the issues we brought up as a class to our class representatives. It was interesting though because it went from commenting on them to relating these “differences in style” as the nature of studying abroad. While I understand her point and perspective (as well as believe that some of my fellow students complained about several unnecessary aspects of the class), it was simply a weird way to begin class because after that it sort of put a damper on all things to come. Then she went into giving us feedback about our first paper, the one I was nervous about. Overall, the class did well, myself included. So that was definitely one “high” of the day. At the end of class, we also were formally introduced to our long study tour to London! I am very excited about this travel; I think I simply need a little break from Copenhagen and schoolwork before the madness of March begins. (I wont talk about it too much now because I know I will be blogging about it in the week to come, so I’ll have to keep you guessing as to what I will be doing although I will say it includes four business visits, cultural sights, and a concert.)
History was normal as usual. I had a group project to turn in, however the whole process of completing the assignment went so well that I hardly felt that it was significant to turn it in. After history, I settled at DIS for my five hours break, which included an array of activities: I studied for my Danish quiz tomorrow, completed some forms for membership to the Phi Kappa Phi chapter at Elon – its an academic honors society, talked to some friends, received a package from my grandfather, Nonno, which contained approximately five pounds of delicious fudge. (I have already eaten too much of it, although I have since shared it with friends at DIS as well as my host family, but they didn’t like it very much. It was too sweet for them. Plus some of it is peanut butter fudge, and they don’t like peanut butter.)
Probably, the most interesting thing that I did during my study break was to call Elon. To keep it short, I applied for an internship program in London that is organized by Elon. The program would be for the first part of this summer; I know it’s a lot of traveling. Anyways, I had to call a woman in the study abroad office because she was concerned that I might have issues handling and completing the necessary paperwork (like getting my visa) since I am currently abroad. This created a whole mess of the situation, and at the moment I am not sure of what I am going to do. It was never certain that I would be doing this program; I simply viewed it as a backup plan. But now this backup plan has become way more complicated, since there would be a lot of appointments and things I would need to do within the 10 days I would be in the US after coming home from Copenhagen and flying to London. So this will be a big decision for me to make over the next couple of days.
I then had my marketing class, where we were more thoroughly introduced to our large marketing project, which consumes most of the remainder of the semester as well as our grade. It was a little overwhelming because the first outlined draft of the report is due a week after we get back from our travel breaks, which is two weeks from now. It is going to be a decent amount of work. On top of that, I also have several other group projects that I am working on that are due either on the same day – which happens to be my birthday – or later that week.
After class, I simply headed home to attempt to wind down from the day and wrap my mind around all of the things that happened. I had dinner with my host family, watched some TV, shared my fudge with my host family for dessert (which as I mentioned they didn’t like too much, therefore I ate WAY too much of it myself, but it is SO good I cannot help myself), took a shower, Skyped with Tory and then Mom, and attempted to study some more for Danish before crashing and heading to bed.
History was normal as usual. I had a group project to turn in, however the whole process of completing the assignment went so well that I hardly felt that it was significant to turn it in. After history, I settled at DIS for my five hours break, which included an array of activities: I studied for my Danish quiz tomorrow, completed some forms for membership to the Phi Kappa Phi chapter at Elon – its an academic honors society, talked to some friends, received a package from my grandfather, Nonno, which contained approximately five pounds of delicious fudge. (I have already eaten too much of it, although I have since shared it with friends at DIS as well as my host family, but they didn’t like it very much. It was too sweet for them. Plus some of it is peanut butter fudge, and they don’t like peanut butter.)
Probably, the most interesting thing that I did during my study break was to call Elon. To keep it short, I applied for an internship program in London that is organized by Elon. The program would be for the first part of this summer; I know it’s a lot of traveling. Anyways, I had to call a woman in the study abroad office because she was concerned that I might have issues handling and completing the necessary paperwork (like getting my visa) since I am currently abroad. This created a whole mess of the situation, and at the moment I am not sure of what I am going to do. It was never certain that I would be doing this program; I simply viewed it as a backup plan. But now this backup plan has become way more complicated, since there would be a lot of appointments and things I would need to do within the 10 days I would be in the US after coming home from Copenhagen and flying to London. So this will be a big decision for me to make over the next couple of days.
I then had my marketing class, where we were more thoroughly introduced to our large marketing project, which consumes most of the remainder of the semester as well as our grade. It was a little overwhelming because the first outlined draft of the report is due a week after we get back from our travel breaks, which is two weeks from now. It is going to be a decent amount of work. On top of that, I also have several other group projects that I am working on that are due either on the same day – which happens to be my birthday – or later that week.
After class, I simply headed home to attempt to wind down from the day and wrap my mind around all of the things that happened. I had dinner with my host family, watched some TV, shared my fudge with my host family for dessert (which as I mentioned they didn’t like too much, therefore I ate WAY too much of it myself, but it is SO good I cannot help myself), took a shower, Skyped with Tory and then Mom, and attempted to study some more for Danish before crashing and heading to bed.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
24.2.10 – Playing Catch Up on the Past Few Days
To begin I apologize to anyone who reads my blog consistently – as well as to myself, since this is primarily a journal for myself – that I have not written in a few days. As I have mentioned in my past few entries, life is definitely becoming normalized in Copenhagen and what seemed like new and noteworthy the first few weeks has since become routine.
SUNDAY: To finish off my weekend, I had a relaxing Saturday, which consisted of me going for a run – which was much needed, attempting to get homework done – which I failed at, talking to Tory and Mom on Skype, having my host family return home from their weeklong ski vacation in Austria, and going to visit a few friends from DIS at the local højskole, which is just a 10 minute walk from my house. I have been meaning to go visit all of them, and all the people I know living there constantly ask me when I was going to come visit. It was fun to see the place, which is pretty basic with a common area, dining room, and a bar – open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights – in the middle. Then all of the students’ rooms are around the exterior walls of the building. Overall, it is pretty plain especially since my friends are only there for this semester, like me, so there is no desire to actually decorate their rooms or anything. When I was there, we just watched a movie and hung out a little bit. They told me that usually there are parties on Saturday night, however this weekend was a long weekend for the Danish students that are living there, so a lot of them went home, and therefore nothing was really planned. I will definitely go back and visit though when they have a party going on; they sound like they are a lot of fun.
Sunday was definitely the productive day of the weekend. I woke up at a decent hour and had to get ready to go into the city to meet with my history group for a project we were working on – we pretty much just figured out what we should do in terms of organizing and compiling our project which is due on Thursday – then on Tuesday we met again to pull the whole thing together. I think it looks pretty good for what it is supposed to be. After that, I came home because the trains and bus run on a limited schedule on Sunday, so I wanted to make sure that I would get home at a reasonable time. I then completed all my readings and homework for Monday and Tuesday. I must either be getting really good at skimming my readings, or maybe I am not being as thorough as I was at the start of the semester ☺. Then my host parents and I had dinner (my host sisters, Caroline and Sofie, were respectively at the movies with a friend and still returning from a ski trip in France), and watched some TV in the evening. I was then able to go to bed a little early and get a good night sleep for the week.
MONDAY: Monday was simply a usual Monday. I had my classes in the morning, which included another guest speaker for my business class – at least she was better than the one last week, although it was still a little dull. Then we also had 10 minutes at the end of class to talk to our class representatives – two students who we elected to talk to our instructor about our attitudes to the class throughout the semester – about how we thought the class was going and if any changes need to be made. Needless to say, people had some complaints. Hopefully some things will change, however I think some things are simply the nature of the system – like being vague and opened ended for our assignments and not giving us enough information ahead of time for our study tours and field studies.
After class, I then once again had my 5 hours break, which means that yes I am back to taking five classes this week. I have decided though that I think four classes are much more manageable; five simply puts it over the top in terms of getting work done properly for each class. Anyways, I spent my time attempting to start studying for a Danish quiz that I have on Friday. It is going to be rather vocabulary intensive, so I went to work on making flashcards. I am still not completely done with them, but I am going to try to finish them tonight or during my five hours break tomorrow (Thursday).
Once 4:15 rolled around, I met up with my marketing class because we were once again going on a field study to visit our second “client” company. This one was ScanJour; it is also a software company that operates primarily in Denmark with partners in several other countries. I actually really enjoyed this company visit. They gave us an overview of the company, and then had another gentlemen (who is actually hosting a DIS student – no one in our class though) who showed us the actual software that we will be attempting to market in our project. Basically, it is intra-company specific search software, which allows companies to organize and locate documents more easily. I am hoping that my group gets to work with this company because I find them more interesting than the other “client” we visited, but we shall see; I should find out tomorrow.
TUESDAY: On Tuesday, I was able to sleep in a little but had to go into the city slightly earlier than usual, so that I could meet with my history group prior to my two classes. I then for the first time this semester, really enjoyed my Danish class. We have a quiz on Friday (as I mentioned) and in class we played a review game. It was just helpful to see how much of the information I retained so far and what I exactly need to study. We began to get a little competitive when it came to answering questions, but overall, it was simply fun and enjoyable. I then had leadership, which still feels a little disorganized. He began class by introducing us to our first case study project, which would end in giving a 10 minutes presentation. The prompt is very vague, meaning we can pretty much analyze this case in whatever way we want. And then he told us that our presentations were on Friday – yes that is correct 3 days after introducing the project. Needless to say we negotiated our way to make them due later, however now they are the Tuesday we get back from our long study tour, which is not ideal either. It just seems out of blue with no guidance or understanding of what we, the students, have going on. Yes if this was our only class, a decent presentation on Friday may be feasible, but we have other things going on too. I’ll keep you updated on how it all goes, but I must say I am not looking forward to it. Following class, I simply went home and relaxed with my family, studied a little more for my Danish quiz, and went to bed early.
WEDNESDAY: Finally, I have made it to today’s, Wednesday’s, events. My first and only event for today was a field study with my history of Copenhagen class. We met in the city around 9:00 and began our walk around the city. We first went over to Nyboder. These are naval houses that were originally built in the 1600s. At the time they were built they were the only thing in that area and functioned as there our town. A good amount of the second-generation of these buildings still stands. They all appear the same with golden-yellow stucco with red roofs. It was so neat to see something that was literally built over 350 years ago for the purpose of common people.
We then made our way over to the Citadel. It was originally designed to be home to the King of Denmark, however those design never evolved. However, the really cool thing about the Citadel is that is built with full-fledged fortifications that developed from the 16th to the 19th century. Most of the fortifications at that time were a series built up land mounds. The amazing this about the Citadel is that most of these fortifications remain intact, as they were hundreds of years ago. The picture shows the gate into the fortified area, and all the slopes around it are actual medieval fortifications!
After the Citadel, we walked along the harbor – yes it was cold – and made our way to Amalienborg in Frederiksstaden, also known as the Royal Palace. I originally mentioned this area in one of my first blog posts since it was actually one of the places on our scavenger hunt during our orientation, however this time I got to go into one of the four mansions, which are the focal points of the royal palace. The royal family occupies two of these mansions, clearly we didn’t visit one of those, however all the mansions are relatively identical. The one we visited, Moltke’s Palace, was built by a lord in 1750. (Powerful and wealthy merchants and lords of the day originally built the four mansions. The royal family didn’t move into this area until the 1794 when the Christiansborg Palace was destroyed in a fire.) Moltke’s Palace remains virtually untouched from when it was it was first built. Therefore, all of the rooms have been preserved in the Baroque and Rococo styles that were dominant at that time. It was really beautiful inside. We made our way from one entry room to the next until we eventually arrived at the grand dining room, which displayed the epitome of Rococo style in color and decorations. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to have our cameras because it was very beautiful. My favorite room though is this side tearoom, which is located in the wings of the mansion. It has large windows on three sides, which allow a beautiful amount of light to enter the light sage colored room. Additionally, the room is decorated with Flora Danica, a porcelain dinner set. This is only part of a 1803 piece collection of dinnerware, which was originally meant as a gift to Catherine the Great of Russia, however she died prior to ever receiving it. Overall, it was simply a very pretty room, and the pieces of china were amazing. FYI each of the 1803 pieces was unique.
After visiting the palace, I made my way to the metro and then to the train station, and simply headed home. Since I decided I didn’t want to lug my backpack around on my field study, I didn’t have any of my work with me. It was nice to get home early though. I simply occupied the afternoon working on homework for tomorrow and relaxing. I think that is it for now.
PS – I am sorry that my digression from writing every day has led to a very long blog post, but I hope you still enjoy it.
SUNDAY: To finish off my weekend, I had a relaxing Saturday, which consisted of me going for a run – which was much needed, attempting to get homework done – which I failed at, talking to Tory and Mom on Skype, having my host family return home from their weeklong ski vacation in Austria, and going to visit a few friends from DIS at the local højskole, which is just a 10 minute walk from my house. I have been meaning to go visit all of them, and all the people I know living there constantly ask me when I was going to come visit. It was fun to see the place, which is pretty basic with a common area, dining room, and a bar – open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights – in the middle. Then all of the students’ rooms are around the exterior walls of the building. Overall, it is pretty plain especially since my friends are only there for this semester, like me, so there is no desire to actually decorate their rooms or anything. When I was there, we just watched a movie and hung out a little bit. They told me that usually there are parties on Saturday night, however this weekend was a long weekend for the Danish students that are living there, so a lot of them went home, and therefore nothing was really planned. I will definitely go back and visit though when they have a party going on; they sound like they are a lot of fun.
Sunday was definitely the productive day of the weekend. I woke up at a decent hour and had to get ready to go into the city to meet with my history group for a project we were working on – we pretty much just figured out what we should do in terms of organizing and compiling our project which is due on Thursday – then on Tuesday we met again to pull the whole thing together. I think it looks pretty good for what it is supposed to be. After that, I came home because the trains and bus run on a limited schedule on Sunday, so I wanted to make sure that I would get home at a reasonable time. I then completed all my readings and homework for Monday and Tuesday. I must either be getting really good at skimming my readings, or maybe I am not being as thorough as I was at the start of the semester ☺. Then my host parents and I had dinner (my host sisters, Caroline and Sofie, were respectively at the movies with a friend and still returning from a ski trip in France), and watched some TV in the evening. I was then able to go to bed a little early and get a good night sleep for the week.
MONDAY: Monday was simply a usual Monday. I had my classes in the morning, which included another guest speaker for my business class – at least she was better than the one last week, although it was still a little dull. Then we also had 10 minutes at the end of class to talk to our class representatives – two students who we elected to talk to our instructor about our attitudes to the class throughout the semester – about how we thought the class was going and if any changes need to be made. Needless to say, people had some complaints. Hopefully some things will change, however I think some things are simply the nature of the system – like being vague and opened ended for our assignments and not giving us enough information ahead of time for our study tours and field studies.
After class, I then once again had my 5 hours break, which means that yes I am back to taking five classes this week. I have decided though that I think four classes are much more manageable; five simply puts it over the top in terms of getting work done properly for each class. Anyways, I spent my time attempting to start studying for a Danish quiz that I have on Friday. It is going to be rather vocabulary intensive, so I went to work on making flashcards. I am still not completely done with them, but I am going to try to finish them tonight or during my five hours break tomorrow (Thursday).
Once 4:15 rolled around, I met up with my marketing class because we were once again going on a field study to visit our second “client” company. This one was ScanJour; it is also a software company that operates primarily in Denmark with partners in several other countries. I actually really enjoyed this company visit. They gave us an overview of the company, and then had another gentlemen (who is actually hosting a DIS student – no one in our class though) who showed us the actual software that we will be attempting to market in our project. Basically, it is intra-company specific search software, which allows companies to organize and locate documents more easily. I am hoping that my group gets to work with this company because I find them more interesting than the other “client” we visited, but we shall see; I should find out tomorrow.
TUESDAY: On Tuesday, I was able to sleep in a little but had to go into the city slightly earlier than usual, so that I could meet with my history group prior to my two classes. I then for the first time this semester, really enjoyed my Danish class. We have a quiz on Friday (as I mentioned) and in class we played a review game. It was just helpful to see how much of the information I retained so far and what I exactly need to study. We began to get a little competitive when it came to answering questions, but overall, it was simply fun and enjoyable. I then had leadership, which still feels a little disorganized. He began class by introducing us to our first case study project, which would end in giving a 10 minutes presentation. The prompt is very vague, meaning we can pretty much analyze this case in whatever way we want. And then he told us that our presentations were on Friday – yes that is correct 3 days after introducing the project. Needless to say we negotiated our way to make them due later, however now they are the Tuesday we get back from our long study tour, which is not ideal either. It just seems out of blue with no guidance or understanding of what we, the students, have going on. Yes if this was our only class, a decent presentation on Friday may be feasible, but we have other things going on too. I’ll keep you updated on how it all goes, but I must say I am not looking forward to it. Following class, I simply went home and relaxed with my family, studied a little more for my Danish quiz, and went to bed early.
WEDNESDAY: Finally, I have made it to today’s, Wednesday’s, events. My first and only event for today was a field study with my history of Copenhagen class. We met in the city around 9:00 and began our walk around the city. We first went over to Nyboder. These are naval houses that were originally built in the 1600s. At the time they were built they were the only thing in that area and functioned as there our town. A good amount of the second-generation of these buildings still stands. They all appear the same with golden-yellow stucco with red roofs. It was so neat to see something that was literally built over 350 years ago for the purpose of common people.
We then made our way over to the Citadel. It was originally designed to be home to the King of Denmark, however those design never evolved. However, the really cool thing about the Citadel is that is built with full-fledged fortifications that developed from the 16th to the 19th century. Most of the fortifications at that time were a series built up land mounds. The amazing this about the Citadel is that most of these fortifications remain intact, as they were hundreds of years ago. The picture shows the gate into the fortified area, and all the slopes around it are actual medieval fortifications!After the Citadel, we walked along the harbor – yes it was cold – and made our way to Amalienborg in Frederiksstaden, also known as the Royal Palace. I originally mentioned this area in one of my first blog posts since it was actually one of the places on our scavenger hunt during our orientation, however this time I got to go into one of the four mansions, which are the focal points of the royal palace. The royal family occupies two of these mansions, clearly we didn’t visit one of those, however all the mansions are relatively identical. The one we visited, Moltke’s Palace, was built by a lord in 1750. (Powerful and wealthy merchants and lords of the day originally built the four mansions. The royal family didn’t move into this area until the 1794 when the Christiansborg Palace was destroyed in a fire.) Moltke’s Palace remains virtually untouched from when it was it was first built. Therefore, all of the rooms have been preserved in the Baroque and Rococo styles that were dominant at that time. It was really beautiful inside. We made our way from one entry room to the next until we eventually arrived at the grand dining room, which displayed the epitome of Rococo style in color and decorations. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to have our cameras because it was very beautiful. My favorite room though is this side tearoom, which is located in the wings of the mansion. It has large windows on three sides, which allow a beautiful amount of light to enter the light sage colored room. Additionally, the room is decorated with Flora Danica, a porcelain dinner set. This is only part of a 1803 piece collection of dinnerware, which was originally meant as a gift to Catherine the Great of Russia, however she died prior to ever receiving it. Overall, it was simply a very pretty room, and the pieces of china were amazing. FYI each of the 1803 pieces was unique.
After visiting the palace, I made my way to the metro and then to the train station, and simply headed home. Since I decided I didn’t want to lug my backpack around on my field study, I didn’t have any of my work with me. It was nice to get home early though. I simply occupied the afternoon working on homework for tomorrow and relaxing. I think that is it for now.
PS – I am sorry that my digression from writing every day has led to a very long blog post, but I hope you still enjoy it.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
19.2.10 – Exploring More of Copenhagen: Day & Night
I woke up earlier than usual for a Friday because I was heading into town to meet up with a group from my history class to work on our second assignment. We were given a map with 6 locations to visit. Once we reached these locations, we were to analyze the façade of the building. Basically since it was cold outside, we ended up walking around to all of our locations, doing minor discussion, took a bunch of pictures to reference later for analysis and our final project, and would head on to the next location. It was actually a lot of fun to walk around the city. It really feels like I am starting to know my way around and how to get to different places. I was also excited because one of our locations was across the harbor in Christianshavn. I had yet to be in this area of the town. It is supposed to be one of the most expensive locations in the city, which probably explains why I like it so much ☺. We had allocated about 4 hours to make sure we could walk to all of our locations and finished in only about 2 hours. This then allowed me to sit around DIS for a little while just talking to other students and attempting to do one of my readings for the weekend.
Unfortunately, I did have to go off to class at 1:15. I had Danish today, which is getting to the point where it is a little overwhelming. I think this is partially due to the fact that we have our first test next week, and there is a LOT of information to know. I understand the concepts and rules that we need to know, but the vocabulary is going to kill me. I’ll let you know how it goes. I also had much Leadership Across Cultures class today. We had a guest speaker who was kind of odd. The whole basis of his lecture was to discuss short business cases and try to pick out where cultural wrongdoings occurred among different transactions – not a bad way to lecture. The only problem was that the scenarios he gave us were very vague, and we weren’t given any background information about the cultural backgrounds of respective countries that were involved in the cases. This made it much more difficult to analyze considering we had no idea what to analyze. Overall, it was fine, but it is definitely becoming a hard class to have on Friday afternoons when all of us just want to be done for the day and for the week.After class, I then made my way home to Hillerød. It was a little difficult because I had been hearing throughout the day that the trains were all messed up and not running on time or simply were not coming. It was weird but eventually my train came and I slowly made my way home. I then made myself a rather random dinner consisting of carrots and a sandwich. I have been trying to eat the things that my host family left in the house instead of going to the store. It is bad; it just means dinners have gotten a little more interesting.
I then started to get ready to head out again because I had actually planned to meet up with a couple of the girls in my history group to go out into the city for the night. I had figured that it was going to take me a while to get to the location where I was going to meet them, so I had to leave rather early. Unknown to me at 8:30 when I left my house, this commute turned into an adventure that would last 2.5 hours. I got on my regular bus and train just fine and was then planning on transferring lines once I got into the city. I was waiting for the other line for about 40 minutes – within that time span 2 trains passed that should have been the train I wanted, but they didn’t stop; and the teleprompter kept showing changes for different lines for the evening. I eventually figured out that the line that I wanted was not running from the station I was at, so I would have to make my way to a station a few stops down via another line. However, there was only one other line heading to the direction I wanted to go, and it didn’t go to the stop I needed to be to change lines to the B line – the one I needed to meet up with my friends. Between a ride on the A line and a regional train, I eventually made my way to the station I needed to be at. However, once I got there, the station was actually unsure of what the train was doing, what track it was going to come in on, and when. There were probably about 40 people waiting for this train. It was so weird. Eventually they called over 4 buses to take us to the respective stops on the line that we were waiting for, so I headed over to the buses with everyone else. After that it wasn’t all that bad, I just had to wait for my stop. Once I finally got to my friends housing, they were getting ready to turn around and head back into the city. It wasn’t really a problem, it was simply an interesting start to my evening – what should have been one bus and two train lines, turned into a bus, 3 train lines, a regional train, and another bus ride.
Once back in the city, we headed out to a club for the night. It was another girls 21st birthday so we also partially celebrating as well. Overall, it was all worth it because I had a good evening hanging out with a few friends. This was also my first real time going out into the city on a Friday night!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
17.2.10 – 1 Month, ¼ of My Time in Copenhagen
Considering it is the 17th of February, and I arrived on the 17th of January, this marks the official first quarter of my stay in Denmark. It is actually sort of weird to think about because I definitely do not feel like I have been here for a whole month. Sure I can re-read my blog and see that I have done numerous things already, however there are definitely sight and things that I have yet to experience here. What makes it even stranger to think about though is that I thought the first month would seem the longest and most stretched out. It is almost scary to think that now the semester is really going to fly by. For example, I go to London in a week for my long-study tour, then only a week after that it is my birthday and yes, half way through my time in Copenhagen. Then after all of that between my long travel break, mom coming to visit, and all the activities I have planned in April, it is going to be May and the end of my semester before I know it!
There isn’t really much to report on otherwise. I just figured that this benchmark deserved mention.
There isn’t really much to report on otherwise. I just figured that this benchmark deserved mention.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
15.2.10 – First Paper, First Grade
I had my first written paper due today at 8:30 in the morning for my European Business class. There are the usual “first paper of the semester” nerves in addition to the fact that I have NO idea how my Danish instructors grade papers. My instructor did give us a grading rubric to try to follow, however it is rather generic and leaves plenty of room for subjectivity. Anyways, since I had to print off my paper before class, I left about 20 minutes early just to make sure that I would have time to print, since I assumed other students would be doing the same as well. However the process of printing my paper turned out to the most stressful part of the whole process. I got to school with about 30 minutes before my class started. Since employees are not in quite that early, we only had access to the library to print. Of the approximately 15 computed in that lab, we were only able to log onto about 6 of them. Once I finally got to a computer, it wouldn’t recognize the word document file that I sent to myself through my email, nor could I find a place to plug in my flash drive. Luckily, a fellow student let me use his laptop to resave my document as a PDF and I sent it to myself again. This time I could open it on the computer, however at that point the printer had jammed up because everyone was trying to print at the same time. (Did I mention that there were students from other classes too who were also trying to print their papers?) The whole process was ridiculous, however I did finally get my paper printed with about 5 minutes to climb up the five flights of stairs up to my fourth floor classroom. It was definitely a stressful start to the morning, but that meant the day could only get better from there.
My two classes were rather uneventful, but I did get my test back in my history class today. I did rather well, which is a nice boost of confidence for the rest of the semester. Afters those two classes, I was actually done for the day. Usually I would have had to wait around for five hours until my last class, but that class has been cancelled for the entirety of the week because it is ‘Week 7’ in Copenhagen, which is a weeklong break for students in the school system and a lot of families take ski vacations. My instructor for my marketing class was taking his family skiing, which means NO CLASS for us! It was kind of weird being done so early in the day though. Especially, since I completed most of my work for the start of the week, so I didn’t really have any work to do either. I decided to stay around DIS though and wrote a blog for the weekend, checked email, and did some other random tasks.
At about 1:00 I decided to try to make my way home. However, on the way to the station I decided that I would walk around the outer part of the city a little bit. I had traveled through that area via bus but had yet to walk there. I eventually ended up walking to the train station a stop down from where I usually get on. On my way, I walked past what I think are the botanical gardens (it was all dormant, so it wasn’t that pretty yet), down to the end of the lake area, which seperates the inner part of the city and the surrounding neighborhoods, and then I walked past what I believe to be the ugliest building I have seen in Copenhagen thus far. I am ashamed to admit that this building is the home of the United States Embassy in Denmark. (I attached a picture, you can see for yourself.)
I then made my way to the nearest train station and got on my train to head home. Since it was still light outside and I wanted to stop and get a few things at the store, I decided to walk home from the station. It wasn’t too bad, however I am a little sore from my running this weekend, so that made things slightly more cumbersome. Once I finally got home, I had a very relaxing afternoon and evening consisting of snacking, watching Bones episodes online, making dinner, watching the men downhill skiing event of the Olympics, taking a shower, and heading to bed. I am also starting to get used to being in my host home all by myself. While it is a little strange, I am oddly becoming more comfortable with it now that I am home alone. I think this is partially due to the fact that I taking care of myself again, like I am used to, and not constantly feeling like a guest in someone else’s home.
My two classes were rather uneventful, but I did get my test back in my history class today. I did rather well, which is a nice boost of confidence for the rest of the semester. Afters those two classes, I was actually done for the day. Usually I would have had to wait around for five hours until my last class, but that class has been cancelled for the entirety of the week because it is ‘Week 7’ in Copenhagen, which is a weeklong break for students in the school system and a lot of families take ski vacations. My instructor for my marketing class was taking his family skiing, which means NO CLASS for us! It was kind of weird being done so early in the day though. Especially, since I completed most of my work for the start of the week, so I didn’t really have any work to do either. I decided to stay around DIS though and wrote a blog for the weekend, checked email, and did some other random tasks.
At about 1:00 I decided to try to make my way home. However, on the way to the station I decided that I would walk around the outer part of the city a little bit. I had traveled through that area via bus but had yet to walk there. I eventually ended up walking to the train station a stop down from where I usually get on. On my way, I walked past what I think are the botanical gardens (it was all dormant, so it wasn’t that pretty yet), down to the end of the lake area, which seperates the inner part of the city and the surrounding neighborhoods, and then I walked past what I believe to be the ugliest building I have seen in Copenhagen thus far. I am ashamed to admit that this building is the home of the United States Embassy in Denmark. (I attached a picture, you can see for yourself.)
I then made my way to the nearest train station and got on my train to head home. Since it was still light outside and I wanted to stop and get a few things at the store, I decided to walk home from the station. It wasn’t too bad, however I am a little sore from my running this weekend, so that made things slightly more cumbersome. Once I finally got home, I had a very relaxing afternoon and evening consisting of snacking, watching Bones episodes online, making dinner, watching the men downhill skiing event of the Olympics, taking a shower, and heading to bed. I am also starting to get used to being in my host home all by myself. While it is a little strange, I am oddly becoming more comfortable with it now that I am home alone. I think this is partially due to the fact that I taking care of myself again, like I am used to, and not constantly feeling like a guest in someone else’s home.
Monday, February 15, 2010
12.2.10 to 14.2.10 – Relaxing Weekend
This weekend wasn’t overly exciting, which is why I am choosing to detail all of its events within one entry. On Friday, I woke up gradually, and then around 10:30 I went to the grocery store with my host mom. They were getting ready to leave for their weeklong ski vacation that night, where they were driving through the night to get to Austria. She wanted to get food to make for their drive as well as making sure that I had enough food for the next week since I would be home alone. It was actually kind of a funny experience because she kept asking me if I wanted a bunch of different foods, way more than I could actually consume in a week. Additionally, since I am used to grocery shopping on my own in the states, it was kind of weird to have someone asking me about everything I wanted to get. I definitely realize that she was simply trying to help, which I definitely appreciate. I think I simply surprised her, since I was rather content with a smaller amount of food.
I then had to into the city for my two classes, which felt like they took forever. Its not that they were bad in themselves, its just the topics we were covering were not that interesting. We did have a guest speaker in my Leadership class though from the Copenhagen Business School. He was actually an American who was studying the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Scandinavian countries. Although his points were interesting, everything always leads back to differences in culture, and how cultures cannot be easily changed. I guess that the point of the class though since it is called “Leadership Across Cultures”. ☺
After classes I headed straight home, so that I would be able to have a quick dinner with my host family and say goodbye to them before they left for a week. When I got home my host mom and sister Caroline were randomly of the kitchen floor matching socks. Odd for a few reasons: 1. They were in the kitchen doing this while my host dad prepared dinner. 2. I don’t think they were taking those socks with them; they were simply doing laundry. 3. It actually appeared rather difficult because the vast majority of the sock were black. It was probably one of those things where you had to be there.
We then had a quick dinner of leftovers and they were all off to continue their packing. (I did have a personal highlight during dinner because my host mom complimented me on my skills of eating with a knife and fork in the European style; SO proud of myself.) So I camped on in the family room, while they weaved in and out of different rooms trying to get all of their stuff packed. I didn’t see the final cargo load, but it definitely seemed like they were taking a LOT of stuff with them. In the midst of all of this, I was also trying to figure out what I was going to do that evening. I eventually figured out that I was going to try to go out with my friend Taylor and some of the people that he lives with. However, on my way to meet him, he called me informing me that he wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay in. Luckily I was only at the train station in my town, so I hadn’t traveled too far yet. Since it was already almost 10:00pm and I didn’t have any plans, I simply decided to return home and relax. Figuring I would go out Saturday night.
I then woke up on Saturday earlier than expected, however I watched two episodes of The Big Bang Theory online and then headed down stairs to watch the broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. My host family told me that it was supposed to be on 10:00 so I started flipping channels around and found some coverage. However the whole thing seemed a little discounted. Then when they showed the teams parading out they only showed Canada, Denmark, and Sweden; this is when I realized that this coverage was like a highlight reel. However, luckily I found the full version of the ceremony play at about 11:00, seeing the whole thing definitely made the highlight reel make more sense. There were definitely positives and negatives to the ceremony and as a whole I think I would classify it as ‘good’.
After that I probably had my biggest accomplishment for the weekend – I went for a run! It was kind of weird since I haven’t done any real physical activity for a month, but I simply was itching to run. It was actually really nice just to get out release some tension. I then repeated this experience on Sunday. Unfortunately, I am a little sore now, but it was definitely worth it, and I am going to try harder to get back into my routine with that. During my runs, I made an addition discovery about my town, Hillerød. It is impossible to get lost. I even intentionally tried to turn myself around so that I would be forced to explore to find my way home, but I kept ending up in places that I recognized. I guess overall this isn’t a bad thing, but it makes tit a little less interesting to explore.
I did attempt to go out again on Saturday night, however everyone that contacted either had some other commitment or they were simply staying it. That is more that okay, but unfortunately it meant another night home by myself. In relation to that, I am definitely getting more comfortable being in my host house, however it is still a little weird, since part of me still definitely feels like a guest. I am sure this week home alone will probably aid in changing that.
With all this time to myself though, I was definitely able to be productive and I got all of my work completed for the start of the week. It was also beneficial because I was able to complete my work, so that the only thing I had to do on Sunday was finish a paper for my Business class. I will briefly mention that this paper freaked me out – between being my first paper, a tight word limit, too much information to include, etc. – however I am sure I will think nothing of it in a couple of days.
Another great thing about having a lot of free time this weekend meant that I some time to catch up with some friends and loved ones from home via Skype. First, I was able to talk to my mom for an hour both on Saturday and Sunday. Second, I finally got a chance to talk to Stacey and Natalie for a little bit on Saturday before they had to head of to a play and SafeRides. Lastly and probably most important to me, I was able to talk to Tory for almost two hours on Sunday – I guess if we cannot be together on Valentines Day, we can at least talk or a long time.
All and all, the weekend had some positive and negatives too it, and I definitely enjoy the feeling that I am very prepared for this week, which will make it even more relaxing than it already is. I am home alone; one of my classes got cancelled for the entirety of the week; no field study on Wednesday, which means a free day in the middle of the week; and they only major thing I have due is a paper at 8:30am on Monday, so that will be over with very quickly. It will be nice to relax this week since I have a couple of assignments due next week, and then believe it or not, I go to London in 2 weeks from today!
I then had to into the city for my two classes, which felt like they took forever. Its not that they were bad in themselves, its just the topics we were covering were not that interesting. We did have a guest speaker in my Leadership class though from the Copenhagen Business School. He was actually an American who was studying the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Scandinavian countries. Although his points were interesting, everything always leads back to differences in culture, and how cultures cannot be easily changed. I guess that the point of the class though since it is called “Leadership Across Cultures”. ☺
After classes I headed straight home, so that I would be able to have a quick dinner with my host family and say goodbye to them before they left for a week. When I got home my host mom and sister Caroline were randomly of the kitchen floor matching socks. Odd for a few reasons: 1. They were in the kitchen doing this while my host dad prepared dinner. 2. I don’t think they were taking those socks with them; they were simply doing laundry. 3. It actually appeared rather difficult because the vast majority of the sock were black. It was probably one of those things where you had to be there.
We then had a quick dinner of leftovers and they were all off to continue their packing. (I did have a personal highlight during dinner because my host mom complimented me on my skills of eating with a knife and fork in the European style; SO proud of myself.) So I camped on in the family room, while they weaved in and out of different rooms trying to get all of their stuff packed. I didn’t see the final cargo load, but it definitely seemed like they were taking a LOT of stuff with them. In the midst of all of this, I was also trying to figure out what I was going to do that evening. I eventually figured out that I was going to try to go out with my friend Taylor and some of the people that he lives with. However, on my way to meet him, he called me informing me that he wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay in. Luckily I was only at the train station in my town, so I hadn’t traveled too far yet. Since it was already almost 10:00pm and I didn’t have any plans, I simply decided to return home and relax. Figuring I would go out Saturday night.
I then woke up on Saturday earlier than expected, however I watched two episodes of The Big Bang Theory online and then headed down stairs to watch the broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. My host family told me that it was supposed to be on 10:00 so I started flipping channels around and found some coverage. However the whole thing seemed a little discounted. Then when they showed the teams parading out they only showed Canada, Denmark, and Sweden; this is when I realized that this coverage was like a highlight reel. However, luckily I found the full version of the ceremony play at about 11:00, seeing the whole thing definitely made the highlight reel make more sense. There were definitely positives and negatives to the ceremony and as a whole I think I would classify it as ‘good’.
After that I probably had my biggest accomplishment for the weekend – I went for a run! It was kind of weird since I haven’t done any real physical activity for a month, but I simply was itching to run. It was actually really nice just to get out release some tension. I then repeated this experience on Sunday. Unfortunately, I am a little sore now, but it was definitely worth it, and I am going to try harder to get back into my routine with that. During my runs, I made an addition discovery about my town, Hillerød. It is impossible to get lost. I even intentionally tried to turn myself around so that I would be forced to explore to find my way home, but I kept ending up in places that I recognized. I guess overall this isn’t a bad thing, but it makes tit a little less interesting to explore.
I did attempt to go out again on Saturday night, however everyone that contacted either had some other commitment or they were simply staying it. That is more that okay, but unfortunately it meant another night home by myself. In relation to that, I am definitely getting more comfortable being in my host house, however it is still a little weird, since part of me still definitely feels like a guest. I am sure this week home alone will probably aid in changing that.
With all this time to myself though, I was definitely able to be productive and I got all of my work completed for the start of the week. It was also beneficial because I was able to complete my work, so that the only thing I had to do on Sunday was finish a paper for my Business class. I will briefly mention that this paper freaked me out – between being my first paper, a tight word limit, too much information to include, etc. – however I am sure I will think nothing of it in a couple of days.
Another great thing about having a lot of free time this weekend meant that I some time to catch up with some friends and loved ones from home via Skype. First, I was able to talk to my mom for an hour both on Saturday and Sunday. Second, I finally got a chance to talk to Stacey and Natalie for a little bit on Saturday before they had to head of to a play and SafeRides. Lastly and probably most important to me, I was able to talk to Tory for almost two hours on Sunday – I guess if we cannot be together on Valentines Day, we can at least talk or a long time.
All and all, the weekend had some positive and negatives too it, and I definitely enjoy the feeling that I am very prepared for this week, which will make it even more relaxing than it already is. I am home alone; one of my classes got cancelled for the entirety of the week; no field study on Wednesday, which means a free day in the middle of the week; and they only major thing I have due is a paper at 8:30am on Monday, so that will be over with very quickly. It will be nice to relax this week since I have a couple of assignments due next week, and then believe it or not, I go to London in 2 weeks from today!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
10.2.10 – Becoming Routine
The days and weeks are becoming routine to me now, which is part of the reason that I have lightened the extent of my blog. While everyday is still different and holds new experiences, it is starting to feel more “normal”.
Today was a field study day. I didn’t have anything planned in the morning section, so I took my time at home in the morning just taking my time getting ready to go. One funny thing though is that on Wednesdays my host family has a couple of people whom come clean the house. They normally come in the morning so if I am there I always run into them. It is kind of weird because they don’t speak English but talk like crazy the entire time they are cleaning. Also I always feel like I am in the way. For example, I was in my room just checking email and doing some reading for one of my classes. They were mopping the floors. The gentleman came into my room to clean the floors – which is fine – but then he literally mopped around me! It was awkward cause I became trapped and had to wait a minute for the floor to dry before I could move. Then once I got a chance to move, he said thank you and mopped the spot where my desk chair sits. It was strange.
I did have a field study in the afternoon though. I went with my core class to visit a construction company, NCC, in Copenhagen. It is located on one section of the harbor right on the water and at one point during the visit we went up to an upper level terrace area, and I got really nice view of the surrounding area there. The visit was definitely informative in terms of where the company is headed and how it formulates its strategy and directive. The only negative of the visit was that it was a little over 3 hours long! The presenter divided it into 3 sections; I think I maintained for the first one and most of the second, but the last hour, I wag gone. He also had a very extensive PowerPoint to add to all of it. Everytime someone asked a question he would say “I have a slide for that”. It was originally kind of funny and then turned into, whoa this guy like diagrams and PowerPoint slides. I am still definitely enjoying the company visits though and find them to be helpful in understanding how businesses are actually applying the principles that we are learning about in class.
After this visit, I headed over the train station around 5:15 to meet up with another class. My marketing professor invited our whole class to come to his house for dinner. There was a little confusion organizing the group and getting out there, but overall it went well. His home seems relatively modern (I think is a combination of having the home be open to intereact with the family and also the lack o materialism in Danish culture). They had prepared frikadeller – a little different recipe than the ones I had before, but still just taste like meatballs – and pizza for dinner. It was absolutely crazy because they must have made about 10 pizzas. There were probably 2 that we didn’t even touch because we became so full. They also had a little selection of alcohol for us to enjoy. I refrained from too much, however our professor kept bringing in more beer once we finished those that were on the table. At one point we were talking about getting ready to leave, and he said ‘no, stay and have another beer’. It was a lot of fun to just relax and enjoy spending time with our class and professor. His family was also really nice. He has a wife and three children (although only the daughter, who is 16, was there). We eventually left around 10-10:30ish. After a couple trains and the bus, I got home at about 11:30 and was ready to crash. However, I briefly looked over my notes for my test tomorrow (we will see how it goes) and went to bed – I figured it was better to sleep than study. J
Monday, February 8, 2010
8.2.10 – Productive Days
Even though I am in a foreign city and there are definitely interesting sights to see all around me every day, I find that I am definitely starting to allow the city to feel more like home (not just my location for 4 months). With that being said, yesterday and today were rather uneventful. Sunday was truly a day of rest after my study tour. I slept in and once I woke up, I put myself to work almost immediately. I didn’t have a ton of homework to do, but I was determined to get it all completed so that I could start the week off on the right foot (and not have a mini breakdown like I did lat week). Thankfully, I persevered and completed everything that was on my intended to do list for the day. I actually completed most of my work before dinner, which was nice because it meant that I was able to relax in the evening. I also had the best intensions to try to go to bed early, however I got slightly distracted and talked to Tory instead for 2.5 hours. J It was definitely worth it though; I needed to be able to talk to him like that.
Today, I assume can now be considered a “typical Monday”. I woke up early to get into the city for my morning classes. Following those, I camped out in Vestergade 7 to get some work done (included making an outline for my paper from my study tour, which has a word count higher than the word count allowed on the actual paper) and relax (watched the first quarter Super Bowl commercials – no I didn’t get to watch the Super Bowl because I wasn’t going to go into town to watch it when it wasn’t going to start until 12:30 AM here, plus the same commercials were not aired here). I also occupied my time with some emailing, playing on the Internet, studying for my test on Thursday, etc.
At 4:15, I then got ready to meet up with my marketing class. We were going to visit one of our “client” companies for our large marketing projects during the semester. The company we visited was Maconomy. It is an ERP system consultant and provider from professional service organizations. It was interesting to here the presentation about the company and several unique qualities to their company as well as the software business as a whole. For example, software companies make most of their revenue from the maintenance of subscriptions; a typical amount being 20% of the original principle is charged every year based solely for maintenance. However, the only thing that made this visit a little more difficult is that we haven’t been introduced to our actual project yet. So while we are learning about the company, it was hard to know what angle to view it from. I am still really interested in the overall project though since we are getting to “work for” real companies. The gentlemen who spoke to us this evening mentioned that we could call or arrange a meeting with him when we have questions and concerns throughout the progress of this project.
After the visit, I made my way home through the route of buses, train, and a little bit of walking. Once home, I simply studied a little more for my test on Thursday (which I don’t think will be too hard, but it is my first test, and I want to do well).
Saturday, February 6, 2010
3.2.10 to 6.2.10 – Short Study Tour: Ringkobing & Vejle
WARNING: I haven’t written for a few days since I have been on my short study tour. Therefore this post shall update you on most of everything that happened during those days. Therefore…it is going to be a long one. 
On Wednesday – the day prior to my study tour, I had a day off. It was nice that I got to relax for the day. I didn’t have much planned either. My main goal was simply to get laundry done, walk around my town a little, and go to the grocery store to get some snacks for the next couple of days. The evening was a little more eventful because we went to my host dad’s parents house for dinner, where his mom had made frikadeller – a traditional Danish food, which are simply meatballs with a combination of pork and ground beef (although hers were entirely made of pork). It was nice to meet them and have a relaxing evening in their home.
We then tried to come home sort of early because I told me host parents that I was going to have to get up at 5 to be able to get into the city by 7:15, when my bus left the next day. Therefore, when we got home, I finished my packing and put my snacks and things together so that I wouldn’t have to do them in the morning. I then talked on Skype for a while with Tory and headed to bed.
On Thursday – I woke up ridiculously early at 5:00am so that I coule catch the first bus from my stop, get to the station, head into town on the train, and get on the correct bus to go to western Denmark. The nice thing was that when I got on the bus there was another girl from my class – she lives down the street from me, only by a couple of bus stops. This made the early morning trip a little more doable. When we got into town then, it was a little bit of a challenge finding the correct bus; there were probably 10 trips leaving around the same time, and so there were a bunch of different buses and obviously you had to make sure you were on the right one. We were also there before our instructor and trip guide, so it was even more difficult to know where to go. Overall, it wasn’t too bad though; we simply had to wander from bus to bus until we found the right one.
Luckily, I was able to go to sleep on the bus in the first leg our trip. Our first stop was one of our cultural locations, Kolding Hus. It is castle that was built in the 1500s and progressively added on to during the reigns of different kings. During the early 1800s there was a fire that burnt down a great extent of the building. Since then they have slowly rebuilt it from its remains as well as leaving some of the original structure intact. It is now used as a museum and a small exhibition hall.
We had a short, kind of goofy tour, when we were there just to tell us a little bit about the castle’s history. One of the neat aspects being that this castle is home to the first protestant chapel in Denmark; we actually had our mini info session in the renovated room. Also while we were there, the guide told us a couple of odd stories about the castle. One of which being about a young girl of a nobleman that lived in the castle; she had fallen in love with one of the construction workers there. However, when her father found out, he had the man killed and then arranged for three potential husbands to attend the next party at the castle so the daughter could dance and meet these three suitors. During the extent of the evening, the daughter was dancing constantly, and unfortunately by the end of the evening she died of exhaustion (yea, I know not a happy story). The beauty of the story though is that the girl was able to join the man she loved in death even though she couldn’t be with him in life. Another odd fact is that there is actually a record noting that several other ladies died that same evening. (it is believed to be simply by exhaustion, not anything suspicious).
After the castle, we were given about an hour to walk around the small town. However, there really wasn’t much else there besides the castle and a small shopping street. Following about 45 minutes of walking around, we headed back over to the bus to continue on with our tour.
Our next stop was a business visit. We went to Vestas, which is a windmill manufacturing company. I wont bore you with the details of the visit, but we were given an introductory presentation about the company as well as a presentation on the financial operations of the business. Following that we were given a short tour of the manufacturing sector they have at this particular location. They were constructing the nacelles, which is the box piece that sits at the top of the tower, where the blades will be connected. It was interesting to see the step-by-step process and believe it or not, but all of the assembly is done by hand one step at a time. It was also neat to see this pieces so close up. They are a lot larger than you can imagine when normally you just see windmills from a distance. Overall, the single section they were manufacturing weighed almost 15-20 tons upon completion.
After our visit, we headed over to our hostel for the evening (I have never stayed in a hostel before, but it was a lot nicer than I had imagined it would be) and then went to dinner. It was a good and very filling meal. The best part was that they had ice cream for us for dessert. It tasted more like frozen yogurt. It was SO good, however I was stuffed when we were done. After dinner, we then walked back to the hostel as a group and most of us decided to stay in; one, because we didn’t want to walk back to town (our only way to get there) and two, because we had to be ready to go at 8:00 the next morning.
On Friday, we began our day by going to the Blue Water Shipping. It is an international shipping company, primarily located in Denmark. They also gave us a very nice overview of their company, which is very different in its organization and company strategy than Vestas, and a driving tour around the docks of their business as this particular location. Interestingly the two companies we visited actually do business with each other, and while we were at Blue Water we saw a lot of wind turbine parts that were being stored there and waiting shipment within the next few months.
After Blue Water, we headed to our cultural attraction for the day, which was a visit to the oldest city in Denmark – Ribe. I was actually really excited about this visit because I had heard about the town before from my instructor for my history of Copenhagen class. I was most excited to see the winding streets, old buildings, and the large church, which is the prominent attraction in the town. When we arrived, a couple of us headed over to the church immediately, but unfortunately it was closed for the remainder of the day; I was (and still am) so disappointed it was the one thing that I really wanted to see.
Since that was closed, me and Kris (a girl in my class) decided to walk around Ribe and see some more of the town. However, Ribe is a rather small town, and we had walked the extent of it in about 30 minutes. Since we had about an hour and a half to waste, we found a café/bakery and rested there for a while. When I was ordering my pastry though, I think the lady in the shop was getting a little irritated with me because I couldn’t decided what I wanted (mainly because I didn’t need to be eating something else in the first place). After chatting in the bakery for a while, we headed back to the bus so we could be off to Vejle to get to our hostel for that evening.
This hostel, again, was nicer than I had expected. We also had dinner at the hostel, which had a lot of offerings and ice cream and crepes for dessert. Needless to say this was another rather filling meal. After dinner, we had the option of going out in the town, however it was 7 kilometers away from the hostel and if we went out we were told that a taxi home would be approximately $15 for each person. About half of our class went, and the other half (including myself) decided to hangout at the hostel. They had a nice sitting room, where we simply hung our and talked for a couple hours before heading back to our separate rooms for showers and bed.
On Saturday (today), we didn’t have to leave the hostel until about 10:00, which gave us more time to catch up on some sleep. Our cultural visit for the day consisted of visiting the Jelling stones. They are these two large stones, which have carvings on them that date back to the 10th century. One was erected by King Gorm (who was the first king in the region of Denmark) and it considered a monument to his late wife. Unfortunately this stone was “in its winter clothes”, aka had a wooden box built around it. The second stone was done by Herald Bluetooth in the memory of his parents. It celebrates his conquest of Denmark and Norway, and his conversion of the Danes to Christianity from the original Nordic religion of the region. Random Fact: the Bluetooth technology that is used a lot today was named after Herald Bluetooth because of his attempts to getting neighboring tribes to communicate with each other. While the history of these two monuments is interesting and fun to learn, the sight itself was rather uneventful. The stones are located in a small town in the cemetery of a small church. Also since we were there early in the day, nothing else in the town was open and had very few options o how to pass the short amount of time that we were there.
Once realizing that there wasn’t really anything we could do in Jelling – more than see the stones, we all got back on the bus and went to head to our lunch location for the day. We were there a little early though and got to have this really good hot chocolate while we waited for our lunch to be prepared. After lunch, we had about an hour drive to our next location.
This next stop was by far a highlight of the trip and definitely the most fun. We went paintballing! I had never been before and was a little nervous knowing that it can hurt, but I had the best time. We began by splitting up into 3 teams, which we rotated in rounds so each team could play each other. The first two rounds consisted of simply trying to “kill” the other team first. Then the third round we played capture the flag. It took a little bit to get used to (and the first round wasn’t as fun because my gun got jammed), but it was so much fun! Then at the very end, we had some time – and ammunition – remaining and if you wanted you could go 3 verses 3 shoot out, where you could continue shooting the gun until you ran out of ammunition or you simply couldn’t take getting hit anymore. I actually preferred this to the first several rounds (where you were out after getting hit once) because you were able to shoot back at the person who shot you. It was definitely a little more intense too. Overall, the team that I was on came out victorious every single time – as a larger team and the very last 3V3 round as well.
A funny thing was that our instructor called paintball a “cultural” visit because we experienced a very different kind of Dane. The guy who ran the paintball place was really intense and kind of crude in some ways and nice in others. Overall, very different from any other Dane that I have met.
Once back on the bus, we made our final trip back to Copenhagen. I cannot believe how quickly the past couple of days have gone and that my first study trip is already over. The trip into the city was rather uneventful. I attempted to read but then ended up falling asleep, which was nice because although we didn’t do a lot of active things, I was (and still am) exhausted from the past couple of days. Once in town, I collected my things to head to the station to make my trip home (I headed back with the girl in my class, Tatiana, who lives down the street, which made the trip go a little quicker with someone to talk to). Once home, I had dinner with my host family, unpacked, wrote/writing my blog, and will be off to bed after taking a nice hot shower in a little bit.
PS – I hope you survived. I know that was a long one, but it did cover 4 days, not just one. Also I will try to post a few more pictures, however we were limited in our picture taking at a few places so I am going to have to steal photos from a couple of people before that happens.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
2.2.10 – It’s a Blizzard Out There
If you can believe it, today was even less exciting than yesterday. I got up this morning and hung around the house doing some random things on my To Do list. Then I headed into town around 11:00. This was a little early, but I needed to print something off for one of my classes. I then went off to my two classes for the day. First was Danish, which only seems to be getting more difficult to understand the nuances between different words. Second was Leadership Across Cultures. We all had small group presentations to give in class today, which took the entirety of the class. It definitely made class go by quickly, however since the presentations were all based off the same thing it was kind of monotonous.
After class, I decided to head home. I didn’t have any reason to stick around the city, and additionally there were reports calling for a snowstorm this evening and tonight. DIS even warned students to be wary of the weather because if it got too bad the trains and buses had the potential of being stopped. I definitely didn’t want to get stuck in the snow with no way to get home, so clearly the smart choice was to go. Even on my train ride home, I could tell that it was starting to snow a lot. It is an interesting kind of snow though. It is wet and small flakes that get blow around a lot by all the wind. The hardest part is walking through it because you cannot see where you are going because you have to keep your head down otherwise you snow in your eyes. Once I got home though, it was nice to be in a warm home and relax a little bit before dinner.
I don’t have much planned for the evening, but I think I am going to try to tackle some of my laundry and do a little preparation for my short study tour visits on Thursday and Friday. Overall, I am just going to try to hang out with my host family though. I also have the day off tomorrow because we are leaving for the study tour early on Thursday morning. I don’t know what I am going to do yet – maybe walk around my town again. However, that all depends on how much snow we get and my willingness to go outside in the cold.
FYI – After dinner I was talking with my host parents and used two words that they had never heard before: discombobulated (which I actually had to look up to make sure it really was a word even though I use it all the time, thank goodness it is) and plethora (such a great word!).
1.2.10 – How Did It Get to Be February?
I have since decided that having an 8:30 class on Monday morning is possibly the worst thing. One, no body wants to get out of bed to admit that it is the start of another week. Two, I have to get up 6:30 so that I can get to class on time. That is almost beyond crazy! However, this week is made easy for me because I have a two-day week of classes. This is because our first study tour with our core class is this Thursday through Saturday. While I knew this was coming, I have to admit that it definitely crept up on me. I have only been here about 2 weeks; its already February; I having my first study tour in 2 days; my first graded assignment and test are next week! All of this time is going to go by SO fast. I wish it could slow down just a little. I mean I have only had one entire week of classes so far, and even then one of them got cancelled.
After I recovered from the shock that things are progressing so quickly. I then continued on with my day. I had my core class this morning, where we were introduced to our first paper (only like 3 pages) and given more details about our study trip. Then I had history, which was just a normal class. I didn’t learn any facts that I found really neat, but we are progressing and speculating about how Copenhagen became a town and then developed into a greater modern city.
I then walked around the city a little bit to try to relax before I tried to get some work done. I think it definitely helped to clear my mind a little. I then read for classes and did some work for a while before my last class at 4:25. This class wasn’t too bad, and I am becoming thoroughly grateful that the time seems to pass really quickly otherwise the class would be more daunting.
On my way home, I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some apples and raisins – two recent cravings I have been having. Sadly, my peanut butter supply is running rather low, and I cannot restock it L It is definitely a comfort food that reminds me of home, although, it is definitely funny because Danes do not like peanut butter. I know they understand the rational behind why Americans like it so much, but I still think my host family thinks I am a little funny that I enjoy it so much.
I then spent the rest of the evening at home – showering, having dinner (they like curry by the way), doing some homework, and other random tasks. Sorry but it wasn’t that exciting of a day :/
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