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.
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