OktoBEERfest

Once again my apologies for not blogging recently, but once again I've been really busy! And I'm sure you've guessed from the title of this post (and maybe even from my millions of Facebook pictures) that yes, I went to Oktoberfest this past weekend. And yes, it was insane. On Friday morning Halley (one of my roommates) and I woke up at the crack of dawn to head to the Copenhagen airport. We flew from CPH to Zurich, Switzerland and had a twenty minute layover. Sidenote: sorry Mom and Dad, I'm sure that layover time is making you cringe right about now. Anyways, we hopped on another plane and took a quick 35 minute plane flight to Munich, Germany. We navigated the public transportation situation pretty well, besides the fact that we took a pretty roundabout way to our hotel. After a little language barrier issue with the receptionist at the hotel involving the fact that eight people were going to sleep in a room for two, we dropped our bags off and headed to Oktoberfest. And just like any study abroad college student should, we immediately started enjoying the beers and HUGE pretzels. That night we also went on some rides like the swings which were pretty awesome. Wasn't expecting Oktoberfest to also have an amusement park? Pleasant surprise. 

The next day we woke up at 4:45 am so that we could reserve a table in one of the "tents". These aren't actually tents, they're buildings with tons of tables. They let us in around 8:30 am and we ordered beers promptly at 9:00. Possibly the earliest I've ever drank in my life. So early but yet so worth it. About an hour into it things started getting pretty rowdy, apparently it was the weekend when all the Italians go to Oktoberfest and they were singing some sort of anthem alllllll day. Needless to say, we had a ton of fun.

Our trip was super short, we had to get up at 3:30 am to start our journey back to Copenhagen. Despite being in Munich for less than 48 hours, our whirlwind of a three days was totally worth it. Way too many beers, pretzels, and bratwursts later, I have fully recovered and have gone to the gym every day since. This week I've just been going to class and leave for SCOTLAND on Sunday!!! So excited. I'll be sure to update once I'm back :)

A small world leads to a baking adventure

Along with the many cultural things I've learned while abroad, there is also another very important thing I've learned: the world is small. Very small. Long story short, it took me traveling all the way to Copenhagen, Denmark to meet my new sweet friend Parker. We live just minutes away from each other in Denver and have never met. What is even crazier is that my Dad knows her Dad through work. We met each other only days into our time here, while at the same time my dad and her dad were emailing about how both their daughters are in Copenhagen, studying abroad, and should meet. So crazy! Anyway, Parker has become one of my closest friends here. We share a mutual love for #twitterhashtags and Colorado, which obviously made us fast friends. (Does it sound like we're dating now? Sorry 'bout it.)

So Parker and I have decided to set a goal: bake/cook something yummy and new every week and document them. It's something to force me to blog often and a great excuse to eat and hang out. This past week we made one of my personal faves--oreos baked inside chocolate chip cookies. Pure bliss. If you haven't made these, try them. All you do is make chocolate chip cookie dough, wrap an oreo in the dough, and bake them like you would normally bake cookies. So easy and so yummy! Shockingly my apartment's small oven baked the cookies and pulled through when it needed to. So proud.

Using my new Picnik talent. Loving it.

Hope these photos have made you hungry :) Tune in next week for our next creation!

A Trip Around Western Denmark

Hello! Sorry I haven't blogged in quite some time, this past week has truly been a whirlwind. This past Thursday I left for a three day trip around Western Denmark with one of my classes and am just now recovering from the exhaustion! I'm actually a little sick right now and I think it's just from traveling and touring, but I really can't complain because seeing Western Denmark was incredible. It's beautiful and I'm so glad I got to see other parts of the country I'm living in. During our trip we drove from Copenhagen (which is in Eastern Denmark) all the way to the opposite side of the country and everywhere in between. Denmark itself is pretty small; to drive from one side of it to the other is a mere four hours. Just to please my map-loving father (love you!) and hopefully help some of you see where I went here's a visual...

If you look on this map Copenhagen is on the far right, close to Sweden. On Thursday our class drove from Copenhagen to Esbjerg (on the western coast by where it says North Sea on the map), then to Ribe where we stayed for the night. Ribe is the most precious little town and we had a great time exploring. Unfortunately the town shuts down at 9 PM (not even a joke), so we had a difficult time finding things to do that night. However, our night did consist of climbing through a 12-year-old Dane's window since we were locked out of our hostel. We apparently didn't listen to the owner of the hostel when he explained how to get back into the hostel past 11 PM. Oops. Needless to say we found our own entertainment. Here are a couple pictures from Ribe


  

On Friday morning we woke up bright and early, got back on our bus, and drove to Arhus, which is right above the "k" in the word Denmark on the map. Later that afternoon, we drove from Arhus to Kolding for the night. On Saturday we saw a castle in Kolding called Koldinghus, which was really pretty. And after touring the castle we were given a "surprise", which of course was a pastry and coffee. This is something about Europe that I'm going to miss. America needs to start having more mid-day coffee breaks.

After the castle we went to a modern art museum, which was interesting to say the least. Apparently a bunch of chairs are considered art? I think my non-creative side kicked in because I was bored about three minutes into the tour. Naturally I started taking embarrassing pictures with friends in my class that felt the same way about the "modern art" as I did. By 7 PM we were back to Copenhagen and my roommates and I were exhausted to say the least. Since then, I haven't done anything really special and have not been doing homework because I can. There are elections tomorrow in Copenhagen, so things are a little crazy here. A lot of people have been walking up to me, trying to hand me roses in honor of the candidate they're supporting, and then we have the always awkward moment where I say, "Um, English?" (or in some sort of way that is much more polite). It's always a really interesting couple seconds after that. Do I smile and walk away? Do I speak to them in English? There really is no good way to make this situation less awkward. Other than that, I've managed to have a week with very few awkward Danish/English encounters, which I consider a success. I'll be sure to let you know when more arise, as I'm sure they will. Anyways, I need to wrap up this post because I actually have my first assignment due tomorrow. Weird. I'll update soon! Until then, farvel! (Goodbye in Danish. I'm learning.)

Week Two

Now that the overwhelming feeling of my first week living in Europe has subsided, I can finally take a deep breath. In my first post I found myself in a frenzy, wanting to just update everyone really quickly. Now I feel like I can really sit down and write a better post that gives a more realistic portrayal of my time here. So where do I even begin... I'm two weeks into school and am really loving my classes. I'm taking everything from "Positive Psychology" to "Criminology in Scandinavia" to "Hans Christian Anderson and the Danish Golden Age" (possibly a little known fact: Hans Christian Anderson is, in fact, from Denmark). My teachers are all wonderful and speak pretty good English besides the understandable "uhh" in between most sentences/phrases, but I've learned to overlook that. We don't have class on Wednesdays and I only have one class on Tuesday/Friday so I'm definitely loving the abroad school lifestyle to say the least. Vanderbilt could definitely learn from my study abroad program with regards to scheduling. In the two weeks that I've been here I've seen some of the more "touristy" (not sure if that's even a word) sites like Nyhavn, which is in almost every single brochure/website/book about Copenhagen.

It truly is beautiful in real life and looks just like all of the photos. Each house is a unique color and it is really awesome. Some of my roommates and I also went on a canal tour on Friday, succumbing to the tourist in all of us, and it was so worth it. Copenhagen is basically surrounded by water, so this canal tour showed us a lot. Included on the canal tour was the famous Little Mermaid statue inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale The Little Mermaid (also little known fact, Disney embellished this gem of a story). Anyways, I snapped this photo of her "good side" I like to call it (more like we couldn't see the front of her face from the boat). 

This shockingly underwhelming statue is a tourist attraction. I know, we were confused when we saw it too. Now I figure I need to add a photo with some people in it just to prove that I do have friends here! So here are some of my roommates Kelsey, Jamie, Virginia Ann, and Halley on the canal tour!

This Saturday we went to Malmo, Sweden for the day which was awesome. It's a short thirty minute train ride to get there and we went over there with no plan in mind. We wandered around, went shopping (it's a better exchange rate than Denmark, so of course we had to take advantage), and went on a canal tour which was pretty average in comparison to the one in Copenhagen. However, Michael Jackson did make an appearance on the streets which was a definite bonus

Malmo is a cute town that looks similar to Copenhagen but on a much smaller scale, with a population of only 300,000. It was a great day trip! Other than that, at night I've been enjoying Copenhagen, its beauty, and low drinking age. Not much more to say about that due to the audience that is going to be reading this :). Now, adding to my list of things that I've learned/are interesting about Europe:

6. There is no shame in Public Displays of Affection (PDA) here. A casual makeout on the side of the road, on a canal tour, at a restaurant, or anywhere else imaginable is completely normal. Not sure I will join this trend, but it is something that I am learning to get used to.

7. On Thursday night, my roommates and I went to a bar where we were the only Americans.  No exaggeration. After about an hour of Danish men hitting on us, we had a truly indescribable experience. A mosh pit of 30+ Danes (crowd surfing and fist pumping included) singing slash screaming the words to "Oops, I Did It Again" by the one and only Britney Spears. Apparently the pop culture trends are about ten years delayed here. Needless to say, we joined in.

8. This is the water that I purchased at my gym. Yes, this is a water bottle.

But anyways, still loving Europe and am learning daily about the culture and about myself. Hopefully this post gives you a little more insight into my life here, and I will be updating you again soon! 

Hello!

So here it is, my very first blog post! I'm writing from a cozy cafe called The Living Room in downtown Copenhagen at a table lit by a candle and am surrounded by conversations in Danish of which I can't understand one word. Which brings me to my first topic: IMMERSION. Here are just a few things I've learned about the Danish culture thus far:

1. The language sounds like a lot of mumbles mixed with a little pig latin. I am just learning how to pronounce the street I live on: Gasvaerksvej. Try pronouncing it. I dare you.

2. Danes do not cross the street when the pedestrian light is red, even if it is 3 AM and there is no one around. It's considered jaywalking, which is not okay!

3. The biking scene is crazy here. The city was made for bikes, so more people bike than drive (also because taxes on cars are 150%). However, bikers have no mercy. They will run you over if you get in their way

4. It is normal to leave babies by themselves in their strollers. They leave them outside restaurants and shops, in the rain, in the cold, just anywhere really. (See photo below)

I'm sure more will be added to that list as I'm here longer. Anyways, I'm living with seven other girls in an apartment, and all my roommates are AWESOME. Literally. I got so lucky and we are all getting along great. There are two girls from SMU, one from Northwestern, one from the University of Denver (represent), one from Richmond, and my friend from Vandy! Here is a picture of our living room:

It's pretty nice! So basically, I'm loving it here. I'm really getting acquainted with the city right now, and trying to learn things like what is milk and what is yogurt in the grocery store. Believe me, it's harder than it sounds. This is the container yogurt comes in...It's very tricky

Since I've been here I have started classes, been exploring, and meeting new people! We went to a castle this past weekend, which was absolutely beautiful. 

Anyways, I don't want to make this post too daunting, and will update it soon! But, long story short, I am here and safe and having an amazing time! Learning so much about a new culture, the people that live in it, and how their day to day lives are. Missing everyone in the United States, but super excited for what this semester has in store for me!