Lady, Where Have You Been?! Part II

Paris






My little sister was there:)


Versailles


Day-long campout on the floor at Beauvais.
Avoid this menagerie of an airport AT ALL COSTS.


We made it to Pisa in the middle of the night.


And visited a well-known celebrity.


Traveling companions


Siena


Sienese pit-stop


Florence






The night train seemed a sensational idea...


...until the claustrophobia set in...


...and we woke up not in Vienna, but rather in the middle of the Austrian countryside.


We finally arrived in Vienna, largely unscathed.


And our couchsurfing host brought us to a barbeque on an island in the middle of the Danube River.


Prague


A visit to John.


View from the Petrin Tower.


Pilser in Prague. Cheers, Dad.


Capitalizing on Europe's sunny gardens.


And it all ended with the jazziest of sunset dinner cruises down the Vltava River.

Lady, Where Have You Been?! Part I

Sofia, Bulgaria.


Aleksander Nevski Memorial Church. Sofia, Bulgaria


Visit to Roma community. Sofia, Bulgaria.


Bulgarian folkdance workshop.


Rila Monestary. Rila, Bulgaria


Hiking the Rila Mountains.




View from the Plovdiv ruins. Plovdiv, Bulgaria.


Plovdiv.


Dinner on the last night.


More food than I knew what to do with. DIS feeds well.


Who knew that our folkdancing skills would later come in handy?
Shortly before DIS joined the number...


For me, the pull of DIS was certainly that the opportunities to travel around Europe are so numerous. The week long study tours are expertly planned and pertinent to the material studied in class while still incorporating the necessary amount of shenanigans. And how many people get to say they've been to an Orthodox Monestary in the mountains of Bulgaria? Good work, DIS.

Revelations and Recommendations

Revelation #1: Copenhagen is a completely different city on a bike.

My roommate's mother has graciously loaned me her bike for the remainder of my stay in Denmark and as dramatic as it sounds, I feel as though I am living a different life. I also feel a bit strung out after my first day biking through Copenhagen traffic, but give me a week to improve my form, and the immersion process will be complete. It's amazing how a couple of wheels and throwing caution to the wind can make me feel like a fine, upstanding member of Danish society.

With no class and an endless list of midterm papers to write, I decided to bike to the library from my apartment. Ten minutes into the thirty minute ride, it became apparent that I am grossly out of shape and that this new mode of transportation will do wonders for my lazy legs. I arrived without a hitch and spent the morning writing papers in

Recommendation #1: The Black Diamond Library

It doesn't matter how much time I spend studying in this place, I still have to pinch myself as I take in this view:



Silence, solitude, and according to my French teacher Lise, a notorious hot-spot for picking up dates. Apparently this little detail is well known in Copenhagen, and I was reminded of my first week in Denmark. Touring the library, a classmate said, "This is a library? I thought it was just a hangout for ridiculously beautiful people."

I plan to obliterate any potential distractions by riding my bike to said destination and entering the reading room looking like I've lain down on the ground and rolled my way from Sjælør to Christiansborg. Sweaty, winded, disoriented. Not a chance.

Feeling smug after my first successful journey, I left the library on time for my next destination: my French tutor's apartment on Gothersgade and Kronprinsessegade. I ended up neck deep in Østerbro. This little detour knocked me down a couple notches and facilitated some quality time on a street corner with a bike and a map. For now I suppose I’ll just have to be satisfied with looking like a tourist…that someone trusted with a bike.

Revelation #2: Danish sausage is NOT the same as Italian sausage.

I don’t venture away from chicken often. Most of my home-made meals in Denmark have been some variation of chicken and vegetables with rice or pasta. I thought I’d spice things up with some Italian sausage on Monday night, and instead I came face to face with this:



Medisterpølse! Absolutely the farthest thing from Italian sausage you can possibly imagine, but when served correctly, a very traditional Danish meal. I’d place it somewhere between a hotdog and a breakfast sausage; not very tasty when served oriental style with vegetables. Problem: I now have more medisterpølse stir-fry than I know what to do with. Lesson: don’t go grocery shopping without a game plan. Stay ALERT when perusing the packaged meats. Stick to chicken, lady.

Recommendation #2: Lars Von Trier’s “Idiotern” (The Idiots)



A group of people live together in a house in the Copenhagen suburbs and defy societal norms by spending their time “spassing”. They take trips around the city pretending to be mentally retarded with the intent to shock and disturb, a twisted game of “sticking it to the man”. Also known as Dogme #2, it is the second in Von Trier’s films made in compliance with the Dogme ’95 Manifesto, a set of production rules including only shooting with handheld cameras, no filters, no sound editing. A very organic production process. I very Danish idea.

Recommendation #3: KENT

Swedish pop rock recommended by a Danish musician. A recc to the second power. Jeg kan godt lide…

wanderings, vices, stream of consciousness ya follow?

Last week, a field study to Roskilde Cathedral was cancelled because, well, someone died who was obviously more important than a group of American college kids. Instead, we wandered around the Copenhagen botanical gardens to the hilarious commentary of one, Nina Lahav.




Puzzling, indeed.











I've found a happy little spot in the middle of Copenhagen called Studenterhuset (Student House) where I can read, study, procrastinate, fidgit with a cup of coffee, you name it. The cafe turned bar in the evenings is run primarily by students, all programs are organized/put on by students, and you can even volunteer to bartend on the weekends. What a wonderful way to meet Danes and international students alike! Live music, good people = Emily in HEAVEN.



Introducing: Musli


...my Danish power supply. Dry oatmeal mixed with nuts and raisins. Throw in some sunflower seeds and brown sugar. Little milk. I looked on skeptically for a month as my roommate inhaled it...until I tried it. Now I could eat it for every meal of the day. And sometimes I do. I think a 1kg bag of oatmeal is the cheapest thing you can buy in Copenhagen. Cheaper than some postcards I've seen.


The S-tog, preferred method of transport. The A/E-line whisks my book-laden, ear-phoned self into the city every morning for class. I don't think I remember how to drive a car. I don't think I mind...

In closing, some live music compliments of RUST nightclub.
Introducing: Asteroids Galaxy Tour
This chick's hair means BUSINESS.

Good Day, Sunshine

It isn't sunny often in Denmark. When the sun occasionally peeks through the clouds during a lecture at DIS, you can watch the entire class begin to unconsciously lean toward the window. Heads turn, and people perk up almost instantly. And the Danes are junkies for it too. I often joke that my Copenhagen suburb of Sjælør can feel like a ghost town, especially early in the semester when I left for class before the sun came up and arrived home just as it was setting. But Danes come out of the woodwork in droves on sunny days, and the atmosphere on the street is noticeably more cheerful.

Tuesday was one of these days, intensely sunny and not a cloud in the sky. Without the clouds, Denmark feels like a different place, a different country entirely. It's almost disorienting how good it feels to walk around under a clear, blue sky after weeks of gray, gray, gray. As it was my one-month anniversary in Denmark, I decided it was time to explore Sjælør a little more thoroughly. Embarrassing though it is, most of my wanderings had been around the center and surrounding neighborhoods of Copenhagen, and my only routes in and around Sjælør were:

apartment ---> Sjælør S-tog station
apartment ---> Fakta
apartment ---> Mozart's bakery (highly recommended)
night bus ---> BED

I wandered into the neighborhood behind my apartment building, and immediately realized that this was not an ordinary neighborhood. It was a storybook town for children, with colorful miniature houses, snow covered gardens, and hedge-lined lanes. My roommate later explained that it is a colony of summer "garden" homes, that began in the 1960's when Copenhagen was still very industrial. City dwellers purchased plots of land very cheaply, and built small houses and planted gardens as a place for barbeques and picnics during the summer. Very few people actually live here. This made more sense. During my wandering, I had been envisioning either a colony of extremely short Danish squaters or people crawling around these little cottages on their hands and knees. I'm looking forward to walking around the gardens again in the springtime when everything starts blooming.











Along the way, I met a jolly Danish fellow who I will lovingly refer to as "The Cat Man of Solskræten". I was caught off guard when he began amiably chattering to me in Danish as I walked by. Most Danes are extremely reserved in public. We learn in our Danish classes that Danes consider it a right not be spoken to in public and I consider a feat even to make eye contact with these evasive people on the S-tog.

He told me that people pay 2000 kroners a year to live in the gardens and asked me about my studies and my home in Colorado. But after a few minutes of friendly small talk he informed me quietly, "My cats, they are coming." And sure enough, his cats started slinking out of the hedges left and right until we were surrounded by about 8 strays, some purring, some hissing at one another, and he introduced me to all of them. "This one is...oh, how do you say? A fatty?" He told me that people come to the gardens with their cats in the summertime but when they go home, they leave their cats behind. The cat man lives in the gardens all year round and feeds them. I could hardly stop myself from bursting into laughter when I realized that this was the first time in a month that a random Dane had made small talk with me on the street, and here I was standing in a garden colony of miniature houses with Fatty the cat rubbing against my legs.


The strangest things happen to me in Denmark. This week's misadventures include being nailed with a snowball by a drunken Greenlander on Købmagergade and attempting to figure out who the HELL is stealing one black sock from my drying rack in the basement every time I do my laundry. I may or may not have been asking for that snowball, but the disappearing sock joke is getting old, fast...