Sporting events and procrastinating!

Today I went to a soccer game (football, I suppose) with some people that I met here last night. Copenhagen won! The game was completely broadcasted in Danish, so we had pretty much no idea what was going on the whole time besides obviously the game itself.  The announcer would say something and the entire stadium would erupt in cheers and we would just look at each other, confused, and try to figure out what exactly was happening.

My personal favorite moment of confusion was when, at about 15 minutes into the game, the crowd inexplicably went INSANE. And I mean seriously, seriously crazy. All of the sudden (and keep in mind here, the score was 0-0 still) people whipped out neon colored pool toys and started throwing them all over the stadium - up in the air, at each other, even onto the field itself. And on top of that, some high powered fog machine covered our entire section of the stadium in smoke! Here is a (foggy) picture of the ordeal. (PS - we still have no idea what this was, and if anyone knows we would really like to!)

Other than the game my weekend was pretty low key - explored my neighborhood a bit, watched a few movies with nice people and pretended to do a little homework. I also attempted to drink a glass of wine that I purchased (all by myself!) but, turns out, $6 wine reeeeeally tastes like $6 wine and I ended up giving most of it away because it was so gross. I actually have my first test tomorrow afternoon but am having a bit of a hard time getting myself to do work... it's like finals week all over again...

So this one's about food...

Hi! So on Thursday, my roommate and I went on a boat tour of Copenhagen. It was beautiful, and I literally took hundreds of pictures, which obviously I won't post all of here. Here is a link to a few highlights, though.. Click here for more pictures of the boat tour!

I also have been branching out a lot on my eating habits! For lunch yesterday, I went to a place that Lauren had suggested to me called Paludan Bøger. It was charming and was lined on all walls, floor to ceiling, with old books (which is obviously like my dream), but I didn't want to act too too touristy and take pictures of them. I was alone because I had wanted to get some work done, and about 3 people came up to me and started speaking in Danish. I got away with one conversation by just smiling and nodding, but the other 2 I had to tell I was American ha.

Yesterday night my roommate and two girls in my hallway went out to dinner. We had orginally planned to go to a different restaurant, but when we arrived there (in cute jeans and tops) we realized that everyone was wearing dress shirts and khakis and they politely informed us that they didn't have room for us if we didn't have reservations (which was ok because everyone was staring at how underdressed we were). It all worked out though, because we stopped by a really beautiful outdoor restaurant. Even though it was windy and very cold, they had heaters and blankets for you and it was very cozy. Dinner lasted from around 8 to 11:30, which was something I had never experienced before! We made friends with our waiter and he ended up giving us all free champagne at the end, which was very sweet of him.  Here is a link to some more pictures of food! (disclaimer: some of these are very awkward halfway through my meal where I realize I didn't take a picture yet)

Apparently I'm bad at making creative titles...

I've quickly developed a favorite hobby of seeing how long I can go before people realize I'm not Danish. I take a lot of pride in the fact that they talk to me in Danish at first, though I've been told this is because I've greeted them in their language (hi in Danish is just hi). I prefer to think that they recognize how European-chic I am dressed. So far I've gotten away with about 3 cashiers (I don't have to talk to them, they just talk to me and I smile and say thank you), but utterly failed with a bus driver.
 
Yesterday instead of class I had a field trip to Copenhagen's Medical Museum - it was really cool because in a really old building where they used to train surgeons (fun fact: surgeons were often highly trained barbers because both professions shared in common knife skills, and that's all that was needed). Below is a pretty picture of the setup of an old pharmacy at St. Fredrick's Hospital.

After class I decided to come home and get some homework done, but of course that idea lasted for about 10 minutes - I soon found myself en route to the biggest department store in Denmark with my roommate. It was unbelievable (pictures below!) and had everything from high fashion designers to a bakery with fresh produce.

Today I had a pretty normal day of class, though on the way home our bus ran into some major traffic issues because of a protest. It was a group of people from Christiania - an area right outside Copenhagen that was developed by squatters a few decades ago and now is just a ton of hippies living a very, shall we say, chill lifestyle. Though we obviously couldn't understand all of what they were protesting, we caught on pretty quickly after seeing their pot leaf flag and "free hash!" chants. I didn't want to seem toooo touristy and take pictures of them, but I have a rushed picture of it below.

Exploring Copenhagen!

Today was my first day of classes, but before I even get there I have to mention our pre-class activities...

In the morning, we woke up and went on a scavenger hunt/tour of the city. They split us into groups of about 6 and gave us a map and 50 kroner each (about $9) for lunch. The map had 4 checkpoints on it where we had to go, and we would be met by professors who knew about the site we were at. Some of the sights included the King's Garden (a pretty park with Danes picnicing all around the lawn) and the royal castles that the Danish royals actually live in. Denmark is a monarchy, but the government is very immersed in the "common" culture which is really cool. For example, as we were standing outside of a hotdog stand (known as a pølsevogn, which was great!), a group of 30 or so soldiers marched by us for the changing of the guards. And as we were outside the Parliament building and learning from our professor-tour guide, another professor ran and interrupted us to tell us that the man walking right by us was the Minister of Finance (apparently a big dude around here). Below is a very very sketchy picture of him walking - he's the guy mid-stride in the blue blazer:

The Danes bike EVERYWHERE and are really big on public transportation, so it takes some getting used to to figure out which areas are sidewalks, which are bike lanes and which are actually roads (a lot of roads are totally made out of cobblestone and you can't tell which area is which). We were pretty lost all of the time and had to stay together, so instead of biking (you can rent bikes for free in the city, if you can find them) we walked around! Here is a picture of a random street that hopefully I will learn the name of one day -

There is one fantastic street called Stroege (pronounced stroll) which is like miles of really, really nice shopping. Unfortunately the exchange rate here is ridiculous and buying anything is extremely expensive, so we could only window shop. All the streets here are pretty beautiful though, and the central (very, very old) part of town isn't a grid which makes for some very nice pictures (see below!).

I also had my first class which was fun - I'm taking Human Health and Disease with a group of 20 students. We are based in a hospital and it seems like it's going to be very hands on, which is nice! My professors (all doctors from the hospital) are very sweet and insist we call them by their first names. We got totally, totally lost on our way home from class but it was fun and eventually we found a map and made our way home. My roommate is really nice and we are getting along well (big shoes to fill after hbizz, jac and rachel though) and I don't know too many other people on my floor yet. That's all for now!

Day 1!!

Hello! So I just got to Copenhagen like 8 hours ago and have already had some adventures! It's the day of the Copenhagen marathon so we got to see the 11,000 really really fit Danish people run through the city. We went on a little tour and had to walk across a major road in copenhagen - aka cross THROUGH the hundreds of runners of the marathon. It was a little bit like a real life game of frogger, and as we ran through (picture a group of like 20 very underdressed, exhausted Americans sprinting across super fit Danes) the race the locals gave us a bunch of weird looks. I'm waiting now to go to my housing where hopefully I will have some downtime and much needed sleep (I've been up for 30 hours straight now?) because I'm getting a little delirious!

Here is a picture of the marathon we had to cross - this was right after a rest stop so runners were throwing orange peels and cups all over the street when they finished them: