Well, if that isn't the buzz-kill of all buzz-kills. Anyways, today marks the descent into finals period (just finished my Economics of Globalization), and I'm down from six research papers left to one, and this semester is officially coming to a crashing end. It's sad really. I realized the other day that I've now spent roughly a fifth of my life living in Europe (almost four years...), but I still don't come close to identifying myself as "European." Maybe its because the first bit was when I was so young. But you'd think, seeing as my first conscious memories are of Ireland, that I'd feel a little more tied to this wonderful continent. A side note, even though I've lived in Europe for four years, I've never actually lived on the continent. Ireland and Sjæland are both islands... But whatever, I'm sure very few of you care about nit-picky details like that. Another random thing...because of the climate conference, we have all sorts of people from all over the world here now, and this morning on the train I was eavesdropping on a conversation being held entirely in Spanish. It almost made my head explode, because mentally I was translating from Spanish to Danish, going through English like an overpaid middleman. I found that my Danish was actually better than my Spanish, which I find troubling, and when I got off the train I had a non-disease related headache...
Anyways, I apologize for the slightly rambling beginning. If you can't tell, I'm starting to get a little nostalgic about my time here. Ten days from now, I will be sitting on an airplane, probably already out over the Atlantic, jetting home. It's difficult to comprehend. I keep saying things like "I'm ready" and "Man, it'll be great to be back in the States!" But I remain unconvinced that I am. I've grown closer to my host family, the Wredstrøms, than I could have possibly imagined, and I know that I'll miss them terribly once I leave this little slice of dark paradise. They've been a rock for me, equally amazing when I was on the highest of highs, loving Denmark and the experience on the whole, as when I dipped down to the lowest of lows following my grandfather's passing and the awful bout of homesickness that followed.
Honestly, if I hadn't been placed with the Wredstrøms, my experience would have been entirely different here. I must admit that I've had a much harder time making good friends here than I expected. Partly it stems from leaving the comfort zone that is Williams. Williams is honestly the first place I've ever felt accepted and as though I fit in to the community. Leaving that was very challenging, and I never really came out of my shell in my interactions with the Americans who are also here. It also stems from being so far away from the city. I don't blame my lack of interaction with Americans entirely on that; if I'd felt a little more motivation, there were certainly ways I could have spent more evenings in the city. But not having the amazing network of people I've grown so close with over the last two years easily accessible has been by far the biggest challenge I've faced over here. However, the Wredstrøms have made an American friend group a luxury that I could afford to give up. They managed to fill the role of family and friends at the same time.
Anyways, a couple of updates. I did in fact go to Sweden last weekend. That brought my country count to eight for the semester (Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Hungary, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom), and now I've visited 12 countries in Europe in my lifetime (add Ireland, France, Spain, and Austria). Carsten and Ingrid took me over on the ferry from Helsingør, Denmark to Helsingbor, Sweden. It was about a 30 minute drive and a 20 minute ferry ride. We had a great afternoon. Before we even left Denmark, we stopped in Fredensborg to see the house that the crown prince lives in. It's weird to be able to walk right up to his door (more or less) and see only two guards on the entire premises. Try getting that close to the White House... I bet you can't... Then we went to Kronborg castle, which earns its fame from being the home of Prince Hamlet in Shakespeare's play. (Elsinore is the British bastardization of Helsingør.) Once we crossed the sound, we started by walking through the main street of Helsingbor, stopping to have a coffee at a little cafe (it was actually Espresso House, which I think is New York based). Then we went off to a shopping center so Carsten and Ingrid could do a little Christmas shopping. The prices are so much lower in Sweden that it would be foolish not to. There's actually an interesting product flow between the two countries. Because Sweden has very high alcohol taxes, alcohol moves from Denmark to Sweden. Because everything else is cheaper in Sweden, all other goods flow the opposite direction. We also stopped at a little fishing village on the Swedish coast before heading back across Østersund to Denmark. It was a fun day.
Anyways, not much more to report on. Another fun evening with the Grams and Wredstrøms last Sunday. I've done tons of work over the last couple of weeks. I actually think that the last two weeks have been more intense than any two week period I've faced at Williams. I might have to talk with Dean McKeon about the whole five classes issue. This weekend I need to start packing. Still not sure where I'll be next Saturday night, but Sunday morning I'll be on a plane headed to the United States of Awesome!
Three things I know: 1) There are certainly things I know that I am going to LOVE having back (Pudge, anyone?) 2) I'm going to miss this kingdom of islands by the sea. It's a truly amazing place. 3) The Wredstrøms rock, and have been my, well, rock, the entire time, and I will miss them a ton when I head back to the states.
If I get my act together and give you one more blog post next week (sandwiched within working on my 18 to 25 page international law final paper), then it will probably center on my upcoming trip to Tivoli on Friday, as well as whatever else we do this weekend.
That's all for now, thanks for reading.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Long Weekend (aka TURKEY!!!)
First and foremost, it appears as though the professor's here are hell bent that our lasting memories of Denmark involve copious quantities of papers for their respective classes. I've written three hardcore research papers in the last two weeks, and I have three more to go in the next two weeks. Lots of writing. It's probably good though. I need something to get me accustomed to the workload that I will be returning to when I get back to Williams.
While on academics, my next six months have now been decided, as follows:
Winter Study: Current Economic IssuesSpring Semester: Economics of Higher Education Tutorial, Social Psychology, Oceanography, and a 300 level theater seminar about the use of music in theatrical productions.
There are, of course, things going on in my life that do not involve academics. For instance, the Thanksgiving break that we just finished. Now, for those of you who don't know me, I do not cook. Ever. But somehow, my host family and I got the brilliant idea that I should attempt to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for twelve Danes (my host family and the Gram family). A few people told me I wouldn't be able to pull it off, and a few others told me I was crazy to try. Needless to say, that was all the motivation I needed. The pictures are below, description of the event a little lower:
The Danes enjoying their Thanksgiving Dinner!
The hors d'oeuvres of baked brie and crackers, and the ginger cider welcome drink.
The table, set and lit by Ingrid before the Grams arrive.
The finished product! Turkey with all the fixings...
Thursday was my "practice" day. Ingrid bought two turkeys from the butcher because we weren't sure whether one Danish turkey would feed twelve people (turns out it would, but it was close...) So I spent the better part of Thursday monitoring the first of the turkeys, making sure it got stuffed and didn't get too dry while it cooked.
Friday was the big day. I started cooking for the 5:30 dinner party at a little after noon, and didn't leave the kitchen more than twice before the dinner started. Friday involved the second turkey, stuffed to the gills with the good stuff; mashed potatoes; candied potatoes; green beans; brocolli casserole; a baked brie appetizer; a hard ginger/apple cider welcome cocktail; and whipped cream. Things turned out pretty well, and with a little last minute backup from Ingrid, we got the dinner all finished before the Grams got there.
Once everybody got settled in and we had a cocktail in our hands, I put on a youtube version of "The First Thanksgiving" story, to attempt to explain a part of the Thanksgiving tradition. Also, at dinner, I passed along a Hewett family tradition of mentioning a couple of things that you were thankful for over the past few years. Hopefully I've started a new Danish tradition for the two families! Also, I managed an invite back to Denmark next Thanksgiving for Turkey Day round two!
Saturday was a pretty low-key day. In the morning, I finished one of the aforementioned research papers (a discussion of a policy Kenya should follow in order to achieve economic development) before heading over to the Grams house for a mini-Christmas market. I joined a small group choir in singing Christmas carols for a little while, mingled with some of the Danes, and then headed back to our house to have some lunch and warm up.
On Sunday, I managed to wake up in time for the Sunday family breakfast (this was only the second time that this has happened while I've been here...). I did a little bit of work while the Wredstroms were at church, and then I went down to the city with Carsten and Ingrid for the afternoon.
We first went down to the local catholic church (at least we thought it was catholic...it had "our lady" in the name) to hear a service featuring some pieces by Hendel performed by a quartet. A little "Goddy" for my taste, but the music was very good and it was more or less enjoyable. After that, we went for a walk down Stroget to find a cafe. On the walk, Ingrid decided that a hot-dog was in order, and I, of course, whole-heartedly agreed. Ingrid ordered for me (a little disappointed that I requested no raw onions...) and they were truly delicious. After the hotdogs, we continued down to the Royal Cafe. The Royal Cafe is a hyggeligt little spot on the walking street that is now famous as the place that Oprah visited while she was here. We had some gløgg med æbleskiver and enjoyed a cozy hour or so in the cafe. Gløgg is a Christmas beverage that is a mixture of warmed red wine, some form of harder alcohol, nuts, and fruit. It was delicious, warmed you from the inside out, and packed a bit of a whallop. Æbleskiver are apple dumplings that could best be described to an American as an upscale donut hole, served with jelly and powdered sugar (a do-it-yourself jelly donut if you will...). After our snacks, we walked around the street so I could do my last bit of Christmas shopping (that's right, first of December and I am DONE!!!) before heading back north. It was a really fun afternoon.
I had a wonderful long weekend. It was a great mixture of me imparting American traditions on "my" Danes and them imparting more wonderful Danish traditions on me. Now that December is here (complete with a "High School Musical" Advent Calendar), the Christmas season is in full swing. The city is getting more and more beautiful every day with lights, wreaths, and candles. I'm working harder than I have all semester, which is often the case as the semester winds down. I have two more weeks of classes, and then finals. The semester, and my time in Denmark, is winding down, and I'll be home in 19 days.
Spoiler: The next post will most likely be about my upcoming trip to Sweden with my family and the Grams, which is coming up this Saturday! Can't wait to cross another country off the list!
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Rest of my European Vacation
Part One: Oxford
I landed in Gatwick at about 6pm GMT, cursing myself once again for my east to west to south to north travel plans--which led to way too much time spent on board airplanes. However, I diligantly cleared customs (as an American, unfortunately...which meant that everything took way too long. I mean, what's so suspicious about an American with a Danish residence permit flying from Budapest to London...) and hopped on a train for another two hour journey to Oxford. There I met Diego, along with a few other Williams people, and had a quiet evening at the Williams House.
The next day, I was mostly on my own to walk around and explore the city. It is a really interesting place. A college town on steroids, that decided to compensate for some of the negative side effects by building huge buildings and steeples all over town. It was interesting to get a chance to see the original college town, though. So much of American college life is modeled after Oxford. Anyways, I have way too much work to do a thorough blogging, so what follows are some highlights:
-Neat museums...mostly free
-Christ Church College, where a ton of the Harry Potter movies was filmed
-A store going out of business and getting £200 worth of stuff for £10.
-Student Night at Lava, a club in town. You can see what happens when students have one or two class meetings a week.
-Dinner at the Exeter Hall...Crappy food, but it was fun anyways.
-Listening to copious amounts of HP VII on my iPod, including while riding a train through England... If only I could have gotten myself to Kings Cross Station.
-Saw a whole slew of Williams people.
-I could understand EVERYTHING that was going on around me! (English, you know...)
-Skips! They are prawn flavored crisps that I got addicted to while living in Ireland.
Anyways, there are a bunch of pictures up on facebook. I'll put up a public link in a few minutes.
Part 2: Greece
Greece was incredible! It was so warm and so much fun. I landed in Athens on Saturday afternoon, and after a very brief hiccup, where neither my parents nor myself noticed that I walked right past them, we found each other, and had a wonderful reunion over spanikopita, Greek beer, and cappuccinos. We traded hugs and stories and enjoyed each other's presence as we waited for our flight to Crete.
After an uneventful 40 minute flight to Heraklion airport, we landed, found our rental car, and navigated the 40km through the dark to our hotel. When we got there, the smell of horse and delicious food (a weird combination, I promise you...) told us that we were at the right place. I was a little tired (following a night of only two hours of sleep), and my parents were exhausted (following a day and a half of travelling), so we had dinner in the restaurant at the hotel and turned in for a full night of sleep.
Considering I had never ridden a horse before, the guide thought it might be a good idea for me to have a few lessons before joining my parents (and other guests) on the trails, so the first morning, my parents went off without me. Left to my own devices, I sat by the pool reading for a little while, and then went for a run up the mountain behind the hotel (something I've been missing since moving to the flattest country on earth). When they returned we had a very late lunch, and I had my lesson.
The next day, my mom stayed behind as my dad and I headed to Agia Pelagia to do some SCUBA diving. There wasn't much to see underwater, but it was great to be back under the surface of the ocean for a while. There is something remarkably calming about being 100 feet underwater. It's eerily quiet, and you can let your breathing fall into a pattern, and spend some good time thinking, swimming, and looking around at an entirely foreign world. It was a lot of fun.
On day three, we went on a relatively easy ride (that I was allowed to join!) up the same mountain I had run up two days earlier. By the time we got to the top, the rest of the group respected me a bit more--both because I hadn't fallen off of my horse on the way up and because they thought it was an absurd place to run up to... There was a really cool old abandoned village that still had a neat Greek Orthodox Church with a couple of really old frescoes. Also, a little higher up the mountain (we had to walk up--the horses couldn't handle it) was a cave that had been used to hide the church's valuables back in the 1600s. It has since been converted into a church in its own right, with an alter and a shrine, and it was really cool to go back in there in candlelight and look around inside.
That afternoon we went to the Plateau of Lasithi. To get there, we had to drive up about one kilometer (it was a 30 km drive, but the elevation gain was about 1km). When we got there, we crested over the shoulder of one ridge, and saw this incredible plateau on the other side. The plateau sits at about 800 meters, and is surrounded on all sides by mountains that drop off over the other side back to the see. It is probably about 20km around the plateau, and there were a bunch of little villages all around it. The middle was left as arable farm land. It was a neat drive.
The next morning, my dad and I went diving again, and my mom came over to the sea with us. While we were underwater, my mom went to the Palace of Knossos and sightseeing in the city of Heraklion. When we came up, we got lunch at a little hotel in the city before heading back to the hotel for naps!
The next day (I think we're up to Thursday now), we went on a 5 hour ride around the mountains, stopping at a little mountainside restaurant for lunch and coffee in the middle. The scenery was breathtaking, but considering I had never been riding until two days prior, after the five hour ride, I was a little saddle sore. We also went riding on Friday.
Friday night, we were invited to a Raki party by our guide and our breakfast cook. It was a neat experience! Raki is a Greek hard liquor that tastes absolutely foul. I had a couple of shots of it, mostly because that seemed like the thing to do, but stuck mostly to the locally grown Cretian wine that was being passed around heartily. There was a large quantity of freshly cooked meat--most of which had been alive that morning--and baked goods, and we had a really good time! My dad was raving about the party for literally the next day and a half. I got to hold and feed a 16 day old lamb!
On Saturday morning, we headed back to Athens. We had an overnight layover, which left us with an afternoon to explore Athens. We went to the Acropolis and did all of the touristy things associated with it. I took about as many pictures in Athens as I had taken the entire time we'd been in Crete. It's weird how little you can remember from when you are younger, because I had been to the Acropolis when I was three, but it was still like seeing it for the first time.
The next morning, my parents and I parted ways, and they started their long journey back to the states. I was back in Denmark that evening, getting ready for the final five week push before I myself get on a USA bound aircraft. It's now the final push! There's not a whole lot of time left before I'm back in America. Between the 20 papers I have left to write (a slight exaggeration only...), I plan on making the best of my short time remaining! See you all soon!
Pictures link to the left...
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sick and Tired in Hungary
Not to be confused with sick and tired OF Hungary. My trip to Hungary by far exceeded my expectations! Unfortunately, I came down with a cold the night before I left Denmark, and it is remarkably hard to kick a cold while you are travelling around Europe. Hence, the title. Anyways, it's about 8:15 local time here as I write this, and I am already tucked into bed (couch), with my computer on my lap, typing away (Mom, if you read this, bring some advil cold and sinus or dayquil when you come please!).
So, I landed in Budapest with Julia (Cohan) on Friday afternoon after a very brief flight from Copenhagen on an aged, run-down Norwegian Airlines 737. Fortunately, I had an entire exit row to myself, which I highly doubt will be the case on my EasyJet flight to London-Gatwick tomorrow afternoon... Anyways, Steve (Rubin) met us at the airport and helped us to navigate our way to his apartment on Hungary's soviet era public transportation network. I kid you not, when we got on the metro, I looked over at Julia and remarked, "well at least when it's not in service, it can be used as a torture chamber!" The Budapest airport is not in the nicest section of the city (I've never really understood why cities do that...), so that, coupled with the transportation system, left me with a bit of a sour first impression of the country. I would soon realize my mistake however, as Budapest quickly wowed me with how spectacular of a city it truly is!
We got to Steve's apartment in the city at around 2 o'clock and got settled in. We then ventured out into the city to explore. We walked down the touristy street towards one of the bridges over the mighty Danube River. On the other side (the Buda side) we climbed up the hill to the castle overlooking the river (and all of Pest). Buda and Pest are the two parts of Budapest and they are separated by the Danube River. It's kind of interesting, because Buda is very hilly and Pest is entirely flat. I'm not sure what happened geologically, but it's pretty cool.
From the castle on top of the hill in Buda, the views of Pest were breathtaking! The first picture is of me and Steve with the Danube in the background. The second picture is of the Hungarian Parliament (Steve was right, it is in fact cooler than Denmarks...), and the third is of me with the Pest skyline in the background. After walking around the castle grounds for a little while and exploring a few other old buildings, we went to a cafe to have coffee and cake, a very European afternoon event.After getting our energy back from the afternoon snack, we hopped on another soviet-era bus to head down the hill to Margetsziget, an island on the Danube that serves as a park for the residents of Budapest. It has a track that circumnavigates the island (6 km) and a bunch of facilities on the island to help people enjoy the outdoors without having to leave the city. After our walk in the park, we went to one of the best Tex-Mex joints I've ever been to! Steve and Julia said it was the spitting image of the American chain "Chipotle," but I can neither confirm nor deny, having never been to said chain. We gorged ourselves on burritos, and spent a little time walking around the city. We then went to a Budapest original "Szimpla." Szimpla is a ruin-bar. The bar is built on two stories of an old, abandoned, dilapidated apartment building. The bar essentially reclaimed the ruins and put them to good use.
The second day, we went out to see Hero Park. This is a large, open park with statues of Hungarian National Heroes. It also serves as a gathering/hang-out place for locals and tourists alike. It is situated right next to the Fine Arts Museum, which was naturally our next stop. There was a Boticelli exhibition that Julia was very excited to see. I'm not into art that much, but even I was blown away by it. There were works on display by Boticelli (surprising, I know...), Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian, and more! It held my interest for a solid 90 minutes, which, as anybody who has ever been to an art museum with me before can attest to, is borderline miraculous. Dinner was at M, a really nice restaurant in Pest. We ordered a bottle of wine, ate good food, and felt way more adult than we had any right to. Coming from Copenhagen, the food prices in Budapest were very reasonable. They were, in fact, significantly lower than the U.S. norm. At M, we had a very high quality meal and a bottle of wine for about 15 dollars a piece. My Danish (or American displaced in Denmark) readers can attest to how miraculous this sounds.
On Sunday we were up early to go hiking in the Hungarian hillside. I have some pictures that will end up on facebook at some point in the upcoming week or so, but it was relatively cloudy, and non of the photos could really capture how beautiful the hike really was. We traveled about 35 kilometers north of the city to one of the oldest cities in Hungary (celebrating its 1000 year anniversary this year in fact). We climbed up the hill to the town's castle, which was the seat of the Hungarian government intermittently in the 15th and 16th centuries. On a sidenote, town castles may be one of the coolest aspects of being in Europe. Monarchies are neat! After exploring the castle, we walked through the woods for the rest of the day. It was essentially like walking through Massachusetts on a clear, crisp autumn day, except for the part where every once in a while you could see Austria. We finally got back to the city at about 6, and headed back to Steve's to defrost and change into some warm clothes. After everybody could feel their fingers again, we went back into the city to get some dinner. We ate at the classiest Pizza Hut I have ever seen and then headed to a sports bar to catch the first round of the days NFL games (watching the Giants lose is just as awesome in Hungary as it is in the states, by the way) before heading back to Steve's and turning in for the night.
Today was a low key day where I focused mostly on trying to get better. I slept in and Steve went to class, and then when he got back, he wasn't feeling very well, so we decided to lay low and go see a movie. We saw "Gamer," which Rotten Tomatoes gave a whopping 29% fresh rating to, and I have not been less impressed with a movie in recent memory. It was seriously bad. It was a nice way to spend a lazy, sick Monday afternoon though. After that we grabbed dinner, got some groceries, and went back to the apartment for some needed sleep. I made a few phone calls and wrote this blog entry, and now I'm off to bed.
I head to Oxford tomorrow to visit Diego and see a bunch of WEPO people. Saturday, I meet up with the parents in Greece! Gonna be a fun couple of weeks! I hope all of my readers are having a terrific November so far!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Hyggligt Godt Weekenden
Translation: The "Cozy" Good Weekend
I promise to give the concept of "hygge" a full blog post before I leave Denmark, but for the time being, you can use "cozy" as a decent, if not fully sufficient, translation.
Also, another interesting aspect of the Danish language is that while indefinite articles are treated in much the same way as they are in English (put in front of the noun that they are attached to), the definite article "the" (en or et in Danish) is put right onto the noun that it goes with. For example: a house=et hus | the house=huset or a school=en skole | the school=skolen
Very few of you find that interesting, I'm sure, but this is the first language that I've encountered where this is the case, so I figured I'd pass it along.
Okay, so this blog post is a direct result of my inability to sit down and write an essay for my epidemic disease class. That will eventually get written tonight, but right now I have essay writer's block but not blogging writer's block, so here we go... lucky you I guess!
This past weekend was the first of five VERY busy weekends in a row. I'm really excited for all of the stuff I have coming up, including a visit from Steve, a visit to Steve in Hungary, a visit to Diego et al in Oxford, and a vacation with my parents in Greece!
Also, today marks the end of month two and is the official halfway marker of my time in Denmark. Although it is technically the halfway point, in reality my semester is much closer to finished than that would lead you to believe. Classes end a full two weeks before I leave, and my finals are finished the Monday before I leave, so the end date of the 20th of December is quite misleading. I also have two weeks off coming up. So, the last couple days of this week not included, I have a whopping FOUR weeks of classes left (next week, then two weeks off, then a full week, then a half week (Thanksgiving), then one last week and a half of classes before finals start). That means that our 13 week semester is more than 2/3 finished. Considering I have completed approximately 1/3 of my workload for the semester, the last few weeks are going to be interesting.
Anyways, this past weekend was a lot of fun. Saturday was my host brother Kristian's delayed birthday party. Becoming a teenager (technically turning 14) is a big deal (I haven't ascertained whether that is in Denmark or just in my family's household...I'll get back to you), and there was a dinner party with 60 guests at our house, complete with speeches (where I knew enough Danish to make a joke about somebody talking about how they had come from far away in Denmark when my turn to make a speech came up...there were chuckles, but I'm not sure if everyone quite figured out that I was trying to be funny...oh well) about Kristian. It was a lot of fun! I felt useful in the preparation for the party, helping Ingrid cook and set the tables (my mom would have been proud of the tables I set I'm sure...) and hopefully making the event a little less stressful for them. We had great weather, so after the dinner we played a game of rundtbol in the yard afterwards. Rundtbol is essentially a more informal style of baseball where any number of people can participate. It's a great party game, and I will be certain to bring it back to the states when I come back.
Everybody had a great time, and I learned a couple things about Danish parties. First of all, don't go into a party thinking it's going to be an event that lasts a couple of hours. The party started at 1 in the afternoon and the last guests didn't depart until after 11! It was incredible, and something that I didn't expect. One of the other Ephs here (Julia Cohan) was at her host-Mom's 50th birthday party and had a similar experience (people arrived at 3 pm and didn't leave until 3 am). The second thing I learned was that you shouldn't arrive late...or early. At least that seems to be the general attitude of the Danes. The first guests arrived at about 12:59, and almost everybody was inside the door by 1:02. It was unbelievable. Saturday was a great day! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but I'll try to put my hands on some...
The next morning, I was up very early to get down to Copenhagen to take a DIS bus out to Billund (on Jutland, about 4 hours away) to visit Legoland! Legos are Danish, and the models at Legoland were crazy good. The rides were "eh," but they were designed for people about half our age. It was a lot of driving, but it was also a lot of fun! Pictures are on facebook if you're curious!
Anyways, I'll try to blog at least a little bit next week, but then I'm going to have to take a couple of weeks off while I'm in Hungary, England, and Greece. I'll be back after my vacation though! I hope everybody is having great semesters and autumns (springs if you happen to be a southern hemisphere reader...)! I miss you all! (Unless you're a creepy blog-stalker that I don't know... If you are one of those and you've made it all the way to the bottom of this blog post you have way too much time and should probably get off the computer and take a walk!)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Study Tour #2 and Some Other Stuff
So, for this episode of hovsatak, we'll start off with an English version word-of-the-day: neglect.
As in: "As soon as I start to get real work I choose to neglect my blogging responsibilities."
Anyways, so many things have happened since I last planted myself down in front of this computer with the purpose of adding to this log. Sit down, strap in, and enjoy the newest installment of my danish ramblings.
Okay, so as some of you may know, Copenhagen hosted the International Olympic Committee a few weeks ago as they voted on who will host the 2016 Olympics (spoiler: it's Rio de Janeiro), and there were some terrific events going on in conjunction with it. First off, Copenhagen was very festive in welcoming the Obamas to the city. There was a general lockdown downtown (a lockdowntown if you will...) and it was actually kind of hard to move anywhere near to the parliament building, but it was a very cool experience to see how another country prepares to receive our president.
There was also a Chicago 2016 event that I volunteered at. It was essentially a cocktail party at the Danish Royal Theater for the movers and shakers of Chicago. It was a great opportunity to bump elbows with some famous Americans while in Denmark. I met David Robinson, Brandi Chastain, Nastia Liukin, Michael Johnson, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee among others. It was a really fun evening!
Another fun event connected to the presence of the IOC was the Aqua concert I got to go see. They played both "Barbie Girl" and "Back to the '80s." It was pretty much amazing and was an absolute blast! I was in the front row!
I also got the opportunity to perform a little bit a couple of weeks ago in Hillerod with Jakob and Kristian. We sang briefly at one of the events for the city's KulturNat (Culture Night). It was a lot of fun. I also went kayaking and swimming in a Danish lake with Carsten a couple of weekends ago. It was a blast, but the kayaks here are absurdly tippy and it took most of my concentration to keep myself from tipping over!
Anyways, the bulk of this post is of course going to focus on the long study tour. I spent last week in Brussels, Belgium, and Bonn and Frankfurt, Germany. We left Copenhagen on a VIP tour bus (more of a headache than it was worth) at 8 a.m. for what should have been an 11 hour bus ride to Brussels. A couple of hours into the ride, we arrived at the ferry between Denmark and Germany. The 45 minute ride was epic, resulting from the 14 foot (4.5 meter) seas and howling wind. Fortunately, I inherited a Hewett (as opposed to Kennedy) stomach, and I handled the tossing and turning ship relatively well, and even managed to have a little lunch onboard. As opposed to almost all other travel experiences, food and groceries on the ferry were, in fact, cheaper than on either of the two countries. It was the first time since I'd been in Europe that I didn't have to pay MOMS (our 25% sales tax).
We were on mainland Europe (in Germany) shortly before noon, and were back on the road shortly thereafter. The rest of the afternoon was spent crossing Germany, and the next time we stopped for any long duration was at seven that evening for dinner. Our bus driver had made a couple of wrong turns, so nobody quite knew exactly where we were. We had dinner at a roadside hotel, and when we got into the lobby, I went up to the front desk and asked something I never thought I'd need to: "Do you happen to know what country we're in"? Turns out, we were in Holland, and still had three hours of driving ahead of us to get to Brussels. We had a quick dinner, got back on the road, and finished our journey. We got to our Chinese-themed hotel in the red light district of Brussels at about 11, and I crawled into bed and fell asleep.
The next morning we had an academic visit in the conference room of our hotel from an IETA representative. IETA is the International Emission Trading Association, the group essentially responsible for managing the carbon market in Europe. It was an interesting presentation and we learned quite a bit about the market mechanisms behind a lot of the environmental economics that we'd been looking at the previous week in class. That afternoon we had one of our cultural events: a bike tour through Brussels. That was an absolute blast. You can see so much of a city in a short time on a bike. We saw the court, the EU parliament (more on that later), many of the historic buildings in Brussels, had some delicious fries and beer, and even witnessed a farmer's protest. A group of farmers were gathered in front of one of the government offices, rioting for higher milk prices. They were in the middle of our planned route, so we decided to go in and have a bit of a look. There were quite a few little explosions, which were mostly just small firecrackers, some small fires, and some very angry farmers--not to mention about 5,000 police lining the street in full on riot gear (including gas masks). We mingled for about ten minutes, before heightened tensions started to worry our tour guide. At one point, he looked over at me and muttered, "I think they're about to attack, we should run now..." at which point we took off on down a side street to get away from the raucous crowd of angry farmers. Photo credit: Georges Gobet/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/business/global/06milk.html
Later that evening, we had a traditional Belgian meal of Mussels, salad, fries, and beer. We then headed out to a bar to while away the evening hours with some locals and one of the other DIS classes that happened to be in Brussels. The bar was named Delirium, and it holds a Guinness World Record! It is the bar with the most commercially available beers in the World! It was unbelievable! I spent the evening putting my fate in the hands of the bartenders, going up and asking each of them to give me their favorite beer. I was never disappointed! The Belgians know their beers--needless to say it was an amazing night!
The next morning, however, was a little difficult. Tuesday had an ambitious schedule to begin with, and I woke up that morning with a terrible headache (for one reason or another). That morning, however, we were scheduled to have a trip to Planet Chocolate for a demonstration and tasting. It was a lot of fun, and the chocolate was out of this world! The Belgians also, apparently, know their chocolate. After a very short lunch break, we made our way to our first (of three) visits of the afternoon. The first two were both at business lobbies--one Danish and one European. They were both excruciatingly boring and not particularly informative, but blessedly short. Our third activity was potentially the highlight of the entire week, and as such, will receive it's own paragraph (see below).
The third visit of Tuesday was to the European Parliament. DIS has a contact named Frank (pretty sure he doesn't have a last name...) that got us through security and showed us around. The best way to describe Frank is that he is "that guy." You know, as in "Do you know 'that guy'?" "Of course I do, everybody knows 'that guy'!" Well, he was incredible, and introduced us to numerous movers and shakers, including a couple of former Prime Ministers and current MEPs (Members of European Parliament). The first hour was spent getting through security, which was no small feat. We then had a tour of parliament, including visits to the Plenary committee, where we got pictures on the floor and at the podium. We then moved onto the Protocol Room, where the president of the European Parliament greets visiting heads of state. Unless you're head has been under a rock for the last few years, I can almost guarantee that you've seen a picture of this particular room before. We were only there for about 40 seconds, because that's how long Frank thought we could get away with it before somebody from security would be down to kick us out. After we left, we moved onto the main hall, where two separate receptions were being held. We enjoyed some very delicious champagne and hors d'oeuvres courtesy of the European Union and bumped elbows with some very important people. It was a lot of fun. After our cocktail hour, we moved onto the movie premier that was technically the reason for our visit. We sat through the 55-minute film Harragas, and snuck out before the Q&A began. After the film, a few of us went down to one of the dining rooms to crash a dinner hosted by the EU pharmaceutical industry. It was a delicious, and most importantly free buffet dinner. We did get a couple of odd looks, but nobody seemed to mind that a collection of well-dressed youths had joined the party. We helped ourselves to some wine, some food, and some dessert and even interacted with a couple of the doctors in attendance before leaving and heading back to the hotel. All-in-all it was an incredible visit!
Wednesday was another big day of driving. We left at about 10 in the morning for Bonn, Germany, where we had a meeting with the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They gave a terrific, informative presentation that really solidified the mechanisms that we had been studying. After the presentation, we continued on our way to Frankfurt, arriving shortly after 8 that evening, in time for dinner at the restaurant at the hotel (the beautiful Radisson Blu) and a swim and a sauna before bedtime.
The next day was a break from our academic visits, focusing instead on cultural activities. We spent the morning on a walking tour of Frankfurt and spent half of the afternoon at the Stadel Art Museum and the other half exploring the city on our own. That night we had a group dinner of pork seven ways at a delicious little German restaurant. That night we explored a little bit of the Frankfurt nightlife before heading back to the hotel for our last night of sleep in continental Europe.
The next morning we went back into the city for our visit at the European Central Bank, Europe's version of our Federal Reserve, and the masterminds of the Euro. It was an interesting enough visit, but it was pretty dense and a little bit cookie cutter. You got the feeling that about 5000 other groups had received the exact same presentation, and unlike the other visits, it was not tailored to the goals and objectives of our class. We did learn quite a bit there though, and it was a successful final visit. After that, we had a group lunch and wrap-up session at a local hotel, spent the afternoon exploring a little more of the city on our own, and then got back on the bus to travel back to Denmark.
The next morning we arrived back in Copenhagen. It was a great trip, a nice little break, and a good way to mark the midpoint of my time in Denmark! That's it for now, but I'll try to post again before another three weeks have passed!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A Couple of Notes and Memories of Bumpa
The main purpose of this post however is to share with you some reflections I wrote down regarding my late grandfather, Russell (Bumpa) Hewett. Below is a brief piece I wrote in memory of him. Read it or not, I don't really care. This one is mostly for me.
Memories of Summer:
Russell S. (Bumpa) Hewett
There are many things that typified summers for me while I was growing up. Dips in Sebago Lake, running naked through the sprinkler on the lawn on the Cape Road, my days at camp—first at Wohelo and later, Birch Rock. However, one set of memories sticks out as being traditionally recognizant as the happiest of my summer days as a youth. That is, my annual week- or weekend-long retreat to the spoil yourself rotten, full-service, all-inclusive, all-you-can-eat, Grandparent Spa and Adventure Retreat in Winthrop, Maine. Seriously, had Bumpa and Grammy Hewett had one greedy bone in their body, they could have made some serious cash offering the packages similar to the one that the three grandkids were lucky enough to receive each summer.
A visit to the grandparents would typically begin with a meal. I’d arrive mid-afternoon, and the kitchen would already smell absolutely wonderful with whatever dish was planned for that evening. Once things in the kitchen were relatively settled, the three of us would enjoy a happy hour. The two of them were very serious about enjoying this hour, and although at times it was challenging for the fidgety, rambunctious, seven-year-old version of myself to sit still for an entire hour of swapping stories and eating homemade snack mix and drinking IBC root beer, it was a wonderful opportunity to hear stories (both true and made-up) and enjoy the company of two of the most wonderful, kind-hearted people in the world. It is only looking back on these days as an (almost) adult that I begin to realize how special they were and how lucky I really was.
After happy hour and dinner, we would almost always engage in one of the three activities that are stereotypically “Bumpa." That is, the making and consumption of the most amazing parfaits that you could possibly imagine. No opening night dinner was complete without them. I recall one particular visit when the two of them had had the audacity to invite me over without thinking ahead and stocking the freezer with a sufficient quantity of ice cream. After dinner, Bumpa dutifully hopped into the car and drove down to the store to pick up the necessary supplies and returned home to prepare the treats.
The next day would almost always begin with Bumpa and me going out to the lawn to raise the flag, and would continue inside with frosted cinnamon Pop-Tarts for me (which my mother never let me eat at home) and Granola for the two of them and a copy of the paper making its rounds in the room. I’d sit reading and re-reading the comics while they absorbed the morning news. When they were finished, the three of us would sit down with the Jumble and try to struggle through it. Well, to be honest, Grammy and I would struggle through it, and when we were completely stuck, we’d run it over to Bumpa who miraculously would immediately see the word where the two of us had only seen a mix of letters.
The morning would quite often continue with the second stereotypically “Bumpa” activity: a trip down to Marlene’s pool. The three of us could truly while away the hours swimming and playing in the pool, and our adventures never ceased to entertain me.
After returning to the house for lunch, the afternoon would typically involve a trip. If it were not-so-nice out, we’d go to a movie or bowling. If it were nice out, we’d go to one of the most wonderful places on earth for a seven-year-old and his grandparents and, not coincidentally, the third place that remains a very “Bumpa-esque” memory in my mind: Tabor’s mini-golf in Auburn. We’d play a round of mini-golf, hit a bucket of balls at the driving range, and have the mandatory ice cream or fried delicacy from Tabor’s snack bar. It was a fitting conclusion to the many wonderful days I spent with my grandparents growing up.
Unfortunately, there’s no denying that the last couple of years had been very hard on Bumpa. Losing some of his independence and moving from Auburn to Bangor were both challenges that he handled with as much grace and poise as one could expect. Even as his physical health started to fail him, his mind and wit remained sharp as a tack. He always loved to make people laugh, and was quick to make a joke out of a bad situation to lighten the mood of everybody around him. One time, in the ER, when asked for any surgeries he may have undertaken by a male Triage Nurse, he quickly retorted: “Well, do you want me to start with my circumcision”? To which the room immediately burst out in laughter.
He had a truly infectious personality, had many wonderful stories to tell, shared more wisdom with me than I could hope to learn from any other source, and was a truly wonderful grandfather. I love him very much, and he will be deeply missed.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Crossing Things Off The Bucket List
Okay, this post is going to be long, very long. Just wanted you to be prepared for it. Anyways, here goes:
Danish words of the day: Marathon...translates pretty easily, it's the same in both languages. Rutschebanen...roller coaster... Oh yeah!
Quote of the week: Mom: "Have you ever even run a road-race before"? Me: "I ran the Raymond fun run when I was six..." Mom: "You can count that if you want, but just so you know, most people don't start with marathons..."
So, as you may or may not have guessed by the first portion of this post, I ran my marathon this past weekend in Odense! I was feeling pretty nervous about it, because my last three weeks of training had been pretty bad (a result of me losing a part of my passion for it and also the fact that I was way to busy to maintain a normal training regimen). I went in with a goal of finishing in under 4 hours, thinking that 3:40 would be the best-case scenario.
The course was a two-lapper through most of Odense. The course had a nice mix of scenic park running, quiet running in the outskirts of town, and a 3 mile weave through the downtown walking streets. Now, Denmark for the most part is very flat. However, there were three significant climbs on the course (most of them were brief, but quite steep). One of the climbs was at the very end of the course (the 19th and 39th kilometer), and the first time through, I realized that it had the potential to be a very nasty climb on the second lap. I was right. Climbing that hill for the second time made me want to cry. However, I used most of the other hills to my advantage, climbing at a pretty quick tempo and making up a lot of ground during them.
I also had a very good, fast, half-marathon. I made the turn at 1:39:50 (essentially a 3:20 pace, carrying a 7:38 mile pace). I felt pretty good at the end of the lap, but I had a feeling that that wasn't going to be sustainable for the rest of the race. As I expected, I hit a wall, hard, at about 30 km, and my last two full 5k splits were significantly slower than my first 6 had been. I ran the second half in just under 2 hours, and finished with a 3:39:01, which I was quite pleased with! The second lap hurt a lot, but I still had enough energy (probably pure adrenaline at that point) to turn it up a little bit for the last 195 meters in the track (in metric, a marathon is 42.195 kilometers, so I know that it was 195 because I turned on the jets right as I passed the 42km marker). I ran the last 195 at what felt like a sprint (probably pretty slow on the grand scheme...) and almost collapsed coming across the finish line. One of the people who I started next to at the beginning of the marathon (meaning that we had the same start time) and had passed and been passed by a few times over the course of the marathon was one of the people I gassed on the track at the finish. I ended up eeking him out by about 7 seconds, and we shared a hand shake of mutual respect after we had both had a moment to recover. My time was good enough to land me 465th out of 1965 runners (and for those of you who are wondering, it was in fact a Kenyan who won the race, about an hour and 20 minutes before I got to the finish) and put me in 13th out of 63 runners in the Men 20-24 age bracket.
Now, everything you read about marathons prepares you to feel like absolute dog-meat for the last 6 miles. It has something to do with fully depleting your glycogen stores after 20 miles of running or some such nonsense. I'll admit that they were right, the last 6 miles (10.2km) were by far the hardest thing I have ever done. However, what nobody prepares you for is the feeling at the end of the race. I have never been in that much discomfort. My head throbbed, I felt like I was going to be sick, and every part of my body (including parts as innocuous as my fingertips and elbows) hurt as much as any part of my body had ever hurt. There was no position I could get my body into that would alleviate any part of the pain, and I pretty much just had to suck it up and get some measure of comfort out of the fact that I then didn't have to run another step for a week (or a month, or ever, really...). About two hours after I finished, I had had a calf massage, a shower, a change of clothes, and a little bit of first aid on my very blistered toe, and I started to feel slightly alive again. Walking was still more than I wanted to take on, but I no longer felt like death warmed over. This morning, I can walk somewhat comfortably again (although stairs are still kicking my ass) and I'm thinking that I might be convinced to do another one again at some point in the not-so-near future...
I'd be remiss if I didn't thank a few people for the help, advice, and support that they provided over the last 5 or 6 months. Obviously my family, all of whom were awesome throughout the entire process (starting in last October). Without the help of each of them, I never would have made it this far. The other person without whom this probably would never have happened it Robby Cuthbert, who dragged my ass out of the 4 mile loop I'd been running for about 6 months last march and brought me on a 6 mile run, essentially introducing me to the concept of running anything resembling long distances. He also was an awesome running/training partner this spring and summer, and is largely responsible for my current perception of running as something "fun" rather than something dreadful. I also want to pass along my gratitude to my suite (both from the 08-09 school year and this past summer) not only for the support that they offered me, but also for their understanding regarding the evenings that I neglected them as a result of the running that I was doing or the fact that I was too tired to move. There are numerous other people who played a part in making this possible. In fact, odds are that if you've read down this far, you're one of my closer friends, and I want to offer a blanket thank you to all of you as well.
It may be double-dipping, but I'm crossing "Run a Marathon" and "Run a Marathon in a Foreign Country" off of my bucket list!
This may be a bit of a forced segway, but while I'm on the topic of Bucket Lists, I also can cross a few other things off of my bucket list as a result of Friday evening in Tivoli Gardens. Friday afternoon I met my host brother Jonathan in Tivoli to go on a few of the rides. I added 3 roller coasters to my lifetime count (now up to a whopping 24, including the one of the oldest roller coasters in the world). I'm crossing "Ride a Roller Coaster in a Foreign Country off of the List too.
After spending the afternoon getting our adrenaline up, we met with Carsten and Ingrid to have dinner at a great Japanese restaurant that is right by Tivoli. After dinner, we went back into Tivoli to see a ballet troupe from New York City perform for the queen, her sisters, and the crown prince. It was a very interesting performance, and I enjoyed it. The queen presented a couple of awards in honor of her late mother, Queen Ingrid, after intermission, and it was a great opportunity to be a part of a royal event! However, I made a little mistake at the beginning of the performance... I had separated from the Wredstrøms to use the restroom, and when I tried to find my seat, I went to the A-entrance (as was indicated on my ticket). However, I was unaware that for performances that the queen is attending, the A entrance is closed and secured so that she can safely and quickly enter and exit the hall. As I tried to stroll into the auditorium through that entrance a very large (and surprisingly polite) usher/bodyguard stepped in front of me and stopped my forward progress. Realizing my mistake before I did, he directed me to the B-entrance. This slip-up was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that I was entering at the same time as the queen. In fact, I had tried to enter between the queen's sisters and the queen herself... On the plus side, it was very cool to be about 4 feet away from the queen herself! That being said, I am crossing "Embarrass Yourself in Front of Royalty" off of the Bucket List as Well!
After leaving the ballet, there was a rock concert going on outside (Infernal was playing...Apparently they're huge in Denmark) so we watched that for a while. After seeing some of the concert, we walked around Tivoli to see some of the lights and sounds (it was absolutely beautiful! You can see why Disney himself was inspired by Tivoli). We eventually found a little cafe to get some coffee and a drink before driving back up to Bendstrup. It was an amazing evening.
I don't think it needs to be said (it's mostly been implied already), but this past weekend was one of a kind. It was filled with amazing experiences. There was one dark spot, however. I was informed Saturday of the passing of my grandfather Russell (Bumpa) Hewett. It was not necessarily unexpected (he had been sick for the last few months), but it was still tough news to take. It makes it very hard to be so far away from my family when something like this happens. I really wish I could be there with them. A link to his obituary is included in the links section if anybody is interested in reading it.
I'm sorry to leave you on a sad note, but I hope that everything is going as well for all of you where-ever you may be as it is going for me in Denmark!
Danish words of the day: Marathon...translates pretty easily, it's the same in both languages. Rutschebanen...roller coaster... Oh yeah!
Quote of the week: Mom: "Have you ever even run a road-race before"? Me: "I ran the Raymond fun run when I was six..." Mom: "You can count that if you want, but just so you know, most people don't start with marathons..."
So, as you may or may not have guessed by the first portion of this post, I ran my marathon this past weekend in Odense! I was feeling pretty nervous about it, because my last three weeks of training had been pretty bad (a result of me losing a part of my passion for it and also the fact that I was way to busy to maintain a normal training regimen). I went in with a goal of finishing in under 4 hours, thinking that 3:40 would be the best-case scenario.
The course was a two-lapper through most of Odense. The course had a nice mix of scenic park running, quiet running in the outskirts of town, and a 3 mile weave through the downtown walking streets. Now, Denmark for the most part is very flat. However, there were three significant climbs on the course (most of them were brief, but quite steep). One of the climbs was at the very end of the course (the 19th and 39th kilometer), and the first time through, I realized that it had the potential to be a very nasty climb on the second lap. I was right. Climbing that hill for the second time made me want to cry. However, I used most of the other hills to my advantage, climbing at a pretty quick tempo and making up a lot of ground during them.
I also had a very good, fast, half-marathon. I made the turn at 1:39:50 (essentially a 3:20 pace, carrying a 7:38 mile pace). I felt pretty good at the end of the lap, but I had a feeling that that wasn't going to be sustainable for the rest of the race. As I expected, I hit a wall, hard, at about 30 km, and my last two full 5k splits were significantly slower than my first 6 had been. I ran the second half in just under 2 hours, and finished with a 3:39:01, which I was quite pleased with! The second lap hurt a lot, but I still had enough energy (probably pure adrenaline at that point) to turn it up a little bit for the last 195 meters in the track (in metric, a marathon is 42.195 kilometers, so I know that it was 195 because I turned on the jets right as I passed the 42km marker). I ran the last 195 at what felt like a sprint (probably pretty slow on the grand scheme...) and almost collapsed coming across the finish line. One of the people who I started next to at the beginning of the marathon (meaning that we had the same start time) and had passed and been passed by a few times over the course of the marathon was one of the people I gassed on the track at the finish. I ended up eeking him out by about 7 seconds, and we shared a hand shake of mutual respect after we had both had a moment to recover. My time was good enough to land me 465th out of 1965 runners (and for those of you who are wondering, it was in fact a Kenyan who won the race, about an hour and 20 minutes before I got to the finish) and put me in 13th out of 63 runners in the Men 20-24 age bracket.
Now, everything you read about marathons prepares you to feel like absolute dog-meat for the last 6 miles. It has something to do with fully depleting your glycogen stores after 20 miles of running or some such nonsense. I'll admit that they were right, the last 6 miles (10.2km) were by far the hardest thing I have ever done. However, what nobody prepares you for is the feeling at the end of the race. I have never been in that much discomfort. My head throbbed, I felt like I was going to be sick, and every part of my body (including parts as innocuous as my fingertips and elbows) hurt as much as any part of my body had ever hurt. There was no position I could get my body into that would alleviate any part of the pain, and I pretty much just had to suck it up and get some measure of comfort out of the fact that I then didn't have to run another step for a week (or a month, or ever, really...). About two hours after I finished, I had had a calf massage, a shower, a change of clothes, and a little bit of first aid on my very blistered toe, and I started to feel slightly alive again. Walking was still more than I wanted to take on, but I no longer felt like death warmed over. This morning, I can walk somewhat comfortably again (although stairs are still kicking my ass) and I'm thinking that I might be convinced to do another one again at some point in the not-so-near future...
I'd be remiss if I didn't thank a few people for the help, advice, and support that they provided over the last 5 or 6 months. Obviously my family, all of whom were awesome throughout the entire process (starting in last October). Without the help of each of them, I never would have made it this far. The other person without whom this probably would never have happened it Robby Cuthbert, who dragged my ass out of the 4 mile loop I'd been running for about 6 months last march and brought me on a 6 mile run, essentially introducing me to the concept of running anything resembling long distances. He also was an awesome running/training partner this spring and summer, and is largely responsible for my current perception of running as something "fun" rather than something dreadful. I also want to pass along my gratitude to my suite (both from the 08-09 school year and this past summer) not only for the support that they offered me, but also for their understanding regarding the evenings that I neglected them as a result of the running that I was doing or the fact that I was too tired to move. There are numerous other people who played a part in making this possible. In fact, odds are that if you've read down this far, you're one of my closer friends, and I want to offer a blanket thank you to all of you as well.
It may be double-dipping, but I'm crossing "Run a Marathon" and "Run a Marathon in a Foreign Country" off of my bucket list!
This may be a bit of a forced segway, but while I'm on the topic of Bucket Lists, I also can cross a few other things off of my bucket list as a result of Friday evening in Tivoli Gardens. Friday afternoon I met my host brother Jonathan in Tivoli to go on a few of the rides. I added 3 roller coasters to my lifetime count (now up to a whopping 24, including the one of the oldest roller coasters in the world). I'm crossing "Ride a Roller Coaster in a Foreign Country off of the List too.
After spending the afternoon getting our adrenaline up, we met with Carsten and Ingrid to have dinner at a great Japanese restaurant that is right by Tivoli. After dinner, we went back into Tivoli to see a ballet troupe from New York City perform for the queen, her sisters, and the crown prince. It was a very interesting performance, and I enjoyed it. The queen presented a couple of awards in honor of her late mother, Queen Ingrid, after intermission, and it was a great opportunity to be a part of a royal event! However, I made a little mistake at the beginning of the performance... I had separated from the Wredstrøms to use the restroom, and when I tried to find my seat, I went to the A-entrance (as was indicated on my ticket). However, I was unaware that for performances that the queen is attending, the A entrance is closed and secured so that she can safely and quickly enter and exit the hall. As I tried to stroll into the auditorium through that entrance a very large (and surprisingly polite) usher/bodyguard stepped in front of me and stopped my forward progress. Realizing my mistake before I did, he directed me to the B-entrance. This slip-up was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that I was entering at the same time as the queen. In fact, I had tried to enter between the queen's sisters and the queen herself... On the plus side, it was very cool to be about 4 feet away from the queen herself! That being said, I am crossing "Embarrass Yourself in Front of Royalty" off of the Bucket List as Well!
After leaving the ballet, there was a rock concert going on outside (Infernal was playing...Apparently they're huge in Denmark) so we watched that for a while. After seeing some of the concert, we walked around Tivoli to see some of the lights and sounds (it was absolutely beautiful! You can see why Disney himself was inspired by Tivoli). We eventually found a little cafe to get some coffee and a drink before driving back up to Bendstrup. It was an amazing evening.
I don't think it needs to be said (it's mostly been implied already), but this past weekend was one of a kind. It was filled with amazing experiences. There was one dark spot, however. I was informed Saturday of the passing of my grandfather Russell (Bumpa) Hewett. It was not necessarily unexpected (he had been sick for the last few months), but it was still tough news to take. It makes it very hard to be so far away from my family when something like this happens. I really wish I could be there with them. A link to his obituary is included in the links section if anybody is interested in reading it.
I'm sorry to leave you on a sad note, but I hope that everything is going as well for all of you where-ever you may be as it is going for me in Denmark!
Also, I tried really hard this time to add photos, but Blogger hates me. There's a new link on the side (Photoset 4) that has a bunch of pics that you're free to check out!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Weekend and Study Tour Recap
Hello Everybody, welcome to the new design of hovsatak. I felt the need to give the blog a bit of a facelift, and I think this might (at some point) facilitate me adding some pictures to the blog.
Anyways, this past weekend was (for the most part) phenomenal. At one point (about three beers into my brewery tour and tasting and, admittedly, a little bit tipsy) I looked over to one of my friends from my Economic Theories of Globalization class, raised my glass, and proclaimed "touche DIS!" I'm still not quite sure what I meant by that, but I think it mostly regarded me being pleased with the overall study tour experience of the weekend.
Let's recap: On Thursday morning, Ingrid woke up at the first fart of the lark (for those of you who aren't my dad, that's REALLY early) to drive me into the train station at Hillerød. I took the train down to Nørreport and was on a bus heading toward Jutland at 7:45 that morning (surprisingly right on schedule). We first travelled to Århus to visit an art museum and get the cultural aspect of the weekend off to a start. The museum (ARoS) was wonderful, although we didn't have quite enough time to visit all of the nooks and crannies of it. A couple of highlights (pictures will be on facebook and linked here soon, I promise) were "The Nine Spaces," a collection of dark, creepy rooms that were an exhibition of art created using mainly light and sound; a 20 foot tall lifelike figurine of a Gollum-esque young boy; and Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. We also got lunch at a little buffet on the main drag of Århus before getting back on the bus to head to our first academic stop of the trip.
Anyways, this past weekend was (for the most part) phenomenal. At one point (about three beers into my brewery tour and tasting and, admittedly, a little bit tipsy) I looked over to one of my friends from my Economic Theories of Globalization class, raised my glass, and proclaimed "touche DIS!" I'm still not quite sure what I meant by that, but I think it mostly regarded me being pleased with the overall study tour experience of the weekend.
Let's recap: On Thursday morning, Ingrid woke up at the first fart of the lark (for those of you who aren't my dad, that's REALLY early) to drive me into the train station at Hillerød. I took the train down to Nørreport and was on a bus heading toward Jutland at 7:45 that morning (surprisingly right on schedule). We first travelled to Århus to visit an art museum and get the cultural aspect of the weekend off to a start. The museum (ARoS) was wonderful, although we didn't have quite enough time to visit all of the nooks and crannies of it. A couple of highlights (pictures will be on facebook and linked here soon, I promise) were "The Nine Spaces," a collection of dark, creepy rooms that were an exhibition of art created using mainly light and sound; a 20 foot tall lifelike figurine of a Gollum-esque young boy; and Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. We also got lunch at a little buffet on the main drag of Århus before getting back on the bus to head to our first academic stop of the trip.
And that stop was at Suzlon. Suzlon is a windmill company that is based in India and has a research center in Denmark to mainly snipe the expertise of jaded ex-Vestas employees. Between Suzlon itself and its sister company REpower, it comprises the third largest windmill producer in the world. We were given a presentation regarding green energy in general, wind energy in particular, and Suzlon's independent strategy to grow and continue to corner the green energy market. An interesting fact that I didn't know before the visit is that wind energy cannot be stored, and thus it is inefficient to power more than about 20% of a grid using it. In fact, there are times (mostly during the wee-night hours) that Denmark sends its extra wind energy to Germany and Sweden free of charge because there is too much of it being produced in Denmark for the overnight demand.
After the visit at Suzlon, we drove to Herning and checked into our Danhostel for the evening. I thought about renting the movie "Hostel" for the night, but decided that that might be a bad idea. Anyways, the hostel fed us, and then we walked about 2 miles into town to find a couple of bars to spend a few hours before bed.
The next morning we were up early to travel to Bang & Olufsen, a high end electronics store in denial about its gradual economic decline. To give you an idea of the attitude at B&O, they claim that their competition is less with Sony and Panasonic and more with Gucci and Lexus. We did have a decent presentation to get the morning started, where they explained what it's like to be the producer of a purely luxury good and danced around the questions we asked regarding substitutions away from luxury goods resulting from the current economic climate. We then had a dreadfully boring tour of their factory that lasted about an hour too long. I seriously wondered how many aluminium rods I could be shown before grabbing one and bashing myself over the head with it. After that was over, we moved on to the demos. These were cool. Say what you want about the prospect of spending thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of dollars on Audio/Video equipment, but their products were nice. The first demo was that of their high end sound system (that can only be found in Audis, Aston Martins, and Mercedes). You have never heard music in a car sound that amazing (and you probably never will). They then showed us a $300,000 room completely decked out with a B&O soundsystem, television, a 100" projection screen, and smart-light technology. We watched some concert footage, and it was absolutely unreal. With the surround sound, you could honestly convince yourself that you were at the concert, except our seats were better than any that were actually there. I have pictures from in there too, but I'm not sure how well they came out.
After the B&O visit, we travelled about an hour north to Dare Adventure Center to play paintball. I thought that it was tuition money well spent, and we all had a great time. We played for about three hours (and I have the welts to prove it) in a forest and cityscape before departing for our hostel in Aalborg. It took about another hour to get there, and by the time we arrived, the ladies were definitely ready to be off of the same bus as some of us, admittedly very sweaty, gents. We had about 30 minutes to pass the 23 of us through 5 showers, but with a show of true efficiency (every economist's dream), we were able to get everybody cleaned off before dinner.
Dinner was at the local Bryghus (Brewhouse). A microbrewery was kind enough to welcome two DIS groups at the same time, giving about 60 of us tours, and a very fun tasting. The New Ale was one of the most delicious brews I have ever had the pleasure of drinking, and the three others that I demoed were almost equally as delicious. They also served us a very large, very delicious dinner of ribs and potatoes before unleashing us on the poor, unsuspecting town of Aalborg.
That night, we partied like crazy. We started at a little bar called Robin that had very cheap drinks, but almost no atmosphere. A friend and I were accosted by three of the biggest, foulest, meanest Danish women that I have yet encountered, who were more then willing to voice their displeasure with our inability to speak their language. Need I remind them that a) we are trying to learn it, and b) there are only 5 million of them that speak it. They left shortly thereafter and we didn't encounter them for the rest of the evening.
After Robin, four of us went to scope out potential party sites for the evening's festivities. We happened upon a location called The Hollywood Bar that, despite a very good dance-floor, a live DJ, and cheap drinks, was dead. We literally quintupled their clientelle when the four of us walked in. Spotting a win-win opportunity in the making, we approached the bartender and told him that, in exchange for a round of drinks, we could have 30 of our American friends in his bar within half-an-hour. At first he was very skeptacle and wasn't really having it, but we eventually convinced him that we could come through on our end of the deal. He agreed, and we got to work. We walked up and down the street locating the rest of the DIS students scattered amongst the bar and convinced a good deal of them to join us at The Hollywood Bar after they finished their current round. It took almost 30 minutes, but we got a solid party started from scratch (that lasted well into the night and eventually included a mix of Danes and DIS students) and got our free drinks to boot! The operation was certainly a success!
I rolled back to the hostel at about 2 the next morning, surprisingly sober and remarkably with-it. I did, however, crash very hard as soon as my head touched my pillow. That ended the best day in Denmark I've had thus far!
Saturday was pretty much a throwaway day. In the morning I regretted surprisingly few of the decisions I had made the night before and felt more or less fine. Except for the nasty cold that I'd caught from somebody (my guess is either Kristian or somebody on the bus on the way to Jutland...there's no way to be certain). I still have the sniffles as I stand in the DIS basement computer room writing this, but I'm definitely on the upswing. Saturday started with a tour of the Utzon Center (Jørn Utzon was the Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House). I was not particularly impressed. The architecture of the center (which was designed by him) was disappointingly bland, and the tour was led by an intolerably cheery woman who I wouldn't have been able to stand had I been completely healthy and had had a full night's rest. After the longest hour of my life, we got back on the bus and headed to our lunch location, a Danish Kro ( a hotel in the woods). It was the most traditional Danish meal we had the entire trip, and included a lot of tasty Danish fish dishes and some leverpostej (liver patte). After the meal, we played a speed round of mini-golf and got on the bus to head back to Zealand (the Island that København is on). A very quiet five hours later we rolled back into Frue Plads (where the whole journey had started) and I hustled to catch the next train home from Nørreport.
Sunday was when I was the sickest, and I spent most of the day napping, watching a movie with the equally sick Jakob, and doing a little bit of homework. This morning I was feeling much better (at least well enough to venture into the city for class) and am ready to attack another week.
In summary, it was an awesome Study Tour, and I am really excited for my trip to Belgium and Germany in October!
That's all for now. Pictures will be up on facebook later this week.
After the visit at Suzlon, we drove to Herning and checked into our Danhostel for the evening. I thought about renting the movie "Hostel" for the night, but decided that that might be a bad idea. Anyways, the hostel fed us, and then we walked about 2 miles into town to find a couple of bars to spend a few hours before bed.
The next morning we were up early to travel to Bang & Olufsen, a high end electronics store in denial about its gradual economic decline. To give you an idea of the attitude at B&O, they claim that their competition is less with Sony and Panasonic and more with Gucci and Lexus. We did have a decent presentation to get the morning started, where they explained what it's like to be the producer of a purely luxury good and danced around the questions we asked regarding substitutions away from luxury goods resulting from the current economic climate. We then had a dreadfully boring tour of their factory that lasted about an hour too long. I seriously wondered how many aluminium rods I could be shown before grabbing one and bashing myself over the head with it. After that was over, we moved on to the demos. These were cool. Say what you want about the prospect of spending thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of dollars on Audio/Video equipment, but their products were nice. The first demo was that of their high end sound system (that can only be found in Audis, Aston Martins, and Mercedes). You have never heard music in a car sound that amazing (and you probably never will). They then showed us a $300,000 room completely decked out with a B&O soundsystem, television, a 100" projection screen, and smart-light technology. We watched some concert footage, and it was absolutely unreal. With the surround sound, you could honestly convince yourself that you were at the concert, except our seats were better than any that were actually there. I have pictures from in there too, but I'm not sure how well they came out.
After the B&O visit, we travelled about an hour north to Dare Adventure Center to play paintball. I thought that it was tuition money well spent, and we all had a great time. We played for about three hours (and I have the welts to prove it) in a forest and cityscape before departing for our hostel in Aalborg. It took about another hour to get there, and by the time we arrived, the ladies were definitely ready to be off of the same bus as some of us, admittedly very sweaty, gents. We had about 30 minutes to pass the 23 of us through 5 showers, but with a show of true efficiency (every economist's dream), we were able to get everybody cleaned off before dinner.
Dinner was at the local Bryghus (Brewhouse). A microbrewery was kind enough to welcome two DIS groups at the same time, giving about 60 of us tours, and a very fun tasting. The New Ale was one of the most delicious brews I have ever had the pleasure of drinking, and the three others that I demoed were almost equally as delicious. They also served us a very large, very delicious dinner of ribs and potatoes before unleashing us on the poor, unsuspecting town of Aalborg.
That night, we partied like crazy. We started at a little bar called Robin that had very cheap drinks, but almost no atmosphere. A friend and I were accosted by three of the biggest, foulest, meanest Danish women that I have yet encountered, who were more then willing to voice their displeasure with our inability to speak their language. Need I remind them that a) we are trying to learn it, and b) there are only 5 million of them that speak it. They left shortly thereafter and we didn't encounter them for the rest of the evening.
After Robin, four of us went to scope out potential party sites for the evening's festivities. We happened upon a location called The Hollywood Bar that, despite a very good dance-floor, a live DJ, and cheap drinks, was dead. We literally quintupled their clientelle when the four of us walked in. Spotting a win-win opportunity in the making, we approached the bartender and told him that, in exchange for a round of drinks, we could have 30 of our American friends in his bar within half-an-hour. At first he was very skeptacle and wasn't really having it, but we eventually convinced him that we could come through on our end of the deal. He agreed, and we got to work. We walked up and down the street locating the rest of the DIS students scattered amongst the bar and convinced a good deal of them to join us at The Hollywood Bar after they finished their current round. It took almost 30 minutes, but we got a solid party started from scratch (that lasted well into the night and eventually included a mix of Danes and DIS students) and got our free drinks to boot! The operation was certainly a success!
I rolled back to the hostel at about 2 the next morning, surprisingly sober and remarkably with-it. I did, however, crash very hard as soon as my head touched my pillow. That ended the best day in Denmark I've had thus far!
Saturday was pretty much a throwaway day. In the morning I regretted surprisingly few of the decisions I had made the night before and felt more or less fine. Except for the nasty cold that I'd caught from somebody (my guess is either Kristian or somebody on the bus on the way to Jutland...there's no way to be certain). I still have the sniffles as I stand in the DIS basement computer room writing this, but I'm definitely on the upswing. Saturday started with a tour of the Utzon Center (Jørn Utzon was the Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House). I was not particularly impressed. The architecture of the center (which was designed by him) was disappointingly bland, and the tour was led by an intolerably cheery woman who I wouldn't have been able to stand had I been completely healthy and had had a full night's rest. After the longest hour of my life, we got back on the bus and headed to our lunch location, a Danish Kro ( a hotel in the woods). It was the most traditional Danish meal we had the entire trip, and included a lot of tasty Danish fish dishes and some leverpostej (liver patte). After the meal, we played a speed round of mini-golf and got on the bus to head back to Zealand (the Island that København is on). A very quiet five hours later we rolled back into Frue Plads (where the whole journey had started) and I hustled to catch the next train home from Nørreport.
Sunday was when I was the sickest, and I spent most of the day napping, watching a movie with the equally sick Jakob, and doing a little bit of homework. This morning I was feeling much better (at least well enough to venture into the city for class) and am ready to attack another week.
In summary, it was an awesome Study Tour, and I am really excited for my trip to Belgium and Germany in October!
That's all for now. Pictures will be up on facebook later this week.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Study Tour Itinerary and Meet the Family
Well, it's been a little while since my last post, but not much of note has happened since I last wrote. Mostly just trying my very hardest to NOT get sick until after the Marathon (which is now in less than two weeks) while everybody around me is doing their best to make sure that I catch something between now and then. Seriously, Ingrid, Jonathan, and Kristian all seem to have had or currently have some nasty little bug. If the emergen-C that my brother sent me works, I'll be so pleased.
Health concerns aside, I also have a couple of interesting little updates that I can write about. First, I recieved the itinerary for my Study Tour today. In a word, Awesome! In two words...no, I'm kidding, I won't pull that again. I won't go into huge detail about the times and all of the dirty details (mostly because I didn't write them down and they're not posted on blackboard yet), but our three study locations are a Windmill company, an electronics store in denial about the economic slowdown (and thus still willing to let 25 Americans see what's going on inside) and a Microbrewery (apparently some tastings will be involved!). The three towns that we will be visiting are all on Jutland (two islands to the West), so for the next couple of days I'll be about 200 miles closer to home than I normally am (big difference that makes, right?). The towns are Herning, Århus, and Aalborg. We'll be overnighting in Hostels in Herning and Aalborg, and accordingly that's where most of our free time will be. It should be a really fun trip. It doesn't seem as though it's going to be terribly stressful. A couple of the events that are on our itinerary (on top of the cultural things like museums and theaters that they bring us along to in order to appease our parents--Hi Mom and Dad!), are lunch and adventure golf (mini-golf I'm sure) in Aalborg and an afternoon of paintball in Herning. Should be fun! I'll post details and pictures after the trip!
The second thing I figured that it was about time to write about is the family that I'm living with for these 17 weeks. I am living with the Wredstrøms of Baunevej 22 in Bendstrup. Incidentally, a better mailing address for those of you sending me things while I'm over here (you've got a lot to live up to if you want to beat the AWESOME package that my big bro sent me the other day...probably not even worth trying...), feel free to send it to:
Nathaniel Hewett
c/o Wredstrøm
Baunevej 22
Bendstrup
3400 Hillerød, Hillerød
DENMARK
That will get to me slightly quicker than sending it through the beauracracy at DIS. Anyways, here is a brief introduction to the Wredstrøms:
Carsten (the father) is a project manager in København. We often commute to the city together in the morning (having someone to go with is one of the benefits of having 8:30 class each day). He also manages the family's apartment in the city (renting it/maintaining it, etc.). Beyond work, he is a very active individual. As with many of the Danes I've met, Carsten enjoys being physically active in the evening, be it through cycling or going to the local indoor swimming pool to get some laps in.
Ingrid (the mother) runs her own school (The Musketeer School) in Hillerød. She is also currently very busy getting the family settled in to the new house. Both Carsten and Ingrid are involved in the Hillerød Pentecostal FriKirke (Free Church). A free church in Denmark is any church that does not follow the state religion (Lutheranism). Those of you that know my religious leanings can understand the interesting and lively conversation that this can foster, and while both they and myself know that no minds will be changed in the 15 weeks I have remaining here, it is interesting to hear their perspectives and share my perspectives on some potential hot-button issues of the day (creationism, abortion, gay marriage, etc.).
Jonathan (17 y/o) is the oldest of the kids, and is currently enrolled in a Media School. He has aspirations to spend a year in Australia after he turns 18.
Jakob (16 y/o) is in the middle, and is enrolled at an IB school in Birkerød (Two Røds south (rød is the Danish word for clearing, and any town that ends in rød usually arose as the result of a population explosion)). He runs track (specializing in the 400m) and returned from the Danish national championships last night.
Kristian (14 y/o) is the youngest of the bunch, and doesn't yet understand how committed I am to making the nickname that I've given him (roligan) stick... (He is determined to be a Hooligan, and the Danish word for calm is "rolig," so you can see where I'm coming from...). He's also a runner, and is very in to playing with AirSoft guns with his friends and brothers.
Samson (2 y/o) is the dog. He's a very energetic black lab that loves to jump up to your chest (standing on his hind legs) and lick your face. He's a character...
And that's the Wredstrøms! They're a great family and I'm lucky to get to spend the next 15 weeks with them!
That's all for now, but I'll be sure to write some more after the Study Tour this weekend.
Health concerns aside, I also have a couple of interesting little updates that I can write about. First, I recieved the itinerary for my Study Tour today. In a word, Awesome! In two words...no, I'm kidding, I won't pull that again. I won't go into huge detail about the times and all of the dirty details (mostly because I didn't write them down and they're not posted on blackboard yet), but our three study locations are a Windmill company, an electronics store in denial about the economic slowdown (and thus still willing to let 25 Americans see what's going on inside) and a Microbrewery (apparently some tastings will be involved!). The three towns that we will be visiting are all on Jutland (two islands to the West), so for the next couple of days I'll be about 200 miles closer to home than I normally am (big difference that makes, right?). The towns are Herning, Århus, and Aalborg. We'll be overnighting in Hostels in Herning and Aalborg, and accordingly that's where most of our free time will be. It should be a really fun trip. It doesn't seem as though it's going to be terribly stressful. A couple of the events that are on our itinerary (on top of the cultural things like museums and theaters that they bring us along to in order to appease our parents--Hi Mom and Dad!), are lunch and adventure golf (mini-golf I'm sure) in Aalborg and an afternoon of paintball in Herning. Should be fun! I'll post details and pictures after the trip!
The second thing I figured that it was about time to write about is the family that I'm living with for these 17 weeks. I am living with the Wredstrøms of Baunevej 22 in Bendstrup. Incidentally, a better mailing address for those of you sending me things while I'm over here (you've got a lot to live up to if you want to beat the AWESOME package that my big bro sent me the other day...probably not even worth trying...), feel free to send it to:
Nathaniel Hewett
c/o Wredstrøm
Baunevej 22
Bendstrup
3400 Hillerød, Hillerød
DENMARK
That will get to me slightly quicker than sending it through the beauracracy at DIS. Anyways, here is a brief introduction to the Wredstrøms:
Carsten (the father) is a project manager in København. We often commute to the city together in the morning (having someone to go with is one of the benefits of having 8:30 class each day). He also manages the family's apartment in the city (renting it/maintaining it, etc.). Beyond work, he is a very active individual. As with many of the Danes I've met, Carsten enjoys being physically active in the evening, be it through cycling or going to the local indoor swimming pool to get some laps in.
Ingrid (the mother) runs her own school (The Musketeer School) in Hillerød. She is also currently very busy getting the family settled in to the new house. Both Carsten and Ingrid are involved in the Hillerød Pentecostal FriKirke (Free Church). A free church in Denmark is any church that does not follow the state religion (Lutheranism). Those of you that know my religious leanings can understand the interesting and lively conversation that this can foster, and while both they and myself know that no minds will be changed in the 15 weeks I have remaining here, it is interesting to hear their perspectives and share my perspectives on some potential hot-button issues of the day (creationism, abortion, gay marriage, etc.).
Jonathan (17 y/o) is the oldest of the kids, and is currently enrolled in a Media School. He has aspirations to spend a year in Australia after he turns 18.
Jakob (16 y/o) is in the middle, and is enrolled at an IB school in Birkerød (Two Røds south (rød is the Danish word for clearing, and any town that ends in rød usually arose as the result of a population explosion)). He runs track (specializing in the 400m) and returned from the Danish national championships last night.
Kristian (14 y/o) is the youngest of the bunch, and doesn't yet understand how committed I am to making the nickname that I've given him (roligan) stick... (He is determined to be a Hooligan, and the Danish word for calm is "rolig," so you can see where I'm coming from...). He's also a runner, and is very in to playing with AirSoft guns with his friends and brothers.
Samson (2 y/o) is the dog. He's a very energetic black lab that loves to jump up to your chest (standing on his hind legs) and lick your face. He's a character...
And that's the Wredstrøms! They're a great family and I'm lucky to get to spend the next 15 weeks with them!
That's all for now, but I'll be sure to write some more after the Study Tour this weekend.
Monday, August 31, 2009
"Welcome to my Crib" and the Weekend Saga
We have officially moved to the new house in Bendstrup, which is one (or maybe two) village(s) away from Hillerød. The new house is beautiful (I'll figure out putting pictures up on blogspot very soon I assure you), and once I get my bike situation figured out the commute should only be 10 or 15 minutes longer than the commute from Gørløse.
My 14 year old host brother Kristian is really enjoying the new house and all of the space in the garden (which may or may not be related to his newfound freedom to engage in airsoft gun usage at his leisure) and has taken to walking out the front door and in very convincing MTV style proclaiming "Welcome to my Crib" with his arms spread open iin an expression that 50-cent would be proud of.
The move was quite an event, involving multiple trips with very full trailers behind a car borrowed from one of the teachers at Ingrid's school and one trip with a very full truck (I can never remember the name of the types of trucks that are bigger than pick-ups and smaller than 18-wheelers, but it was one of those) and a lot of loading and unloading. Things are not all unpacked and put away yet, but we're making progress.
My things, on the other hand, are, for the first time since arriving in Denmark, all put in their proper spot. I even unpacked my bag of Winterish clothes and found space for them in my closet. All of my bags (save my backpack) are now entirely empty and living under my bed. I didn't realize how much I was stressing about not having put all of my things away until I actually did it. Finishing that task was like having a weight lifted from my shoulders.
The weekend was not all moving from Gørløse to Bendstrup, though. On friday, DIS sent us all on a canal tour through Copenhagen, which yielded many wonderful photos (including a picture of the Little Mermaid that my sister Elizabeth was dying to see...) which will be up on facebook sometime this week. Also that evening there was a dinner for all of the students in my program (International Business and Economics) at RizRaz, a local vegetarian buffet. The food was fair, but it was a fun experience and the beer was outstanding and (this is a rarity in Denmark) FREE! That evening, there was a DIS welcome party at a København night club (I now refuse to call it Copenhagen...it immediately identifies you as a tourist) called K-3 which was fun, but had a bit of an awkward combination between a middle school dance gone horribly awry (imagine fueling one of those with copious amounts of relatively affordable alcohol) and a freshman mixer. I was not altogether disappointed to have my commute as an excuse to beat a hasty exit as the clock struck 11:30. I managed to get myself on the last train of the evening to my small community, and fell asleep early enough to pay off a good deal of my sleep debt from the previous week overnight.
On Saturday I went into the city with Carsten, Jonathan, and Jakob to watch the Christianhavn Roundt, a two kilometer swim in the center of Copenhagen. This was noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First off, Carsten competed and finished with a very good time of under 35 minutes. Second, I find it remarkable that the harbors and canals within Copenhagen are all completely swimmable. I think I might jump in at some point just to say that I did it. Maybe the day before I leave (towards the end of December) if I'm really brave.
That evening, after unloading a bunch of stuff, our lack of kitchen supplies led us to a meal at an American legend: McDonalds. I almost cried while I was ordering (hyperbole again...maybe that will be this blog's theme, we shall have to see) because I didn't understand the whole process of ordering fast food in Denmark. Fortunately, the girl taking my order (and most people over the age of 13 here as well) spoke excellent English and was very patient with me, even though there was a line developing behind me. You could cut the irony of an American's inability to order at McDonalds with knife.
The next morning I woke up around 10:30 (I guess I hadn't paid all of my sleep debt the night before), unfortunately having slept through breakfast. I made myself a breakfast sandwich and did some reading for my Monday and Tuesday classes while the Wredstrøms were at church. That afternoon, I went to a soccer match at the biggest stadium in Denmark, called Parken. The match was between F.C. København and Brønby IF, which is a huge rivalry. The fans were really into it, and from our seats we had a good view of the action on the field and in the stands. I personally would have liked to have been down in the middle of things, but I can see DIS's perspective that it might be better for us to have a bit of a buffer from the true hardcore supporters of either side. I know I'm promising a lot today and not really delivering much, but I'll put up a link to photos of the match by the middle of this week.
So now I start week two. I've gotten settled in for the most part, although I need to redefine my routine slightly to figure out my new commute (which will involve a bike, a bus, a train, and walking). This week will be the first "normal week" with classes four days and Wednesday off (no field study this week). It will be a good opportunity to get into the flow of Denmark and start to get a feel for how the semester is going to be.
That's all for now, but keep checking back for the photo links and further updates! Per request of some of you, the next set of photos will include photos of my host family and the place that I'm living...
A few upcoming dates that I'm looking forward to:
September 10-12: Short Study Tour to the city of Århus in Jutland (Western Island of Denmark).
September 20: H.C. Andersen Marathon in Odense
October 11-17: Long Study Tour to Brussels, Belgium and Frankfurt, Germany
November 1-7: Travel Break (I need couches in Europe...anybody offering?)
November 8-15: Travel Break Part II-Crete with the Parentals!
Friday, August 28, 2009
"The Danish Way"--Transportation
My first week in Denmark has come and (not quite I guess) gone. Although I'm planning on waiting until this weekend at the earliest to post another "life update" post, even though I know that most of my readers never tire of them.
Today I wanted to start a new series of blog posts that I hope to continue throughout the semester entitled "The Danish Way," looking at particular aspects of Danish society through the lens of a transplanted American. Maybe this will become a weekly event...we'll have to wait and see. The first post of this type will focus on an issue very near and dear to me, given my long commute each day: transportation.
In a word: easy. In two words: easy and clean. The most common way of traveling around the greater Copenhagen area seems to be a combination of a bike and public transportation. The public transportation system is a combination of busses, trains, and a subway. For example, for my commute into Copenhagen, I have the option of walking 10 minutes to my local bus stop and taking a bus to the train station one town over (which comes every ten minutes and takes roughly 18 minutes) or walking 10 minutes to my local train station, taking the 8 minute train (that comes each half-hour) to that same station one town over. At that station, I get on what's called an S-train that takes me directly into the center of Copenhagen in about 37 minutes. I then walk about ten minutes down Nørregade to Vestergade, the street that my classes are located on. All told, my door-to-door commute is roughly 70 minutes. In a car, driving the same distance would most likely take about 50 minutes, so it is a little bit slower, taking the extra 20 minutes to avoid the hassle of parking in Copenhagen is worth it. Also, given the price of Petrol in Denmark (roughly 10 dkk or $2 per liter), my $550 train pass (called an "alle-zoner," meaning I can pretty much go anywhere on any public transportation in the greater Copenhagen area) starts to look like a bargain.
The S-train is clean and quiet. Most of the time you can find a seat if you are willing to park yourself three-across on the bench, and if you go at off-peak times it's possible to find a bench to yourself. The S-trains (there are 5 lines I think) run mainly north to south through the city (underground once you get inside city limits). A few years ago, Copenhagen opened its brand new Metro system, an east-west Subway. Although my commute doesn't call for the use of it, I have been on the trains, and they are also clean and quiet and are a very quick way to get around the city. In addition, every train runs EXACTLY on schedule. Don't be a minute late trying to catch a train...it won't be there anymore.
The bus system is relatively easy to use (and I'm sure it would be easier if I spoke Danish), and the busses go all around the city at very frequent intervals. I haven't been on one of the ground busses yet, but they do appear to not run quite as punctually as the trains. One cool addition to the bus system is line 901-902-903, also known as the "harbor bus" brings people along the harbor from the Black Diamond to Nyhavn to the Opera House and beyond! It's a way to literally be "on a boat" while taking public transportation.
For those Danes who live relatively close to the city, a popular tranportation option is biking. In fact, there are significantly more bikes than cars in the city. It is not an uncommon sight to see a man in a full business suit or a woman in a dress and high-heels riding their bike past you on their way to work in the morning. This results in a large number of bikes parked in the city and a large reduction in the amount of traffic that one encounters while trying to navigate the streets. In reality, I am far more concerned about being hit by a bike than a car during my daily commute.
There are a lot of advantages to the Danish system of transportation, and I want to encourage all of you reading this who do not use a bike or public transportation to give it a try in the coming months!
Today I wanted to start a new series of blog posts that I hope to continue throughout the semester entitled "The Danish Way," looking at particular aspects of Danish society through the lens of a transplanted American. Maybe this will become a weekly event...we'll have to wait and see. The first post of this type will focus on an issue very near and dear to me, given my long commute each day: transportation.
In a word: easy. In two words: easy and clean. The most common way of traveling around the greater Copenhagen area seems to be a combination of a bike and public transportation. The public transportation system is a combination of busses, trains, and a subway. For example, for my commute into Copenhagen, I have the option of walking 10 minutes to my local bus stop and taking a bus to the train station one town over (which comes every ten minutes and takes roughly 18 minutes) or walking 10 minutes to my local train station, taking the 8 minute train (that comes each half-hour) to that same station one town over. At that station, I get on what's called an S-train that takes me directly into the center of Copenhagen in about 37 minutes. I then walk about ten minutes down Nørregade to Vestergade, the street that my classes are located on. All told, my door-to-door commute is roughly 70 minutes. In a car, driving the same distance would most likely take about 50 minutes, so it is a little bit slower, taking the extra 20 minutes to avoid the hassle of parking in Copenhagen is worth it. Also, given the price of Petrol in Denmark (roughly 10 dkk or $2 per liter), my $550 train pass (called an "alle-zoner," meaning I can pretty much go anywhere on any public transportation in the greater Copenhagen area) starts to look like a bargain.
The S-train is clean and quiet. Most of the time you can find a seat if you are willing to park yourself three-across on the bench, and if you go at off-peak times it's possible to find a bench to yourself. The S-trains (there are 5 lines I think) run mainly north to south through the city (underground once you get inside city limits). A few years ago, Copenhagen opened its brand new Metro system, an east-west Subway. Although my commute doesn't call for the use of it, I have been on the trains, and they are also clean and quiet and are a very quick way to get around the city. In addition, every train runs EXACTLY on schedule. Don't be a minute late trying to catch a train...it won't be there anymore.
The bus system is relatively easy to use (and I'm sure it would be easier if I spoke Danish), and the busses go all around the city at very frequent intervals. I haven't been on one of the ground busses yet, but they do appear to not run quite as punctually as the trains. One cool addition to the bus system is line 901-902-903, also known as the "harbor bus" brings people along the harbor from the Black Diamond to Nyhavn to the Opera House and beyond! It's a way to literally be "on a boat" while taking public transportation.
For those Danes who live relatively close to the city, a popular tranportation option is biking. In fact, there are significantly more bikes than cars in the city. It is not an uncommon sight to see a man in a full business suit or a woman in a dress and high-heels riding their bike past you on their way to work in the morning. This results in a large number of bikes parked in the city and a large reduction in the amount of traffic that one encounters while trying to navigate the streets. In reality, I am far more concerned about being hit by a bike than a car during my daily commute.
There are a lot of advantages to the Danish system of transportation, and I want to encourage all of you reading this who do not use a bike or public transportation to give it a try in the coming months!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Classes Tomorrow...First Lesson? Procrastination!
Danish word of the day: "Undskynd" (Sounds sort of like "Oondskoond")-Literally means sorry, but can also be used as a type of "excuse me" after the fact. This was the subject of my first interaction conducted solely in Danish which occured the day that I learned how to say this particular word. It probably wasn't all that remarkable of an interaction, but I was excited. A woman bumped into me in the train station as I was making my way to the train on my way home, we both looked at each other and simultaneously muttered (quite quietly) "Undskynd." That was all, and we were both on our way. Now this is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First off, I spoke and understood an entire conversation in Danish! (Not a long conversation, granted, but I was pleased with the accomplishment.) Second, when we finished conversing with each other (conversing is probably hyperbolic, but you get the drift), I did not recieve the "oh that's cute that an American is trying to learn our language" look. On the whole, I was pleased.
Quote of the day: "This teacher is trying to torture me!"-Uttered by my host brother Jakob after discovering that his IB English teacher had assigned an entire chapter of (drum roll please) Harry Potter. Needless to say, I had to convince him that this was not an issue that would be considered torture by the Geneva conventions and that most Americans (Grades 3 through Graduate Students) would kill to have that as a homework assignement.
I hope you all had a chance to look at the pictures that I linked to. I think if anybody wants to become a better photographer, at least of things like buildings, by far the easiest solution is to go to a location that has some of the most magnificent examples of architecture (from all sorts of different periods). Unfortunately, the high quality (and therefore large file size) of the pictures I'm taking prohibits me from putting them up on blogspot, so it's up to you to click through (or copy-paste) the link below to access the pictures that I put up.
Anways, I've been very busy since my last post. Yesterday, we had a couple of meetings in the morning and then the afternoon was spent learning cool Danish words like "Undskynd" and "Jeg hedder Nat." Don't bother trying to pronounce either of them--Danish could never pass itself off as a phonetic language. That afternoon, I rode the train home, and saw my first example of a rainy Denmarkian afternoon. It started to sprinkle just as I got off the train in the town that I live in (Gørløse) and packing my umbrella to the city with me every day finally paid off as I was able to get it out just before the heavens opened.
The rain slowed to a drizzle in time for me to take a bike ride through the forest with Jakob (good thing he was there or I would still be trying to navigate my way back). It was a great time, and really made me appreciate the fact that I was lucky enough to be placed up in the country where doing things like that is possible.
After that, I had a delicious dinner of Durum, made my standard calls to the states, thought about doing some reading for class on friday (didn't actually end up opening a book--denial and all), and headed to bed.
This morning I woke up at 6:40 (the latest I will be able to sleep on a weekday now for quite a while I do believe), and made my way to town via the 7:38 train from the Gørløse station, getting to Copenhagen in with enough time to get lost trying to find Sopheya (a student from Brown who happens to be in my Danish class and live in the next town over) a cup of coffee while still arriving at the meeting place for our morning activity just barely after the designated time.
That activity was a scavenger hunt through Copenhagen! It was so much fun! We started by going to a very large department store, went from there to parliament, then to the harbor bus (pretty much the coolest thing ever in my opinion), then to the Royal Theater, then to the Royal Gardens, and finally to Trinity Church. There is so much to see in Copenhagen that I feel like it will take most of the semester just to give half of the destinations the time that they deserve. I will put in a good effort to see (and photograph) most of them though!
This afternoon we had our first meeting with our core course professors. Jørn will spend the next four months attempting to teach me the economic theories of globalization. I am really excited for that class. Although it appears that a few of the students are simply in it to get some credit toward their major (read: will not be putting in a ton of effort), hopefully discussion and all will still be somewhat lively in class. Looking over the syllabus, the class is better than I could have possibly imagined. When I signed up for it (and you have to promise to not tell Dean McKeon this), I had done almost no research on what the class would be like, but looking through the syllabus and the readings, it appears that the class will be covering almost entirely things that I have never learned before and that should for the most part be very interesting. Plus we get to go to Brussels, Belgium and Frankfurt, Germany in October to examine the Economics and Business of Climate Change.
After class, I made it home in time to have a lively discussion with Ingrid about the differences between and intricacies of the Danish and American political systems before she and the boys left for a road race in Hillerød. While they were gone I ventured back into the woods alone to attempt and find a decent route over which I could do some 4x8 intervals. Succeeding in not getting lost, I returned in time to get a quick shower before a late dinner. Now it's getting dark and I'm getting sleepy, and I believe I will call this it for this particular update.
I hope everything is going as well for you in the states as it is going for me here!
Good Night!
Notable Upcoming Events:
Tomorrow: Classes Start
Friday: IBE_E (My program) Dinner and the DIS Welcome Party in Copenhagen
Saturday: Moving to the new house
Sunday: Football (Soccer) game in Copenhagen--FC København vs. Brømby--The Red Sox-Yankees Rivalry of Danish Football!
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