The Final Countdown!

So, I have successfully completed my semester at DIS, culturally immersed myself, seen new places, and learned that American food portions really are preposterously large...study abroad checklist, COMPLETE!

Though I still have 1 more day here, I've tied up all the loose ends, bought an absurd amount of Danish candy (i.e. about 10 lbs. of Haribo), and shared many teary and heartfelt goodbyes. Today I am chilling with my family (I think we are going to see Robin Hood) and packing. Hopefully I'll also make it into town for 1 last trip to St. Peter's Bakery as well!

This past week was crazy busy, I wrote my first ever philosophy paper (surprisingly easy, I guess I did learn a lot in that class) during the first half of the week and then studied for my biology of marine mammals final for the second half. Cultural activities in between included: Copenhagen Botanical Gardens, Tivoli, 21st birthday party for a friend (okay, not Danish culture, but culture nonetheless), cake at La Glace, got lots of Danish recipes from my host fam, bought souvenirs, had 1 last hygge night with friends, went to Christiana (Copenhagen's "free" community), and went to the DIS closing ceremony.

I will probably write 1 more cheesy/emotional post when I get home to properly conclude my blog-y-kins, but for now, my time in Denmark is ticking and these bags aren't packing themselves!

P.S. mom, dad, if you are out there in blog reader world, I'm hardcore craving good pizza, just saying...

4 papers down, 1 to go!

Unfortunately not much to report at the moment. Wednesday and Thursday (and a good portion of Friday morning) I was writing papers/learning to speak Danish. Yesterday I had a term paper due in every single class (4) plus a final test and a presentation in Danish where I had to talk about my family for 5 minutes - in Danish...

But, with very little sleep I survived, and now I just have 1 paper and 1 final left and my grand semester in Denmark will officially be over. I have 1 week and a list of 10 cultural activities that I still have left to do too!

Today I am taking it easy, catching up on sleep, thinking about writing my last paper, and praying that I will see the sun again before I leave Denmark (the current 10-day forecast says it will be cold and rainy here until we leave...).

I think tomorrow we are going to try to go to Tivoli but our plans are still kind of up in the air...

Food log:

Breakfast: rolls with jam and honey

Lunch: salmon smorrebrod

Dinner: shrimp and noodle thing (Kristian's recipe!)

More Prague!

I am safely back in beautiful Copenhagen, where the plants are FINALLY starting to bloom! It is still pretty chilly, but manageable!

Prague:

Saturday I ate my one and only non-Czech meal, Starbucks for breakfast, because for whatever reason, all bakeries in Prague are close on weekends! I needed something quick because I was planning on doing a walking tour of the city and Starbucks was my only option (in case you are wondering, Starbucks is overpriced in Prague too, I got a coffee and a muffin and it was one of my most expensive meals...). Anyway, as I ate my Starbucks I watched the clock tower performance in the Town Hall Square (very famous, extremely lame, the 12 Apostles peak their heads out of a door above the clock...and that is it...). Then, I was waiting and waiting and waiting for my walking tour, but of course the guide was sick so the company was only doing the PAID walking tours (I was obvi going to do the free one!). So, I figured I'd just do the tour Sunday and headed to the National Museum!

The National Museum is actually a museum of natural science so I LOVED it, and spent over 3 hours there (it wasn't that big and all of the exhibits were in Czech...but it was still awesome!!!!) They had rocks, prehistory/archeology, zoology, history of the earth and planets, paleontology, and anthropology (the rock exhibit was my favorite)!!!!

After the museum, I had a chicken schnitzel sandwich from a street vendor, and then headed to the Jewish Quarter (called the Jewish Quarter b/c back in the day Jews could only live and work in this tiny section of the city) to go to the Jewish Museum (which is actually a series of buildings, 4 synagogues, a cemetery, and a ceremony hall). However, what I failed to remember was of course, Saturday is the Sabbath Day in the Jewish religion, so of course everything was closed! So, I went back to my hostel to regroup/find a new plan. I decided to go to Petrin Tower, which is a famous tower where the communists had spies or something like that, but it boasts an incredible view of the city. The Tower itself is on a huge hill that is just 1 huge park so I spent some time climbing the hill/walking around the park as well. When I got to the top of the hill there was a GIANT line to get up to the top of the tower (plus about 300 stairs) so I decided to skip the tower and go to this random festival that they were having at the top of the hill (the view from the top of the hill was amazing enough for me)! I got this donut type thing that street vendors sell all over (it is dough wrapped around a wooden stick, cooked over coals, the rolled in nuts, vanilla, toffee, almonds, cinnamon, and sugar) walked around, and sat in a tulip garden! After the festival, I went back down into the city, had yet another fantastic and cheap meal (beef goulash this time, AMAZING!!!!) and went back to my hostel!

Sunday I woke up early, did a walking tour (by this time I had seen most of the sites but it was cool hearing the history of the city), ate lunch (I don't know what it was, but it was like 300 grams of protein smothered in gravy, mmmm!!!) and headed across the river. I went to St. Nicolas Cathedral, St. Vitus Cathedral, and then to the Jewish museum. After that I went back to my hostel to relax before dinner, went to dinner (pork medallions with bacon and garlic, Cole slaw with vinegar instead of mayo, and of course, beer), walked around a little, and then went back to my hostel. I turned in pretty early b/c I had to leave for the airport pretty early in the morning.

Monday I flew home, went to the gym (lots and lots of gravy in Prague...) and attempted to do homework. Had dinner with Anne (Peter was in Koln for work, Henrik had soccer from 6-9), did more homework, and went to bed.

Tuesday was a normal day, class, shwarma for dinner, wall street for cheap beer.

Today I woke up, went to a bakery near my house, ate a pastry on the shore of the lake near my house, and now I NEED to finish my paper that I've been putting off for a week! These next 2 days are going to be major hw days (end of semester rush) so you probably won't hear from me, but I will update next week when I am doing all of my last minute cultural things!

I can't promise that my pics from Prague will be up within the next two weeks, I'm going to be pretty busy, but I will try!

Hello from Prague!!!

So normally I would try to put "Hello from Prague" in the language of the country I am in, but if any of my beautiful readers out there have ever experienced the Czech language, they will understand why this is not the case for this post! Czech is absolutely mind boggling! I guess it is kind of similar to Russian, but all I know is I don't understand it, I cannot relate it to any other language I know/pretend to know, and everyone mumbles/speaks very softly!

Other than the language barrier that caused me to get lost for 3 hours yesterday, Prague so far is amazing!!!! The food is all pork, potatoes, and brown gravy, so naturally I am in HEAVEN!!!! Everything is super cheap as well. I just back from dinner where I had a huge main dish plus a big beer (in a stein and everything) for $6!!!

So yesterday I got into Prague around 10am, learned the hard way that though everything else in Prague is cheap, taxis are not (well, I guess it is not that bad, $30 to get me from the airport to my hostel, about 45 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic!) and then started my grand exploration!

I just started wandering around, ate a 50 cent pastry in this really beautiful park, ended up in Vashrad (sp) which was the fortress/royal residence in the 10th and 11th centuries, got hugely lost, sat in the botanical gardens, got lost again, and then met some friends from DIS for dinner! After dinner (pork sparrow (no, I don't know what a "sparrow" is in pork terms) potato dumplings, bread dumplings, 2 kinds of cabbage (red=delicious, the sauerkraut I left), and delicious beer) we went on a pub crawl which was lots of fun! We ended up at this really famous club in Prague that is 5 floors with a different theme on each floor. I of course was partial to the 80's themed floor, but that's just me!

Today we woke up, got pastries and cappuccino (about $3.50), and headed towards Charles Bridge. This is a really famous pedestrian/touristy bridge over the river. Tons of statues (including one of a woman and a dog - you rub the woman for good luck and the dog for bad luck), lots of street vendors, and a KICK ASS view of the city! After the bridge we walked through the Old Town (as you can imagine, completely beautiful) on our way up to Prague Castle. At the Castle we watched the changing of the guards, took a tour of the Castle and St. George Basilica, and walked down Golden Lane which was a street that has been maintained since back in the day so it is tiny with all these cute little houses (i.e. like any Danish town). This street was where Kafka lived so we got a pic of that too! After the Castle we had lunch and went to see...THE INFANT JESUS OF PRAGUE!! Very beautiful, kind of creepy, and super interesting. Apparently they dress this thing in different little outfits so they have all of these dresses which they had on display at the museum.

After IJP, we went to the Jewish Quarter where we walked around and saw the oldest Synagogue. After that we went back to the hostel, took naps, and then went to a Witch Burning Ceremony. Apparently this is a celebration of the end of winter/Czech's version of Halloween. We went with some people from our hostel out to this random park where the set up actually reminded me a lot of Lolapalooza. There was a big concert (Czech music, very strange...I mean, really out there...) a bonfire, lots of food vendors, people dressed up like witches, and kids running around everywhere! Very weird experience, but kind of cool.

After the fest we went to dinner and then went back to the hostel. Tomorrow my friends leave and I have my schedule all set!

Food log (for today):

Breakfast: nut swirl and cappuccino (nut swirl is kind of like a cinnamon roll with a nutty butter type thing instead of cinnamon, it was off the charts good!)

Lunch: get this, fried cheese (in steak form, as in, this was probably like a 100g slab of cheese, breaded and fried) served with boiled potatoes and tartar sauce (apparently a Czech specialty...)

Dinner: at the fest we had sausages which were delicious and then we went to dinner and I had a pancake/crepe thing stuffed with spinach, potato, mushroom, and cheese

Off to Prague!!

This week was a shortened week (classes only on Monday and Tuesday - meaning I only had class Tuesday, and one of them was cancelled!) because Denmark, though technically a Lutheran nation, recognizes whatever different religions they have here so instead of getting days off school/work for random religious holidays (Ramadan, Hanukkah, All Saints Day, etc. etc. etc.) they just have one big Prayer Day this week. In addition, as I found out tonight at dinner, all 8th graders are confirmed this weekend because it is Prayer Weekend (my host bro is being confirmed, very exciting)!! Soooo, despite the 4 10-page papers and 2 tests (one being an oral exam in Danish...gulp!) I am off to the old world to eat pork, see castles, and drink Pilsner! I will be in Prague from tomorrow to Monday, so I probably won't be posting (though it is not like I post every day anyways, sorry for being such a slacker), but I will take LOTS of pics so you can feel like you too got to experience this grand city!!! Originally I was going to meet my friend from Cornell there (she is in London now), but her parents freaked about the volcano and told her she couldn't go :-( So, I will be traveling the first 2 days with a girl from one of my DIS classes, and then for the last 2 days I will be a lone wolf. At first I was quite freaked out about this since I consider myself to be more of a schooling fish (in fact, I think I am of the tuna variety - I school with other tuna, but I rely on dolphins to find the food sources...), but I feel that this will be a time of self-discovery and learning to find my own damn food!

-->note: sorry for the fishy metaphors, I had a double marine bio lecture yesterday and have spent literally all day writing 1. a paper about humpback whale songs and 2. a fairy tale ( a la H.C. Andersen) about...you guessed it, jilted humpback whale love!

Anywho, other than trip prep, I really haven't done anything exciting this week. Monday I wrote a paper, Tuesday I had class from 8:30am to 9:15pm (though since one of my classes was cancelled I went to a cafe with my friend and had LITERALLY the best carrot cake of life, I wanted to take a bath in the deliciously creamy cream cheese frosting, I actually had to restrain myself!!!) which was NOT fun because the night class was marine mammals and all we did was watch Blue Planet. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Blue Planet more than any human should love a film, but 1. I have seen it many, many times and 2. it was Tuesday night, and as most of you probably know by now, Tuesday night is drinking night and I don't appreciate it when class gets in the way of my rigorous drinking schedule. The one good thing though was they bought everyone sandwiches at the movie and they were delicious and free! Today I woke up and started writing more papers! Of course I didn't get much done because I had planned to get stuff done, but that is life!

Anne has decided that she needs a new house so she had an interior decorator come in and they spent all day talking furiously in Danish, waving their arms, and measuring random things. Slightly distracting: yes, immensely entertaining: double yes. Though I think my favorite part was when Peter came home, accepting defeat that Anne was "spending the family fortune" and whispered that "if she (the decorator) decorates like she dresses we are in deep shit!" (this decorator was wearing combat boots and a skirt that looked like a trash bag sewn in random places by a blind monkey.) Anyway, apparently I am the last host student they will be having for awhile/ever because they were planning what to do with my room (tear). Guess I'll just have to eat the peanut butter my parents sent myself!!!

Food Log:

Breakfast: muesli and yogurt

Lunch: peanut butter and banana sandwich

Dinner: roasted chicken, rice with gravy, green beans, peas

Rosenborg Castle, Ballet, Homework!

Thursday my friend and I went to Rosenborg Castle which was once the "country estate" of King Christian IV. It is now located right in the middle of Copenhagen, along with the King's Garden which is a huge open space with tons of flowers (that are now FINALLY starting to bloom) where people can walk, picnic, etc. etc. etc. Rosenborg Castle is now where they keep the crown jewels which were gorgeous! Denmark doesn't have nearly as many jewels in their treasury as Sweden or Germany, but the Danish jewels were all super ornate and very colorful. After the castle I went home, went to the gym, and then had a wonderful sushi dinner with the fam!

Friday was a normal but really fun day. I had a guest lecture in my marine bio class talking about a mysterious virus in seal communities in Denmark that has caused 2 huge epidemics which was actually really cool (insert lame science joke here...)! Also, in my Hans Christian Andersen class we watched the Disney version of the Little Mermaid to see how it compared to HCA's version (needless to say for those that have read the real fairy tale - it is quite different!). After class I ate the best cupcake of my life (yellow cake, caramel center, milk chocolate frosting, toffee chips on top) and then went home, went to the gym, and then had my favorite Danish dinner (I don't know what it is - I called it Danish hamburgers which caused something of an outcry from the Danes - but it is ground beef, seasoned, covered in flour, and then cooked in a frying pan with boiled potatoes and a brown gravy)! After dinner I met up with some friends (2 people have friends from home visiting so we wanted to all go out together) and had a hygge night!

Saturday I woke up, chilled with the host fam, had an awesome lunch (fish balls and cod eggs - the best Danish smørrebrøds), went to the gym, and then went to the Royal Ballet with friends! The ballet was awesome, we saw "Shakespeare in Motion" which was the story of Othello for the first half and then I don't know what the second half was but it involved Victorian -era dress, an illegitimate child, and a dancing brown bear! After the ballet we went out for a drink and called it a night pretty early since we were all dressed up.

Today is major homework day. I have 4 term papers due on May 7th (all around 10pgs) and I will be in Prague for most of next week. Sooo, today my goal is 1 and a half papers, but we shall see what happens!

If anyone has any suggestions as to something I can cook for my host fam (main dish or dessert) please let me know. I want to make them one last special dinner before I leave but I'm running out of cooking ideas (yes, I only have about 3 dishes in my repertoire...)