i only have classes four days a week to give us time to travel and do field studies with our classes every wednesday. this is awesome. however, my classes always start at 8:30 am— which means i leave the house at 7! not so cool. in any case, this will be the first week with the regular schedule of classes and field study, and i’m really looking forward to having more of a routine here.
on friday afternoon i meandered to the queen’s palace at amalienborg, which we had already seen briefly on the scavenger hunt, with two friends from goucher. little did we realize that they do a changing of the guard ceremony at that time…we just walked through the courtyard of the four rococo palaces and found a good two dozen guards in the full uniform of fuzzy hats and long, blue coats. they proceeded to march around the courtyard to a drum and flute tune, yell commands, move their guns around, and do some ceremony with swords. i wish i knew more of the story behind this, but in any case it was pretty awesome that we randomly saw it in an hour-long break between classes. after that trek i headed back to my host family’s home and spent the evening watching movies with them.
the royal palaces just keep coming here. on saturday i went on the optional school-sponsored trip to helsingør (or elsinore, in english). the town is about 45 minutes north of copenhagen on the northern end of the island of zealand. it is denmark’s closest point to sweden and home of the famous kronborg castle, home of shakespeare’s hamlet. we wandered around the old town for a while, which was very charming and small. of course the drizzly winter weather meant that it was a bit tough to enjoy the outdoors, but at least the crowd was limited to other DIS students and a surprisingly large amount of locals. there are benefits to traveling at this time! i had my first falafel in this country, where the recent influx of middle eastern immigrants has brought with it a wave of delicious food such as falafel. it was only 15 DKK (like $3) for an entire meal, while many of my classmates spent upwards of 50 DKK.
after the afternoon in town we hopped back in our very conspicuous tourist buses and went on a tour of the castle. it was gloomy and eerie in the mist, especially when we went to the underground chambers which used to serve as barracks for the danish army. the tour guide was a really interesting older lady who gave us personal details as well (such as her being able to walk across the ice to sweden as a little girl, which she can’t do any more because of global warming, and the fact that she studied abroad in portugal when she was our age). the castle itself was clearly once a place of splendor but had seen its share of destruction by the swedes. the ballroom was amazing—apparently once the place of europe’s best parties— and had a display of textile designs done by students at the local art school.
today i took a walking “alternative copenhagen” tour, which was alright. nothing mind-blowing, but it was nice to hear what a copenhagener had to say about the area. of course a sunday in january might not have been an ideal time considering everything is closed on sunday and the drizzle seemed mighty cold after two hours of walking around outside, but again the tourists were entirely absent. i look forward to exploring the cafes, restaurants, etc. later in my stay here, especially in the funkier districts of vesterbro (once more of a sketchy area known for its prostitutes and junkies) and nørrebro (mostly an immigrant community).
for now, however, i have some serious homework to do. i am giving a presentation to my danish design class on tuesday and need to study up before then!
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