Five things I did this week, here in Denmark:
- I didn’t have class last Wednesday, of all things, so I tried to go to an art museum that didn’t exist. Well, it did exist but not at the place where CityMapper, my trusty navigation app promised. I tried to walk there on a dodgy ankle but ended up in front of an office complex. Then I tried to take the bus, and it dropped me off in front of a giant cruise ship docked in the harbor. So I walked all the way back past the original bus stop, back on the train, and went to the more centrally located Danish National History Museum.
- About the Danish National History museum, which I went to. It was a surreal experience. I was still in a strange mood from my dropped off in front of a huge ship in a strange city adventure. I entered into an exhibit on the various tribes of Greenland, which had eerie and trippy tribal chants playing in the background. I ended up in China, staring at porcelain and fine robes. It was also the first time I saw a Nintendo 3DS and a Wii in a museum. I’m telling you, that’s the future, playing Zelda in museums. It was freaky to consider.
- Anyways, after that I met up with friends back at our program’s headquarters and we went to Paper Island. Paper Island is this newly opened area in Copenhagen. It used to be a Paper Factory, but now it’s been shut down and somehow turned into this trendy hip restaurant area on the harbor. The place literally looked like a warehouse from the outside, but walking in it was full of delicious food trucks string lights and wooden tables- very hyggeligt!
I don’t have a picture of the place, only my (duck) burger…my mind was clearly on my food!
4. I learned some Danish. Sometimes I can even tell the topic of my host families conversations! They’re very social and have hosted two separate dinners featuring twelve different friends in the past weekend- lots of opportunities to pick up a few words (or zone out in a blur of rapid Danish and get super confused). But anyways, I can count to ten now, know basic foods and even a few verbs. I could actually feel my brain go into Danish mode yesterday. It’s a very strange feeling to sit at the dinner table with ten people all speaking a language you don’t understand. Pretty powerful motivation to learn a little- I just want to understand the conversation.
5. I went to the beach in January. My host family has a summer home in the town of Gilleleje, about an hour’s drive from Copenhagen, and they took me up Saturday to see it. We took a nice walk on the rocky beach with a very happy dog- it was strange to think I was seeing the Atlantic Ocean from the other side. It was too cloudy to see Sweden- however much the Danes claim it “spoils the view”. Afterwards, we had a lunch of smørrebrød- the Danish open faced sandwiches piled high with half things I knew, half spreads I’d never tried. It was, as I was told “very Danish.”
The Atlantic Ocean…from the other side (Sweden not visible)
Ever lovely yours,
Eleanor