Just another weekend in the life...

Hej everybody!

I'm currently holed up in the little cave that is the DIS library. The school tried to play a cruel trick on us just now, by locking all of its doors and forcing me to sneak in through the window of the architecture studio. Prompted a few strange looks from the AD students, but they all think I'm crazy anyway. Wonder why.

I am mostly blogging to procrastinate, and at first I was worried that I'd have nothing to say. This weekend has been pretty standard. Four of the other Gburg girls are in Amsterdam... and I feel like comparatively speaking, my stories will be a little boring. Then again, I have to remember that I am still in Copenhagen... and even a "boring" weekend is infinitely more exciting than a weekend in the 'burg or B-ton.

I'll start by saying that since the emotional chat with Iben on Thursday, things have been a little better. Friday night we had a fun dinner where we like grilled stuff on the table. I wish I could remember the word for it, but in theory it's kind of like fondue..... only with a grill. So there were just a bunch of random ingredients out on the table, like mini burgers, sausages, mushrooms, peppers, cheese, etc. and everyone just made what they wanted a little bit at a time. I secretly think that Iben picked it because it forced everyone to sit together for a longer period of time. It worked.

Then, those of us that were still here went out for Jamie's 21st birthday. And what a better way to celebrate than with karaoke?! Hahah so we went to our favorite, Sam's Bar, and signed up for a whole bunch of songs. I will admit... this was the first time I did karaoke without any alcohol in my system, so I was acutely aware of how bad I sounded. Caitlin and I made an attempt at "Land Down Under," and they ACTUALLY shut the music off on us. It was like being dragged off stage by an invisible cane (Though I still think it was just a technical problem). We eventually redeemed ourselves with "Africa," which was sooooooo good that we inspired some drunk Danish men to come up on stage and join us. The highlight of the night though, was probably Josh & Ali's rendition of Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me." I wish I hadn't accidentally deleted the video.

Saturday was spent being relatively productive. I got up and went for a run in the morning, and when I was waiting at the light by my house, some guys asked how far I ran. I must have been delirious or something bc I looked at my watch, which read 50 minutes so I said "50." Of course, they interpreted that as 50 kilometers and were SO impressed. I just rolled with it. I am now Rødovre's newest marathoner.

Saturday night, Liz, Julia and I decided to explore beyond central Copenhagen, so we took the bus over to Vesterbro (the western part of the city, known for being very trendy, and a little sketchy). We went to a club called Vega, but got there right as it was opening, so there weren't that many people around. SOMEHOW we drew the attention of a huge group of middle-aged Danish men, some of whom were married with children. It was probably very morally wrong to let them buy us drinks, but smart travelers know never to turn down something that is free. Julia was the one they wanted to talk to, anyway, so Liz and I just kind of reaped the benefits haha.

Fortunately, we escaped from them and went next door to dance for a little while. It was cool and all, and it was soo nice to take a break from the rest of the typical DIS bars, but we decided maybe Vega wasn't all it was cracked up to be. We left, decided that we wanted pizza, and somehow ended up eating a whole small pizza each. It was then that I whipped out my knowledge on the hormone ghrelin and how drinking makes you want fatty foods. Thank you, Dr. Noreen. hahah

I was lucky enough to gain an extra hour last night, so when I woke up at 1, it was really noon. It was nice to sleep in, but I hate sleeping past 11. And now I'm mad that I used that extra hour on sleep because all of a sudden it's Sunday and I have lots of homework again. I'm trying to get everything done before my parents come this week. So excited :)

Cultural Literacy

Wow, I have so much to write. Today has been oddly emotional, so I guess I will start with the most recent.

Iben and I just had a chat. She feels that I am really reserved and don't want to be part of the family. I said that the whole thing is really awkward for me because I feel like no one wants to talk to me. I guess it's just been a big misunderstanding all along, but I'm hormonal and she had me in tears because I don't want my host family to think that I hate them :( I also wish they would stop comparing me to the other students they've had! Yes, I should be putting in a LOT more effort than I have been... but at the same time, I was forced into this living situation that is really not my personality at all. Iben says she has complained to DIS about schools that force students into host families, and I plan on complaining to Gettysburg when I get home. However, for the meantime, at least I know that my family DOES want to talk to me... they just want me to start the conversations. I guess I'm pretty similar to all of them, actually, considering I want them to start the conversations. This talk was so emotional and embarrassing, and it delayed dinner and me working on my paper.... but I'm glad we had it.

In other news, I had a strange, serendipitous encounter this afternoon. Allie and I had been working on our outline, and when we left to go home... I made the split second decision to use the bathroom first. I only say this because if I had left with Allie, it would have thrown off the timing and this would never have happened. Anyway, I walked to my bus stop, and just as I was getting there, 2 guys rode by on bikes. They were speaking English, which prompted me to look up.... only to discover that one of them was Marc Baker, who I went to high school with! I shouted, and undoubtedly drew all kinds of attention to myself, but I had to get his attention because HOW WEIRD IS THAT? Apparently, he is studying in Prague this semester, but he and his friend are here for the weekend. And neither of us ever would have known if it weren't for being in the same random place at the same random time. I can't get over it.

Okay, so that was basically today's events. What else has been going on lately, you ask? Tuesday night, Courtney, Sara and I went to the opera... almost solely because we now sound so cultured and sophisticated saying that we went "to the opera." The truth is we weren't that glamourous. Sara had her enormous backpack with her from doing work all day, and we all probably had kebab breath from getting Turkish fast food beforehand. ALSO, the opera (Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin) was in Russian. The translation? Yeah, that was in Danish. It was still an amazing experience, and I don't think too much was lost by not speaking either language. I swear we are starting to be able to read Danish anyway. But the opera house was beautiful at night, and we went up to the balcony during intermission and took pictures over the waterfront. Thank youuuu, self timer.

Yesterday was chock full of culture as well. I had an art history field study from 1-8, which again, ate up some valuable paper-writing time, but it was worth it. The first museum had a Munch exhibit (ya know.. the guy who did the Scream?) but the real attraction was the modern art museum, the Louisiana. We saw all kinds of crazy contemporary art, exhibits on sustainable architecture, and my personal favorite, a Jacob Holdt exhibit.

Jacob Holdt is a Danish photographer who traveled to the U.S. in the 70s with $40 in his pocket, and stayed there for years, making friends of all social classes, moving in with them, and ultimately photographing them. They say "every picture tells a story," but in this case, we were given a little book of stories to go with the pictures. He lived in some of the poorest, black ghettos in Jersey City (JERSEY!) as well as with KKK members, serial killers, and wealthy plantation owners. And he still keeps in touch with a lot of them. The guy is nuts, but the photos are even crazier. It was awesome.

So NOW, I am going to finish my epidemic disease paper, and hopefully go be social with my host family. Jeez.

Love, actually, is all around.

This has been the perfect weekend.

Friday was rainy, cold, and miserable but I was already in a good mood because my first class was cancelled... meaning that I didn't have to be in the city until 11:40. Also, we had BIG plans for that evening. First we were going to the Ice Bar... which yes, is expensive, but it's one of those things that you're just supposed to do when you're in Copenhagen. Afterwards (because you can only stay frozen for so long) we planned to go to Kulør Bar, where you pay a cover charge of 60 kr. and get "free" beer from 11-1. Aka, the closest thing to a frat party you will find here.

The Ice Bar was amazing. It was a lot smaller than we had expected, but it was SO cool --- literally! (haha...) When you get inside, they give you a big, blue coat thing with a hood that keeps you super warm. Caitlin and I were wearing flats, so the guy at the desk gave us these awesome boots to wear so our feet were warm too. Once we were all suited up, we entered this intense portal to the Ice Bar. As soon as we got inside, of course, it basically just turned into one big photo shoot. We each got one drink... in a glass made of ice... and danced around a little until the novelty wore off and we were freezing. It's okay though because we were about to seriously sweat it out at Kulør. ORRR so we thought.

You need photo ID to get into Kulør, and though we all technically had it, a couple of the girls only had their DIS school IDs... which they were not accepting. We were sooo bummed out, but headed next door to the Wall Street Pub for the sake of staying out. The crowd wasn't that lively, but Becky did meet some Danish guy with a mask who claimed to be a bank robber. I got stuck talking to Martin, some guy from Arhus with probably the most boring conversation topics ever. Becky and I were getting antsy and bored so she texted Kevin, who had a plan for sneaking us into Kulør Bar.

In the end, Becky, Sara and I were the only ones who ended up going... and it was almost 12:30 by this point so the cover charge wasn't technically worth it if you wanted to get your kroner's worth in beer. But we just wanted to dance. And dance we did! Pretty much everyone from DIS was there and the place was packed. The three of us ended up getting seperated and each had a little unique experience of our own... but all in all I think everyone had fun. I fully intended to get on the 2:30 bus home, but somehow 2:30 turned into 3:30 and I wasn't home until a little after 4.

Saturday was an excellent change of pace. I attempted to sleep in... but woke up and went for a run instead (surprise, surprise). In the afternoon I met Becky and Courtney at Field's -- the biggest mall in Scandinavia. I took the metro, and I was so happy to have my ticket checked, because I actually had the right zone this time. Courtney was the only one to make real purchases, but it was fun to walk around the mall.... it reminded me of beautiful NJ. Some 15 year old Danish girls yelled at me and told me that they liked my "flat hair" and my boots.

Afterwards, we walked back to Becky's for some serious HYGGE. We carved pumpkins with her little host brothers, and then her host mom, Maja, made this fantastic dinner. I have no idea what it was called but it was delicious and there were Halloween decorations all over the table. It was soooo nice. After dinner, the three of us and Maja ate chocolate and watched "Love Actually," which has recently made my short list of favorite movies. It was seriously so hygge-ly that I wanted to cry. Perfect.

Maja friended us on facebook, and has invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner in a few weeks :)

Anyway, now it is Sunday and I guess I should be doing laundry and homework and other things of the sort. We're pretty busy with school stuff until travel break..... which is coming up SO soon. LOOK OUT IRELAND!

Denmark, in a nutshell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shepBx2ogJo

If you get the chance, check this video out. We watched it this morning in my core class, and it is a hilariously accurate description of the Danish mindset. You all probably know by now that Denmark is the "happiest country in the world." If you are curious as to how or why, please, enjoy!

Architecture, Karaoke, and a few days in HelSUCKY

Sorry for the delay between posts! I came back from study tour only to discover that I have a ton of work to be doing the next couple of weeks. No, I haven't been working on it yet... but I've been seriously thinking about it, and that has to count for something, right?

So Helsinki. Definitely the furthest north I have ever been, and would ever WANT to go. Did you know Santa Claus likes in Finland? Yeah. We weren't that far from the arctic circle. In fact, we were at the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. After we got off the ferry from Tallinn, we checked into the Holiday Inn. It was really nice! I roomed with Christie and we chose to hibernate that first night and watch ridiculous British TV.

The next morning... it was raining. Shocker. For whatever reason, I chose probably the worst footwear possible for walking around the city. It was a shame because this was the day that we had the most free time to explore Helsinki, but all we could do was hide out inside a cafe. We did visit the Rock Church (a church made out of rock...) and the Helsinki University Museum. Both were really cool, but I was really wet and not thrilled about it.

Helsucky

The Rock Church

The highlight of Wednesday was probably our visit to a Finnish health center. I know that sounds really lame, but it was definitely by far our best academic visit yet. It was really interesting to see how they keep GPs, hospitals, physical therapy, etc. all under one roof. They gave us watermelon and grapes, AND there was hand sanitizer every 10 feet for germaphobes like myself. All-around success.

Don't worry.. Thursday was infinitely better. The sun came out, which made our 30 min. walks from point to point muchhh easier. We kind of came to the conclusion that Helsinki looks more like an American city than any of the other places I've been in Europe so far. Something unique though..... there are lots of saunas. And when I say lots of saunas, I mean one sauna to every five people. It's a huge cultural thing (prob because they are so wet and cold all the time) so of course DIS had us try it. They divided us into men and women... which was probably pretty awkward for the guys considering there are only 3 of them, plus our teachers. The rest of us girls put on our towels (even though you're really supposed to go in the nude) and piled into one sauna. Some people really liked it, but it wasn't for me. You all know how sweaty I can get... and I get really freaked out when I can't breathe very well. Fortunately, there are cold showers right outside the door so we could take breaks pretty frequently. I have to say, my experience with showering with the XC girls every day definitely made this a lot easier for me than it probably would have been otherwise.

Next stop was the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra... but most of us opted to go back to the hotel and take a real shower first. We got all dressed up and headed to Finlandia Hall ..... where we ran into who, but the ARCHITECTURE program. I knew a few of them from my Visual Journal class, and from other things, so that was an interesting surprise. The concert was amazing. I mean, I'm not going to lie, I definitely dozed off for a little bit and had a weird Fantasia-like dream... but once I woke up from that it was great! Haha being at the orchestra made it feel even more like Christmastime to me. Gotta keep reminding myself that it's not even Halloween yet.

After the concert, most of us still needed to eat dinner. So we went to a place called Virgin Oil where we once again spent more than we probably needed to on wine & pizza. Somehow, through this whole trip we kept justifying our food purchases by saying "it was worth it" and "we're only in Helsinki once!" Whatever. I stand by those statements. We had a great time, and lots of good girlie bonding. I'm telling you "2 truths and a lie" is a great way to get to know people hahah.

We were just going to walk back to the hotel afterwards, but we somehow managed to stumble across a set of hipsters outside a karaoke bar. Allie immediately identified them as "ARCHITECTURE" so I mean, we naturally had to stop :) Also, I had been blabbering all week about how much fun karaoke is and how badly I wanted to do it. We put our names in for "I Want it That Way" and even though the wait was pretty long, Allie, Ariel, Jonelle, and I stuck around for it. Definitely, definitely worth it.

After not a lot of sleep, we woke up Friday morning and went to this crazy modern art museum. I could give you the name of it... but my itinerary is across the room hahaha. At any rate, it was really weird but really cool at the same time. There was this video exhibit called Elixir which involved laying on the ground and watching all kinds of weird images being projected onto the ceiling and walls. From there we went to our last group lunch, and then headed back to home sweet Copenhagen.

One last little anecdote that I left out .... we were looking for food before the philharmonic on Thursday, and we stopped into this little cafe by the central train station. Everything was in Finnish, so we had to ask what was in all of the sandwiches and wraps and stuff. The girl behind the counter pointed to one and was like, "this is rainbow and tomato. No, no, I'm sorry... I mean REINDEER and tomato." Reindeer. Really? Looks like the Finnish Santa is going to be one short this year. Sorry Rudolph :(

So now I guess it's time to get started on all of that work. I brought back a nasty cold from that nasty weather.. so now I'm a little HelSICKY. okay sorry I'll stop.

Until the next adventure,

Caitlin :)

Crossing the Iron Curtain, into the Eesti

I just got back from Tallinn and Helsinki with the public health program. I think maybe the best way to do this is to divide the trip into two blog posts, because LOOK OUT I have a lottttt to say.

I'll start with Tallinn, Estonia. I don't know which myspace-loving preteen started the trend of adding extra letters to words (i.e. how I just said "lotttt.." ugh I'm so guilty) but the Estonians definitely had her beat. The language is ridiculous, and almost every vowel is not only doubled, but has crazy accents over it as well. I'll have to hunt for some sort of example to give you.

But anyway... we landed in Tallinn late Sunday afternoon, after yet another rocky flight. Our hotel was considerably nicer than anything we had seen on short study tour, further proving that the public health class is kinda spoiled. We went to dinner at Olde Hansa, a medieval style restaurant with some REALLY good cheese. It was probably my favorite meal of the study tour, mostly because of the environment. This was the kind of place that could make you nostalgic for medieval times, even though you know deep down that life actually sucked back then. In addition to the cheese :) we tried a wide array of medieval foods... including tongue! That's right, Mom, I'm getting brave. Still didn't touch the sauerkraut though.

I pulled back the curtains in the morning, and it seriously looked treacherous outside. Dark, windy, spots of hail, the works. Perfect weather for a tour of the city, right? A tour guide led us around for about 2 hours... and even though we were all kind of miserable, it was definitely worth it. Estonia is so different from anywhere I've ever been, and there is a visible Russian influence almost everywhere. My favorite building was the Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox church, of which I now have an obscene number of photos. Perfect for BS-ing the architecture sketches I was supposed to be doing throughout the trip. Ooops. P.S. this photo was not taken on Monday --- note the blue sky.

So then we went to the Estonian Health Foundation, where we learned that Estonia has a ridiculous HIV problem, with numbers wayyy out of proportion to the rest of Europe. It was really interesting to hear about how some of the Russian minorities actually believe that HIV is a conspiracy and that doctors are injecting them with the virus. People are crazy. We had another academic visit later that day to a general practitioner outside of Tallinn. snoooore. I don't remember anything. Thank God for our observation booklets.

By this time, Allie, Ariel and I had had enough of Estonian food, so we opted for a nice italian restaurant. The food was great, and the whole evening was super hyggely .. minus the fact that Allie discovered a jail cell in the basement when looking for the bathroom. I'm telling you, Estonia is WEIRD. Afterwards, we met up with a few of the other girls who had eaten at the "Peppersack." It was sooo cozy & we had some of the best drinks ever, including mulled wine and lamumba ... which is apparently the name for hot chocolate with whiskey. Racked up a pretty big bill, but it was definitely worth it.

Tuesday morning was much nicer, so we got up and explored Tallinn before meeting the class at the Museum of Occupation. Estonia has only been an independent nation since 1991... and as the pamphlet on the plane so tactfully described, "the country has been attractive to many conquerers." We had a photoshoot with some giant Russian dictators... but it was hard to get much out of the museum since most of the descriptions were in Eeessttooonniiiaaannn.

We did; however, discover that ---- okay well, let me back-track a little bit. Bill and Mary Nic Harvey are this ADORABLE older couple who accompanied us on the study tour. I still have yet to figure out why exactly, but Bill is very knowledgeable in public health and had something to do with the formation of our new program. Anyway, they are the cutest people ever, and had all these amazing stories .. like how they lead a group of American students across the iron curtain in the early 70s. They had to travel under the Danish flag because they couldn't have done it as Americans. I was so impressed. And I was equally impressed that Mary Nic, who turned 70 on our trip, had noo problem just sitting on the floor with us during our lectures, etc. Even I was getting stiff sitting on the cold ground. Props!

Late afternoon we boarded a ferry called the Superstar to travel even further north to Helsinki. We had a dinner buffet (which I of course took full advantage of) and then ended up in a little kid play area, watching the Little Mermaid in Estonian. We're cool.

And this concluded our visit to Tallinn. Little did we know even more excitement awaited us in Helsinki. Ooooohhh.... CLIFFHANGER.