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Europe Russia Study Abroad

St. Petersburg, Pt 1: Churches, Castles, and Canals

Got back from Санкт-Петербург, Россия yesterday!  For those of you who haven’t been working on reading in that alphabet for the past week, I’m talking about St. Petersburg, Russia.  My core course spent the past six days in the city, which was an incredible experience!  I’m going to split this into two posts, because six days is a long time and I took somewhere around 500 pictures.

Our first couple days were pretty touristy.  We got up at the crack of dawn to go to the airport, which meant we were still able to actually do some sightseeing when we got to the city.  Driving from the airport to our hotel was fascinating: the buildings nearest to the airport looked much more industrial and communist, but as we drove into the city center we could see the architecture change into a more European imperialist style.  For all of our tours, we were given headphones and receivers so that we could hear our professor even if we were behind the group, or in a room full of other tourists, which made it a lot easier to understand what we were seeing.  Our sightseeing tour that first afternoon included going to a Russian Orthodox mass, where they required all women to cover our hair.  Considering I have never really been to any type of religious ceremony, I felt a little out of place as the Russians lit candles, kissed icons, and crossed themselves.  The evening concluded with us taking a walk on Nevsky Prospect, which seems to be the Michigan Avenue of St. Petersburg.

The second day we headed out of the city center to Catherine’s Palace, with was breathtaking.  It was easy to imagine fancy balls and dinner parties among royals taking place there, as many of the rooms were covered in intricate gold leaf designs.  The coolest room was the Amber Room, which had panels of amber across the walls.  Despite originally being looted by Nazis, the room was recreated based on old photographs.  We wandered around the grounds of the palace as well.  A bride and groom were getting pictures done, so our teacher taught us a Russian tradition where you say “bitter” to the couple (it sounded like goy-ka) and they have to kiss.

That night, after a Dostoevsky city walk, our class took the metro!  In Russia, the metro is far enough underground that it can be used as a nuclear bomb shelter.  It’s surprisingly easy to use, since there’s no zone system like in Copenhagen.  For me, using the metro that day was a huge step to feel comfortable in the city, since it’s so important to be able to navigate the place where you are.  I appreciated knowing that I could find my way back to my hotel from anywhere in the city.

Our third day started out with a canal tour, and then we went to the Winter Palace/Hermitage, which, fun fact, has the largest exhibition of artwork in the world.  Sadly, we only got about an hour and a half in the museum because our professor wanted us to go to the Dostoevsky museum that day as well.  The highlight of that day, however, was that we got to go to the opera!  Although as a former dancer I would have preferred to see a Russian ballet, I love to see any performance, and I was thrilled to see Mariinsky Theater.  The part of the theater we were in had just been remodeled, so it was absolutely beautiful and modern.  Although I learned that I’m not a huge opera person, I still had a great time!

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Jyderup: Observations from an Open Prison

When you speak of culture shock, you might expect it to hit you right away when you arrive in a new country.  However, someone once told me about a theory of culture as an iceberg: you can see some of it as you walk down the street, but there’s so much more that isn’t obvious.  It only starts to become apparent later, when you learn about the underlying values of that culture and how they think about things differently than you’re used to.  For me, I feel culture shock whenever I spend time in my criminology class.

Today, we went to the Danish open prison in Jyderup and got a tour from a prisoner and a guard.  An open prison means that prisoners are often allowed to leave the grounds for work and school.  Even if they aren’t granted leave, the inmates are still allowed quite a bit of freedom.  In open prison, they are each given cell phones where they can text and call people at any time, they just can’t access the internet.  Denmark also has closed prisons, which are more similar to the type we see in the US, and are usually where prisoners with longer sentences start serving their time.  Criteria for a “long sentence” is 5 years.

We didn’t go through a metal detector or have any kind of search to enter the prison.  The inmate met us wearing regular street clothes, which is completely normal for Danish prisoners.  In the cells, most of the prisoners bring their own furniture, so the rooms end up looking quite nice.  We went inside two of them (but of course we weren’t allowed to take pictures).  The first was someone who I gather was from a rich family, as the inmate and guard warned us that most cells were not like that.  The room looked as nice, if not nicer, than my bedroom at home, with a TV on the wall and a personal bathroom.  The other cell was a bit smaller, but that one was in the drug treatment ward so it was less personalized and looked equivalent to most dorm rooms I’ve seen in the US.

When we saw the kitchen, one surprise was that there were knives hanging on the wall.  They were attached to the wall, but as the guard talked about that area of the prison she told us that she wished the knives were not attached.  It’s interesting, because Denmark’s philosophy on that is that anything can be made into a weapon if you try hard enough and so they would rather make it a little more normal for the prisoners.  Their entire criminal system is about normalizing the prisoners as much as possible.  Visitors are allowed to spend time in the prisoner’s room, and they’re allowed to cook together in the kitchen or play football in the yard.  Girlfriends or wives are even allowed to have sex with the prisoners- the guard told us it was nicer to be able to use your own bed than the one in the visiting room “that would be used probably six or seven times before you got there.”

We went to see the gym, where they told us that Denmark restricts weights in prisons.  To use the heavy weights, the inmates must have a ‘green card’ from an organization that tests for steroids, which the prison implemented to stop steroid users from bulking up and being more aggressive.

Both the inmate and the guard said that the prison we saw was Denmark’s nicest open prison, mainly due to its policies for family visits.  The prisoner talked about how it made him want to follow the rules more, because there was more at stake and he didn’t want to go back to a closed prison where he couldn’t see his wife and children as often.  He had served approximately four years of an eleven year sentence for trafficking cocaine, and also spoke about how difficult it would be to adjust to life outside since he had never known a life where his primary source of income was not criminal activity.

For me, coming from a summer of working in the District Attorney’s office, it was fascinating and shocking to see this type of system.  I’m still somewhat baffled as to how it all works, since that level of social trust is a foreign concept to me.  They have open prisons, open public transportation systems, and most of their society relies on people doing what they’re supposed to.  And people don’t take advantage of it!  I’m so glad I got to go see open prison while I’m here, since the legal system has always fascinated me and Denmark’s is so incredibly different.  Even after this, though, I’m sure my criminology class will continue to surprise me.

I leave for Russia on Sunday, so the next time I post I will hopefully have pictures and stories from that!  Vi ses!

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Aarhus: Rainbow Fog in AROS and Taking a Taxi to Legoland

This weekend, my friend Emmy (who lives in my kollegium) joined me in traveling to western Denmark, specifically Århus and Legoland!

On Friday, we took the train into Århus after classes and walked around the city a little, but we went to bed early, since we got up the next morning at 6 to travel to Legoland.  We walked to the bus station, where we were supposed to be able to take the bus the hour and a half to Billund.  The bus was late, which to us Americans is not that weird.  The Danes also waiting for the bus were far more concerned than we were, though, and so one woman actually called the bus company.  Apparently, there’s a policy where if the bus is over 20 minutes late, the company has to reimburse everyone for a taxi.  The woman who called was amazing, and she took care of everything.  She came over to explain to us in English what was going on, got the taxi, and fronted the money for all six of us at the stop who ended up taking the taxi.  The whole thing was incredibly lucky, because we ended up not having to pay for transportation to Billund at all!  Once we got to the airport, we walked three kilometers to the actual entrance of the park, in time to actually watch it open.

Legoland was awesome.  Just the mini Lego landmarks alone were totally worth it (as you can probably see from the number of pictures I took of them), and after we finished looking at all of that we went and rode as many rides as we possibly could.  A couple highlights of the day:  I managed to order us ice cream in Danish, I touched a starfish, I bought my first set of Legos at the world’s largest Lego store, and we split a giant plate of french fries in the shape of Legos.  All in all, an excellent day.

We spent the night in Billund, and headed back to Århus the next morning.  Our main goal in Århus was to see AROS, a modern art museum.  One of the coolest parts of that was a room with mirrors in it, so you could stand in a hallway or stick your head out of a window and see yourself infinitely reflected.  I felt like I was in a sci fi movie and I was staring at clones of myself.  There was also a room entirely filled with fog and it turned brilliant colors as you walked through it.  The lack of visibility meant you couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of you.  Then, the top section is a giant rainbow hallway where you can walk through it and see the city.

Once we’d seen the whole museum, we walked around Århus for a while and enjoyed the feel of the city.  It’s Denmark’s second largest city, and it’s more quiet than Copenhagen.  Sitting in a square and eating a late lunch was lovely.  I’m glad I got to see a little more of the country I’m living in.

Vi ses!

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: Canal Tours, Ballet Shows, and Turning Twenty

I turned 20 on Sunday, and it was pretty weird to have my birthday away from home for the first time.  My friends from the kollegium celebrated with me, which was really nice.  I got to blow out candles, and they got me a card and a few things from Tiger (which is essentially Danish Target).  I ate a lot of cake, so I definitely qualify the day as a success.

I’m taking two one-credit classes while I’m here, which allow me to take guided trips after learning about the areas, and both of those classes started yesterday.  I had Impressionism in Paris first, where we went over Parisian architecture and how it was essentially redone in the 1850s.  Our teacher told us Paris is not really older than Chicago, which seems very strange to me!  We also discussed our study tour, which is going to be amazing.  I’ve wanted to travel to Paris for years, and going with my class will let me do a lot of things I might not do on my own, including a Seine dinner cruise!

My other class was Auschwitz: Genocide to Memorial, which goes to Krakow for four days. (side note: my teacher pronounces it Krakoof?  Is that how it’s supposed to be pronounced or is that just the Danish accent?)  We’ll be spending a full day at Auschwitz and Birkenau during the trip.  Despite the heavy subject matter, I can already tell I’m going to learn so much in that class.  My teacher knows so much about the subject and his lecture on the structure of the camps was fascinating.

Tuesday night, my Danish class went to the ballet!  The theater is gorgeous, and the Queen showed up to watch the ballet as well.  It’s interesting to see how everyone stands up when she arrives and waits to leave their seat for intermission until she does.  The ballet was pretty hard to follow… apparently it was based on some opera.  Here’s how I think the story goes: a rich girl is in love with a poor boy, but her rich younger sister loves a rich boy and his family isn’t thrilled that her family is associating with poor people so they all want the older sister to break up with the poor boy.  Also, somewhere in there she gets tuberculosis and dies.  To add to the confusion, there’s a ballet within a ballet where the main dancer is a character but then sometimes is also the rich older sister….?  The man next to us tried to explain the plot, but his English wasn’t quite nuanced enough…. “How do you say it in English?  Whore.  They thought she was a whore.”

Today I met up with Sarah and we did a canal tour and ate pastries and ice cream.  It’s cool to see the city over the water for a different perspective.  It’s also amusing to see the tourists who clearly just got here…. “Look!  Graffiti!  Take a picture!”

Danish word: blåbær:  blueberry.  One of the types of ice cream I got today (the other one was oreo)

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Fanø, Stargazing, and the Jelling Stones

I just got back from a trip to western Denmark with my core course!  It’s nice to be back to my kollegium with wifi, and more importantly, hot water.

This trip was the first time I’ve actually been on continental Europe, since Copenhagen is on an island.  Driving through western Denmark is pretty much the same as driving through the Midwest in the United States, except you have to replace the cows with sheep, add a lot more trees, and give about half the houses the European-style red roof.  Driving across the entire country east to west was also much shorter than basically any road trip my family has ever done, too.  With the same amount of driving, you might be able to get out of my state at home.  If you’re lucky.

Our first stop was Ribe (pronounced like Reeba) which is the oldest town in Denmark.  It used to be an important city in the Viking times, and now it’s adorable and quaint.  I really wanted to spend more time in the city, but we only had about an hour.  Part of it I spent at a café getting “pancakes” (crêpes) with ice cream.  This café was established in 1583, which is incredible!  It’s been around longer than our oldest monuments on the east coast. The rest of my time was spent wandering through the streets and looking at the architecture of the houses.  Then, we were marched back to the bus so that we could go to Fanø.

Fanø is a tiny little island off the west coast.  It has two main towns, and we went to the less populated southern one.  Our class stayed in cabins on a campground, where “luxury” meant your cabin had a bathroom in it.  Luckily, my group of girls got lucky and ended up in one of the nicer cabins.  We spent a lot of time walking around on the beach and in the sand dunes, and went into the village as well.  Most of Friday was free time.  We went out as far as the sand was (which was pretty far since the tide was out) and stood in the North Sea.

Friday night we went to a folk musical festival as a class.  The musicians were very impressive, and it was great to hear the rhythms of another culture and watch them dance.  I ended up leaving a little early with another girl from my class, and we went to the beach and did some stargazing.  Laying on the beach and looking at the stars with no lights around us was….incredible.  It’s hard to describe in words.  It was more stars than I’ve ever seen before, and probably ever will see again.  It’s hard to find a place that’s so removed from humanity’s influence, and Fanø also had the advantage of being flat so the stars could be seen all the way down the horizon.  It was truly beautiful to experience.

The next morning we headed out, stopping in Jelling en route for lunch and a tour.  Jelling is an important site in Denmark, and is actually one of only a few UNESCO world heritage sites in the country.  The stones are the first place where the name Denmark showed up in reference to the country, and the entire area is a Viking monument.  They used to have a pagan burial ground there, but when Denmark became Christianized they added a church and the site is still currently being used as a cemetery in Jelling.

I’m so grateful that our short trip to Denmark included places that aren’t easy to get to alone.  The experience in Fanø was one that I can’t ever replicate, and it was great to see those pieces of Danish history with knowledgable guides.  In two weeks I’ll be going to my first European country outside of Denmark (I’m starting with Russia.  Go big or go home) but it’s been wonderful to get a better sense of the country I’m living in for these next few months.

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: The Round Tower and Vikings at the National Museum

This week is core course week, which means I don’t have normal classes.  Yesterday, my core course (the one that will eventually go to Russia) met with a Danish poet and talked about the inspiration for his work.  He also read aloud to us in Danish.  Tomorrow, we’re workshopping our writing in small groups.  The assignment is to write something based somewhat on his method.  Thursday we leave for three days in western Denmark, which will be our first class trip for the core course!

Since today was completely free, I figured I should do a few more ‘touristy’ things.  I climbed the Round Tower first, which had some cool views from the top.  There was also a museum inside with some exhibits of furniture and design ideas from women.  The tower was designed so the king at the time could be taken up in a horse and carriage, because clearly he couldn’t just walk up to his observatory….

Afterwards, I went to the National Museum, which was super cool and also free.  The exhibits are kind of confusing, so I probably should have picked up a map.  But instead, I wandered around aimlessly, which is more or less how all exploring goes for me in Copenhagen.  There were a ton of artifacts from other societies, and Danish history from around the Viking ages to the 2000s.  I also saw an exhibit on toys and one that was Interiors from the 18th Century.  Probably the best thing I saw is pictured above…. in the exhibit with ancient Greek artifacts, there was a section on Hercules, and someone who works for the museum included the Disney version of Hercules and Meg.  Definitely an ancient artifact.

In other news, I bought myself a copy of the first Harry Potter book in Danish last week, and as I flipped through it last night, I found that the four Hogwarts houses are referred to as kollegiums.  My takeaway from this is that where I’m living is basically Hogwarts.  Also, the Mirror of Erised is Drømmespejlet (no idea how to pronounce that, sorry), which literally translates to ‘The Dream Mirror.’

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: Walt Disney’s Inspiration

On Saturday, Sarah and I spent the afternoon/evening in Tivoli!  It was a perfect day for it, because it was likely one of the last warm and sunny days we’ll have in Copenhagen.

This time, we bought the fancy tickets so that we could ride all the rides, which was completely worth it.  We went on the roller coasters, the spinning rides, and a ride that told us a selection of Hans Christian Andersen tales.  Some of the rides seemed very similar to the rides still seen at Disneyland, although obviously with different themes… The one I remember as being Dumbo is an octopus here.

We had dinner at an Italian place, where we got mac and cheese (the first I’ve seen here, actually), and then we went to go see Alvin Ailey.  They were, as expected, awesome.  I always love going to see dance performances, and Alvin Ailey has great musicality and power in all of their movements.  The theater was in an aquarium, so at least it was interesting waiting for the doors to open.

Afterwards we went back and tried out some more rides.  This was my first experience in Tivoli at night, and it’s cool to see how they light it up.  All the pictures from the evening are from Sarah’s camera, because the ones on mine were all really blurry.  My camera doesn’t do well in the dark, apparently.

Overall, it was a lovely day!  Tivoli is possibly my favorite place in Copenhagen.  Just walking around, every area of the park is absolutely gorgeous, and it’s designed for everyone to be able to come and enjoy it.  I can’t wait to see how they decorate it for Halloween and Christmas!

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: I See My First Swan

Yesterday I went with a couple friends to Copenhagen’s lakes, and we rented a paddle boat for an hour.  If you’re in Copenhagen when it’s warm, I would highly recommend doing this.  It was a great relaxing afternoon, and the views from the water were beautiful.  We saw Danes bringing wine and food on the boat as well and are considering doing that if there’s another nice day and we go again.

Most lakes or canals or general water around water here seems to have swans in it, which is strange to me since I don’t think I’ve ever seen a live swan in the states.  I never realized what large birds they are!  I definitely do not want to anger one.  Also, fun fact, the swan is Denmark’s national bird.  Which is also why they’ve shown up in several of the Hans Christian Andersen tales we’ve read for class (see: The Wild Swans, where one unfortunate person ends the story with a swan wing for one arm, and the better known Ugly Duckling).

Danish word: chokolade (shock-o-lell).  Chocolate is an important word to know in any language.

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: Classes, Churches, and Christiania

It’s almost the end of my third week here, and classes are starting to get busier!  Next week we have Core Course Week, where we just focus on one class and travel to Western Denmark.  My core course is A Sense of Place in European Literature, and we go to the island of Fanø.  We got the itinerary today, and it should be an interesting experience (although a little rural for my tastes I think).

On Tuesday, we had a movie night for criminology, where we watched the movie R.  It was fairly depressing, as it focused primarily on two characters in Danish prison who got caught up in gangs and the prison drug trade, with some unfortunate endings for them.  Afterwards, our professor brought in the screenplay consultant and one of the main actors.  The screenplay consultant had been to prison ten times, evidently for low level assault, so his stories and opinions on the criminal justice system were fascinating.  He advocated for creating working education programs in the prison to help prevent some of the impressionable youths from ending up in a life of crime.  I also learned far more about the prison drug smuggling techniques than I ever wanted to know….

 I had another class activity Wednesday morning.  My Hans Christian Andersen class went on a walking tour of Copenhagen.  Unfortunately, we didn’t go to the really relevant spots like the Little Mermaid and his grave, but we walked around the city center and our teacher pointed out some spots where the buildings were the same as they had been during the early 1800s.  At the end, we saw the oldest building in Copenhagen and went in a beautiful church that was somehow affiliated with Copenhagen University, I think.  It was a good day for a walking tour, since the sun was actually out!

After the tour, I went to lunch at a café and then met up with some other friends.  We headed to the Church of Our Savior, which you might remember I climbed about two weeks ago.  They climbed the spire while I checked out the lower part of the church.  Again, lovely sculptures, as you can see above.

We headed over to Christiania next.  This is Copenhagen’s hippie commune, where basically it’s fenced off and relatively separate from the city.  They have their own laws, and people basically construct their own houses and live where they want.  One street, called Pusher Street, is where people who live there can sell marijuana and hash.  As I’m sure you could guess, they’re not really big on pictures, so I don’t have any to show.  Main takeaways: it was a lot bigger than I would expect for a hippie commune, I’m impressed when people are that good at using spray paint to create art, and it’s somewhat surprising that the Danish government doesn’t really interfere with the sales of drugs there.  I’m going back with my Danish class later in the semester for a guided tour, and I might try to buy a pair of the earrings one guy was selling there because they were really cool.

The picture of the view from that pretty glass building is at the Black Diamond Library, which is a decently long walk from class but is also gorgeous.  I’m not usually the type to study in libraries but I’m pretty sure I would make an exception to go to this one.

I tried to post this last night, but our internet in the kollegium died.  I’m very glad they fixed it, because the lack of ability to do homework, search things when I wanted, and communicate with anyone was fairly frustrating.  Hopefully this isn’t a regular issue…

Danish word: smørrebrød (pronounced smur brull) is an open faced sandwich that usually has herring of many varieties or other fish.  Apparently smoked eel is a delicacy on this.  Not my kind of food but we discussed it at length in Danish class today.

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Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: When in Lyngby

Yesterday I spent some time in the Copenhagen suburbs with my friend Sarah!  We met up in Lyngby.  They were having a festival, so some of the streets were closed and there was live music as well.  We went out to brunch at a Danish place, where they gave us a menu in Danish and we did our best to translate.  We ended up splitting the vegetarian brunch.  Main takeaway from that: when the Danes say “American pancakes” it’s definitely not the same.  The pancake was quite good though.  Afterwards, we walked around the world’s most confusing mall, because apparently in Denmark they design malls to look like labyrinths.  We stopped by Paradis to get ice cream (it’s funny because “is” in Danish means ice cream) and then headed to Sarah’s host family’s house.

They have a lovely house.  It’s a lot smaller than a typical American family home, only on one story.  There are a lot of windows in the main living areas so it looks light and airy, and most of their furniture appears to be straight out of an IKEA catalogue.  Her family wasn’t there for long, as they were going out to dinner with one of their friends, so Sarah and I just hung out at their house for a while and made dinner together, which was nice.

I’ve also successfully done laundry, gone to a club in Copenhagen, and turned in my first writing assignment for class.  This week, classes will actually start to get busier, because our field studies are starting up.  On Wednesday, I’ll be doing a Hans Christian Andersen-themed walking tour with one of my classes!