My last few posts have been about my weekend trips, but don’t think there aren’t a TON of things to do in Copenhagen! While abroad I want to travel and see as much of Europe as possible, so I make up for that during the week by sightseeing and spending time with friends in my host city.
Last Monday, some of my friends from my kollegium and I had dinner at our friend Patton’s new apartment in the center of the city! I love my dorm and my single room, but I was still incredibly jealous of Patton and his sophisticated housing. Patton turned out to be an incredible chef and made us a gourmet meal that I’m still fantasizing about. And of course, all proper European dinner parties involve wine, so we each brought a bottle. Obviously we had a great time.
Gronjords friends- Isabel, Andrea, Lauren, Maggie, and Emily with our wine and appetizers.
On Tuesdays and Fridays I end class at 11:25, so on Tuesday I went to one of my top Copenhagen destinations- Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli is the second oldest amusement park in the world and is the third most visited in Europe! With all these accolades I expected Tivoli to be a lot bigger than it actually was, but it was still the perfect place to spend a relatively warm afternoon.
A beautiful day at Tivoli!
Tivoli is also known for its decorative gardens, so I bought a season pass for the rest of the year so I can enter for free! I’ve heard the Halloween and Christmas decorations are not to be missed, so I’ll definitely be making return trips to Tivoli in the coming months. While I was excited to see the gardens, my primary reason for going to Tivoli was to go on ALL of the rides. My friends Kerry, Jessie and Lauren were all on the same page, so we each bought a separate ride pass for the day. Since we were there on a Tuesday afternoon, there were practically no lines and we went on almost every ride!
Lauren and I paid for this picture so we can treasure the memory forever.
Some of the rides would definitely not be allowed to operate in the United States. We spent an hour waiting on line for Vertigo, a four person airplane ride that whips you around in the air. It was by far the most insane thrill ride I’ve ever been on—I could barely breathe, but I somehow had enough air to scream “OH MY GOD!!!!” the entire time. The group also made the poor decision to ride The Dragon, a ride that spins you in circles, up and down, back and forth…all the while causing you to bang your head repeatedly against the back of your seat and have your thighs crushed by the safety bar. We were all screaming in pain on that one and had to de-stress by riding the carousel afterward.
Taking a picture by a soothing fountain after The Dragon–we’re still a little dazed.
[pagebreak]
I ended classes on Tuesday last week thanks to my first study tour! At DIS, you choose a core class to take that most likely corresponds to your major. You go on one short study tour for three days and a longer tour for six days with that class. I’m taking European Culture and History, and we spent Thursday to Saturday on our short study tour to the western part of Denmark, called Jutland, and northern Germany.
This was our first official activity of the trip- to look at a windmill and a flagpole.
A typical Jutland scene- sheep.
Going into the trip I only knew about three other people in my class, but after a few hours on the bus together we had all bonded. All we really saw of Jutland on Thursday was the scenery and LOTS of farm animals. The highlight was when we reached the Danish-German border! Many European countries are part of the Schengen Agreement, which calls for open borders and allows you to travel within the Schengen Area without having to show a passport. We spent about 20 minutes excitedly running back and forth between the German and Danish sides of the highway and taking pictures.
Welcome to Germany!
Inspired by, among other things, A Walk to Remember– I’m standing in two places at once!
We spent Thursday night in southern Denmark and began heading back to Germany on Friday. We first stopped at a concentration camp in Denmark with a complicated history. From 1944 to 1945 it was called Froslev and was run by the Nazis to imprison members of the Danish resistance. Froslev wasn’t like most of the other concentration camps in Europe at this time–there were no Jews held there and no on-site executions. However, 1600 Danish prisoners were deported to other concentration camps, where 230 of them died. After the war ended, the Danes took over Froslev and changed its name to Farhus. It became a prison camp for German military members and Nazis from 1945 to 1949. The Farhus history of the camp is barely mentioned—it is now a museum about Froslev.
We agreed that it looked more like a summer camp than a concentration camp–minus the machine gun inside the watchtower.
After Froslev/Farhus, we crossed into Germany and visited Duborg-Skolen, a Danish school in Flemsburg. Most of the students at this school have at least one parent that is Danish but living in Germany. Classes are taught in Danish and modeled after Danish schools, but all of the students speak German as well. We talked to some of the students about their double identities and toured the school. I spent most of the time jealously staring at their clothing–even German Danes are super fashionable. By the time we reached the city of Hamburg, Germany on Friday afternoon, we were completely exhausted. That didn’t stop my friends and I from going out that night to experience some German nightlife! We went to the Indra Music Club where The Beatles first played together and explored St. Pauli, Hamburg’s red light district.
Thanks to these silhouettes, you too can pretend to play like The Beatles.
On Saturday we saw more of Hamburg, then spent 5 hours traveling back to Copenhagen. I had so much fun with my class and am excited for our long study tour together in the Czech Republic!
Most of my class on the ferry ride from Germany back to Denmark.