When this post goes live I’ll be somewhere in the Czech Republic (this month has been all about traveling!), so since I’m writing this a few days early I decided to talk more about my day-to-day life in Copenhagen.
Normal day-to-day events include stumbling upon time trials for world-class cyclists.
I’ve been having an incredible time traveling around Europe on my weekends, but I’m having just as much fun in Copenhagen during the week! Well, usually. While I’ve been trying to continue exploring the city by going to places and events like the Amager Strand beach on the other side of the island I live on and the time trials for the World Cycling Championships, this past week I had FOUR EXAMS- who said abroad classes were supposed to be easy?! I’m taking five classes and had exams in every single one of them except my Creative Writing in Scandinavia class.
I ventured over to the beach to write about it for my Creative Writing class.
The other classes I’m taking are European Memory and Identity: The Czech Republic, European Storytelling from Homer to Harry Potter, Danish Language I and Developmental Disorders. I spent my first few European Memory and Identity classes sitting in the back feeling extremely confused because we were talking about Denmark and Germany, not the Czech Republic. The last time I took a history class was senior year of high school, so I had assumed we’d be learning the history of the Czech Republic. A classmate later explained to me that we discussed Germany and Denmark first because that’s where we traveled on our short study tour. Since then we’ve been learning about the Czech Republic, but the class still takes some getting used to. The professor has been living in Denmark for years but is American, so he still understands that Americans like to be as prepared as possible before exams! He gave us detailed instructions on what to prepare for, and I found it was actually sort of interesting going back and studying the material that I originally didn’t understand why we were reading.
Another thing I don’t understand- what is the purpose of this dirt pile/landfill/fake lake area besides something for children to play on?
My European Storytelling class involves reading a lot of folk tales and some theory, but our test was only 25 minutes long so it wasn’t too bad. Danish was definitely a challenge to memorize (honestly, who’s going to care what grade I received in my Danish class while studying abroad?), but I don’t think it went too badly. Developmental Disorders was probably my hardest exam and I was definitely glad when it was over. I’m getting college credit for all of my classes but none of my grades count in my G.P.A, so as long as I pass I’m golden!
These are the friends I didn’t see for a week when I was locked in my room studying.
Even though my grades won’t matter as long as I pass, I still tried to study just as hard as I would have for a test at Bowdoin. It was frustrating to have to spend every day holed up in my room when the weather this week was the best it’s been in Copenhagen! I went abroad to take interesting classes, but also to experience a new city and culture, so I hope my next round of midterms doesn’t make me feel like I’m missing out on spending time in the city I’m growing to love.
The last time the weather was so nice was when we had a surprise party for my friend Sarah’s birthday!
My crazy week was bookended by two days of fun: Monday night was the 40th birthday of Christiania, the “free city” that doesn’t consider itself part of Copenhagen. A few of my friends and I went to Christiania around 10pm on Monday to celebrate! There were tons of people there partaking in the festivities. It felt like Halloween because the entire neighborhood was covered in crazy, hippie decorations and lights. They lit paper lanterns and sent them into the sky, but because it was so windy the lanterns were blown all over the place and landed in trees. We saw one tree branch set on fire by a lantern before some Christiania residents got it under control. I stayed until the birthday fireworks ended, then went home to sleep before another intensive day of studying!
Crazy lit-up mushroom…thing in Christiania.
After my Developmental Disorders test on Friday, I was finally free! I’m not sure what I was more excited about: the fact that I was done with tests for a few weeks or that I could FINALLY go out and enjoy the unbelievably beautiful weather! I went back to Christiania with my friends Kerry, Lauren and Jessie to eat lunch and wander around. Right outside of Christiania, Kerry and I climbed the spire of the Church of Our Saviour to see the view from the top! We could see all the way to the northern neighborhoods of the city, the bridge that runs from Amager (the island I live on) to Malmo, Sweden, and even the building that houses the headquarters of Danish Radio that’s right in front of my kollegium!
Not sure if you can tell how sweaty I was after climbing to the top of the tower, but the view was worth the 25 kronor I paid to see it!
I’m not excited about getting myself to the airport by 7am on Saturday morning, but I’m extremely excited about going to Prague with my class! I’ll have a busy few weeks when I get back: my birthday, my parents’ visit, my friend Sam’s visit, and travel break! Expect lots of pictures to come!