Part 5--Classes and. Castles

So, as I mentioned before, classes started on Tuesday. For any of you who don’t know, or don’t remember, I’m taking two classes about HIV and AIDS, one from a biomedical perspective and one from public health. They way the courses are organized, we take one class at a time, so I am currently in the biomedical class. This one is team taught by three Danish MDs with what I have gathered are varying degrees of teaching finesse, albeit seemingly equivalent knowledge and experience with AIDS patients. Overall, this class is turning out to be a lot more med-schooly than I was anticipating—the main focus is on treatment and patient care—but it is still pretty interesting. In summary of my education, though, I would like to pass along this message to all of you: Please, don’t get infected with HIV, and especially don’t go without treatment if you are. In short, use a condom! End of AIDS talk.

In other news, in my non-classroom time, I have been doing additional exploring (as well as reading for class…mostly). On Wednesday I ventured to the King’s Garden and Rosenborg Castle, which are actually only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. The King’s Garden is basically just a large grassy park. There are flowers and rows of the rectangular-cut trees that Copenhagen seems so fond of. There are also pigeons and people, many of whom have dogs or small children, but you get the idea. This park area, however also incorporates/surrounds not only Rosenborg Castle but also the Queen’s Guard training facility. So, after a brief stroll through the park, we followed a group of Danish school children (all of whom had tiny backpacks. It was quite adorable, but it also made me wonder if I had a tiny child-sized back pack when I was their size. I always thought my backpack was normal sized, but now I question that assumption.) across the bridge over the moat and into the Castle grounds. We toured the castle, which is maintained as a museum to display many Royal odds and ends, including the crown jewels. You had to pay extra to take pictures inside the castle, so decided to just rely on postcards and such. I kind of regretted that decision once I was inside as there were some really cool rooms and trinkets hidden within. I still can decide which I liked best: the mirror room, which had completely mirrored walls and a large oval mirror in the floor and ceiling, or the glass chamber, which housed all of the Royal glassware on impressive floor to ceiling (and I’m not exaggerating, the walls were all entirely covered) gold shelves full of glass. They were both quite impressive, as were the three life-size silver lions that guarded the King’s throne. The crown jewels were nice, too, but they were crown jewels, they have to be nice. But, overall, it was a pretty successful and entertaining tourist venture, complete with the opportunity to watch the Queen’s Guard depart on their march to her Palace for the changing of the guard.

My free time has also afforded me the opportunity to explore the Southern, more modern part of Copenhagen. It was unfortunately rather windy and chilly with patchy rain, but it was still an interesting experience. I thought it was a rather unique combination, seeing these large black steel and glass buildings right next to the rather traditional quaint and colorful older buildings. Even the fun traditional buildings were a lot newer than those in the part of the city where I’m staying. You can tell because they are built in straight, vehicle-conscious rows rather than the curvy, crooked pattern of the older parts of the city. This part of the city also contains the gold and black tower with the spiral stairs you can climb that I posted a couple of pictures of. We decided not to climb it that day because it was really windy and cold and there were some rather shady looking people just hanging around in the doorway… But, I’m still determined to make it back over there and climb it before I leave, perhaps just on a less blustery day. Or when there are fewer shady people hanging about.

That pretty much sums up my happenings since my first post. I’m not sure of my plans tonight. I hear talk of an ice bar (from the people that run the ice hotel) a couple streets over, but I’m not sure what the deal is with that. Guess we’ll see… Anyway, Malmo, Sweden on Saturday and Legoland Sunday, so I’ll keep you posted.

Oh! And thanks for the comments. I enjoyed knowing that people were actually reading this. And, Josh, you won the prize for length. I'll look for Hamlet's Castle for you...

In the Beginning...

Part 1—the Trip

So, my actual travel on Saturday was not extremely eventful. I flew from Indy to Chicago (This ended up being a rather stupid decision as I then had a five hour layover in Chicago. Avoid this. O’Hare is not somewhere you want to spend five hours of your life.) and then from Chicago to Stockholm, Sweden. My brief time in Sweden was probably the most interesting portion of my journey to Copenhagen. Getting off the plane, I met three other students who were with DIS, so we explored the Swedish airport together, journeying through the fashion mall-esque terminal to find our gate. The layover wasn’t too long, and soon it was time for boarding. It wasn’t until the woman scanned my boarding pass at the gate to illicit a red flashing light and beeping, that we realized something wasn’t right. After about a minute of the gate-keeper frantically typing and trying to figure out what was wrong, another woman in reflective gear with a walkie talkie came bustling over, jabbering in Swedish and then promptly telling us that she had been looking for us. She then led us two gates over, where the OTHER flight to Copenhagen was boarding at the same time. We then scrambled through the gate, to find our seats, the last open seats on the plane. Whoops. But, about 30 seconds after we boarded, they announced that they were ready for departure, so fasten your safety belt, etc. etc. So, anyway, that flight was short and sweet and promptly deposited us in Copenhagen.

Part 2—Arrival

So, once we arrived in the Copenhagen airport and had collected our bags, we met the lovely DIS representatives and were, after some waiting around, bussed over to the DIS headquarters for registration and such. DIS is located in the heart of the city center and is housed in two authentic (for lack of a better word, I guess) Copenhagen buildings. The main classroom building is pretty much unnoticeable from the street, as it is completely overshadowed by the two bars on either side of it. So, we registered and then a group of four of us went on a lovely walking tour of Copenhagen. In the rain. While I was quite impressed by my initial impression of Copenhagen, I’m pretty sure that this tour didn’t really mean as much as it could have, had I not been so sleep deprived. The rest of the day, wasn’t all that eventful because everyone was quite jet lagged, but we got our housing assignments. My building by far has the best location. It’s right in the heart of the city, right down the street from DIS, (unlike most of the housing which is about a 30 min bus/train ride out of the city) making it super convenient and actually pretty nice overall. I share a bedroom and bathroom with two other girls, and we share our lovely kitchen with two more girls in an adjoining room. I’ll post pictures. My favorite part is the courtyard outside our kitchen window. But, anyway, I went to bed at 9 and slept for about 11 hours before I had to get up for further orientation.

Part 3—Jeg vil garne have et stykke wienerbrøl. Tak!

Ok, so now I’m actually in Copenhagen. I love the buildings. They are so colorful and just kind of quaint. I really do love them. All buildings should be more colorful, it would make life way more fun. I firmly believe this.

We had a crash course in “Survival Danish” as part of our orientation. Dear god, this language is bizarre and I’m pretty sure it is virtually impossible that I could even attempt to really pick up any of it really. The pronunciation of things is the weirdest thing. But! I did learn how to order a Danish in Danish. I can mostly pronounce it correctly, or at least better than when I started so that’s something right?

After our Danish class, it was time for a scavenger hunt throughout Copenhagen. They divided us into groups of six and sent us out to explore some of the biggest sites of the main city. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so I’m just going to post my pictures (with some narration, because since when has 1000 words been enough?) on Facebook. But, I liked my scavenger hunt group (with one exception, but I’m going to leave all of my derogatory comments about people for not so public communication) and they are all in my class, so it was nice to get to know some of them before class started.

Part 4—No Photographs, please.

So, today, Tuesday, was the first day of class, which ran from 9-12, leaving the rest of the day for us to do whatever we wanted. So, my friend Yvonne and I set off to find the Little Mermaid out in the Harbor. We ended up walking along the canals which surround the parliament buildings and the Queen’s Palace, which consists of 4 large manners arranged in a circle aroundan open courtyard. Also, by the way, you can walk right through this courtyard and practically right up to the door, no security. There are only two guards, one in for the Queen’s mansion and one for the Crowned Prince’s. We then proceeded through the courtyard, up the adjoining street, and along a street with many national Embassies, all of which were in beautiful old buildings along the streets of Copenhagen and all of which you could walk right into, no problem. All of these embassies distracted us, however, and we decided to track down the American Embassy. Big mistake. We found it, and it, unlike every other country’s embassy including Canada’s right next door, was housed in a 70’s style gigantic buiding with huge black bars and two security guards. It made me embarrassed for America. Really? That’s what we have to show for ourselves? Ugly architecture and unwelcoming bars and guards? I mean, it’s Danmark for God’s sake, who the Hell wants to bomb the American Embassy in Denmark. No one. That’s right. Unfortunately, you don’t get a picture of this lovely American symbol because when I tried to take a picture from down the street to fully capture the flag and building’s aura, one of the guards spotted me and literally came running after me, whistling to get my attention as Yvonne and I walked away. He stopped us and interrogated us about our pictures, making us turn on our cameras back on, delete the pictures and show him to prove it. So, you can’t photograph the American Embassy, whoops. God help America and it’s unbelievable paranoia. Today, I was embarrassed to be associated with the US.

But, anyway, we did eventually make it to the Little Mermaid, and climbed over the rocks and past the pack of Japanese tourists (ubiquitous to all tourist attractions, worldwide) and took photographs with her in the water. Yay, Copenhagen.

Anyway, that pretty much wraps my time here so far. This was long and ramble-y, so read what you want. This is kind of just for me, so I remember things better. But, I promise, future posts won’t be nearly this long.