So what the heck is Festelavn? Festelavn.. aka the "Nordic Halloween" is basically a holiday the Danes celebrate- not really avidly though. They dress up and play games, and get some candy too. How you get candy is you have to break this thing that looks like a barrel and is basically a piñata, with a cat printed on it.. I think the danish name for it is: katten af tønden, which means the cat of the barrel. The way the game works is you hit the barrel until it breaks open, the person who does that is the queen of the barrel. Then, the person who breaks everything down completely is the king. Yeah- some weird thing! But anyway the party was pretty fun and I learned a lot of different danish traditions so that was good =)! This was in a dorm in Nærum, at my friend Matieu's (The guy on the right). Actually right now my dorm is gonna have a festelavn so I'll be going to that!
Hello Everyone! Sorry it's been a while since my last post... I've been really busy and a lot is going on in my life right now! I don't know if I'll be able to get to everything but now I want to blog a bit about the first Sunday of the month here in Denmark. First Sunday of the month you can ride the S-Train for free. This is pretty cool considering public transport is a bit on the expensive side here. Hellerup is just north of Copenhagen but is also considered part of the "greater Copenhagen area". It is considered one of the richest places in Denmark, and has lots of Marinas (Havn in Danish). It also is home to Tuborg and has quite a few breweries in the area. So anyway, we took the S-Train from Lyngby Station to Hellerup, which is only 2 zoner, which isn't that much money we saved. (Each 2 zoner klip is around 13 Kroners, for both of us comes out to be 52 kroner, or around 10 bucks). I wanted to go to Copenhagen cause it's about 4 zones I believe. But I've already been there a lot already and I wanted to see something new! Hellerup was definitely a nice area, and reminds me a lot of the suburbs. It was nice seeing it in the cold believe it or not, it had a nice atmosphere to it. Danny and I ate a really nice lunch in a cafe called Ovså in the local mall. We had a really nice lunch and I ordered this brunch which had a bunch of different toppings to put on bread like laks, sausages, egg, chicken, cheeses, jam, yogurt, and so on. It was really nice and it wasn't that expensive (for Denmark that is). Overall, it was a lot of fun! Pretty cold- but I managed with the coat that Danny's mom lent me.
Lots of stuff to write about-- and just not quite enough time! These pictures are from my last day of my 3-weeks class at DTU. I finished the course with a grade on the European scale of a 10. The way the grades work here is the highest is a 12 and then 10, 7, 4, 2, 0 and -3 respectively. A 12 is actually a lot harder to achieve here in Europe, and unlike in the United States can be unachievable for certain people. A motto in the US is that everyone has equal opportunities to achieve the same outcomes-- where as here, not everyone is as smart as everyone else, and they have come to accept this, and that is just OK. Anyway, to celebrate I hung out with Danny in the S-huset. Huset means House. So, S-House, or student house, is where I played pool with Danny and his classmates. We had a few beers and talked and it was some good fun. Then later on that evening I went to Running sushi with Sabrina and Mathilde (where you can see me holding the Sake). Running Sushi is a place in Copenhagen where you pay 200 DKK, or around 40 dollars, and get all the sushi you can eat off the conveyor belt. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we needed a reservation because it was all booked by the time we got there. After we had loooooots of sushi we went back to Mathilde's place in Copenhagen, (pictures above), and we had some beers and nuts and played a game called partners. I've never played this game before, and I don't know if it's specifically Danish, or European but I don't think it's American. Anyway, unfortunately this was a week ago, and I can't remember as much because so much has gone on since then. I'm trying to catch up with everything now. Hopefully more to come very soon!
Cheers! Rana
PS, the link I forgot to include of all my photos in Denmark: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038728&id=1086180040&l=21b118faae
Hi all! Today I bought a memory card reader, so now I can upload some pictures here =). If you would like to see all the pictures from my trip so far you can follow this link:
So this weekend I went to Copenhagen, or København in Danish. It was Danny's friends' birthday, Dani & Rafael and we went and celebrated in a place called cafe katz. We were below the cafe in a reserved room, they bought us some rounds of drinks, and it was a lot of good fun! We thought that because the name was cafe katz that maybe the owner was jewish, so we asked the waitresses if he was jewish, and they said it was named after some polish prostitute with that last name-- nice huh? I met lots of cool new people, and even got a few numbers ;).
and then of course there was last night, which was international night in the cellar bar in the main building: 101. So me and Sabrina went to her apartment after class and cooked a really nice dinner. While we were cooking dinner something really weird happened. Sabrina asked me if I wanted a glass of white wine with dinner, no that's not the weird part, then she pulled out a box from the fridge, with a tap on it! She had a box of wine, it was crazy! Apparently it's not uncommon to have some table wine like this, the wine itself was decent, not too bad. It was crazy though, so I had to read more about it. The idea originated in Australia but has been picking up here in Europe. It has difficultly sticking in the US because of the idea of wine being in a box, weird huh? Anyway, Sabrina thought it was really comical that I didn't know what it was! Then Sabrina taught me a new phrase in Danish to say when I got to the cellar bar: "Jeg vil gerne købe to øl, tak!" This means: I would like to buy two beers, thanks! So I practiced all evening, during dinner, the walk there, ready to say this phrase in Danish, which if you've ever heard any Danish is really hard to pronounce, and even simple words and phrases that I say Danes have difficultly understanding. So I get to the Cellar bar, find the first bartenderess, and take a deep breath and start to say: "Jeg vil gerne..." and she interrupts and says: "I'm sorry...." and I immediately thought: oh god, fail, she understood nothing. Then she proceeds to say: "I don't speak Danish..." Hahahhaha, great! She was from Mexico =P. I guess I should've figured at international night!
Anyway, bye for now, I've got lots of stuff to do =)
So yeah! That's the course I'm taking here at the Denmark Technical University, or Danmarks Tekniske Universitet as they would say in Danish. It's actually a masters level course-- and I'm willing to bet I'm am the youngest one in the course. The course material is pretty high level, but the course itself it pretty relaxed and easy going. This is my second week in it, I started Monday January 3rd. The whole idea of a 3-weeks course here is to take a class-- intensively and just that class. The time period for them is supposed to be 8AM to 5PM (or 08 till 17), but usually most of them aren't this way. My class typically starts at 9, and you can leave whenever you finish your group work-- which is around 3 or 4. The nice part about the 3 weeks course is your done with the class when you leave, there's no homework, so your free after it's done. Today my two group mates and I-- Sabrina & Mathilde worked on our second project. We have to analyze some data that's given to us about Campylobacter in chicken in Denmark, using this program called R. Blahblahblah, I know you don't care, that stuff probably bores you. Well I think it's pretty cool.
Anyway-- exciting stuff? Not that much of it today. I did however get to eat in a different cafeteria that I haven't tried, I think it's called SCION something. Anyway-- it's buffet style. All you can eat and they've got lots of stuff for open faced sandwhiches, the bread I mentioned before: rugbrød, and they also had a warm dish of lasagna, in addition to some dessert. It was 55 Danish Kroner, which is approximately $10.50 US dollars at the exchange rate now. Anyway, I met with Danny there and some of his classmates, for his 3 weeks course. They were all really nice guys, one will be working at Nokia soon. So this was a fun lunch with some good company, and when I got back I told my group mates about the lunch I had, and they hadn't heard of the place I went to eat. They say I always know where to find the food =)! Truth is-- it's all Danny ;P.
Anyway, there is something here called a "Snegl" and it's basically a cinnamon danish/croissant thing. It has almonds in it and some chocolate frosting in the center. Yeah, calories galore-- but it's pretty tasty. One day when I was having trouble with work I decided to buy one, and it was really tasty. My groupmates taught me to say one phrase afterwards: "Jeg spidste en Snegl i dag" which means: I ate a snail today. Anyway, I had another today with Mathilde-- It was pretty good.
Now I'm cooking some dinner-- Danny and I got the apartment mostly all furnished now, he brought in his desk and a table, and lots of other stuff so it's starting to look really nice in here. I'll try and get up some pictures later.
So I got the idea for a blog from my boyfriend (danny), and at first the idea sounded kinda lame, but now that I think of it-- it could be pretty fun. You know, documenting what I'm doing, letting others know, posting pictures, and yeah, when the sad day comes to leave I'll be able to one day look back on it all-- and be able to remember :). But I guess this is all the point of a blog-- so I'm not telling you anything new ;).
I guess I'll start with what I've been doing thus far-- since i've been here for two and a half weeks there's already a lot to talk about.
The flight was a bit long-- around 8 hours, and it was really cramped. There were complementary drinks, so I had a gin and tonic and some red wine with dinner and just tried to enjoy myself, but they drinks didn't really help. It made me have to pee, and sitting next to a fat lady who I'm pretty sure spoke no English was blockading my path. My legs cramped up quite a bit, and I felt really apprehensive about flying to a new country-- to Denmark! I had been waiting so long to finally get here, to be with Danny, and I was finally on the plane =).
Danny greeted me at the airport when I arrived at the ungodly hour of 7AM, or as they just say here 07. He drove us back to the apartment, where I first witnessed all the Danes biking to work. They were right when they said there was biking traffic in Denmark-- it was crazy! We finally arrived at the apartment and I was really surprised. I though it looked wonderful, it was just perfect for the two of us. We have a bedroom, living room, small kitchen and a bathroom. Danny had spent a lot of time moving his stuff in, and painting. He's really sweet =), and I was really surprised =). The place is nice, just on campus, and right next to the grocery store called the døgn netto, and døgn means "all the time" in Danish, and netto means net, as in remaining after deductions.
So there's obviously a lot that went on from then until now-- and I feel that way. I wish I started this earlier but I'll just try to talk about the most significant stuff that sticks in my mind.
The first day I got here it was really obvious the difference in people here, from anywhere else I've ever been. I spent three-months in Israel over this past summer, and I'll tell you one thing, Danes and Israelis are really different. Israelis are loud, a bit rude, and can be obnoxious, but they are very warm and welcoming. The Danes are very quiet, as polite as they need to be, and are very sincere. They are quiet when you first meet them, but are really good people when you get to know them. These attributes became extremely apparent when I went to the Lyngby shopping center. Which is the mall in the town I live in. Lyngby is a suburb of Copenhagen-- and is considered to be part of the "greater Copenhagen area". FYI: The suffix "by" means city.
Yeah-- physically everyone looks very different than I'm used to. I'd say the Danish people are a good looking ethnicity. Although-- blonde isn't my type-- they do have some inexplicable charm to them.
OK. So major things after this point? Well. There's been a lot. I went to downtown Copenhagen, spent new years in Lyngby, three birthday parties, started my 3-weeks course, and have experienced a lot of culture since.
I don't have energy to write about ALL this now, because I do want to spend some time doing other things here, so I plan to elaborate on these things at a later point-- maybe when there is less going on. For now I'll fast forward to the present.
Today I actually did a lot. I had to turn in a report for my three-weeks course. I'll tell you more about the course later, but since we already did most of it, we decided to meet at 11AM, one hour before it was due. I woke up early, at 830 so I could eat breakfast with Danny and then I walked him to class. On the way we actually saw a girl that came to RPI with Danny's exchange group, and I thought that was pretty cool to see her in Denmark. After I walked Danny to class, I came back and went on a run around campus. It's really cold here in Denmark, around 36F today I think, but I've never run in something like this before. It was great to finally work out again, I have been feeling really weighed down from all the good food I've been eating!! It was pretty tough on my lungs, but it was a good run, it took me around 25 minutes ( I think...).
I invited my groupmates, Mathlide & Sabrina, over to my apartment for some traditional Danish open-faced sandwiches for lunch. There's actually a lot to say about Danish open-faced sandwiches. They are typically on a type of bread called rugbrøed. "rug" is a type of grain, and brøed means bread. This bread is very very dark, and dense, and heavy, and grainy. Take your average american whole grain bread, multiply that by like 10, and then add some, and that's some rugbrøed. Anyway, the apartment is nice, but like I mentioned it is a bit small. It was hard to fit all three of us, and danny as well, so he came later. To put on the sandwiches we had some deli meats, hardboiled egg, cheeses, pesto, tuna, cucumbers, peppers, leverpostej and my favorite, remoulade. I assume you all know what the first 7 items are. However, you probably don't know what leverpostej is. It's something very very popular here, and it literally means: liver paste. It comes from pig and is seasoned, mashed and put in an aluminum so you can heat it up. I know it sounds kinda gross, I thought so too, but it's actually pretty good. The remoulade is this sort of yellow condiment that I really like that is supposed to go on fish, or you can put it on meat like I do, but I don't think you're supposed to. Anyway, we had these sandwiches, and went back to class. We were supposed to do group work today, and we got our second project, but everyone was kinda lazy about it cause we just haded in one project so we all left early. Now I'm gonna go to the netto and cook some nice dinner for tonight.
