Soup and Danish Folk Dancing

Okay, so I'm currently in that stage of I can feel that I'm about to be sick (like cold/flu sick). And it sucks. But that's okay, I'll stay in tonight and eat some fruit and have some chicken soup... Well I bought some oranges and the one I had was quite nice, and I was looking for some cuppa soup in Fotex (one of the larger supermarkets). Well that was fun-- so the flavours you can buy here are tomato, Italian minestrone, asparagus, Thai chicken red curry, broccoli and cauliflower and Hungarian goulash. But no ordinary chicken, which is upsetting. I was quite impressed I found the right section at all, really-- I'm getting better at navigating around in Danish... as long as I don't have to speak it!

Also this is pretty funny. See, I'm not just being overly dramatic:
The Copenhagen Post: lowest amount of January sunshine in 26 years

On Tuesday night as part of our university run welcome events we had a 'Danish Folk Dancing' evening. Yes I can hear the rolled eyes and groans from here, but it was actually really fun. And quite tiring! The steps themselves weren't terribly difficult... to watch the professionals do! They taught us a few dances, one went along the lines of: hold hands in a huge circle, take four steps in, four back out, eight to the left, four in, four out, eight right, then play a hand clapping game with a partner, then swing around for a while.

Yes, I am absolutely certain they were laughing at us foreigners trying to get the steps down, but it was a hell of a lot of fun!

Fem, seks, syv, otte!
{Pronounced fem, six, sue, odour [kind of]}

For an idea of the music, if you'd like.

My dancing partner for the
evening, Ian from South Korea

A few of the dances had a step they called 'promenade', which was hold hands and prance around the circle, which was a welcome break from all the spinning! One step that took a while for us all to get the hang of was called a 'chain'. You're standing next to your partner in a circle, then you shake hands with your right hand, then swing past and grab on to the next person's left hand (with your left hand), then onto the next person's right hand and so on. We mostly got it in the end-- it is easier in smaller circles (of eight) but when we did it in the big circle, you had to go through seven people-- and there were always some who had to chase to find a partner who had also been left behind! So that was entertaining. All up, quite a fun night!

Me, Ellen, Savannah and our wonderful teachers!

Other state sponsored fun this week included a speed dating set up (without the dating) to meet more people, a trip to a club called Jazzhouse for an introduction to Danish music with live bands, a dinner hosted by our buddy Danish students (which was lovely) and a trip to Søpavillonen, a club by the lake downtown. Tonight we're having a movie night where they are showing apparently one of the best Danish comedies with English subtitles, but I think I should stay in and recover for our formal (well as formal as you can be with 23kg per suitcase) dinner tomorrow night.

Classes (for me at least) start next week and I have the dream timetable-- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, starting at 11am with only 11 contact hours a week for the first three months, then only three hours a week for the last six weeks! Then I'll go back to Sydney and my science degree and five days with 26 hours... ah well.

Vi ses! {Pronounced vee cease [kind of], meaning see you!}

PS What do you think of the new design?

Australia Day in Denmark

Since, you all know you miss the sound of my voice:]

(And ignoring the anniversary of colonial invasion upon which Australia Day falls and the inequality that still exists.)

Australia Day is where Australians are!
This is some of the Australian exchange students to CBS this semester!

 These tattoos really are the best. I actually forgot and walked into my common room, and my neighbour was like 'oh, you're Australian? Me too!' And I was thinking '...how did you know?' Then remembered :D

Flintholm Metro Station

Not my window. 

Also it has been snowing.
Which is still new enough to me to be a novelty, but one I see wearing off kind of soon. I've been walking through the powdery snow just because I can! It's amazing!

So, snow is very pretty, but annoying when it gets in your face. Which is ALL THE TIME when you're actually outside. My waterproof boots and coat are definitely the best things I have bought so far! I'm standing in front of a University of Copenhagen building where the Australian Ambassador to Denmark, Mr Damien Miller hosted a reception today. Real sausage rolls and little pavlova bites that were amazing!

My future job? Ambassador to Denmark, Mr Damien Miller

Still surviving! :)

København is really pretty.

Ice Skating! See below :)
Yes those are ski gloves. Yes that is a Tardis beanie.

Canals

So the other day after Danish class I went wandering (read: got lost) around the city. I live pretty close to the ‘touristy part of town’ as it was described to me, but then again there are only 560,000 people who live here (and 5.5 million in the whole country—Sydney itself is 4.5 mil), so relatively everything is pretty close. I got off at the metro station I was told and went walking to the right… turns out that if I went left I would have made it where I was trying to go, the longest walking street in the world, Strøget. 

Well anyway, I went right. Went past a few intersections and started heading towards an impressive looking building. Walked all the way around it, then back through it. Thanks to Google (now set for ‘Google Danmark’) I was told it is Christiansborg Palace, which houses the Parliament, PM’s office, Supreme Court, and the Royal stables.  It actually has its own little island, which is cool because there are nice canals that run alongside it.

Strictly regulated trees.

Christiansborg Palace, across the parade ground

Christiansborg Entrance

I left there and went back to what looked kind of touristy, and found my way to Strøget. It’s quite pretty, lots of shops either side. 

Strøget

Found my way to the main town square, Rådhuspladsen, picked another direction to walk, and found my way back to where I was before. 

At Rådhuspladsen (sorry, I didn't take one of the actual square).
I didn't know where I was when I was there.

I then spent a few hours in the National Museum of Denmark, which interestingly has an exhibition on ‘People of the World’, namely not Danish people. So I skipped through that part and went to a Danish section. It was amazing. They had a few rooms where the whole room was a replica of what a room would have looked like in whatever year it was. They had gold treasures and altar carvings and tools and gemstones and original tapestries. And I’ve only done one floor—the Renaissance and Middle Ages. I’m planning on going back soon to do Danish pre-history.

Now that is what I call a drinking horn.
Risking getting evicted for the museum
for taking this picture.
Totally worth it.

 Helpfully, the signs were printed in both Danish and English. The only annoying thing was that there were so many rooms that didn’t really flow logically—and I couldn’t tell which way to go to see everything (like in a dungeon in a video game where you don’t know if the path takes you to a bonus treasure room or if it is the way you are supposed to go to get to the main goal). So I think I skipped a few bonuses as such along the way. Literal ‘get lost in for a day’ material there. I did notice a fold out floor plan map when I entered. I really should have picked one up!

There are also really cool statues and fountains all around town.

I really don't know who any of these people actually are. I should probably find out.

So by this time it was pretty damn freezing outside so I hurried back to the metro station [post about public transport to come!] to come home—being set upon by Amnesty International volunteers in the process. The other end of Strøget pops out... at the metro station, where I would have been had I turned left. But that's cool, I found Christiansborg! 

As part of our University regulated fun (which has actually been really fun), we had an International Buffet that night—everyone was supposed to bring something from their home country. Team Australia supplied Pavlova (made from scratch which kind of collapsed but still impressed everyone {there is no one from New Zealand here}), fairy bread (that I had to explain to various people), lamingtons, ANZAC biscuits and vegemite sandwiches [the lattermost being my contribution].  It is always funny watching people eat vegemite—they kind of screw their face up funny then either keep it that way, or smile, nod and say ‘I think I like it… is that a bad thing?’ It was pretty awesome. By popular vote, Team Mexico won. Their food was pretty nice. Team Denmark had some really nice traditional cake, and there were lots of other good things on offer!

Friday we went ice skating at an outdoor rink. Apparently, it is an athletics track in summer that they freeze over in winter, but I’m not sure if someone made that up or if it is actually true. Either way it was pretty fun. Extremely cold, but THE SUN CAME OUT FOR A BIT AND IT WAS FANTASTIC. We even saw blue sky for most of the day, which was amazing.

It was so cool! (Literally and figuratively).

Anyway, again, I don’t know how regular my updating is going to be once school starts (after next week) but I’ll try to keep you informed. They'll probably get shorter too. Tough. Also you should leave comments if you can! I like comments :)

Little things that are Weird, Awesome or Stupid... part 1

Traffic Lights

The bike traffic lights are the little ones underneath.

First of all, the bikes have their own traffic lights—well at the big intersections at least. The pedestrian crossings at lights are painted like our normal pedestrian crossings, and they all have islands in the middle. There isn’t a button to push at half the sets of lights I’ve come across, and not all of them sing when it is your turn to cross. When you’re sitting at a red light, the orange one will come on as well for a few seconds before turning green, so that’s cool and actually pretty clever.

Driving on the Right

Every single time that I’m walking down the footpath or staircase and someone’s coming at me from the other direction, it takes a few seconds to realise that I’m the one on the wrong side… I’m subconsciously walking on the left side of the way, where everyone else is walking on their right hand side. It’s also really annoying with escalators… you get off and go to turn left but that’ll be the wrong side for where you want to go. You have to turn right. Also people stand on the right side, and if you want to walk quickly you go up the left. For the record, they seem pretty good at not blocking people’s ways. And I keep forgetting that if I want to get a bus to go that way, it leaves on the other side of the road. Since, you know, that’s where they drive.

Walking paths

Cobblestones

Look pretty but are annoying to walk on. Hence there are narrow concrete walking strips down the footpaths with cobblestones. Gold stars!

Bikes
Are freaking everywhere. I also keep forgetting to look for bikes as I get off the bus, since it mostly goes |road|cycleway|footpath|. Haven’t hit any yet. From 3.30-5.30 you’re not allowed to take bikes on the metro (being peak hour)… otherwise it’d be crazy.

Commuter parking... Danish style

Inside an S-Train.

Ski Arcade Games

Models

Aren't they gorgeous?

Who said all models are thin and stereotypically beautiful?

Game Machines

In addition to driving games, pinball, foosball... enter skiing!!

That’ll do for now J Hasn’t snowed yet, and my phone hasn’t figured out that I changed the sim card, so you can message me on Viber on my Australian number and I can reply fine! Katrina said it was 'cold' this week... 20 degrees? Awww, you poor things.

The Road to Copenhagen

Yeah the album was annoying. So here! Have some photos!

Sky news weather on the plane. Bad luck Melbourne.        Me and my plane.      Sustainable garden information in HK Airport

                           Heathrow Airport!                                 Just casual gambling.                   Fresh air is wonderful after 24 hours without.

               Pretty lights at Heathrow       Cricket is way more fun when we're whooping England.                For Ian.

                                                        Touchdown in Copenhagen!                 Maria and my sign!

My room and kitchen. It is no longer this neat-- I actually live here now!

Huzzah! I made it!

Velkommen!

Hello, friends, family, internet. I successfully made it halfway around the world and have made a video telling of my journey. If you're not bothered watching it/your internet is too slow/I talk too fast the gist is:

• Goodbye house, it was warm in Sydney the day I left and snowing in Copenhagen
• Hong Kong airport looks like Sydney airport except the signs are in (presumably) Mandarin. And the security guards look like robots because they wear knee and elbow guards.
• Being stuck in Heathrow for a day wasn't terribly fun (thanks to those who kept me company while my free internet time was still valid). 
• The Times was fun to read-- great articles like 'recognise your bird' (with a set of pictures of birds that all Britons should be able to identify) 13 pages of football sport and a sports cover reading 'when will this torture end?' Cricket is wayyyyyy more fun when we're winning!!
• My room was way too quiet so I downloaded iTunes and copied all the music off my iPod onto my laptop (inconveniently, the hold button is stuck on my iPod. Growl.)
• Copenhagen is pretty cold. But when you're outside with thermal pants, jeans, a thermal shirt, cardigan, coat, scarf, gloves and have the hood up and walk quickly, it isn't that bad. (I still have to get proper shoes.)
• I bought this cheese and it smells funny but I don't know if that is just Danish cheese or if it is actually off or anything. 
• They have nutella here! Yay for globalisation!
• Anytime you're bored/can't sleep at 4am Sydney time, send me a message-- it'll be 2pm here!
• Oh the really cool thing I mention that I clearly didn't edit out properly wasn't really that cool. The tunnel that you get off a plane splits two ways-- an up ramp and a down ramp to a middle section leading to the plane. The down ramp takes you to arrivals. The up ramp is the one you walk down from departures to get back on the plane. I found that cool.
• Next video (if there is one) will be shorter, I promise!

• :)