Week 6 Updates

Remember that ambitious plan I had to update this thing every 2 weeks? Yeah, me neither. Now that we're on the same page, onwards to finer things

* Skip ahead for strictly pictures coupled with my asinine remarks and commentary on things Danish (and not) 

disclaimer : my computer is currently geeking out trying to translate things into Danish (and vicer versa), so if there are sentences of this that make no sense whatsoever, apologies (I don't know how to fix it) 

Housekeeping

It is day 47 of my stay here in Copenhagen, and since the end of my short Danish class I have settled into a more agreeable pace of life. As of the first week of February, I attend classes twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and aside from the 4 hours (combined) of class, I am free to run amok through the streets of Copenhagen. Several weeks in, it's still a strange feeling to have so many hours of the week free (yes, I could think of infinitely worse fates than too much free time.)  My lack of set activities also means that each week is a different experience, and it keeps things interesting. 

What then have you been doing? On one hand, I am learning to relish and appreciate time. As far as I can tell, this is a one-time situation where I find myself in a foreign country with no job, no hours of classes , no homework, and a plethora of possibilities. I've found that it's something of a mixed blessing - on the one hand, the temptation to sleep in every single day, veg out, and not be so 'productive' is a daily reality (yes, I do still indulge in these things sometimes.) The bleak weather and cold (ish) temperatures have also dissuaded me from spending too many hours outdoors, so I actually having not done quite as much exploring as I would like, nor do I have as many pictures as you might expect (do not worry, there are clearly some pictures here). 

However, I now having the time to catch up on TV, read books that I've been putting off, draw, and do any number of small things that are otherwise sacrificed amidst the daily grind (ie. cooking meals, writing, writing blog posts ...). It might come across as pretty sad that I haven't formulated some type of set regimen, but who's keeping score? It's a work in progress.

Yes, traveling is certainly in the equation for my time here, but I will not be going abroad (relatively speaking) until March, so stay tuned (shameless plug here)

An American's Guide to Denmark

I studied cultural anthropology and urban planning for my undergraduate degrees, and while I do not count myself as extremely wise or academic, my observation having certainly been influenced by my Berkeley / American education. What follows is the results of my observations and my commentary on the Danish way of life, its culture, and its physical and unspoken intricacies as interpreted by my own, biased persona. Do I make some pretty broad, sweeping generalizations? Yep (and any anthropologist would probably scold me for it). And are some of my observations wrong? Probably. But for those of you who are far removed from Copenhagen, consider this a crash course in things Danish, and not, as told by yours truly

Attractions of the English Variety

# 1 The Little Mermaid: Take a good look at the accompanying photo, then make a mental check that you have seen the famous Little Mermaid statue and do not have to make the personal trip to go out and see. It's located right along the coast, so maybe if the sun were out and there was some grand old ship in the background it might make for a more exciting experience, but alas.

Apparently, this is the site two see when you visit Copenhagen. Underwhelming stuff (it's 4 feet tall, cast in bronze) Some context: some old English writer named Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story about some little mermaid (which would later inspire the Disney movie), and the statue was sculpted in honor of him / his story. Fun fact: the head is sawed off. Twice.

# 2 Rosenborg Castle: on my 4 ^th day here, I wandered around the city center and stumbled upon a large park adjacent to some municipal building where Danish soldiers were doing marching drills or something. Turns out, this is a royal park and at the center of the park is Rosenborg Castle

Built by one of Denmark's most famous kings (Christian IV in the event you're wondering), the castle is now a museum that houses the crown jewels. I personally have not gone inside as I do not really care for that sort of stuff, but as a member of the public you are allowed to walk around the entire grounds - this seems to be a general trend for other city landmarks as well. 80% of the vegetation is currently dead, but based on the postcards that I've seen , this is a very pretty place in springtime as the flowers bloom en masse.

# 3 The Rundetarn - The Round Tower: Another one of Christian IV's Legacies, the Round Tower is located right in the city center across the street from the local student bar, and offers a very nice view of the city

Thus far, it offers some of the best bang for your buck that I have yet to find for atourist attractions: $ 5 gets you entrance into the tower, and besides the view there is a small one-room exhibit hall containing some old artifacts found in the tower, and there's also a larger art gallery space as rotating exhibits. Oh, and the view is quite nice (photo cred to Charmaine Ramos)

Things English

# 1  Smørrebrød: literally translated to 'butter and bread,' no food is more quintessentially Danish than its open-faced rye bread sandwiches. Eaten primarily at lunchtime, these are small compact sandwiches constructed with the same delicateness and care as the Japanese treat sushi .

The sandwiches are always served cold, and feature Danish dark rye and occasionally white bread. As I am not particularly fond of cold sandwiches, I'm not a huge fan of these, but they're quite well done. Toppings vary, but common varieties include egg, potato and sour cream, roast beef and horseradish, fried fish, duck liver pate. You can get much fancier though and add caviar, smoked salmon and assorted shellfish.

# 2 Onesies: (This might be a universal thing, but seeing as I've never lived in a snow environment, I'm inferring that this is a Danish trend) Little kids here are very cute when they're wrapped up in winter garb . From what I can tell, from birth until 6 or 7 the most common garb for Kids is a stylish winter onesie that looks equal parts practical and equal parts comfortable. They are everywhere

# 3 Situations like this:

More or Danish bike culture at a late hour

# 4 'American' Themed nights at bars: I am not here to discuss the Super Bowl, but it is amusing two see the Danish efforts to help Americans feel 'at home'. I actually really appreciated it, and here are the decorations for the student bar on Super Bowl Sunday: 

As a 'special' for the evening, they served American Beer aka Budweiser, sold hot dogs, left out chips and dip, and hung streamers and American flags everywhere. Was it worth staying up until 3:00 am to watch a pathetic game ? Eh

Things not English (aka things they do not have here)

# 1 Paper / plastic toilet seat covers: now, I'm told this is not something strictly exclusive two Danes, but moving here from an American context means that it's out of the ordinary two enter a public toilet and not see these 50% paper - 50% plastic, see-through, butt / thigh protectors readily dispensed from some metal container bolted to the wall. I realize not all of you take issue to just sitting down on a piece of plastic / porcelain, but it was immediately noticeable and immediately missed for me.

# 2 Umbrellas: ok, They do exist, but no one really uses them. Maybe chalk that up to the fact that during the winter / rainy months everyone is wearing coats that are otherwise water resistant or waterproof, but I can not in good conscious bust out my 3 foot wide umbrella without feeling foolish

# 3 Root Beer soda: That I can find anyways

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And as a parting word: January 2014 in Copenhagen was apparently one of the darkest in the city's history - I was told there was something around 17 hours of combined sunlight throughout the month. Reading graffiti like this then only leaves me hoping ...

Week 1 Updates

Hi. Here’s a fun fact for you: that’s actually how you’re supposed to greet people in Danish (ok, the actual spelling is ‘hej’ but it sounds exactly like its English counterpart). It has been one week since I touched down in Copenhagen, and while I cannot yet say that I’m a seasoned veteran ready to write the beginner’s guide to Denmark, I will say that in small ways I am slowly beginning to adjust (it should only take another, oh, 5 months and 24 days to really get acclimated)

(And no, unfortunately I do not have many pretty pictures: I will use the bleak, grey weather as my scapegoat until a time arrives where my photo taking becomes more frequently and hopefully more impressive)

Home

Quick correction: my address here is
Tranehavegard 27, 3, TV
2450 Kobenhavn
Denmark
(‘TV’ signifies that mine is the left unit on the 3^rd floor)

I am living in a shared apartment located in the southern district of Vesterbro. If you refer to this handy map (compliments of Google Images), Copenhagen like most other large cities is separated into several districts that possess their own unique character and flair.

Within each district are also specific neighborhoods – Vesterbro for example is home to the Meat Packing District where old meat packing/processing plants (who would have thought) and warehouses have been converted to small bars, restaurants, and whatnot. My particular neighborhood is located immediately adjacent to that green patch in Vesterbro’s bottom left corner – the green patch is actually a cemetery.

For lack of a better word, my neighborhood is a city suburb: the blocks are dominated by large housing projects (some of which really convey a really depressing ex-Soviet Block vibe where it’s a plain concrete building with small, jail-like windows). My particular building fortunately features balconies and a few other details that at least make it somewhat more aesthetically pleasing:

Taken during the year’s first snow: don’t be fooled, it melted a few hours later and now everything is back to damp, grey and drab

Although the university system here does possess what we would call dorms, these are not plentiful nor are they common. Rather, the universities have contracts with different apartments or housing complexes across the city that set aside a certain number of units specifically for students. The rooms are located all over the city and come in varying shapes and sizes: my particular unit is a 1-bedroom + kitchen + bathroom where the living room has been converted to a living unit.

Floor Plan (this was done with generic software
so all you architects - ignore the fallacies)

Yes, the angle of this is odd, but believe me
it’s hard to take a picture in this room, of the room

Put simply, it’s a cozy apartment. The multiple radiators in the apartment work wonders, and I can comfortably wear a t-shirt and shorts while indoors. There are hardwood floors throughout, and it came furnished which was great. Some of the kitchen utensils leave a lot to be desired, but it’s enough to survive and then some.

School

The University of Copenhagen is composed of 38,000 students and 6 faculties (think College of Letters and Sciences, College of Engineering, etc.) that are located on different campuses throughout the city. Each faculty has its own separate facilities, enrollment system, tech support, and there next to no cross-faculty communication or consistency. Applying as an anthropology and city planning major, I was accepted (somehow) into 3 of the faculties: Humanities, Science, and Social Sciences

For the month of January, the Department of Scandinavian Languages hosts an intensive language program where they attempt to teach 150 international students the Danish language in a matter of 3 weeks. We have been split up into smaller classes of 12-15, and most of us have class on the Faculty of Humanities located in Amager:

They have canals running through their campus.
American universities should take note

Danish, I find, is a rather difficult language. Fortunately, it is an alphabet-based language so there aren’t any inherent difficulties with writing, but it’s the type of language where there are silent letters, odd vowels, and sounds/tones that do not come natural to an English speaker. Interestingly enough, knowing Chinese comes in handy for pronouncing certain words, but there the advantage ends. I’ve been told that German speakers and other Scandinavian language speakers (ie. Norwegian, Swedish) have the easiest time picking it up, but for the rest of us we’re struggling to learn the basic “Hello, my name is ___ and I come from America (where we are uncultured and do not learn other languages starting from youth)” (I’m paraphrasing here, don’t ask me to actually say that in Danish). Class runs 9a – 12:30a every day, with a combined 30 minutes of break scattered throughout

City

Copenhagen is a big city, and one that I shall attempt to catalogue in coming posts. Besides, you’re probably tired of reading at this point anyways.

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Oh, and it would be quite nice to hear from you all. Call me traditional, but I still very much receiving letters in the mail: there’s something extremely satisfying and nostalgic about it (but 1 line emails or messages are fine too...)

Do let me know if you’d like me to send you a postcard or something. No promises on how soon I’ll write them or how soon they’d actually get delivered (or frankly that they even will arrive I’ve lost mail before…but regardless, an effort will be made on my part)

(yes, the aesthetics of this leave a lot to be desired. Don't fret - once I get a chance/get in the mood, I'll make this a little less generic. No promises though I could still get lazy and just go with this pre-set format it's...quaint right?)

Greetings from Copenhagen. It is currently 6:00a local time and I have been awake for the past 2 hours after jetlag refuses to give me any additional sleep. I write to all you avid readers from my hostel where I am staying temporarily for the first night.

I arrived yesterday night around 5:00p local time (Copenhagen is 9 hours ahead of California). Flights were fine, but lo and behold my luggage is still stuck in London. But please, no cause for alarm I have my trusty handcarry to hold me over for the first day or two (let's hope it's just a day). They will deliver my bags to my local address once I get settled, so it actually works out quite nicely because it means that I don't have to personally haul around 90lb worth of stuff (the verdict is yet to be determined concerning whether I overpacked or not. And hey, clothes are heavy)

My 3-week UC mandatory intensive language program begins in a few hours: classes will be held 9-12p every day during which time I will receive a crash course in the Danish Language. To my understanding, occasional afternoons will also be set aside for 'cultural immersion activities.' No idea what that actually entails. Actual classes do not begin until February 1st, so this month will give me an opportunity to get settled in and acclimated.

I have yet to move into my apartment, but hopefully that will happen within the next 24 hours. My local address for the next 6 months will be: Tranehavegard 22, 2450 Copenhagen SV; Room 27 – 3L – B (that's how I think you spell everything at least). I found out today that it's located next to the local cemetery on the south side of the city, so it will, uh, be peaceful and quiet at least. 

So far everything is ok, I'm here in one piece and there haven't been any major snags thus far. My apartment does not come equipped with internet so it might take me a week or so to get things set up. Pictures will come in the next post, don't fret.