Monday, May 11, 2009

You don't need to talk so loud, I have perfectly good herring

This is my second-to-last blog---it's officially here, the final stretch. I have a final on Wednesday and a final paper due on Friday, but I'm definitely going to try and finish the paper ASAP so that by 2pm Wednesday I'm free to enjoy my last few days! I'm not looking forward to packing though, that's for sure...
Soooooo let's review my last weekend in Copenhagen, shall we? Thursday night was a holiday night here in Copenhagen because everyone is off of work and school on Friday, May 8th (I forgot the reason, sorry) so when Danielle and I went out we realized we were surrounded by high schoolers. And by surrounded, I mean SURROUNDED, the streets were packed! Oh, and before I go on, I would like to back-up quickly to talk about Wednesdays here in Copenhagen. They are one of my favorite days because of the famous Sankt Peders Bageri snegls (cinnamon rolls). 12 kroner, or about 2 dollars, for this big thing. It's fabulous. OK back on topic...Friday, for lunch, I finally had the traditional Danish lunch of pickled herring and Schnapps with my host family. Here's the deal: we each had a Rød Tuborg (a seasonal beer), a shot glass with Schnapps, and a slice of rye bread. You butter the bread and put herring on it, followed by a sauce of your choice (I liked the egg salad and the honey mustard). After a bite or two of herring, you all say "Skål!" and take some Schnapps, then you refill the glass. Needless to say, it can be dangerous if you don't pace yourself. My host mom told me that the Danes say "the fish need something to swim down with" as an excuse to drink the liquor! From all of the things I had heard about pickled herring, I was surprised by how much I liked it. Of course, the sauce helps, especially when you put lots and lots of it on.
That night I went out to Kulør Bar for a night of dancing and fun with friends, where I met some fun people from Århus and made friends with the DJ because I kept requesting Nik & Jay songs. This was followed by my 9am wake-up call to go get Casey at Nørreport Station. We spent Saturday taking a grand tour of Copenhagen, complete with Wienerbrød, funky fountains, the harbor, palaces, Little Mermaid, and lots and lots of walking. I had a little photoshoot by my school, and to the left you can see the gate that I entered just about everyday to go to school. Not that exciting, but hey, I figure someone may went to see where the studying took place! Later we had a light lunch of crackers, ham, and cheese on the harbor with our feet dangling over the edge as a boat almost crashed into us and tourists went by on the canal tours taking our picture. Then it was back home for a quick walk on the beach and dinner with the host family. Later that night we went out to explore the Copenhagen nightlife but didn't stay out too long because we'd done so much walking all day.

Sunday morning=Happy Mothers Day! I got to talk to my aunts, cousin, sister, mother, and grandmother all in one day, which already made it a perfect day. That morning we had a 'party in the kitchen' with my host family, Casey, Danielle, and I all hanging around listening to music, having breakfast, and drinking mimosas (yes, I introduced my host fam to mimosas...and they liked them!) Us three gals then went into Copenhagen to have lunch and walk around the naturey side of the city, seeing King's Gardens and the Botanical Gardens--my first time to go there, and it was so pretty! Look at all the people in King's Gardens soaking up the beautiful weather...
And here is a lake in the Botanical Gardens complete with lilypads and green all around...We also saw a not-so-pretty side of Copenhagen that day. Early Sunday morning, riots broke out down Strøget, the walking street of Copenhagen, and a group of young Danes that are anti-society and anti-government decided to make a statement by graffiting a huge part of the street and smashing windows. Copenhagen is very big on being clean, so the streets were all cleaned up and there was no broken glass to be found, but the aftermath was still intense. As we were taking pictures, a Danish news network was filming for the nightly news and zoomed in on us taking pictures. The film guy followed us as we inspected the streets, so I'm pretty sure we were on the Danish news at some point that night. To the left is graffiti and boarded up broken windows, and below is the camera-man and the broken windows of Matas, a pharmacy that I just visited last week.

When the sun went down, we walked through Tivoli by night and saw how beautiful it was all lit up, since last time it was too cold for us to really enjoy it. The place definitely has a different feel by night, and it's fun to watch the lights change as the roller coasters move and see lights twinkling along the fountains and sidewalks. It was kind of like a fairytale. Then we saw the light show from the bridge, which is the right spot to watch it (unlike last time) and it was definitely worth it...especially since its free. Check out the Cinderella-esque gazebo below...

And this is one of my favorite photos, with the lights of Tivoli reflected in the lake.
Today I had to come into work at DIS but afterwards I met up with Casey and we did a little souvenir shopping, chai tea drinking at Baresso (Danish Starbucks) and pastry eating at Sankt Peders (never gets old). All-in-all, a great last weekend, and with a weather forecast of 60 degrees, sunshine, and no chance of rain for this week, I'm guessing its going to be a great last week as well :)

2 comments:

seanorary said...

I'm sad that this is your second last Blog! Europe will miss you

Forex News Now said...

Great blog post, I miss my European travels soo much!