Children, Trees, and Chilly Weather

I write this blog on my newly fixed computer! wahoooooo! Mom called today to remind me that this means I need to make a blog, stat. So, here you go mom. I'll just give an overview of my week.

Sunday: Felt much better, so tried out a Catholic church and left after 5 minutes because it was absolutely awful. So went and wandered around the King's Gardens (the pic with the trees that you see). It's so big and beautiful, and I can't wait to see what it will look like in the spring!

Monday: Every Monday, I have my Children in a Multicultural Context class from 10am-1pm. This class involves comparing and contrasting the Danish education system to the U.S. It's interesting to hear everyone's experiences in the schools and see how they differ from mine. I found out that the kindergarten I go to is actually one of the most strict in Denmark...which is interesting seeing as how I think it is VERY unstructured! I had my first day of work in the Travel Corner at DIS for my work study scholarship, and it basically involves me sitting there and getting homework done...which is fine with me!

Tuesday: Every Tuesday I have International Advertising class from 11:40-1 and then Classical Foundations (art class) from 1:15-2:35. I really like my International Advertising class because we get to compare different ads around Denmark to the ones back home and its fun to take a class I wouldn't get to back home. Then I work in the travel corner, and after that run to choir practice. This Tues. we had a choir dinner at a Mexican buffet restaurant and let me tell you, it was NOT real Mexican food. I miss Tex-Mex like you wouldn't believe. It was a lot of fun and I got to sit next to a German, across from Danes, and diagonal from a Swede. Very international!

Wednesday: Usually my day off, but this time we had a field study for my education class to a preschool. We went into an 8th grade classroom and introduced ourselves, said where we are from, etc. There was a substitute teacher so most of them were acting up and making jokes about us in Danish.

Thursday: My day at the kindergarten! I spend 5 hours hanging out with the little ones. This past week I went to the "birds" room (the older kids--ages 5 to 6) and got to see what all they did. There's actually a lot of structure in their room vs. the younger kids who just run around and play with our hair! One of the birds, Nadia, was such a character. She would make jokes and the teacher would laugh and translate what she said for us. Example: one of the kids completed their assignment, and Nadia goes "one thousand points! encore!" (in Danish of course). Then Thurs. night I volunteered as a bartender at the Studenterhuset (students house) and got to meet some people who of course were interested that I was from Texas (one guy: "so, in Texas if I steal something they will kill me, right?")

Friday: Same schedule as Tuesday, but no choir. Met with my International Ad group to go over our project that we have to present on Tuesday, and found out we got an A on our presentation last week! What what!

Saturday (today): Mary, Danielle, and I went to a cozy cafe in

Norrebro and had a traditional Danish brunch!

It was so delicious. The place was really funky and eccentric with stuffed animals

all over and weird masks and doll heads for lamps (as you can see in the pic). I'll have to take mom and dad here when they come down. Then we went walking around

and stumbled across a cute park with an iced over pond (see pics at the end of this). After THAT, we went to the Carlsberg brewery, which is not even a brewery anymore so basically a museum, and the highlight was I stumbled upon my old friend Ariel. As in, Ariel the Little Mermaid. This is the original Little Mermaid...I have yet to see the one that's on the water, but I hear its not much bigger than this one! Gotta love tourist attractions.