Parliament

CPH 

48 degrees, rain

 Today I took the most memorable elevator ride of my life.  Enter the Paternoster.

This is one of only four left in Denmark and can be found in the Parliament building, where I went today for my Danish Politics class.  This may have been the most interesting aspect of my visit to Parliament today.   Just kidding.  But maybe I'm not...

Anyways, I love this elevator, so efficient, so clever.  Well played Denmark.

The rest of the building was beautiful as well.  Go figure

 

There are 800 clocks in Parliament such as this one here.  All 800 must be changed but hand for daylight savings.  Yikes

(The A and M at the bottom is not in fact AM, as I cleverly suspected.  Rather, 7 minutes before a meeting of parliament the M flashes and the clocks chime.  And 7 minutes before parliament is to vote the A flashes.) 

I also stopped into the Royal stables on the way out.  Pretty nice digs if you are a horse, or a human. 

All the horses had guilded name plates over their stalls.  This here is Consula.

Back on the home front now, I was recently paid a visit to by two Danish Jehovah's witnesses who were going door to door.  I was spared a bible sermon because their bible was in Danish and I just. don't. speak. Danish.  They seemed more disappointed by this than I.  

And speaking (or not) of Danish, let me just say that it is a tough nut to crack as far as languages go.  A tough nut indeed.  The grammar is not difficult, neither is spelling for that matter, and many of the words are very similar to english.  But the pronunciation!  Well, that will get you every time.  There is a certain je ne sais quoi about the way you have to gargle the letters in the back of your throat that makes speaking particularly challenging.  

My danish oral midterm in two days will be a real spectacle.  I'll let you know how it goes.

vi ses 

Weekend Update

CPH
50 degrees, rainy

Yo wazup

Let me tell you about where I've been for the past week

Last friday was Copenhagen's annual culture night.  Kulturnatten.  I will preface the description of this event by saying that every city in the world should have a culture night.  Once a year, 200+ cultural institutions open their doors from 5:00pm - 1:00am for a city-wide celebration of Danish culture.  A little kroner up front and then the whole city is your playground.  You can visit art museums, Parliament, the zoo, restaurants, castles, gardens, etc.  There are more destinations than you could ever possibly visit in one night so its good to have a plan set out ahead of time.  Carolyn and I went first to the zoo which has an incredibly diverse group of animals.  One of my favorites was the anteater, which I have never seen in real life.  After the zoo, we headed to the environmental house - a house that is made by all sustainable materials and operated in a completely sustainable way.  The house had solar panels, and a composting toilet, you know the usual eco-suspects.  I am all in favor of the green revolution, don't get me wrong, but composting your poo?  Too far, tooo far.  From here, we headed down the main walking street (Strøget) where almost every store was open serving beverages and food.  There were tents filled with everything from Nordic apple varieties to medieval replica swords.  We saw ice sculptures, tasted organic Scandinavian foods, listened to live music, and watched kids played the biggest Jenga tower I have ever seen.

We headed to the Black Diamond Library to see a photography exhibit and to explore the library itself.

Pictures are technically "not allowed" but I figured since it was culture night it would be alright.

Culture night isn't just for visitors in fact it is mostly Danes who were out and about, which is what makes it such a great event.  It's really authentic and you can tell that this is a country with A LOT of pride in their culture.


Fast forward a few days to Wednesday- field study time.  This week I headed to the Danish resistance museum and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
At the resistance museum we learned about the different stages of Danish resistance and although it had a weak start ended on a strong and pretty violent note (that is to say, violent for Denmark).  We also the movie Flammen & Citronen (which I would recommend) about two of the most famous members of the Danish resistance movement Flame and Citron.
Cool museum.

On the way we passed by the grounds of Fredericksborg castle which is really beautiful especially now that the leaves are starting to fall.

Later, at Danish Institute for Human Rights we heard presentations about the current human rights challenges in Denmark namely discrimination and immigration.  Immigration is one of the most controversial issues in Denmark today. And, it was very interesting to hear the topic presented from a Danish perspective.  But, I will save the politics for another venue.  

peace and love

Allison 

It's Danish

CPH
50 degrees, sunny


On more than one occasion I have been surprised to learn about the Danish origins of toys, movies, actors, books, music etc. Here is a running list of Things you never knew were Danish


Coming in at #1- LEGO.  So all you nerds, past (that's me) or present (me again), out there can thank the great nation of Denmark for all the memories

#2- AQUA.  That's right- Barbie Girl... came straight from Denmark.  Barbie however is not danish and neither is Ken.

#3- Viggo Mortenson.  You know... Aragorn from Lord of the Rings.

#4-  Mads Mikkelsen.  The villain form Casino Royal who cries blood (best way I know how to describe him)

#5- Lars Ulrich- Drummer for Metallica

#6- Lone Scherfig - directed An Education




I am also frequently surprised about the American culture you never appreciated until you came to Denmark

1. Jock Jams

...but I won't make that list

BRUSSELS

Part two of the study tour: Brussels

The easiest way to tell you about Brussels is through pictures.  So here we go.

This is the European district which is filled with embassies and EU buildings including the European Parliament, European Commission, and European Council (all of which we visited).

The National Cathedral and a beautiful city park are also located in the european district

Outside the European district, one of my favorite places was this city square.

And at night,

Well done Brussels.  

Some of the other highlights of the trip included "mussels in Brussels" which I wasn't aware they were famous for but can now see why.  Also, a trip to a Chocolaterie where we listened to many reasons why chocolate from the US is not really chocolate but rather fancy cocoa power and why Belgium chocolate by contrast is the highest quality in the world.  I can't argue with this because Belgium chocolate is in fact AWESOME.  Even the chocolates we made weren't half bad.  

Findley, Jacob ( you remember my teacher Jacob), and I suited up for making chocolate.

Finally, on our way out of town we stopped at an art gallery for lunch and some more sight seeing.

Victory Gate.  Every self respecting European country needs one.

 A quick 14 hour bus ride after that and we were back in Copenhagen!

Den Hague

Hello hello.
This past week I was away on a study tour to The Hague and Brussels with my European Politics class, and what a time we had.
Let's begin at the beginning -The Hague ( I wont lie to you... I thought for a very long time that The Hague was the building that housed the ICC.  It's not so.  The Hague is the name of the city.)  The Hague makes a great first impression,

 




































but there were only a couple people on the street and many of the shops and cafes were closed which made it feel a bit like a ghost town.

One of the most impressive buildings in The Hague is the Peace Palace which was our first stop as a group.  

Pretty impressive.  The inside was even more elaborately decorated than the outside however cameras were not allowed.  The palace is filled with my priceless gifts from around the world.  For example, Japan spent 40 years and 48,000 people to make silk tapestries for one of the upstairs meeting halls.  There are unbelievably beautiful and were created using a special technique that only four people in the whole world know today.  It would cost upwards of 50 million dollars to repairs them so its pretty obvious why they don't want people snappin piccys.  Denmark's contribution to the palace is a porcelain fountain in the center courtyard.

This is one of the more high-maintenance gifts the palace owns because apparently it is easily and frequently damaged by freezing temperatures.  Go figure, a fountain from Denmark can't handle cold weather...

Moving on to the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia).

 
This is the tribunal set up to try the political and military leaders involved in the yugoslav wars.  We actually got to watch one of the trials take place which I thought was so cool.  My not-so-inner nerd was freaking out to be able to watch the trial, and to hear a witness testify against two military officers who were sitting right in front of me! Crazy.

On our way out of The Hague we stopped at a Trappist monastery for some beer.

I must say, these monks have a pretty sick set up here- a beautiful place to live, plenty of beer, and, you know, inner peace or whatever they have.
We ate a delicious dinner, tasted lots of beer, and then headed for Brussels.