Spring in Denmark!

May 6, 2013 by RosalieIs 2 Comments

Hi everyone! I’ve been super busy lately, which is awesome. The weather is finally beautiful here, and everything that was grey and ugly has sprung to life in green. There are patches of flowers all over, and the trees, while still bare, are starting to bud. I’ve been spending a lot more time outside, and I even have some tan lines! It’s great. Unfortunately, the good weather comes along with cram time. Classes end in two weeks, and all of a sudden I actually have work to do. It has been a very weird semester. For most of the time I felt like I was on this extended, lonely, vacation, where classes didn’t really mean much. I went to them, but very little work was required of me. Now those final projects and papers are looming closer, and I have been spending hours every day at my computer researching, typing, and procrastinating (unfortunately!).

I’ll give you guys a little review of what I’ve been up to in the past 3 weeks. On April 20th, some of the RPI exchange students and I went back to Christiania. I have been there a couple times before, but never past the initial touristy “green-light district.” We walked through that and kept going. We passed a playground, a couple of young women leading ponies around, and many interesting run down homes. There was one that was painted to look like a circus tent and looked like it was made up of leftover wood from some other project. There were many that looked like half a nice house, with the other half shabbily built to extend the space, or fill a gap. The architecture was creative, crazy, and awe-inspiring. I wished to take many pictures, but photography is frowned upon in Christiania, due to their illegal activities. I took only one, but there were some far more curious houses.

The back of house in Christiania

After a walk around a lake in the town, we emerged from the commune and went in search of lunch. Passing a sushi joint, I noticed they advertised something called a sushi dog. My interest was piqued, and the others love sushi, so we went in. I ordered the tempura sushi dog. It was delicious. These should be a thing in the United States. Sushi on the go!

Sushi Dog (with a bite taken out)

After lunch, a couple of us got dessert at a delicious bakery called Lagkagehuset. It’s a chain in Denmark. I remember going to this specific one with my mother a few years ago when we visited Copenhagen together. That time I got some honey marzipan tart. This time I got a piece of chocolate cake. It had a marzipan icing, hidden beneath a layer of chocolate. It appears to me that marzipan is very popular in Danish baking. Either that or I am somehow drawn to it whenever I pick out my treats.

Chocolate Yum

The next weekend, we tried to have a barbecue. Kampsax has a few grills that people have been using as soon as the first whispers of spring came to Denmark. My friend bought some quick start mini-grills because he couldn’t find charcoal by itself, and we just used them to grill instead. We had cheeseburgers and hot dogs. It was a relief to have something social to do, and especially that it was outside. Unfortunately the weather was a bit cloudy and windy, so we moved inside after the meat was cooked and ate inside someone’s kitchen.

BBQ’ing

At this gathering, we all kind of realized that we found this exchange to be disappointing. None of us are miserable and homesick anymore. But we came into this experience expecting “the time of our lives” as so many exchange students before us had claimed the experience was for them. But for most of us, we’re lonely and bored most of the time. Not for lack of trying. Maybe we’ve been spoiled by the social life and great friendships we have back at RPI. At least the change in weather means we can emerge from our rooms more often than we had during the long winter.

On Saturday night, my kitchen held its TDC. TDC stands for Tour De Chambres or tour of the rooms. I’m not sure why it has a French name. It’s a party that every kitchen in Kampsax holds once a semester. It starts with a big dinner. Then we go on a “tour of the rooms” stopping in each room for twenty to forty minutes. Each person serves a drink and has music and activities planned. Our TDC was ocean themed. Danish people love to dress up. They don’t really celebrate Halloween, but they use every other excuse to wear costumes. I can’t count how many times I’ve walked though campus or Kampsax and seen people in fully body costumes. It’s intense.

Our dinner consisted of twelve pizzas, cooked by the new Italian exchange student and another guy who recently moved in. Even with fifteen at dinner, we didn’t come close to finishing them. The first six were devoured pretty quickly though. They really like meat pizzas here apparently, because all of the pizzas were covered with mixtures of chicken sausage, bacon, ham, and beef. I wish there was at least one veggie pizza, because that’s my favorite.

Three of the pizzas

They also have a pizza style here where you put salad on top of the pizza. I was skeptical, but it was actually really good. The fresh, crunchy, lettuce and carrots were refreshing in juxtaposition to the gooey cheese and the cooked meats.

Salad  on my meatball pizza slice

I was dressed slightly tropically, with some leis and a flower in my hair (I guess I forgot to pack my mermaid costume). There was a turtle, a couple pirates, some fish, a sailor, and one guy dressed as David Hasselhoff from Baywatch. About half the guests did not dress up at all.

Me and my neighbor Kristian

Turtle

The TDC was really fun. My room was fourth. I signed up to be towards the beginning because I didn’t know how late I would be able to stay up. I made some yummy drinks by mixing Malibu coconut rum with Mild Morgen Juice – a juice mixture of apple, orange, and pineapple juices.

My drinks

One of my neighbors had us all play limbo in the hallway. It was very entertaining. When you fell, they all started singing a song in Danish and you had to chug your drink.

The Hoff does limbo

There were many shenanigans. One of my neighbors had his leg shaved in one of the girl’s bathrooms. Another one of my neighbors had a fog machine, and filled the hallway up so much that you could barely see four feet in front of you. Still another had his bed spiced with paprika. I kept my door locked all night to guard from such practical jokes.

This weekend some friends of mine and I went into Copenhagen to a bar called Farfar, which means grandpa in Danish. It was a pretty cool bar. Very cozy, with good music. In the basement there was a dance floor. Unfortunately the music down there was terrible. At about 1AM we left and headed to the Drunken Flamingo. I tried to get in, but it was 21+. After that we decided to head back to the bus stop. Some people got shwarma from a little shop next to the stop. It was a good time until we got off the bus. At that point some guys started yelling and us and I was so frightened I didn’t get a chance to check out on my travel card.

The next day I held a Cinco de Mayo party! The weather was beautiful. We made pina coladas and margaritas, and ate chips, salsa and guacamole. One girl brought some delicious lime sugar cookies. We sat in the sun for about three hours, listening to someone’s music playlist from his high school Spanish club playlist, dancing, talking, laughing, and playing cards. (My super cool 3D cat cards!)

The Fiesta

Trying to “twerk” – the new dance style

After the fiesta, the girls went to the DTU sauna. It was really nice and relaxing. This day was one of the best I’ve had since I’ve come to DTU. The next day I even woke up with tan lines! It was a day spent with friends, music, good drinks, and sun. Perfect.

Now I have two weeks left of classes. Within the next three weeks I have six papers due and two presentations. It’s crunch time. Too bad this is also the time when I finally want to just lay outside in the sun and get all that vitamin D I missed out on the past three months! Wish me luck.