A Party Bus and Danish Gangsters

About two days have passed since I've returned to Copenhagen and I am still exhausted. I definitely could have used another day to recuperate. One day between a three day long study tour and classes was not nearly enough for my mental sanity. 

My class left the city at 8:30 am on Thursday morning. I was expecting to ride in a large bus similar to a greyhound. Instead, my class got to ride on what was quickly dubbed "the party bus".  Instead of multiple rows of seats facing the front, there were clusters of four seats all facing each other around a table. The back of the bus was even fancier because it was basically like a large booth with a narrow table in the center. There was also a mini bar in the middle of the bus and the whole place was decorated in a very unappealing combination of blue and red. Minus the shine and sparkle, the seats were very reminiscent of a 50's diner. And about half of the time it is smelled awful, truly awful (think outhouse or sewage awful). With over ten hours total on the bus we all quickly grew to have a love-hate relationship with it.

 

I sat in the back of the bus in the booth. That's my professor on the right. 

Pretty view of the road from the back of the bus.

 

Our first destination on The Party Bus was actually lunch. We stopped at an inn just outside Århus (or Aarhus) and the buffet they prepared for us was extremely fancy. There were piles of food and all twenty-three students, one professor, one intern, and one bus driver could hardly put a dent in it. 

 

The next stop on the list was to a lecture about ACT from a woman named Louis Nielson. She works at the Århus university hospital and runs therapy session fro people with functional disorders. Functional disorders are when someone has physical symptoms that cause extreme discomfort and distress but have no organic cause. The patients that Louis works with either have a FD of bodily distress syndrome or health anxiety. She used ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) to in group therapy session. It's actually really interesting because ACT basically says that people's thoughts aren't the problem and that the problem actually lies in the attempt to avoid thoughts. ACT also focuses more on what an individual wants their life to be about and what stops them from living that life...so it has a lot to do with individual values. In the therapy sessions, they do a lot of mindfulness based exercises. Personally, I think there are a lot of really good things going on in ACT and that it could be used as a complementary therapy for lots of different things.

After the lecture, we drove to the Århus museum where we were given a tour and examined the relationship between art and psychology. Naturally, I was extremely excited about this portion of the trip. While the tour fell a little flat because the tour guide didn't really know much about psychology, the museum itself was really cool. The architect built it to reflect Dante's Inferno. So the basement is painted black (it only has installations) and represents hell. Then there is a spiral staircase that although it says it has about nine levels, only actually has seven landings. Each landing is supposed to represent one of the seven deadly sins. The idea is that, with each level you go up, you purge yourself of each sin. You have to go outside to get to the top level and it's a large circular walkway that's rainbow colors. Clearly this represents heaven. Being able to understand all the symbolism and the circles of hell made me really appreciate having read Dante's Inferno (something I really wasn't able to do while I was reading it).

 

Outside view of the museum.

 

Our class probably stood here for five minutes trying to decide whether or not this was a real person. It isn't. 

 

Giant figure. Izabel says it looks just like her brother Noah. 

 

View of Århus from the rainbow. 

 

This is the spiral staircase that rids you of all your sins.

Next stop: the hostel. This place actually turned out to be really nice and was much more like a hotel. Once we got there and checked in, we were on our own for the evening. Somehow, I ended up in a dinner group with the five guys in my class and our professor (partially it was because I felt bad that she was with only guys). It was a lot of fun though and my professor and I did some good bonding over the ridiculous things the guys were saying. Izabel was also in Århus that night so she met up with us part way through dinner and afterwards, she and I walked around the city. There were a lot of festivals going on because Århus is trying to be the new cultural capital of Europe.

 

View of  Århus from the back of the bus.

 

My hostel room!  I shared with another girl from my class.

 

Århus at night.

 

Canal that runs through the city.

On day two (Friday) we woke up bright and early go to to the Kaospilots. Now, contrary to the name, these people aren't actually pilots (it was kind of a disappointment). But the Kaospilots are actually amazing. It's a school whose focus is on teaching people about navigating life in chaos. It's a three year school that is like a psychological economics school can be considered a bachelor's degree. Students learn to work with organizations, with people, learn about how to be a good co-worker and a good leader. And it sounds kind of stupid but the things they learn are quite amazing. No one really thinks to teach life skills but this school does a lot of that. They help give people focus and teach them about balance and living a valued life. For a semester, each class year or "team" (which is only about thirty people I think) goes to another country and does a research project or works with a company to form and advertise new products. So they do a lot of this sort of thing. I think it's really cool. It's not as fluffy as it may sound. It's actually an internationally recognized school.

After the Kaospilots, we went to Esbjerg and met the director of another sort of school. It's not really a school but functions like one. It's called the Skills Project. They take students ages 16-25 who come from difficult childhoods and have had no success at school or have no where to turn in terms of education. Then they place them in this program and it basically helps the students find themselves and accept their past. You could think of it almost as a therapy school. They eat breakfast there everyday and they learn about economics and psychology and health. But all the work is very individual and in that way acts as a sort of therapy. The whole philosophy of the Skill Project is founded in positive psychology and awareness of individual strengths and awareness of well being and happiness. As the project manager said "students start to find the road to happiness".

Finally, we went to a new hostel in Ribe. This one wasn't quite as nice but it worked. The whole class also went out to a Mongolian Barbeque which was basically like a giant stir-fry. It tasted so good! And one of my classmates complimented me on my form when using chopsticks which was exciting. After dinner we had a bonfire and instead of making s'mores, we (naturally) made bread. This is how the Danes do s'mores. The owner of the hostel prepared a bunch of bread dough and we wound it around sticks and cooked it over the fire. It was so good!!

 

Hostel room in Ribe. 

Saturday was day three and we got to do a giant scavenger hunt around the quaint town of Ribe. It's pretty much a quintesental European town and I belive one of the oldest towns in Denmark. Our class spilt into teams and ran around to different points trying to answer questions about history and architecture. It was a lot of fun and though some people weren't into it as much, I love this sort of things so I tried to get my group into it (it also helped that I was pretty much the only one who was good at reading maps). My team ended up winning and we were rewarded for our hard efforts with chocolate. It was a pretty good way to start the morning.

 

Smallest house in Ribe (possibly in Denmark as well).

 

Street view or Ribe.

 

The winning team! Yay!

Next we went to a Castle that seemed to be pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It was smaller than I expected but very beautiful. The grounds were spacious and there were tons of mazes and gardens to wander around. They had also turned part of the grounds into a mini attraction site. There were a lot of fun activities there along with some very boring motorcycle museums that I avoided at all costs. After another wonderful buffet lunch and three hours of walking around the grounds, we all got back on the bus and headed back to Copenhagen.

 

Castle! They never told us who's castle it was though. All I know is nobility used to own it.  (I think the descendents still own it actually.)

 

There was a bunny pen and a couple of Danish children were throwing leaves into it to fee the bunnies. They flocked like crazy. 

 

We did a large maze with a tower in the middle. This is a view of the grounds from the tower.

 

Treetop garden walkway! So much fun! 

It was a really fun three days and it definitely helped me to get to know my classmates better. I'm really excited to go on the long study tour to London with them. It was also exciting because today in class, I could finally recognize everyone.

Sunday was a very relaxing day. Izabel and I went to the beach again and made baked apples which were delicious! We also started knitting. We kept telling Britta to teach us. It really ended up being Britta teaching Izabel how to knit and just reminding me how to cast on. We're both making infinity scarves and I can't wait for mine to be done! With colder weather closely approaching, the more warm things I have the better.

There were a few interesting things I noticed about Danish culture while traveling through western Denmark. The fist was that highway rules appear to be the same as in the US. People wanting to pass or go fast drive in the left lane. Also, they drive on the right side of the road here not the confusing way on the left side. I've also noticed that they eat a lot of sandwich meat at breakfast. At both hostels it was a big thing to have lots of bread next to piles of cheese and sandwich meat. I didn't eat any of it though because it felt way too much like lunch for my stomach to handle at eight in the morning.

Izabel has also completely changed my eating preferences in the short time we've been here. If I hadn't already said, she's gluten and mostly lactose intolerant and is vegetarian. So we eat a lot of rice and beans and salad at our house. And I've actually fallen in love with it. Rice and chickpeas or quinoa and chickpeas are my new favorite things (especially with avocado and spices and herbs). I also really like nuts and raisins now. My family better be warned because when I come back in four months, this is all I'm going to want to eat. Also, raw food cake is probably the best thing in the world. All you do is put a bunch of walnuts, dates, and cacao (NOT cocoa) in a food processor. Then add chopped up almonds, spread in a pan and freeze. It's one of my new favorite desserts. So good.

Last night Izabel and I had some wonderful adventures on our way home. Naturally DIS just likes to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on it's architecture students so Izabel had a class yesterday that went until 8:15...PM. It was awful. And it was strange because we were so exhausted mentally but had so much energy physically that we felt really hyper and delirious on the train ride home (our failure to pack sufficient lunches that day didn't help). Then when we were getting of the train, the button to open the door wasn't really there and instead there was just a flat metal plate. It was really confusing and rather frustrating. And the conversation went something like this...

Izabel: Oh my god, we're going to be stuck on this freaking train! If we can't get off this train, I'm going to yell at the conductor.
Me: And I'm sure as you do so, you'll throw in the names of some of the train stops (she was saying them nonstop on the ride home).
Izabel threw her arms up all gangster style and aggressively announced the name of one of the stops. I started laughing hysterically mainly because that's the last thing I would have expect Izabel to do.

Five minutes later:
Izabel: Do you know what this makes us?!
Me: No...
Izabel: Danish gangsters!

These are the kinds of conversations you have on the train... at 9 pm... on a Monday night...especially after waking up at 6 am and having been in the city for over 12 hours. Welcome to Mondays with Izabel and Claire.