Thanksgiving in Denmark

Naturally, Danes do not celebrate Thanksgiving... unless you are friends with a Dane who is hosting American exchange students. Basically Izabel and I wanted to do something for Thanksgiving while we were here and Britta was all for that idea. So she invited a bunch of friends and family over to eat delicious Thanksgiving food. Izabel made all the food, including the Turkey. She really enjoys cooking so I didn't complain and attempted to help where I could. And in exchange, I got to make dessert. Delicious apple pie. The food we had wasn't what I think of as traditional Thanksgiving food because Izabel made food that fit all of her dietary restraints. It was really good food and I probably ate more than I usually do on Thanksgiving. They were mostly dishes like kale with roasted squash and rice with roasted grapes. It was really good and every one enjoyed it. They also enjoyed the pie which was nice.

 

Unbaked pie! Yum!

 

I asked Izabel to stick her head by the oven to illustrate just how small it is. We only had an 11 pound turkey and it could barely fit. 

 

Plucking out feathers from the turkey....no joke, it was covered in them.

 

Izabel doing her thing.

 

While Izabel was cutting onions, she said she needed ski goggle. I suggested sunglasses. It didn't work as well as we hoped. 

 

I went on a cleaning rampage. Normally every surface is covered with piles and piles of papers and other things. 

 

Food is served!

 

 

Baked pie! Even yummier!!!

It was really cool to be able to share this tradition with other people and teach them about it and how we celebrate. Everyone who came really liked both the food and learning about Thanksgiving. We all just sat around and talked for hours. It was very Hyggeligt.

What's interesting is that people are trying to bring Thanksgiving to Denmark. Weird right. They want to make American football a bigger deal here (it's slowly been growing in popularity). SO basically their attempts to have Danes celebrate Thanksgiving is really just a way to sell food and alcohol and make more money.

Yesterday Britta took me and Izabel to Helsingør and Helsingborg. And for those of you who don't know your Scandinavian geography, Helsingør is about an hours car ride north of Copenhagen and is the home of Hamlet's castle. It was really cool to see Hamlet's castle. Though the interior was not nearly as decorated as everything else I've seen here in Europe. It felt like all skin and bones with white walls and very few ornate pieces of furniture. Though that could be because they just don't have much of the original furniture left.

 

Castle chapel

 

Ballroom

 

 Helsingborg was just a twenty minute ferry ride away from the castle and was also very cool. We weren't there fore very long and we just walked around a little bit so it was hard to get a solid feel for what Sweden is like. Though I did like what I saw. We primarily walked along a shopping street that reminded me a lot of the one in Copenhagen. Only, I definitely liked this one more because it was was a bit more quaint. The buildings on the walking street in Copenhagen are taller and the street itself is wider. And, since this was just a small city I really don't think it's a good representation of the entire country. Guess that just means I'll have to go back another time.

 

Street in Helsingborg (not the quaint walking street)

Trekking the Czech Republic

These past few days were spent, you guessed it, trekking through the Czech Republic. Probably the best four days I've had in a long time. It was freezing, but so much fun and so worth all the coldness. I went with a DIS group which was nice because it meant that I didn't have to worry about making sure I was on time for everything or knew where I was going because that was all up to the group leaders.
I left early Friday evening for a two to three hour bus ride to somewhere along the Danish coast. From here, we caught a two hour ferry to Germany and then our bus continued through the night to the Czech Republic. Nine hours to sleep on a bus probably only adds up to three hours of sleep. It was awful. It may have been a greyhound bus but when the bus is packed and you can't lay down,  it really doesn't make it all that comfortable. But all the discomfort and lack of sleep was totally worth it when we arrived at our hotel at eight in the morning. We had about thirty minutes to unpack and change before heading to breakfast. From there we divided into two groups of about twenty students each for the rest of the day's activities. Everyone did the same activities just in different orders. My group started the day with a three hour trek through the Czech forests. It was absolutely spectacular. One of those things that you just can't describe in words. Rolling hills, bubbling brooks, trees that look like their bursting into flames. And mud. Lots and lots of mud. Actually though, there was mud everywhere. We had to walk to lakes of mud a few times. But the scenery made it all entirely worth it.

 

Hotel room!

 

 

Czech village

 

Awesome castle!

 

I just thought this was pretty

When we arrived back at the hotel, we had a delicious lunch of duck and these strange potato/bread/dumpling things that are super popular in the Czech Republic (they were surprisingly good but I'm still not quite sure what exactly they were). After lunch we went and played a bunch of icebreaker games. They weren't the stupid and annoying kind either. Most icebreaker games are all about getting to know each others names and interesting things about everyone but these were just all about doing ridiculous things together. So we played soccer, which turned into blob soccer, which turned into a game where one partner in each blob was blindfolded and the partner had to direct them around in an attempt to make them kick the ball. Then we made four trains where we held onto the shoulders of the person in front of us and walked around the field. Only catch was that everyone but the person in back was blindfolded. The one in back was the conductor and had to navigate us around bushes and boulders only by tapping us on the shoulders. Lets just say that the person in front came out of this with a few bruises. Thankfully, I was the last person to get a turn in the front so, due to time constraints, my bruises were very minimal.
Then after a wonderful dinner and some yummy apple strudel, I spent the next few hours attempting to keep myself awake until a reasonable hour. It was a struggle because I was ready to pass out at eight. But waking up at four in the morning from going to bed so early didn't seem like all that fun. 

On Sunday, my group went into the Czech mountains and basically spent the day army crawling through caves and scaling up and down mountain gorges. It was awesome. We started out by exploring a cave where the people leading our trip had left us little notes. Once we collected all of them and a hand-drawn map and then  we followed them through the mountains. It lead us down mini cliffs (where they had to secure ropes for us to lower ourselves down),  over gorges that they had covered in netting, and through a few caves. One of the caves was more like a tunnel. It started out okay and then got smaller and smaller until we were literally on our stomachs army crawling through it because it was so narrow. Then there was a cliff right in front of the exit so you basically had to try to swing your legs around and do a back-bend to get out of the narrow crevice. There's a reason it was named broke-back cave. The whole thing was like hiking equivalent of mountain biking...so basically the best thing ever.

 

View from the top of a mountain

 

 

Climbing down a mountain

 

That blue dot in the center is a person attempting to get out of the broke-back cave

 

climbing down and gorge

 

People from my group climbing out of a cave

After that we went to a traditional Czech pub for lunch where they served us pork with those strange bread/potato things and then gave us a huge dessert (a blueberry stuffed dumpling) and hot chocolate. Even thought I had been starving when we started eating, by the time I was done, I felt like I was going to explode. So worth it though. Afterwards, my group went rock climbing out in the mountains. They had a few routes set up for us so we didn't get to go many times but it was really fun. I spent a majority of the time running in place and such in an effort to stay warm.

 

Totally legit and awesome

 

Later that night, we were randomly divided into groups of about six and sent out on a giant scavenger hunt. We were given a map with ten stop-points and flashlights and had to bring back a piece of paper from each stop. Running around through small towns and giant fields in the mud and pitch darkness is actually a ton of fun. I would highly recommend it.  There was one point where instead of following the road to the next stop, my group decided to cut through a large field. Not entirely sure if we were supposed to but, despite some very wet shoes, it was a success.

The next day my group went canoeing down a river for three hours. Sounds like fun right? Wrong. Not in the Czech Republic in November while wearing only a swimsuit and a wetsuit with not sleeves. It wasn't very fun. Well that's not true. The first half hour was great because we were going down mini rapids (hence the wetsuits) and my canoeing partner and I didn't fall into the river like some unfortunate groups did. Even so, by the end of the three hours my hands were bright red and I was shaking because I was so cold. Let's just say that getting onto the warm bus that took us back to the hotel was the best thing in the world at that moment.

The rest of the day was much, much better because we did archery. And it was amazing because I love archery. It's wonderful and I haven't done it for such a long time so I was quite happy for the rest of the day. We also had an archery competition and I placed second which isn't that exciting or anything except that the instructors were really, really impressed because I was the only girl to place. I just thought that was interesting.

On Tuesday morning, we were all bused to Prague where we spent the day. Me and a couple of other people went to this really cool castle (one of the oldest and largest in Europe according to our guides). After that a few girls and I wandered around and did a bunch of shopping. None of us felt up to doing anything super touristy- we didn't really have the time for it anyway. So we just walked around, explored and ate lots of really good food. Again, I would highly recommend it.

 

Prague!!!

 

Square somewhere in Prague

 

Really awesome clock tower

 

 

Castle!!!

 

Amazing tree not far from the castle. It reminds me of Narnia...but that could just be because I'm watching a Narnia movie with Britta and Iza right now. Also, Britta has a large cabinet in her house with an old key to open it and I always say it leads to Narnia. So far I haven't had any luck though. 

 

Dinner in Prague

Basically, the Czech Republic is an awesome and beautiful place and everyone should get over there sometime. A definite must see.

Why Vegetables are Bad for You

Sunday here was gorgeous, one of the nicer days we've had in a while. So Izabel and I took the opportunity to bike into the city. We've been meaning to do it for a while but somehow never quite got around to it until now. It was a far easier ride that we were expecting, it takes about an hour but after a few turns at the beginning, it's a straight shot all the way into the city. Piece of cake. We didn't get lost once (which is more than we can say for the last time we attempted to bike an unknown route). It was such a great ride that I got it into my head that I would bike into Copenhagen during the week. Great idea. I even woke up a little early on Monday just to make sure I would have enough time to make it to my eight thirty class.
Lets just say things didn't go as planned. I looked at the weather in the morning and saw it was going to rain. Well, that's no problem, I thought, it won't really rain. So I geared up and set out on my hour long bike ride. And, other than a ton of wind, it was great for the first half hour. Then it started to rain and by rain I mean downpour. I was soaked in minutes and by soaked I mean there wasn't an inch of me that wasn't wet (even with my wonderful raincoat). It was a miserable half hour. I honestly don't think I've ever been so wet in my life. And all the other bikers looked at me as if I was crazy for not wearing rain pants (yes, such things exist) and a giant rain poncho. I then spent my first class sitting on the heater attempting to warm up (it didn't go very well). My body basically spent the entire day trying to warm up. It was great fun. And why did I bike into the city even though I knew it was going to rain? Great question, I'm glad you asked. I'm convinced it's because of the ridiculous amount of vegetables I've been eating. That's practically all I eat for dinner. Not that I'm complaining, I love these vegetable-ful dinners. So do I have any logical reasoning for these claims? Of course not, but I'm convinced. Then of course today, when it was beautiful outside, I decided not to bike into the city. I've got to stop eating so many vegetables. Too bad that's all I crave now (other than chocolate, because let's be honest, who doesn't want chocolate?). The good news is that I now officially feel like a Dane since they're always biking around no matter how awful the weather.
Also, as a side note, I now see the complete brilliance of rain pants. Whoever invented them was a genius. The Danes clearly know what they're doing.

And now it's time for some Danish culture lessons. Let's talk about hygge. For those of you that don't speak Danish, in Claire phonetic spelling it's pronounced "who-guh". But the "who" really has to come from the back of your throat. And if you can't get it, no worries. I avoided saying the word for the longest time.
So hygge is one of those words that doesn't really translate very well into other languages, which is a shame because it's a wonderful concept. Basically it's the idea of coziness and having a warm atmosphere and good, comfortable time. Many things can be hygge. A dinner can be hygge a walk can by hugge. And while it often involves being with friends and family, it doesn't have to. With slight variations, the word hygge can be not only a noun but also a verb and adjective (hyggelig pronounced "who-guh-lee"). Basically, the Danes love hygge, especially around this time of year when it starts to get darker and Christmas approaches. I can't wait to experience more of it. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures to give lots of examples of hygge because that's really the only way to get a good understanding of this concept. And there will be plenty of it to go around in these upcoming weeks.

Another interesting thing to note about Danes is that they're very much about equaling the playing field.  My Danish professor gave a great illustration of this. When she was graduating high school, she was the best in her class (and this was really hard for her to say because Danes really don't talk about being the best...ever). However, there are no awards given for academics. Instead, her school gave an award to the person they thought exemplified a good friend. And one of my professor's friends got the award. Later, someone told my professor that she had actually been considered for the award but because she was already the best academically, they didn't want to give her this award on top of that. So, in ways like this, Danes really tire to make everyone equal. They also don't really encourage personal achievement as much. Striving to achieve something isn't really considered to be as good of a thing as it is in the states. Not entirely sure how I feel about this. While I do like how they try to make everyone equal, I'm not so much a fan of the achievement thing. Personally, I think it's a good thing to strive for something you want.

One thing I'm not particularly fond of in Danish culture thus far is how they treat newcomers or people who aren't part of a particular social group. Lets say you're invited to a party and you don't really know anyone there. Well, if you're in Denmark you're kind of screwed because they won't introduce you to anyone. They think this draws attention to what you're lacking (aka knowledge of who these people are and it just emphasizes this inequality- a definite no-no). So you'll basically spend the entire party feeling extremely awkward and definitely not having a hyggelig time. This is part of why it's so hard to become friends with Danes.

Now it's time to go prepare myself for my trip to the Czech Republic. It's a trip organized by DIS and we basically hike, canoe, rock climb, and do archery for four days and then spend a day in Prague. It's going to be wonderful.  :)

Vi ses!

Gangnam Style Flash Mob

As promised, here's the link to the Gangnam Style flash mob my class did last week in London. I'm the one in the bright orange sweater on the left.

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10152216287755603