DIS-covering the city

This week has been jam-packed with orientation activities, but my favorite one so far has definitely been “DIScover Copenhagen.” On Tuesday, we met in the courtyard below my LLC and we formed groups of six. We were given four locations to visit in a specific order: Christiansborg Palace, Nyhavn (New Harbor), Skuespilhuset (The Royal Danish Playhouse) and Amalienborg. At each location, we were told to find DIS Faculty to learn more about it.

To get in the exploring spirit, my group stopped at Studenterhurset to get caffeinated. Studenterhurset is a small café/bar about two minutes from where I live. It’s a non-profit organization that gives discounts to students in Copenhagen. You can get drinks, snacks and attend activities like quiz nights or craft nights. It’s very accessible for both Danish students and international students and looks like a really neat place to hang out and study. I got a coffee for only 12 kroner (less than two dollars!! Score!!) and DIS students were given a complimentary flødeboller! A flødeboller is a delightful little chocolate covered marshmallow. Mine had coconut on it. It was super tasty and I regret inhaling it before I could snap a picture.

After we got our caffeine and flødeboller fix, we headed off to our four destinations. We had a great time getting to know the city and getting to know each other. Some things I learned from the DIS faculty at the stops:

• Copenhagen is originally a viking fishing village and it was founded in the 10th century.
• Even though Copenhagen is a very old country, there is technically no “old city” in Copenhagen. There have been several fires and things have been rebuilt to replicate original buildings.
• Christiansborg is a palace and a government building that houses the Danish Parliament (Folketinget), the Danish prime minister’s office and the supreme court of Denmark.
• You can go to the top of Christiansborg and get a great view of the city. That’s on my to-do list!
• If you’re trying to guess which Danish king did something, guess either Frederick or Christian. Almost all Danish kings share one of those names.
• Historically, Denmark has only had two real enemies: Sweden and Germany. Denmark never really won against either, which explains why both those two countries have significantly more land than Denmark does.
• Nyhavn is pronounced “New Haven.” It means “new harbor.”
• Skuespilhuset opened in 2008. It is a theater building for the Royal Danish Theater. It was designed specifically for dramatic theater and now these shows don’t need to share the same venue as opera and ballet.
• Amalienborg is the home of the royal Danish family.

Christiansborg Palace

Group picture in front of Nyhavn. The six of us all live in the Culinary LLC.

The Royal Danish Playhouse is that beautiful shiny building on the left. On the right is the Royal Danish Opera House.

Amalienborg

After we finished our DIScovery activities, we decided to discover some things on our own. All the walking made us hungry so we headed to Papirøen (means “paper island”) which is a big building of street food vendors along the water. Papirøen has every kind of food you could think of: Thai, American, Danish, Moroccan, etc. Everything looked fantastic. Honestly, my biggest challenge in Copenhagen thus far has been deciding which stand to get food from. So I guess that means I’m doing pretty well here so far.

Outside of Paper Island aka my new favorite place

I decided to get smørrebrød, which is a traditional Danish open-faced sandwich. Mine had potato and red onion with fried onions on top. I also got a mojito because they were too pretty to pass up. Sure enough, we ran into another group of students from the Culinary LLC we live in. I think it should be our new hang out spot.

I made the right choice.

After lunch, we decided to explore a little art installation that was near the edge of the harbor at Nyhavn. There were two soccer ball shaped domes, and you had to crawl in a tiny door and put on weird slippers in the tiny dome before entering the main dome. It was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve seen so far. The art installation featured painted glass and lots of mirrors. I don’t even know how to describe it but hopefully my pictures do it some justice.

All in all, it was such an awesome day. I’m so thankful that DIS has such a well-thought out orientation. This past week, I’ve gradually become more comfortable wandering through Copenhagen. I can’t pronounce the street names, but I am usually able to get back to where I live without Google maps now. The activities have also really helped us get to know everyone we’re living with, which is great because of how many shared spaces we have in our apartment-style home.

I was already mesmerized by the beauty of Copenhagen but the DIScover Copenhagen event made me really begin to love the city. It was a chance to finally get a bit of guidance and learn some background to all the sites we’ve been seeing. I’ve studied some European history in the States but I keep feeling surprised by fundamental pieces of Danish history that I’ve just never even thought about. Understanding a bit of context and knowing more about where I’m living for the next few months certainly helped make me appreciate things more. 

 

Hej from Copenhagen

I have officially arrived in Copenhagen!!! The journey was completely exhausting but by day three, I finally have enough energy (and a break from orientation activities) to write an update.

I flew out of Dulles airport on IcelandAir on Friday night. My friend Mara is also studying at DIS this semester and it was really helpful to have company on the trip. When we arrived at the gate, we ended up finding several more DIS students. Of the six of us, four were heading to DIS Copenhagen and two were off to DIS Stockholm.

Me & Mara

Sunset before take-off

I hoped I’d get a little bit of sleep on the flight, but seeing as our layover in Reykjavik was at around 2 a.m. EST, it was hard to get more than a couple of hours. We arrived in Copenhagen around 12:30 p.m. (Copenhagen time), and from there we were greeted by members of the DIS staff. They helped organize us into groups based on where we are living and then they loaded us and our luggage onto charter buses to drop us off by DIS. From there, me and my two 45 lb. suitcases made our way down a long cobblestone street and up three flights of stairs to my room. It was quite the trek. I’m still sore.

This building houses my LLC. I live on the second floor.

This is the square that I see from my window.

After unpacking, the SRAs (social residential advisers) gave us a quick tour of the neighborhood. It’s a great area! There are tons of cool restaurants, cafés and bars. We also are on the same street as most of the DIS buildings where we’ll have classes. This is super ideal for me because it greatly reduces chances of me getting lost.

I really love our dorm. There are three floors, and each has around 12 people. Every floor has shared kitchen, dining area, common room and three bathrooms. The shared spaces feel really homey and they’ve been really ideal for getting to know each other. My window has a great view and you can often hear an accordian player performing in the street.

My half of the room

Our LLC’s shared kitchen

Saturday night finished up with a dinner shared by all three floors of the Culinary LLC and a trip to Netto, the cheap grocery store that seems to be all over the place. Grocery shopping in Denmark is a little bit overwhelming. Everything is written in Danish and the prices are all in Krones. I usually love grocery shopping but it was definitely weird to walk in and not find any brands I recognized. It’s going to take some getting used to and some trial and error to figure out what will be good things to get during the semester. The good thing is that this will push me out of my comfort zone and maybe after this I’ll rely a little bit less on frozen chicken nuggets.

On Sunday, we started off the day with a big breakfast. I joined the SRAs and our LLC coordinator and walked to a bakery down the street to pick up some pastries and bread to bring back to the dorm, while the others began cooking breakfast (bacon and scrambled eggs). I tried the Direktørsnegl which is a delicious chocolate cinnamon roll.

Breakfast was followed by a neighborhood scavenger hunt. We were broken into groups and had a variety of tasks like asking Danes for café recommendations and riding on different kinds of public transportation. The weather was beautiful so we had fun exploring and attempting to get around without using a GPS.

This afternoon I finally had some free time to explore, so I met up with my Syracuse friends and explored Nyhavn, which is the canal waterfront area. We went to Papirøen which has a ton of street food. Pretty sure most of my money this semester will be going to trying cool foods.

Some things I’ve learned so far:

• Danes care a lot about American politics. The country is so small that politics of other countries affect them a lot. They’re really baffled by Donald Trump.
• When walking through crowded areas, people just tap you on the shoulder when you’re in their way or say “excuse me.” If you apologize for bumping into someone, some Danes get confused and ask why you’re saying sorry.
• There’s not really a Danish word for “please.”
• Most things here are a lot more expensive than in the States.  The sales tax is 25% (!!!) but they do include that on prices when you’re shopping since it’s so high. Tips also aren’t necessary most of the time!
• Because open containers are totally cool here, if you don’t finish your drink at dinner, you can usually get it to-go and carry it out of the restaurant.

Tomorrow we have more orientation activities. I’m hoping I also learn how to pronounce the name of the street I live on.