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hello, friends!

as i lay here decompressing from the day's activities, i realize it's going to be in my best interests to post rather frequently. otherwise i'll find myself in the situation i'm currently in with way too much to say in order to write a post that will hold your interest. regardless, i'll put it all here in order to offer those of you who want it an opportunity to live vicariously through my travels. it may be wise to take a short intermission at one or multiple points. i suggest eating a tomato and cucumber sandwich, an apple, or a granola bar on these breaks if you'd really like to get a feel for the way i'm living.

since i last captivated you with the details of my european life, i've done quite a bit of engaging in danish life and culture. on saturday i had the opportunity to do a good bit of exploring with my roommate, taylor, and a friend of hers (now my friend as well) from villanova (her home university).
our adventure took us first to the marble church (i mentioned this in an earlier post about the copenhagen amazing race during my orientation week.). this time we ventured inside. it's overwhelmingly beautiful. the church is still used for evangelical lutheran services but we all agreed that we'd find the interior too distracting to really get anything out of the service. the church itself is quite old: the first stone was laid in 1749 but due to the death of the architect and budget cuts, the thing wasn't finished until 1894. its dome is 31m in diameter and is the largest in scandinavia. fun facts.

the next stop on our self-guided tour was new harbor. here we enjoyed more of the iconic canal scene and took our first pictures with real people in them. taylor and i had discussed the night before the strange fact that neither of us had actually photographed any people. so here is the first photographic documentation of my presence in denmark:

sadly, my face looks rather silly. after even 15 minutes outside in the cold, the whole thing goes numb. i was really barely aware that i was even smiling.
we moved next to the royal library, partly to escape the cold and partly because it's just a beautiful building on the interior.

we made a point of asking the woman working the front desk who was allowed to work in the library. she told us that any of us would be welcome to study in there any time we liked. we're making plans.

the reading rooms are gorgeous. extremely tall ceilings. gorgeous view of the canal that separates københavn-proper from christianshavn. lots of glass. it just feels open and warm. can't wait to hunker down with some books there.
from the royal library, we made our way back to the area where DIS is found. we tried to go to the studenterhuset but were devastated to find it closed. we had to settle for considerably more expensive coffee from baresso, the danish equivalent of a starbucks. brittany is particularly enamored with the baresso because of their hot chocolate: they give you a mug of steamed milk and two swizzle sticks with chunks of chocolate on them. the chocolate melts and then you have hot chocolate. it actually is delicious. but it costs $8 a cup. we're going to try to make it at home.
at the baresso, we finally met up with brittany and maria, her roommate. they brought a few friends with them which expanded our group nicely and allowed me to add a few more names to my list of friends in denmark. after sitting, chatting, and warming up for a good while, we strolled down strøget, the main shopping street in the city center, and the girls ended up coming back to our kollegium.

we proceeded to have a wonderful girls' night during which we made pita pizzas and finished the evening with flødeboller, a danish sweet comprised of a marshmallow on top of a wafer encased in a chocolate shell. yes, they're exactly as delicious as they sound.

the five of us girls who enjoyed dinner together at the kollegium had a fantastic time--we're looking forward to getting together again/more regularly. such sweet girls. i feel so blessed to have great companionship so quickly.
the next morning (sunday), i visited the international church of copenhagen with maria. the church welcomes people of all denominations and all nationalities which makes for a rather interesting service structure. i enjoyed it and think i'll come again, but what i really loved was their young singles group. after the service, we enjoyed coffee with them and went to lunch afterwards in a lovely cafe where one of the group members works. each member of the group is so sweet and genuinely welcoming and i immediately felt a rare sense of belonging. i think maria felt it too because the two of us decided to also attend the young singles bible study held on tuesday nights even though the DIS girls' bible study is held on the same night. while i value the opportunity to get to know other believers in the program, i love the idea of integrating myself into life in denmark by building relationships with people who are actually living here. all of them are residents and a couple are danish but there are also members from germany, england, and the netherlands (to name a few). tonight was our first night at small group and i already love it. each time we meet, we enjoy dinner together and discuss a passage we've all read before hand. the evening closes with prayer requests and prayer together. it's simple but it's such a warm environment. the love and appreciation the members have for one another is palpable and i'm so glad i get to be a part of it--even if it's only for four months. and already i'm finding more ways to establish a life here: i'm playing ultimate frisbee tomorrow night with some small group members and crocheting at a cafe with some of the girls on monday. God is more than meeting my needs here. praise the Lord.

classes have also been going swimmingly. so far i'm enjoying every one of my courses and already learning loads of things i probably never would have learned at vandy. or at least never would have enjoyed learning quite as much. i'm overwhelmed by the opportunity my core course specifically affords me. today our lecture was on how to take a patient history and our professor pretended to be a patient that we collectively interviewed as a class. on friday we'll actually be meeting with a patient, interviewing him or her, and writing up a case file as our first assignment. i can hardly wait.

as another part of my life-altering study abroad experience, i have taken up yoga. brittany discovered a free class on monday nights in the basement of a church and she, taylor, and i attended last night. it was my first yoga class of all time and i had a blast. it's taught by a gay yogi named jack who was studying in boston, fell in love with a visiting dane, moved to denmark 20 years ago, and now has a yoga studio in københavn. no big deal.

so there's a summary of what's happened of late. tomorrow is wednesday which means no classes and will usually mean a field study for one of my classes instead, but since it's the beginning of the semester, we just have it off. my kollegium plans to visit the little mermaid statue and enjoy the afternoon socializing and drinking coffee. i find myself looking forward to the opportunity to get a good deal of sleep tonight. all this walking and commuting makes me quite tired these days. still some adjusting to be done.

i hope i was able to keep you engaged for the majority of my information dump. i hope that if any of you ever have any questions about things that i mention or want to hear more or less about this or that that you'll feel free to ask me. i'm loving life here and appreciate the opportunity to record my adventures here for my benefit and yours as well.

i'll close this unusually word-heavy post with a pictures from our girls' night. in the back row (from left to right) is maria (brittany's roommate and my friend who attends icc with me) and elise (a year-long student from smith college). in the front, we have me, brittany, and taylor (my roommate).

kærlig hilsen,
kati