kvalitets tid.

last night the gang and i took the five love languages quiz. in each language of love you receive a score out of 12. for quality time, i received an 11. which meant that the events of today made my soul infinitely happy.

first, brunch with becca and brittany.

then a bike ride to the beach in amager.

it might have been miserable and windy. so we hunkered down behind a small knoll and did some spooning to stay warm.

the afternoon was spent watching away we go, reading, and napping and then becca and i made a feast from what we could scavenge to clean out the fridge since we'll be gone for two weeks.

topped the evening off with a showing of mona lisa smile and a brisk bike ride home.
i'm a happy camper. and i haven't even left for spain yet.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

for tidligt.

it appears my celebration of spring may have come too soon. or at least with too much enthusiasm.

i resolved to not wear pants theoretically forever and began by wearing shorts today. the high was projected to be about 54 and it was sunny. so theoretically, not a terrible idea.
but then there's that whole wind thing that's so big in this city...

thankfully becca sent some blankets and an air pump home with us in preparation for our sleepover with brittany and maria tomorrow.
they came in handy on the trip home.

lesson learned.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

forår.

i know you've all been eagerly awaiting my next installment about my trip to poland and germany, but i feel the need to interrupt regularly scheduled programming in celebration of spring.

today i wore a skirt without tights and left my coat at home. i strolled around a park with my dear friend becca and the sun was shining. and there were flowers.

we sat on a bench and ate lunch without wearing mittens.

what a lovely day. hooray for spring!

this post is also a celebration of the two additional pages of editing techniques included in the updated version of picasa.
life is good.

oh, and it's 6:30pm and the sun's still up.
spring has made it across the pond.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

bruxelles.

the next event in my study abroad saga? a trip to brussels to meet up with my dear friend c-ray!

c-ray has been in france since fall of 2011 teaching english. when i found out i was officially studying abroad, we decided to meet up in belgium because:
1. it is in between denmark and france.
2. neither of us had been there before.
3. they have waffles.
so a few weeks before our agreed upon weekend, i purchased a eurorail pass that would allow me 6 days of unlimited travel in germany, denmark, belgium, luxemburg, and the netherlands. by taking the night train, i could save myself money on a hostel and technically get two days of travel for the price of one since the pass only counts the morning after the night train as a travel day. so take the night train i did.
there's something romantic about traveling by train. however, since it was a night train, i missed out on all that gazing out the window at the european countryside. on the other hand, i was able to befriend a dutch man moving back to the netherlands from denmark. he was a computer programmer who had been working in spain and then denmark for a cumulative total of 10 years. he was finally returning home and was excited to leave denmark. apparently the danes are little too private/not sociable enough for him.
we ended up chatting for about five hours until we decided it was about time to go to sleep. unfortunately, i got off the train while he was sleeping and we never exchanged names, so he'll be forever preserved in my mind as the nameless stranger who helped me pass the time on the train in a very enjoyable manner. something romantic about that, too.
when i arrived in brussels, i went immediately to the ticket counter to try to purchase a return ticket. i got my ticket to brussels in copenhagen but they were unable to sell me a return ticket on the night train because it appeared to be sold out. the woman at the counter advised me to wait and try to purchase it in brussels instead since they sometimes limit the number of tickets that can be purchased at other stations leaving some available for domestic purchase.

unfortunately, the train was still sold out so i ended up having to buy a ticket for travel home all day sunday. unfortunate to lose a day to the train, but i was glad i just sucked it up and got the ticket. i think it ultimately made the weekend less stressful and caused me to take full advantage of saturday since it was the only day i'd have in the city.
and take advantage we did. we had such a refreshing and enjoyable time together but we certainly packed a lot into it. by the time we found each other and dropped our luggage at the hostel, we were both pretty hungry so we grabbed a map and headed towards kebab street. after a bit of meandering and stopping to take pictures, we eventually found a little indian restaurant. it was my first indian food in over a month. deeeeeeelicious.

after lunch we hit the museum of musical instruments, a fun and relatively extensive museum full of...pretty much just instruments. when you enter, you're handed a pair of headphones which you then plug in to the many headphone jacks throughout the museum. since the plaques were all in french, i pretty much just flitted about, listening to didgeridoos and harpsichords for about an hour and a half.

then we moved on to the royal art museum, the attraction c-ray was most interested in. it was absolutely one of the most fantastic museums i've ever been to. the art was beautiful but i was almost more impressed with the way in was arranged and presented. the whole museum was just very aesthetically pleasing. also, c-ray may have contributed quite a bit to my enjoyment of the museum. as a classics major with extensive knowledge of church history, he was able to explain what was happening in pretty much all the paintings we saw. you know how much i love learning. beautiful art + a free education from a wonderful friend = totally worth the three euro i paid to get in.

having been in brussels for about six and a half hours now, it was high time for some waffles. the extremely useful map we got from the hostel suggested a cafe in the city center for cheap waffles so we headed over to check it out. waffle with chocolate? wise decisions.
however, in case that wasn't indulgent enough, we decided to try a street waffle as well. it cost about half as much and we both actually thought they tasted better, too. so many waffles. so much love.

we spent the rest of our evening meandering about the city as the sun set. after dinner at a halal restaurant, we decided to go to the top of a parking garage to try to see the atomium, one of the major draws for me in brussels. unfortunately, the view of the atomium was lame. but the view of the rest of the city definitely wasn't.
since we couldn't see the atomium well from the garage, we decided to make the trek out to the end of the metro line to check it out. usually you have to pay to get in and see it but having gone and stood in the parking lot outside and had my fill, i'm not sure why you would. perhaps our entrance fee lets you travel to the top of the sculpture. there's a restaurant in the highest ball.

the statue is a representation of a 9-atom iron crystal. it was built for a world's fair some time ago and is adjacent to mini-europe, another big attraction in brussels which sadly didn't open until march (we were there the last weekend in february). the statue was incredible at night. the lights made it look stunning. i think i still would have thought it was cool in the daytime, but at night it was crazy cool.

and with our excursion to the atomium, we concluded our adventures in brussels. the next morning we had just enough time to enjoy breakfast at our hostel before i was off to catch the train. it was a brief trip, but so good for my soul to spend time with my dear friend.

and so concludes the record of my first european trip by myself. i don't think i could have asked for a better first experience. things i learned?
1. trust the street food.
2. the brits make delicious diet coke with cherry.
3. riding a train all day by yourself is mind numbing.

not even a week after this trip, i boarded a bus to poland for my long study tour. until i can say more about that, enjoy this long-exposure photo of brussels at night.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

den polterabend.

the week following short study included the info session for the photography brittany and i have founded here at DIS and a celebration of my friend elise's birthday.
the info session had a relatively good turnout and everyone who showed up seemed really excited to have the chance to develop their photography skills over the course of the semester. we've since hosted a technical workshop in which peter, a member of the DIS faculty with extensive photography experience and a passion for sharing his knowledge, offered some basic information about how a camera works and gave some tips on how to take better pictures depending on what kind of camera you have. we've also gone on a "photo excursion" which i'll describe in more detail later.

elise's birthday actually fell on the weekend of short study tour so we decided to have our celebration the following weekend. highlights included my first pastry purchase in denmark (after being there for almost a month. yes, they all though it was just as weird as well.), a trip to cafe paludan for a live jazz concert (it was the end of the copenhagen winter jazz festival), dinner at chili milli (a health food restaurant reminiscent of grins), and an invitation to attend a danish bachelor party. i suppose the last item warrants a story.

as we enjoyed our dinner at chili milli, we noticed a virtually constant stream of men coming from what appeared to be the bathroom. we hadn't noticed any of them let alone that many of them going in to the bathroom so we eventually stopped one of them and jokingly asked if there was a party going on back there. he replied that they were actually a bachelor party celebrating johnny's impending marriage. being a large group of women, the idea of a wedding got us instantly excited and we proceeded to cheer every time a man came through the door from then on. eventually a large group of men had accumulated on the sidewalk outside the restaurant and they appeared to be seriously discussing something. three of the men reentered the restaurant, approached our table, and proceeded to ask us if we would like to join them later in the evening. i think we were generally quite surprised but someone with enough moxie and initiative managed to get the details. we then launched into a discussion of what should be done.
let me interject here to note that while i would generally not give a second thought to such invitations, as a group, we outnumbered the bachelor party and...we're in denmark.

it was only about 7pm and we weren't asked to meet them until 11pm. we made an executive decision to go to becca's kollegium, watch a movie, and then make an official decision around 10:30pm when we would need to leave the kollegium to show up on time. since we're in denmark, the obvious movie choice was the prince and me so we had a highly enjoyable evening identifying the landmarks pictures in clips in between scenes. sadly, the movie wasn't actually filmed in denmark but we were too proud of ourselves for being able to recognize that fact to really care.
all of a sudden, it was 10:30pm and we all ultimately decided to give the bachelor party a shot. on our way out of the kollegium, we were pulled in to the club in the basement of becca's kollegium (apparently copenhagen is your destination for one stop fun, shwarma, and housing)and enjoyed a short dance party before grabbing the metro into the city. sadly, the story ends there: even though we told the bouncer we were there for johnny's bachelor party and he had reserved a VIP table, we still had to pay the 80 kroner cover to get in. ultimately decided it wasn't worth it but hey--we'll always have the story.

i believe that story requires enough digestion for it to have it's own entry. so i'll save the chronicling of my trip to brussels for tomorrow. until then, enjoy this photo that confirms that i am too short to ride public transit in a stable fashion.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

rejse til det vestlige danmark.

holy canoli. i knew it had been a long time since i last regaled you with my adventures in denmark, but a month? that's a little obscene. i can't attribute it to anything other than sheer laziness. in my head, it takes a great deal of energy to compile my thoughts about my adventures. definitely false. and so, out of a contrite spirit, i will set out to post something every day this week so that i'll be all up to date by the time i leave for my two-week european adventure (get pumped. it's going to be "off da chain" as the kids say.)

i believe i left off just before leaving on my short study tour to jutland. this was a phenomenal trip and study tours will definitely stand out forever in my mind as one of the best parts of DIS. each program has two associated study tours: a short one to western denmark, sweden, or another place we can get to quickly. the tours are intended to supplement what we learn in the classroom with visits to relevant locations and institutions interspersed with fun cultural activities and delicious foods. what's not to absolutely love about that?

my short tour took me to århus, denmark's second largest city, and ebeltoft, a much smaller city, both of which can be found on jutland, the largest of denmark's islands. we had three academic visits during our time there (which was quite brief. i think we left on a thursday morning and came back saturday night.). the first was to the PET center, a institution that specialized in neuroscience research with an interdisciplinary approach. members of their faculty include musicians, philosophers, biologists, psychologists, you name it, they've probably got someone. all of their studies involve looking at brain function or structure in one way or another. one of their particularly interesting studies seeks to explain the phenomenon of pathological gambling. quite intriguing.

our second visit, and potentially one of my favorite things i've done here in denmark, was to a danish general practitioner's office. here we met with one of the doctors who works in the practice and enjoyed a fantastic presentation on the structure of the danish healthcare system along with some comparison to the US system to put it in perspective for us. i think that session might still be my favorite academic experience here in denmark. i just loved finally knowing exactly what danish healthcare looks like and coming to understand why it's able to function the way it does. the more i learn about it and the more i hear danes talk about it, i'm convinced such a system would never function in the US. it's not so much that we don't have the money or human resources for it; it's that it goes so completely against american capitalist ideaology. there are two things without which universal healthcare absolutely cannot function. the first: a stable economy. the second: the people have to have complete faith in the government to use their funds appropriately. danes pay obscenely high taxes (50% flat rate with an additional percentage graduated by income level) but they generally don't mind it because they trust the system will come back to them in one way or another. i think the bipartisan political system of the US will make it virtually impossible to have any more than 50% of the population to trust that the government has their best interests at heart. until that issue is somehow resolved, i think it would be of very little benefit to our country to try to implement a system of universal healthcare. we could definitely do with a little more regulation of the system, however. you know, just to stop this ridiculous price gouging/inflation business.

our last academic visit was to århus university hospital, the biggest hospital in denmark. my impression is that it's århus university that gives life to århus. the city is home to 50,000 students, 35,000 of which attend århus university, and huge numbers of other residents are affiliated in some way with the university. it struck me as being very similar to ann arbor in that way. maybe that's why i enjoyed it so much.

sadly, this visit wasn't very memorable. i say that because i had to turn in an assignment about my short and long study tours yesterday and i truly struggled to come up with anything to say about the hospital. however, one of the things we saw there will live on forever in my head: pig surgery. we were allowed to venture down into the basement where fourth year medical students were practicing their surgical skills on pigs. one group was performing an appendectomy, the other just practicing suturing, cutting, and cauterizing. it was awesome. but smelled unsettlingly like bacon.

our cultural, non-academic visits on this tour were also phenomenal. our first one was dinner and bowling at a very tiny bowling alley in ebeltoft. it seemed like an odd thing to have us do at first but i think it effectively bonded us as a group. on this trip we weren't just with the other members of our section of our core course--we combined with section a which ended up being an awesome thing. it was great to get to meet and spend considerable time with other students from the same program that i probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. the section a-ers also traveled with us on our long study tour and the end of it felt a little like graduation when we realized we wouldn't get to see these people all day every day anymore.

anyways, the first night was bowling and food. our next non-academic visit was destined to become one of my favorite places in denmark: the aros modern art museum. i think this museum got me excited about museums. i've never been a huge fan but this one just had so many pieces that i loved and was structured in such a phenomenal way that i fell in love. highlights included a 5-meter tall statue of a boy, a room filled with fog and colored lights, and the rainbow panorama. the rainbow panorama is a circular hallway on top of the building. the outer panels are tinted in a rainbow gradient so depending on where you're standing, you see the city in different hues. people come from all over just to see this piece. it's definitely worth it.

this is how the panorama looks from the exterior.

aaaaaand the interior. way cool. i took pictures of the city through each of the colors. feel free to check them out on my facebook.

our next visit which i have trouble categorizing into academic or non-academic, was to a very small museum of medicine. here we were shown through their main exhibit that describes the progression from the very beginning of medical care to the modern day, showing examples of old instruments and machines as well as simulations of what old doctor's offices and pharmacies would have looked like. the highlight of this museum was definitely their temporary exhibit. it was one fertility treatment and contraception. the main attraction (that was probably not intended to be the main attraction but became so for 30 college students)? a giant uterus.

big enough to crawl inside with pillows and warm red lights. and a track of a beating heart playing. to make the whole thing seem more realistic, of course. here's a picture of a couple of my classmates lounging inside.

i think at this point in the trip we were all so tired from going and going and going non-stop that we would have been quite happy to curl up together and sleep in the hyggeligt uterus. unfortunately, the museum was closing and we were ushered out and back onto the bus.

we also had the opportunity to see the jelling stones, a very important piece of danish history. the stones are engraved with runic text that tells of how harold bluetooth christianized the danes and they also contain the first mention of the name "denmark". i think in the early 2000s they were officially declared unesco monuments so they've been encased in glass to protect them from the elements. it's often hard for me to comprehend the age of what i'm looking at when i'm confronted with objects that are hundreds of years old. i just can't imagine anything being that old. i think, were i to make a list of the top five differences between europe and america that i've noticed during my brief time here, the concept of time would definitely make the cut. europe just has so much more history than our country does. for danes, it's no big deal that there's a 17th century church around the corner from their home but in america, since our history has been so brief, we tend to make a huge deal about the historical elements we do have. even homes built before 1900 are a big deal. hm. such a fascinating difference.

our last stop before going home was a handball game. handball is a very popular sport in europe. apparently. i don't know that i was actually aware of its existence prior to coming to denmark. when i first got here it was hard to ignore: the danish national team won the european handball cup (or some other tournament of equivalent importance). it's an intriguing game. it appears to be a mixture of soccer, frisbee, and extreme catch. every time i see it played i'm struck by how terrifying it would be to be the goalie. giant men jumping and whipping balls at your face? yikesyikesyikes.

so that's our first study tour in a nutshell. i love that DIS offers us opportunities to travel in such a structured way. and to see things in denmark that many danes don't even get to see. my danish professor was one of our chaperones for the trip and she loved getting to see this side of denmark. her background is in business so all of these medical-themed visits were brand new to her. it was fun to watch her experience that. and to watch her grapple with her curiosity and gag reflex when we went to see pig surgery.

stay tuned for the tale of my whirlwind trip to brussels to see my dear friend c-ray. until then, here's a picture of another fantastic piece from the aros modern art museum.

kærlig hilsen,
kati