eventyr i bygninger og kanyler.

gooooooooood morning!
(at least it will be morning by the time most of you have an opportunity to read this.)

i find myself with a little chunk of free time and the presence of mind to record my thoughts so i figured i'd attempt to expand upon my list of events from the last post. i'll begin with my afternoon of exploring with brittany.

my dear friend is taking a history of copenhagen course which requires her to explore the city and answer questions/take pictures of what she sees. i benefit quite a bit from her enrollment in said course because i get a free travel guide AND touring buddy. win-win.
her first assignment took us to the city hall. it's about a block away from the main building of our school. it was officially opened in 1905 and is actually the third city hall in copenhagen's history. the previous two burned down. a lot of things in this city have burned down. like the whole city.

fun fact: the clock tower adjacent to the main building makes the city hall one of the tallest buildings in copenhagen. apparently they opted to have tall humans at the expense of the height of this buildings.
above the front door is a golden statue of absalon, the bishop who founded copenhagen along with christian the fourth. the hall contains quite a few offices, a large hall that any citizen has the power to rent for social events, and a very interesting water fixture.

out on the plaza in front of the city hall is the zero mile marker. err...zero kilometer marker. upon it you'll find the distances to other portions of the city. although upon further examination, taylor realized that it gives three different distances to the same place. moving to google maps was a valuable choice.

next stop: the church of our lady. this ridiculously old and beautiful church is also just a block away from our school. the history of this place includes another series of fires and moving the site of the building from place to place around the city until the area it now resides in was settled upon. it fell victim to the british bombings of copenhagen in 1807 and needed to be rebuilt yet again. construction began in 1817 and was finally finished in 1829. the big controversy surrounding the rebuilding was the erection of the church tower. the old building, having been built in the medieval era, had a tower but the architect designed the new church in the neo-classical style which apparently has a prohibition against church towers. however, the tribe spoke pretty forcefully and they got their church tower.

the sides of the church are lined with marble statues of the 12 disciples, judas iscariot replaced with the apostle paul. at the head of the church is the christus. apparently quite a while ago a mormon prophet entered the church, saw the statue, and exclaimed that this is what jesus looked like. he had copies of the statue made and i believe there's one in every mormon temple.
in 1924, the church of our lady was officially named the national cathedral of denmark. however, it doesn't look like any huge events have happened in there for a while. in 1648, frederik the third was crowned and then, after a sizeable dry spell, the current crown prince and his wife were married there in 2004.

our exploration was cut short after this visit as i had to get to class. however, this wasn't your ordinary class. it was clinical skills day and i learned how to use a stethoscope, place an IV, and perform a lumbar puncture. it was a pretty big day. i think the craziest part of the whole deal was how nonchalant our professors were about the whole affair. as if it were the most normal thing in the world to give a bunch of 20 year-olds needles and allow them to stab things. including each other. yes, we were given the option of practicing our IV insertions on each other. a sweet girl in my class offered herself to be stuck but was too nervous to do it herself. i took her up on the offer and was ultimately unsuccessful, but she assured me (in response to me repeatedly asking, "am i hurting you?") that it really didn't hurt her. crazy day. i think it still hasn't truly hit me that i tried to put a needle in another human being.

we had a short week of classes because we all left for our short study tours that thursday. and since that was such an incredible weekend and deserves a post of its own, i'll stop here for today. but i'll leave you with a picture of some graffiti on the outside of the church of our lady.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

bosætte sig i.

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

begyndelse.

hello, dear friends!

let me begin this record of my time in denmark with a brief explanation of what i'll be doing during my time here.
the organization i'll be studying with is called the danish institute for study abroad (DIS). they're a non-profit education organization specializing in study abroad. each semester they take on about 800 students, many from the US but i've already met one girl originally from hong kong who goes to school in australia. there are 14 different programs offered by DIS that cover virtually every major program of study imaginable. because of their diverse course offerings, DIS attracts a rather eclectic group of students. for example, i've met more architecture, urban planning, and design majors than i ever dreamed i would.
the program i'll be participating in is formally called medical practice and policy (MPP). it's taught by danish doctors and has frequent field studies in hospitals with exposure to patient care and clinical skills. as part of the course, i'll be going on a short and a long study tour. the shorter tour for most courses is within denmark. in my case, i'll be exploring a couple danish hospitals. for the longer study tour, i'll be traveling to poznan, poland and berlin, germany to explore the state of science and health care in both countries.

in addition to the core course associated with the MPP program, i'll be taking four other courses. the first is called complexity of cancer, the equivalent of the cancer biology offered at vanderbilt. i'm thrilled that i have the opportunity to take this course while abroad since pre-requisite requirements prevent me from being able to take it at home. the course is a combination of tumor/cancer biology and an exploration of current cancer treatments.
my second course is a medical exploration of hiv/aids which offers both a scientific and a sociological exploration of the aids epidemic.
the third course is called gender perspectives on human rights which offers a global perspective of the treatment of women and general human rights. with this course i was hoping to take an additional study tour to amsterdam to tour the red light district and visit NGOs associated with the sex trade but the trip has been cancelled due to flight issues. fortunately, many of the other students who had signed up for the trip are still interested in going so we may find a way to get their on our own.
the last of my additional courses is danish language and culture. in this class, as the title suggests, i'll get the opportunity to study a bit of danish in addition to exploring the culture of københavn and denmark at large.

as i write this to you, i've successfully arrived in københavn and completed my first two days of orientation activities. my flight arrived sunday at 1:00pm local time and i somehow managed to maneuver three rolling bags over cobblestone streets and up to my room on the third floor. after unpacking and meeting my lovely roommate taylor, all of residents in our kollegium (think suite-style dorms, each with two people, a tiny kitchenette, and a bathroom) enjoyed a lovely meal prepared by our SRAs (social/residential advisers), lise and louisa. both girls are incredibly sweet and seem quite excited to get to know all of us and to assist us in our efforts to get to know københavn.

after going to bed at 9:30 and successfully sleeping off jetlag, my monday began with the DIS opening ceremonies. they were held at the ny carlsberg glyptotek, a sculpture museum established and funded by the carlsberg brewery. we were welcomed by the director of DIS, the professor for my human rights class, and the DIS strings, a small ensemble comprised of students from the royal music academy. after the ceremony we were unleashed upon the city to find the classrooms for our specific orientation groups. once we all found each other, we discussed our expectations for the program and then set out on the "DIS amazing race". our larger orientation group was divided into three smaller groups, each with an assigned list of places to navigate ourselves to. my group made our first stop at the royal library, affectionately called "the black diamond". the building was built in 1999 and is a symbol of national pride for the danes for two reasons. first, an international architecture competition was held for the design of the building which was ultimately won by a danish architecture firm. second, it stands as a symbol of the high value danish society places on education. a large portion of the high taxes paid by danish citizens are poured into the education system which offers free education for all students and supports students by offering them a monthly stipend so they can focus on their studies.

our second stop took us across the canal to christianshavn, a part of the city established by christian the fourth. there we saw the church of our savior which is very old and beautifully designed, a common theme for most buildings in københavn. the building is especially notable because of its spiral spire. there's only one other like it in the world, a much smaller one located in italy. the gold band around the spire is the banister of the 400-stair staircase that takes you to one of the most beautiful views in københavn. i say this on blind faith: the stairs actually don't open until april. but i already have mental plans to climb them.
our third unique location was new harbor, one of the more iconic locations in københavn. at the most inland point of the harbor is king's new square which is currently under construction. in the center of the square is the traditional equestrian statue. apparently it was originally made of lead because when it was being made they didn't have sufficient bronze.

since lead is such a soft metal, they were fearful that the horse would eventually fall to its knees so they placed a statue personifying envy beneath the horse. the statue has a palm facing up that would theoretically hold up the horse if need be. thankfully, they were able to recast the statue in bronze before the envy really had to serve its purpose but it's still present beneath the bronze statue.
our adventure ended with a stop at the royal palace where the queen and the crown prince and princess both reside. the crown prince is named frederik and his eldest son is christian. these are the two traditional names of danish royalty. they've been alternating between them for generations and the current frederik will be the tenth of the frederiks once he takes the throne. the crown prince married an australian non-royal named mary and the couple has four children including a set of twins born last january.

the queen has been ruling for 40 years this january and was allowed to do so because of a provision approved by the danish people permitting a woman to hold the throne. margarethe's (the queen)father was blessed with three girls so something had to be done. she has since become a beloved figurehead in denmark. the danish people are very proud of their royal family even though the country is now a parliamentary, representative democratic, constitutional monarchy. the danes are also very proud of the fact that they were able to negotiate a constitution without a revolution. they pride themselves on their ability to compromise.
our very full day concluded with a light lunch consisting of some traditional danish foods. i enjoyed my first bit of rugbrød or "rye bread". the danes apparently don't eat whole wheat bread. it appears that everything is either white or rye so i suppose i'll be consuming quite a bit of rugbrød this semester. we also tried liver paste, something no danish child goes to school without. our group agreed that it tasted like creamy sausage and that it would be best eaten between two slices of bread to prevent one from seeing the color/texture while consuming it.

monday evening i did my first round of grocery shopping with taylor. i've been blessed with a roommate that virtually mirrors my eating habits: loves vegetables, generally avoids meat, mildly lactose intolerant. we plan on cooking lots of lovely vegetarian dishes and may even get to enjoy them together at the tiny dinner table in our apartment. i was warned that prices in denmark were outrageous but i've been pleasantly surprised by lower costs than i expected. lots of veggies for about $13--cheaper than any of my grocery bills in the US.

today was full of optional workshops on ways to immerse yourself in danish culture and danish cultural norms. i find myself feeling more comfortable here already and i'm getting terribly excited to begin my exploration of københavn, denmark, and europe. i'm also inordinately excited to begin class. i love my course lineup and can't wait for the broader perspective my education in københavn will afford me.

time to do some pre-class reading. yes, i have reading already. and yes, i'm too excited to mind.

kærlig hilsen,
kati