Dinosaur Bear

A Blog about Stuff and Things

Music, Beer, Statues, and the Plague.

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So I didn’t write a post yesterday, not because I didn’t do anything interesting, but rather because I just felt so horrible. I’m still not entirely sure what it is that I’ve come down with, but it seems to be riding that line between severe cold and something else. Regardless of that, I have been doing everything in my power to keep it from stopping me from doing things, though that’s much easier than it sounds.

Yesterday I definitely received some cultural points as I went and saw a classical performance, then visited one of the highest ranked breweries in Denmark. The concert was sort of a last minute thing, as I saw a message posted from one of the SRAs about getting in touch with her if you wanted tickets. Since the tickets were only 55 DKK (9.35$) I sought out more information, it turns out that the concert was the Danish String Quartet, who are international award winners. I of course decided to go, because not only would this mean that I got to see a classical performance in Europe of all places, but it would also give me a reason to were my dress clothes I packed, which have thus far been a waste of space. So, after class, I came home, fought off the nearly overwhelming desire to just go to sleep for the rest of the night due to my illness, got dressed, and headed out into the world. It was my first time using the Metro (different than the trains, or S-Togs, maybe I should write a bout the public transportation system at some point). Luckily we all went as a group, as I had no idea where the DR Koncerthuset (Copenhagen Concert Hall) was at. However, once we got off the Metro it became immediately obvious which building it was.

You can tell by the photo that its actually not  complete, that’s because its went over budget multiple times, and has passed the 300 million dollar mark, officially making it the most expensive concert hall in the world. As such, the Danish Government has decided to stop funding construction, so things aren’t quite done, however the facility is fully functional. The unfinished exterior aside, the interior was AWESOME. While the plaza had a very cuboid style, the actual hall was very flowing and contoured, it was definitely worth seeing.

The organ seen in the background has over 6,000 pipes, just as an FYI. The show began soon after we were seated, which took a bit as our balcony had been closed, so we didn’t have “reserved” seats, which meant we had to move like 5 times because we kept sitting in peoples seats. It was kind of a joke, and kind of frustrating, made even more so by the fact that they were only speaking in Danish. But the show was absolutely awesome, one of the 4 musicians in the quartet is actually the conductor for the Danish Symphony Orchestra, and the last piece they performed was something he had composed himself, which was really cool. The best part was that they played a little bit of Mozart, which my inner child immediately recognized pieces of from the old Mozart CD. It kind of gave me goosebumps to be honest. As anyone who has been to a classical concert knows, pictures are a big no-no, so I have none of them performing, though I did capture this one during the moments before they played their encore. Its not great, but the lighting wasn’t really set up for good photography.

After the show was over, our SRA quickly abandoned us to go have coffee with a friend, this would have been frustrating had I not came to expect that DIS will in fact take you someplace, then leave you there with no guidance at every given opportunity. Luckily I did find my way back fairly quickly, though the other two people (who ironically were convinced I was going the wrong way) didn’t get back for over 2 hours. At this point I was feeling really sick, so naturally I decided to go out to a beer bar rather than sleep. Health-wise it probably wasn’t the best decision, but I didn’t want to pass  up a chance to go drink really good Danish beer, as I haven’t been out at all yet. The brewery is called Mikkeller, and they have 20 beers on tap, most of which they make themselves. Its just outside of the red light district, but after my tour there in my last class I’ve learned how to navigate the area without being murdered. Because I didn’t want to mess with my camera, I took my iPod. Despite my best intentions, I am convinced I will never, ever take a good picture with my iPod. Literally every picture I ever take with it sucks horribly. Regardless, I had two beers, both of which were really good. The first was L.A. Lager, which is a Danish take on West-Coast American beer. The second was Marathon øl, which was a very summery-citrusy beer. Each was very good, and very expensive. I bought about the cheapest things on the board, and I still spent around 13$ on 1.5 pints of beer.

After drinking the two beers, which were exceptionally high in alcohol, I was feeling insanely tired and the illness was taking advantage of my now even more depressed immune system. Unfortunately for me, the other people there ended up talking for like an hour before we left, and it wasn’t actually until I got up to leave that they finally decided to go home as well. I got back shortly after midnight, then hit the bed harder than a sack of bricks. I had an extremely.. odd, nights sleep, in that I was really really hot, soaking in sweat at times, and I had really messed up dreams, I also woke up a lot. But I got through the night, to be woken up the next morning by the raging machinations of the garbage truck, followed by the recycling truck, followed by a delivery truck. It was literally 45 minutes straight of borderline ear-splitting noise. I don’t know what it is, but I swear to God the trio of trucks that comes by here every. single. morning. make more noise than anything I have ever encountered in my life. The recycling truck is by far the worst, as the 18 trillion glass bottles shattering all over its insides are a lovely way to be woken up at 6am.

Partially because I had planned it, and partially because the trucks willed it, I got up earlier than I needed to so that I could head to a museum that is free on Wednesdays. It is the Thorvaldsen’s Museum, which is devoted to the works of the famous Danish sculpture Bertel Thorvaldsen. Before coming to Denmark, I didn’t really have a huge appreciation for statues, but I have to say, they have really grown on me during my time here. I think its something where you have to see them in person, to touch them, and to smell that “antiquated” smell, in order to really experience them and their history. Needless to say the museum was awesome, the two big highlights for me were getting to see the death mask of Napoleon himself, as well as the breathtaking room with statues of Christ and the Twelve Apostles (including a rather menacing looking Judas who was wielding a halberd). Matthias was there, but in an adjoining room. The pictures really don’t do the museum even a fragment of justice, but here is a photo of one hallway, as well as a photo of the central plaza, which actually contains Thorvaldsen’s tomb.

After leaving the museum, I went to 7-11 and made my first purchase, a mango-acai smoothie, which sounded good and I figured it might help with my plague. I then ordered my first sausage from the pølsevogn, (sausage stand). I ordered one of the hallmarks, which is a long sausage placed into a baked french roll. The roll has a hole hollowed out in it, and at your request they place ludicrous amounts of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise in the hole, then place the sausage in as well. I opted for the ketchup and mustard, the ketchup was amazing, like, insanely good, it very closely resembled my Grandma’s style of ketchup. The mustard was standard fare spicy mustard, which I like. It was all really good, and I’m probably going to try to replicate it once I get back to the states.

After that was class, which was long, especially because I was sick. Once that was over, I waited on the bus, which was late, and then it was insanely packed because it was late. But I got home and that’s where I’ve been since. I wasn’t planing on going out again tonight, but apparently there’s an opportunity to get free food downtown, so naturally I will going to that. This week, the start of session 2, also signaled the arrival of a ton of new students, as well as the departure of quiet a few. DIS has 3 “sessions” during their summer program, Early Summer 1, Early Summer 2, and then Late Summer. The late summer program lasts 6 weeks, and is just for architecture and design students. Sessions 1 and 2 are three weeks each, so a total of six weeks if you stay for both sessions, which I obviously am. A lot of people only seem to take 1 session, as they don’t want to spend their whole summer in classes I suppose, and session 2 is the more popular session because it contains the study tour, in my case Scotland. So, there’s been a lot of confused and lost DIS students wandering around, as most of them got in on Sunday. They are essentially me from about a month ago. And just like the session 1 students, they have arrival activities for them, including a free dinner at Riz-Raz, a buffet downtown. I had this same dinner when I first arrived. So, a lot of session 1 & 2 students found out about session 2’s dinner time, and are now planning on attending, despite being told not to. I’m one of them, we’ll see if DIS is organized enough to weed out the repeat customers, I have my doubts. 🙂

Tidbit of the Day: Paper Size

I’ve typed a lot already, and I need to leave soon, so I’ll make this a quick one. Some things you just don’t hear about, or people don’t mention when it comes to travel. Some people don’t even notice them when they are here, but maybe I am just hyper observant. Anyways, one such difference here in Denmark is the standard paper size (It is also true in Spain, confirmed by SB). Here it is longer, which makes the folders I brought from the US fairly ineffective at preventing bends, etc. In fact, I’ve taken to using scissors to cut the paper down to Murkan’ size, because I am weird like that. Its nothing wild or magical, but its definitely one of those little things that I had never heard anyone mention before. I suppose I never really wondered that much though, to be honest. Here is a picture displaying the difference. On the left is a paper from the US, on the right is my Positive Psychology Syllabus (which has since been cut down to the universe’s intended size).

 

 

And so the Second Session Begins

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I didn’t do anything really fun or exciting today, so I don’t really have any pictures to share, but I still have a few things to say.

First off, if you count the total number of days that I am in Denmark with DIS, I am now officially on the downward slope. I have been in Denmark 26 days, and I have 20 days left. Looking at those numbers I have actually been on the downward slope for a few days now, but starting the second session (my second class) makes it feel more like the halfway point than just does counting days. So, I’ve been in Denmark for almost a month at this point, and does it feel like it? Heck no. Time has been soaring by here, despite things not always being pleasant, or hardly ever being easy, overall things have been great. Sure, I don’t really get along well with a fair number of my fellow DIS students, but I didn’t come to Denmark to see them anyways. So far Copenhagen and Denmark themselves have been completely awesome, if a little too cloudy. Its also been hard getting used to the high being 60 degrees in mid June, but truth be told its something I could probably get used to. Fun Fact: I haven’t missed humidity for a nano-second.

So on to my second class! Whereas my first class dealt with human trafficking, this new class is about positive psychology, so its literally about as much of a 180 as humanly possible. The bad news is that this class counts for nothing because DIS and Purdue were stupid in tandem with one another. The good news is that I get to go to Scotland! (T-Minus 6 days!). Plus, I figure if I have to take a class I have no real interest in, I might as well take a class that’s about being happy, I mean that seems fairly healthy. The first class was odd.. in that we did this weird introduction thing. Basically, we sit in a large “U” shape, with the instructor at the forefront of the U. As a way of getting to know each other, we had to list our names and say hello to the other students. The way this worked is, one person on one end of the U, said their name, then the person next to him said “Hello *name*.. I’m *name*”, pretty easy eh? Well, the hard part was that this daisy-chained around the entire classroom, so that the person on the opposite side of the U had to list EVERY SINGLE PERSONS NAME then say “Hello I’m *name*”. I was just past the half way point, and I messed up a few names, but not caring too much. It took a long time, and worked decently, though it was a little juvenile. The fun part was when the first person, who only had to say their name, was suddenly called to task at the very end and had to list everyone’s name, he must have been expecting it because he did better than anyone. After that we “interviewed” each other, but I was sitting next to a guy from Switzerland I already knew, so that was a non-issue. Its going to be a class unlike any other I’ve had before, I just hope the fact that it counts as nothing doesn’t get in the way of the difficulty too much.

Right as class was about to end, I heard something I had not heard one single time here, thunder. I think everyone was surprised as few people jumped. According to my visiting family Dad, Arne, only a handful of people die in Denmark each year due to storms, and when someone days you’d think Hell had risen because they make such a big deal about it. Luckily the rain was spotty enough that I was able to make it most of the way home, or to the store rather, as I needed to buy more mouthwash as I am quickly becoming sick. One of the people I am around a lot had a cold, and as I guessed it was only a matter of time before I caught it. I’m only in the beginning stages though, so I’m hoping with lots of rest and rinsing I can kill it before it gets too bad. Because yeah, they don’t have cold medicine here really, and that’s not an exaggeration. Its a much less medicine driven culture than America, whereas we have pills for everything, they only give you pills when absolutely necessary (for instance, good luck finding pain killers, they don’t really exist). So, in order to prevent myself having to go to the apothecary (think CVS), and try to communicate with them (you have no access to medicine yourself, you must ask the pharmacists to get it for you), I’m trying to be as healthy as possible.

And part of being healthy is of course drinking beer, which I’ve devoted myself to trying 1 beer per day, always different than the previous days. Luckily you can find singles MUCH easier here than in America, and me being the penny-pincher I am, can always find the cheapest beer out of 50 kinds. The beer I will be having this evening is Kaiserdom, which is imported from Germany.

The Tidbit of the Day: Restrooms and Drinking Fountains 101

Let me get this out of the way first, drinking fountains, DO NOT EXIST, here. So APPRECIATE THEM, because you never realize how nice they are, even when nasty looking, until they are completely GONE. Its an interesting thing really, the tap water here is amazing, like way better than most bottled water back home. In fact, the tap water in Norway was a kind of bottled water sold in America, I got a good laugh out of that. But in spite of their amazing water, everyone drinks bottled water. And I mean everyone, as you get charged for tap water at most places here, so you might as well get bottled water and be able to take it with you. I still use my tap water as much as possible, since I purchased two bottles of water early on and now reuse them, though I should probably throw them out now that I am sick, come to think of it.

But restrooms, public restrooms exist here, yes, but they are few and far between and you have to pay for them. Yes, pay restrooms. And don’t plan on slipping into the McDonald’s to try to subvert the system, they have no public restroom, very few places do. So, you either a.) Pay for a toilet (costs around 25 cents), b.) Go to someplace with toilets, and so help you God if you try to use the toilet without actually buying something, or c.) Wait until you get home. There is also the 4th option of pissing in a corner, which the drunk people do quite nicely, but its not something I would recommend. Thankfully, anytime I am in the city center, I am never more than a 20 minute walk from DIS, so I just walk there and use their bathrooms. And if I am further than that, I am generally out someplace spending money (i.e. Carlsberg) where I can use their restroom. The toilets here have the button on top, which seems to be a European thing. But more specific to Denmark, the toilets have two buttons. One for a “Big” flush, and one for a “Little” flush, I don’t think I really need to explain there difference. But in case you were curious, here is a picture:

Moral of the story, appreciate your abundant free water and toilets, even if they aren’t always as clean as you might like. Here they are MUCH cleaner, but they are few, and they are not free.

-Taco

Visting the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

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Today started out pretty bleakly, it was cold and grey outside, and it looked like it could start raining at any second. Since I slept a lot yesterday I couldn’t really sleep in much today, even in spite of the perfect conditions for doing so. I decided that it would be a good day to head to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum which holds the former private collection of Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914), the son of J.C. Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg Breweries (which was named after Carl). The museum is primarily focused around statues, but there are some paintings as well, with Picasso, Monet, and van Gogh all being represented.Sunday was the best day to go not because it was raining, but because Sunday is the one day of the week where entrance is free, so naturally that’s when I went.

Of course things can never be easy, and as soon as I left the kollegium it started pouring outside. My cheap umbrella did as good as it usually does (i.e. not very) and I made it to the bus stop where I waited.. and waited.. and waited. Until I finally realized that for some reason, which is still unknown to me, the buses had been rerouted. This is problematic because this is the only way for me to get to class, without walking 15 minutes to a train station, that doesn’t even get me that close to class. But I figured it out, via a different route. Right as I got to the museum it stopped raining (of course).

After entering through the massive glass revolving door, I noticed that the air was a little warmer inside than I might have expected. I didn’t think much about it at first, especially since while I was depositing my backpack in the lockers things were much cooler. But as I progressed back up to the main lobby, I noticed why things were so warm, the “center” of the museum is a giant tropical greenhouse, complete with a cafe and multiple fountains. I was naturally drawn to the small, semi-hidden statute of a hippopotamus.

Proceeding from the central garden area, there were several wings to the museum, which had themes from ancient sculpture (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc.) to French Impressionists, to Danish Works. It was a little confusing, but every museum I’ve been in thus far, with the exception of the Museum of Danish Resistance, has had a confusing layout. The first portion, the ancient art, was undoubtedly my favorite part of the whole museum. I got to see loads of extremely old sculptures, including several Roman Emperors, a bust of Alexander the Great, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and even pieces of the Babylon Gate! Several of them you could even touch, which was way cool, I think the oldest thing I touched was about 4500 years old! In the center of the ancient area was the “Great Hall” which was home to statues of a vast array of Roman dignitaries and Gods. I got a picture of me chilling out with Marcus Aurelius, one of my all-time favorite Romans.

After walking around amongst naked statues, disembodied heads, and all sorts of other pleasant things I proceeded onto the paintings and more modern works of art. There was a lot of really fascinating stuff, especially some of Rodin’s work, but I was still most impressed by the ancient area. The final exhibit was devotedly solely to Danish artists, and while a lot of this was relatively new (past 250 years onwards), there were still some really awesome statues.  My two favorites of this area were “Death and the Maiden” and “The Panther Hunter,” the later seen here.

By this time I was especially hungry, so I headed out, having seen every single room in the entire museum, which took about 2.5 hours I would imagine. It was around 3:30 in the afternoon, and here most things start closing around 4 or 5, but mainly 4 on Sunday (if they are even open). So I took off in search of food, and literally every place I found that was still open was catering to tourists, and therefore was crazy expensive. So, I decided to just live with my hunger and start working my way home, as the weather had improved (it was bright and sunny the entire time I was in the museum). I decided to head to the University’s Botanical Gardens, the largest in Denmark since it was free and it was sunny. Well, by the time I got there, which included walking and taking a bus, things had clouded up, got windy, and got cold. Naturally, within 15 seconds of me entering the gardens it started pouring, and I couldn’t even go in the vast greenhouses because they were all closed due to issues with the alarm system. So I found a small open glass shed, and waited for the rain to calm down a bit so I could head home.

Having resolved myself to return to the Botanical Gardens on a nicer day when I’m not quite so hungry, I boarded the bus, made a quick stop at the store for some milk, then plopped down here. Naturally the sun came back out once I was inside, and has pretty much been out ever since, its one of those frustrating days where it starts to rain the instant you go to do something, then is sunny as soon as you go inside.

Tidbit of the Day: The Danish Flag

Since it works its way into a good amount of my photos, I figured it would be nice to share the story of the Danish flag. Unlike many flags around the world, the Danish flag has a name, its called Dannebrog, and it has its own “mythical story” which is pretty cool.

The legend dates the origin of the flag to the Battle of Lyndanisse, in Estonia (against the Estonians), on June 15, 1219. The battle was going badly for the Danes, and defeat seemed imminent. However a Danish priest on top of a hill overlooking the battle prayed to God, which meant that the Danes moved closer to victory the more he prayed. At a one moment he was so tired in his arms that he dropped them and the Danes then lost the advantage and were moving closer to defeat. He needed two soldiers to keep his hands up and when the Danes were about to win, ‘Dannebrog’ fell from the sky and the King took it, then showed it to the troops and their hearts were filled with courage and the Danes won the battle.  According to the legend the flag, Dannebrog, was given to the Danes from God himself, and from that day forward, it has been the flag of Denmark and the Danish kings.

Christian August Lorentzen painted this iconic event in 1809, the painting below is the original, which I saw in the National Art Museum. The Dannebrog is also the oldest state flag in the world still in use by an independent nation.

-Taco

Strolling down Strøget

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Today started pretty uneventfully, I slept in until I could sleep no more, which is the first time I have done such without an alarm waking me up in about three weeks. While that was nice and all, I got pretty bored just sitting around my room. It was the typical situation, I had looked forward to not running around, but once I stopped running around I wanted something to do. The good news is that the 90% chance of rain for today was undeniably wrong, and in fact the weather was quite pleasant and mostly sunny. So around 2:30 I decided to head out into town to try to find a bakery, because I wanted something sweet. Well, every bakery I found was closed for the day already, so I ended up just walking around the city center. I decided to walk along Strøget, which is a long pedestrian street, the longest in Europe in fact. I have been on Strøget multiple times before, as it is pretty impossible not to find yourself on it when you are walking around downtown, it tends to intersect just about every major street. Strøget has tons and tons of shops, and tons and tons more people, so during a nice day like today it can be pretty cramped. As I had not yet walked the entire length of Strøget, I decided that I would do so today, hoping I would find a bakery in the process. Well, about.. 30 seconds into my walk I found..

Now, I love me some Ben & Jerry’s, but I have never, ever been to an actual Ben & Jerry’s shop. So, after some intense debating, mostly over cost (you think its expensive in the states? HA), I went for it. I tried “Baked Alaska” which I had read about, but never seen in a store back home, it was pretty good. So I had my first ever freshly scooped Ben & Jerry ice cream, I just had to travel to Denmark to find it. After sitting in the sun at once of the squares listening to the street performer music while enjoy my ice cream, I head off down Strøget again, straight into a massive wall of people. Long story short, I made it from one end to the other, but this is pretty much what the entire stretch of street looks like:

Its mainly for shopping and food, all of which very expensive since its right in the middle of the city. I primarily enjoy the street performers, which vary from musicians, to people doing all sorts of oddball stuff, be it eating fire, or pretending to be statues. They always seem to have a fair amount of coins in their buckets when I pass by, so they must do fairly well, though some probably do better than others, as many didn’t really some to have much talent beyond sitting there with a cup. After growing tired of the crowds on Strøget, I headed off onto side streets, I left the map in my backpack and decided to just walk, though I was never really lost as I do pretty well with directions at this point. I came to the round tower, which is actually home to Europe’s oldest planetarium. It cost money to go to the top, but I figured I would go ahead and do it, since it was less than 5$. Right as I was about to go up, and entire group of string-instrument players came out onto the street and did a performance, which was really cool. I’m not sure what it was about, or why they had been in the tower, but it was still really neat. The tower was much easier to climb than the church spire, as almost the entire way up (save for that one crazy spiral staircase at the very top) was a ramp. It was built that way because the king wanted to be able to ride a horse and carriage to the top, oh the pompous days of yesteryear. The view wasn’t as good as the church, as it wasn’t nearly as high, but as it was situated right in the middle of the old medieval part of Copenhagen, you could really take in just how winding and gnarled the streets are.

Once I descended, I was swarmed by beggars, as they tend to gather around the popular attractions in downtown. My usual tactic of being somewhat aggressive, and speaking German, worked as well as it always does and they gave up. I have no idea how I will get rid of them in Germany, maybe I will pretend to speak Danish. My feet were pretty tired at this point, so I hopped on a bus and headed home, ending a relatively pleasant, if not expensive day. I quickly dropped in the Fakta to grab a thing of juice, as it sounded good and I all I’ve really had is beer and water. It turned into.. an experience, so on that note:

The Tidbit of the Day: Shopping (When you know none of the language)

While I outlined in another post how I somewhat enjoyed not speaking a language when out and about in the city, shopping is quite difficult. I really have to “sight shop” because things are not as easy to decipher as you might guess. For instance, I have been eating what I believe to be turkey breast lunch meat, it could be chopped up donkey for all I know. I often times Google what I’ve purchased so that I can learn, but when I’m at the store, there’s no such help as most employees at the discount stores don’t speak any English. Things like pasta and pasta sauce are easy to purchase, though much more difficult to determine what specific “kind” you have. Bread is surprisingly difficult, so I’ve just reverted to buying cheap loaves of white bread (which existed in two varieties, aesthetically identical, but one costs 50% more than the other, same brand, no idea). But all in all, I have done well finding the off brands, and the good deals, though it requires a lot of time and guess work. However, today, I had my first real mess up, and that was with the juice. The last time I was in Fakta, I saw this juice called “Fun One,” I was immediately drawn to the English. So I went in today and purchased it, came home, put it in the refrigerator while I was cooking pasta, then opened it up and took a big drink. And then I spewed it out. Turns out, it is not juice, but rather a syrupy juice paste concentrate. This one bottle is designed to make like 10 liters of drink, yes 10 liters. I took a big huge gulp of like 15 glasses of pineapple juice at once. Needless to say, I don’t want to eat pineapple for awhile. No where on the bottle did it mention this little bit of information. Here is a picture of it, next to a bottle of water where I placed like 1 teaspoon of the concentrate into. You get the picture.

-Taco

Gettin’ Bergy with It.

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I SAW MY FIRST SQUIRREL TODAY

Anyways..

So today was the last day of my first class, and I am now really regretting the lack of studying I did for the final exam. I am a poor studier at home, therefore it is not surprising that I am an even more horrendous studier 4300 miles from home. But its over, and I dropped off my two books ..and picked up 3 more for the next class which begins Monday. Sunday will mark the half-way point for my time in Denmark, and I’m neither really “sad” or “excited” about that, as there is still so much to see and do.

After finishing up with school-related stuff, I came home, grabbed a sandwich (still eating that free bread from Sweden, which is AWESOMELY good), then headed out to Carlsberg Brewery, and yes I bolded that specifically because it is a brewery. I had been planing on going for awhile, and going as a form of celebration for finishing my first class seemed like a good enough excuse. Someone from my kollegium wanted to go as well, so we headed off to catch Bus 18, which goes way into Western Copenhagen, a land completely foreign to us Northern/Middle city folk. The bus ride was long, very long, as construction slowed us to a snails pace and as such the bus was extremely packed. But we made it! At first we thought we were lost, but then we realized that Carlsberg takes up multiple city blocks, in fact you could even argue that it is a city within a city. I won’t drone on about Carlsberg’s history, as a more thorough account can easily be found on Google, so let’s just say that they were very important. As we approached the brewery, I reached for my camera to grab a picture, only to realize that I had charged my battery, but had failed to reinsert it into the camera. Luckily the person with me had two cameras, one small digital one, and one larger fancier one. She let me use her digital one, so hoorah for company, otherwise I would have been S.O.L. Carlsberg was really cool, and while the historical aspect of it was nice, I think the 2nd room on the tour was the best:

It is the world’s largest beer collection, in total numbering around 20,000 bottles of beer. Yeah, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people would die singing those down to zero beers on the wall. After going through the tour (where I fed one of the Carlsberg horses, Marcon!), and seeing the still functioning part of the factory, I headed to the bar, where I took advantage of the two free beers that came with the tour. Naturally, I got a Carlsberg Special, and a Tuborg Classic. Seen here is the Tuborg, as the Carlsberg was consumed so rapidly that I didn’t get a good picture of it.

Yes, it was extremely good, they both were. Beer on tap in Europe, how could it not be good? After jivin’ my skivies’ in beer land, we decided to walk to the somewhat nearby Frederiksberg Palace, which used to be one of the many royal palaces, but is now an Army Academy. This was sort of on a whim, since we were in the area, but I am extremely glad we did, despite the dropping temperature and approaching rain the area (which also included the Frederiksberg Gardens) was absolutely beautiful. In fact, since I updated my theme for WordPress and lost all my pictures, I changed my header over to a view taken in the garden. Anyways, right before we got there, my 2nd camera died, as the battery had been low to start with. Luckily the 3rd camera was still going strong, though it had a low battery as well (Lesson learned about Cameras). Once it started to sprinkle and we almost left, but ended up staying, which was awesome because:

Yes, Elephant friends. After walking around, I found out that the Zoo and park run parallel to each other, and thanks to a 2007 renovation you can see into the ElephantHus (House) from within the park. I was pretty freaking excited, since by this point I had also seen about 15 trillion boid friends, though the Swans are mean and can be scary as hades since they are HUGE here. After meandering around some more, we headed out, and I figured out how to get us back home by taking a bus route that was completely foreign to me. Luckily I’m learning more about the city than most seem to be, though I can’t actively summon the information until I’m on the ground and need it. I really think that getting epic lost for an entire afternoon oriented me in ways that the other DIS students haven’t had a chance to experience. And of experiences lead us straight into:

The (Not so bitty) Tidbit of the Day: Living in a Foreign Country Where you have no Understanding of (Or even prior exposure to) the Language.

When I first got here, I was really prepared for the worst, having had no experience with Danish. In fact, I couldn’t have picked Danish out of a list of languages to be honest. And to be even more honest, I still can’t pick Danish out between Swedish and Norwegian, but there’s a lot of overlap. The truth is, its really not so bad. And no, not as many Danes speak English as all the happy guides and interwebs would have you believe, I’m convinced that 95% number is absolute b.s., but many do, however 99% of the time they don’t use it (naturally, why would they?). So, wondering in a sea of noise where you can understand nothing might seem a little bewildering.. well, for me, its awesome. I enjoy being able to walk around in rambunctious silence, I enjoy being incapable of deciphering the conversations around me. I feel like for the first time in my life, I can walk down a crowded street and truly listen. While it is true that my meager knowledge of German has helped me somewhat (Danish has Germanic roots), its only increased my understanding by about 5% at most. Oddly I seem to do better than many of the people here in deciphering things, but I think that’s because so many people ignore the ever-so-important context of what’s being said or read. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get along speaking only a few words such as “Thank You” “Excuse Me” “Yes” and “No”. So future me, when you think back to this, whenever you may read it, remember just how awesome it is to walk around in a roar of silence.

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