Fall in Copenhagen...

Hey Everyone,

Things are going well in Copenhagen as the cold and wind are setting in. I have had a cold which is still persisting now which is quite annoying. Although this didn't stop me from visiting Helsingor last weekend, on a warm sunny day. Really got to take advantage of those over here.

Helsingør is only about an hour ride north on the train from Copenhagen. It is a fairly small town on the water where you can actually look across the sea to see Sweden. But what Helsingor is most famous for is the castle of Kronborg where Shakespeare set his play of Hamlet. The castle sits on a strategic position, with an excellent view of the Swedish Coast, and close proximity to the sea which they used to charge all ships that came through a tax. This ended in 1857, when under pressure they decided to make it free after one lump sum of around 33,000,000,000 crowns, although I have no idea how much that really was at the time.

The castle was quite nice from the outside but the inside was fairly barren. I think most of it had been taken away and placed in other castles. The most interesting part of the castle were the catacombs, that even though I visited during the middle of the day were nearly pitch black. You were led through the passages by torches on the wall which just illuminated an arrow pointing to which direction you should go. Quite spooky. Also down in the catacombs was a statue of Holger Danske, a mythical character that is said will rescue the Danish people in times of need.

Beyond side trips, my courses are going well. In my advanced written Danish course I always get my assignment (a short translation) back with so much red pen marking all my errors on it it is a bit depressing, but I will keep trying... I just started my courses at studieskole, which is a just a general language course, and unlike my courses at the University, this course has many Americans in it. This one should be very easy compared to my one at the University as the teacher purposefully speaks slowly, and in contrast to my other courses, I am one of the best in the class.

I had a good time the other night with classmates from the University. We met at Giuseppe's apartment and all brought some food. I got to have some authentic Italian pasta, Lithuanian cookies, Finnish cookies, and Lithuanian alcohol among other things. There was also one Dane there that taught us a Danish drinking game that was quite fun. Here's an interesting fact that I learned that night: In Denmark you can order alcohol (for example, a bottle of vodka) 24 hours a day and have it delivered to your house!!! Was definitely a surprise to me...

I also just began playing badminton. It is kind of hard to get involved with sports here because, nothing is free and nothing is public. For example, there are absolutely no, that is not 1, public tennis court in all of Copenhagen. I decided to try badminton because it was a much cheaper option, and is fairly popular in Denmark. While at the sports store buying my badminton racquet I noticed why tennis may not be so popular here. Although everything is more expensive here (the cheapest badminton racquet they had was $50), tennis balls were $3 a piece!!! Crazy stuff.

I didn't know what to expect when showing up for the first day as to how many would be there or skill level. It turned out it is a very small group--there were only 4 of us there for 3 hours, and they are all VERY good. I am not a badminton player but lots of it carries over from tennis, but I only won one game in 3 hours of playing short games. Thankfully I can still carry on some decent points but these guys have clearly been playing for a long time. The best guy there was easily 50 and doing in-between-the-legs shots and running my ragged around the court... It's really fun and good for me to get some excercise in.

Well, thats about it. My tandem-language partner gave me 4 free tickets to the Opera tonight, so I will be checking that out before working the late shift at studenterhuset.

Hope all is well. Here are some pics:

Jeff

Fall in Copenhagen and Helsingør

Prague Part 2

We woke up early to catch the bus into the city to see the big tourist sights of the castle and cathedral before the huge crowds of people arrived. Unfortunately the night before we could not communicate “bus schedule” to the woman working the front desk. While waiting for the bus the next morning we realized it was Saturday and probably a different schedule so we ended up getting there much later than we planned.

Thankfully there were minor, or no lines for getting into all of the castle exhibits. Apparently Prague Castle is the biggest in the world because all of the buildings connect to one another. It was OK, but after seeing a few buildings and the castle church I was not too impressed—particularly after seeing the Doge’s Palace in Venice.

After the castle we waited in a long line to get into St. Vitus’s Cathedral which was well worth the wait. The outside of the Cathedral is quite daunting, built in Gothic Style being started in the 1300s but only just finished in the 20^th Century. The outside also features tons of little spires on the exterior of the church which is why I am assuming one of Prague’s nicknames is “city of 100 spires”.

The inside of the church did not disappoint either with amazing stained-windows illuminating the otherwise cold and dark interior. There was also an elaborate silver memorial to John of Nepomuk who I mentioned before as well as the grave of Good King Wenceslas, a famous Czech King who is known in English through the famous Christmas Carol.

We climbed up a narrow passageway to the top of the cathedral for some good views. Unfortunately the crypt area was closed, but Maddie snapped a picture of the sign which we though was quite funny “crypt closed due to technical difficulties”

We had a good lunch of non-Czech food but we each ordered a side. Note: Czech dumplings (which I ordered) are apparently bread…while the potato pancakes are delicious, basically like latkes.

We then headed back to the bus stop as we were determined to explore the small town we were staying in, but ended up waiting over an hour and half, although there was some entertainment. While waiting at the bus stop I saw the most police ever in my life pull up—around 15 cars with vans, dogs, full riot gear, etc. Around 15 minutes later a bunch of what seemed to be protestors walked out of the metro. We didn’t really know what was going on, but one of them came up to me yelling in my face and handing me a little sticker. After I got back to Copenhagen I asked my friend what it was and she said it was from a rival soccer team that was in town…

By the time we got back to the town it was unfortunately closed down except for 2 bars/restaurants and a soccer game that was going on. After walking around for ½ hour we realized that there really wasn’t anything special to be discovered about the town and there was not much more than we had already seen.

We had dinner at a bar right next to the hotel with only locals. We couldn’t read much of the menu but I recognized Mushroom soup and a Greek salad which I opted for. Maddie figured that French fries would be safe, so she ordered Pommes Frites and the woman responded with “with steak”. Maddie said sure. I ended up with two bowls of instant mushroom soup (the woman thought we both wanted one and Maddie doesn’t really like mushroom) which was essentially mushroom broth, while Maddie sat next to me eating one of the most delicious steaks ever… Fortunately she was merciful and let me have a little, before the Greek salad came which was good. After a long dinner of 2 soups, a salad, a nice steak and fries plate, and 8 beers between us the bill came… $15!!!!

We woke up and there were so few people staying in the hotel they abandoned the usual buffet. When the woman working the front desk saw us coming she walked by us into the kitchen and just brought out some tea, bread, and cheese for us. One of the good English speakers was working the previous night so with a printed bus schedule our waits were reduced drastically.

Our plan was to go to the Jewish Quarter, but we had time to wait because RS suggested going after 1pm and the tour groups left. We headed to the Church of St. James just off of Old Town Square. By glancing through the windows we could see the church was absolutely amazing, extravagantly decorated with huge paintings and everything gilded in gold. They were also having a service, but some people that were clearly tourists were just standing in the back.

We went in and stood in the back, noticing the signs of no talking, no walking around, etc. one would expect while a service is going on. We stood a few minutes gawking before more and more tourists started coming in behind us. Except these tourists couldn’t care less there was a service going on! They walked around the edges of the church. They took pictures with flash, which was extremely obvious and against the sign, and you could here there cameras snapping in the otherwise silent church. It was pretty sickening so we just left…

Next we went back to Old Town Square and saw the famous Astronomical Clock do its show when it strikes the hour. There were hundreds of people crammed in waiting for it—and later we saw a couple getting married under it! At the top of every hour death (a skeleton) pulls a cord and 12 saints appear in two windows of the clock—not too impressive after seeing it, particularly for how many people were waiting for it.

We then headed to the Jewish Quarter, Pinka's Synagogue first. This Synagogue had thousands of names written on the white walls inside—all Jews from the Prague area that were killed during the Holocaust. Upstairs was an exhibit of artwork that was done by children inside the Ghetto of Terezin which was a gateway to Concentration Camps of the east. The children ranged from 8 – 13 with drawings on many topics—mostly seemingly not related to the terrible things surrounding them. The labels next to them listed when they drew the picture, and when they died—I only saw one out of dozens of drawings which was labeled “survived”.

After the moving, and reflective first church we saw a few Synagogues converted to museums that were basically about Jewish culture and Jews in Prague particularly. We then saw the Jewish Cemetery which was the most packed cemetery I have ever seen. The headstones are literally touching one another as the Jews were contained to their ghetto and their beliefs make it impossible for them to move bodies once buried.

Finally we ended at the Spanish Synagogue which looked amazing on the inside with intricate patterns of shapes and bright colors (unfortunately no pictures allowed).

We felt like we had done Prague justice and with nothing major left to see we decided to try Absinthe, which is legal in Prague. I was quite skeptical of buying it as it was featured as the big tourist thing in almost half of the shops but we went for it anyway. Final result—it tastes like licorice, is very sweet, very strong, and did not lead to any hallucinations…

I finished uploading the pictures and added some captions:

Prague

Wish everyone well,

Jeff

Prague

Greetings Everyone—just got back from a weekend in Prague. Here’s part 1:

Maddie and I found a nice deal on Orbitz which included airfare and 4 nights in a hotel. The only catch after doing some research was that the hotel was about 20 kilometers outside of the town. After finally finding out that there was a bus that connected the small town to Prague we booked it and weren’t sure what to expect.

We arrived kind of late and had to get a cab. After about 30 minutes of driving and some minor cursing from our cab driver who didn’t know where the place was, we arrived (driving by it, Maddie having to point it out to the driver).

We stayed in Tuchlovice, which is also the name of the hotel. The town was even smaller than we thought. One grocery store, one meat store, a bakery, and three restaurant/bars make up essentially all the commercial activity in the town.

Our hotel was overall good. Beds were benches with a thin mattress on top that were nailed to the floor, the free breakfast was good, and the staff was nice. Language was often an issue (one time we were unable to ask for a bus schedule), but they had a few employees with mediocre English so it really depended on who was working at the time (only one employee was usually working). It was really not busy at all with the most people staying there around 20 and maybe 5 on our final night. They were nice in lending us enough money to take the bus into town when we found out there was no ATM at all in the town to get any money to take the bus…

The bus was another adventure altogether…We were of course unable to read the time tables—although that it seemed many people from Prague also had that problem. Buses didn’t really like to come when they were supposed to, leaving us with waits sometimes of over an hour, once we finally got our hands on a readable schedule so we knew when they should be coming. But after getting on it was a comfortable 50 minute ride into the city or back to our hotel.

We arrived in Prague the first morning to Wenceslas Square opening up to the big national museum, not having any guidebook, or even map yet. We decided to check out the national museum for more info and to find a bit of help. Overall the museum was not that great—nothing really unique to Prague and little to no English explanations BUT…Maddie overheard two older women speaking English in an American accent and it turned out they were leaving that night and left us their Rick Steves Guidebook! Needless to say this was heaven for me…

Now with maps and a guide we walked down the square passing by the hotdog stands featuring dogs around a foot long to the old town square. This area was absolutely packed with people and it was interesting to see more tourists here than in Italy which I was definitely not expecting. The old town square was a nice open area with the city hall, churches, and buildings featuring elaborate art nouveau on all sides.

For lunch we tried our first Czech cuisine (RSR). I had Goulash made with beer and a dark beer which was quite good. The Czech beer is the best I have ever tasted and also the cheapest (around $1.50 for a large beer in a restaurant).

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around. We crossed the famous Charles Bridge with nice views of the city, statues lining the bridge, as well as countless tourists and oddly, caricature artists. On the bridge we got our first glance at a statue of Saint John of Nepomuk who is everywhere around the city with 5 stars over his head. As the story goes the queen told the Saint many secrets and when the Saint refused to tell them to the King who wanted to know them he tossed the Saint off the bridge. When he was thrown in the water 5 stars appeared above where he was thrown in.

We walked up to the castle district, but decided to leave it for another day as it would have been hard to get our money’s worth for our ticket. But next to a monastery in the castle district was the oldest beer garden in Europe, started by the monastery in the 1600’s (unfortunately the monastery was closed but we peeked in to an amazing elaborately decorated church of gold). Of course we had to go, having more delicious beer and a cheese which was made from beer which I enjoyed but Maddie found a bit questionable.

After this we walked down Petrin Hill, eating some pears and apples from the hillside while walking down to Little Quarter (The 4 districts of Prague are Old Town, New Town, Castle, and Little). The highlight here was Lennon’s wall which arose after the singer’s death in 1980. After his death people put graffiti up on this wall as a memorial and in support of respect, peace, and free thinking as a contrast to the other Lenin. Every night it was erased by the communist government until the 90’s when communism left and the wall was accepted and the graffiti now stays.

We then walked by the “dancing house” a warped building designed by the same architect as the EMP before finding a big pub to have a beer and watched a group of crazy locals nearby that were jumping over chairs and doing handstands while completely drunk. Maddie and I were entertained while everyone else seemed to look on with disgust…

Hope everyone is doing well, hope to hear from you.

Jeff

Classes and Travel

It’s been a busy last two weeks, as evidence by my lack of blog entries (I do enjoy doing them). I am also still quite busy as I will explain so I will hold off on anything more about the trip with Donnie and Dad until I have more time to type up the journals.

Classes started at the beginning of last week and I think I have finally chosen what I will be taking. I was planning to take 5 in total, but now am only taking 4, and the standard for many people is to only take 2!

Basically I have decided to concentrate on Danish while I am here. I went to my classes on sociology in the Middle East last Thursday, and it just wasn’t that great—way too much theory that I didn’t think was applied enough. I’m more interested in the learning about the culture and history of countries than learning a bunch of theories that can be applied to them in the end. I may end up going a few more weeks though because it is my only class with Danes in it, so it is a good chance to meet people and it may get better.

All my other 4 classes have to do with Danish! A bit crazy I know…

I am taking a Danish Culture Course in which all I have to do is attend a lecture which is essentially a history until modern times and then explanation about Danish art, film, etc. This is only once a week for two hours and there will be no assignments (I am taking it for the lesser amount of credits, therefore I get less work). This course is in English.

Then I am taking a course in Danish Phonetics, which is basically working on pronunciation; how different words/letters are formed in the mouth and basically the phenomena of spoken Danish. This class is only in Danish and I am the only American of about 15 people.

I am also taking a course in “Advanced Written Danish” which is so far is grammar, spelling, and a bit of (painstaking) translation. Should be interesting as, once again, I am the only American, there are about 25 people in the course, and again it is only in Danish.

Finally I will be taking just a general Danish course like I would be taking if I took a language class, but is outside the University. It is through the same school that my Aunt Maureen takes her obligatory Danish Classes. They have various tests that move you up levels and one should be able to pass if one is to work here, or study at the University in Danish for example. This will of course be taught in Danish, and should be interesting to see the dynamic as I’m sure there will be more older people, who have married Danes or are here to work.

Another interesting aspect of my classes is that I am the only one who is learning just their 2^nd language. For the majority of the people in the class this is their 3^rd or 4^th language, and others have more. Ah… the jealousy

So basically I will be on Danish overload—although I definitely don’t feel like it yet. I have been quite busy because my friend Maddie from UW came to visit on the way back from her early study tour to Russia. Stephanie, her friend from the program who also goes to the U came to Copenhagen too and my landlord was nice enough to let them both stay here.

So the past few days the apartment has been packed and I have been doing some schoolwork but mostly just hanging out with them, showing them the city, going out at night, and speaking lots of English…

Maddie and I had planned on traveling while she came to visit, and we have made plans to spend a 4 day weekend in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. We are leaving tonight at 7pm after my Danish Culture Course and staying until Monday morning. I am extremely excited to travel as always and looking forward to some cheaper food and a new culture. I asked my Czech friend from Prague that I met at the pre-semester language course what places are good to see, so I feel like I have a little insider view that should help.

I feel like the opportunity to be over is great so I am trying to use it as much as I can to travel a ton to places where it would take much more time and cost much more when doing from the United States. We have a break in early-mid October for the department and I really wanted to travel alone. So I will be exploring Morocco and Southern Spain on my week off. I feel like it’s a bit ambitious for my first time traveling alone buy I am very excited and am sure it will turn out great.

On a side note--Grandpa Bill you would be proud to know I visited the US embassy today in Copenhagen (Maddie lost her passport in Sweden to pickpocketers), it is definitely a good thing to know where it is. Unfortunately the service resembled that of many other US governmental institutions...

All travel aside I am having a good time—lets just hope I spend enough time in the country to speak some Danish : )

I would like to wish Grandma Helen a Happy Birthday. And a pre-emptive Happy Birthday to Brina. I wish I could be there for both.

Off to class; hope to hear back from you.

Jeff

A little Copenhagen and Nice

Hello Everyone!

Just got back from a whirlwind trip of Europe with Donnie and Kirk. As we said many time throughout the trip—it’s amazing what you can see in a limited amount of time. I feel like we did every city we visited justice by seeing the main sights and trying to get away from touristy areas for the some authentic food and a picture of what the city was really like.

I kept a journal on my trip as I have done on previous trips, it being ingrained in my head from my family, starting with my great-grandmother Helen (“Whenever you have the chance to travel you should take it, and make sure to keep a journal of what you do”).

So my next few blogs will essentially be my journal entries from along the trip with some pictures. On a side note my classes begin this week, and I’m trying to work all the logistics of what classes I will be taking etc. (There are more classes I want to take than time I have available so I need to choose, and figure out how to navigate this unorganized university).

Just a quick summary of the trip: Copenhagen-flight-Nice-train-Monaco-train-Florence-train-Venice-train-Interlaken/Gimmelwald-train-Milan-flight-Copenhagen.

Copenhagen

The first two days of our trip Donnie and Dad came to visit in Copenhagen and stay at my place. We checked out all the major sights and got a delicious, authentic Danish meal courtesy of Ole, and Anne Grethe.

We also stopped by Christiania which I had not been to yet. Definitely an interesting look at the other side of Copenhagen—it’s the hippie “free city” in Copenhagen, but relies on tourism as a major industry. We arrived around 7:30 pm to find Danish police already walking around the area, more common now that the state has been more critical of the town.

I snapped a few pictures of some awesome graffiti before noticing that there were “no camera” signs posted (a recurring theme throughout the trip…). Dad was also able to point out a marijuana plant that they just had growing out in the open (surprisingly, another recurring theme throughout the trip).

Nice

Ah, how I love traveling between EU countries. Got off the plane in the morning and just walked through the airport into Nice without any customs. With Rick Steves (famous travel guide author my grandmother strongly suggested, and now I am in full agreement, for good reason) as our guide, we were off.

We walked through the morning market seeing the usual fruits and vegetables, as well as more interesting things, such as more kinds of olives that I knew existed. We also stopped (as recommended by Rick) to get some homemade socca, which is basically like a pancake/crepe made out of chickpeas. The taste wasn’t as amazing as I was expecting judging by the line, but they were good, and it was great to see them being delivered by scooter, then cooked on a big metal barrel with fire in it right in front of you.

We spent more time walking through the Old Town of Nice, just past the market. We passed by the house where the socca was being made and scootered down to the market. We enjoyed the narrow streets and atmosphere before heading up “castle hill” (although there is no castle on it…) for an amazing view of the town from the top.

We were quite hot after this so we decided to go down to the perfectly cooling beach. It was quite nice except that the beach consisted of rocks the size of your fist—nearly impossible to lie down on without a thick towel.

After the beach it was off to the Chagall museum—our first of many. The museum only featured works of Chagall, who was a French, modern painter. It was definitely interesting seeing all the stuff he painted (he must have had weird dreams). Tons of the color blue and merged figures of people, animals, instruments, and houses. I wouldn’t go back, but not bad.

After an afternoon nap we headed down the boardwalk to Nice’s most fancy hotel—Hotel Negrasco. The hotel has its own free museum inside which was just a quick loop, but interesting. We left to go find diner somewhere else, as it ran around 90 euros a person at the hotel…

Had a nice 3-course dinner getting there way too early, around 6:30. The place was full by the time we finished around 9pm. I had to keep asking the waiter how exactly I was supposed to eat my food (is this bread and cheese for me just to eat or does it go in my soup, or is it for later???). Felt like the uncultured American, but it was fun and good.

After we explored the city a bit more and wound back around to where the market was being held earlier that day. The transformation of the area is absolutely amazing as the street which was filled with tables of vendors and fruits/vegetables/litter on the ground was now filled with cafés.

The place was absolutely packed with people on a Sunday night, and some were not even served by 11:30 when I made my last walk through to join Donnie and Dad back in the hostel to sleep.

We left Nice quite early the next morning, but we did have crepes for breakfast just outside our hostel. Being the adventuresome eater that I am (and assuming you can’t go wrong with a crepe), I ordered something I didn’t recognize. It turned out to be an orange liqueur (nothing like the taste of alcohol at 9 am!) crepe, and I jealously stared at Donnie as he ate his new favorite flavor of Nutella. About half-way through, after getting over the light alcohol taste, it actually was pretty good.

Next, on the train off to Monaco…

Here’s some pics of Nice: I did a few captions but didn’t edit any out so they might not all be too interesting:

Euro Trip - Nice

Quick Update

I meant to post this quick update before I left on the trip around the 22^nd of August but got sidetracked beforehand. I figure I will post it now then do an update about the trip in a few days.

I had a good weekend, going to a free outdoor opera (hey, why not?) with some friends from class. Copenhagen is great during the summer because they have all kinds of these outdoor cultural events. Most people bring a picnic and make a whole evening of it…

I also had a fun pancake breakfast on Sunday with a large group of people from the Danish language class courtesy of one of my Canadian friends.

Anya, whose bike I borrowed over the weekend, and whose lock I broke has had her bike stolen! She was using one of my spare locks (the less thick one) before she got her own, left it at the University over the weekend and it’s gone…

We had our final test in my Danish class this morning and it went well, just two days left which clearly won’t be too intense. In other Danish news I had my first meeting with my “Tandem Partner” yesterday which is an individual you can find through an online forum through the university in which each of you wants to learn the other’s mother tongue. When we met yesterday it was only Danish and next time it will be only English (although I already know her English is much better than my Danish).

I uploaded a picture last time with a huge ice-cream cone so I thought I would tell the short story that goes along with it. Ice cream in general is very popular in Denmark and it is not uncommon to see carts, and just many places in general selling two types of ice-cream. There is just a normal waffle-cone (preferably home made) with ice-cream scoops on top—just like in the US with a few additions of whip-cream, jam, a cotton-candy-ish strawberry topping and a flødebolle (light chocolate coating for a marshmallow center) for those looking for the whole ice cream experience.

There is also a soft ice-cream which is very similar to Soft Serve except it is a bit creamier and generally served plain, maybe being dipped in a chocolate powder.

I had countless normal ice-creams last summer while in Denmark, but never had a soft ice-cream. I finally decided to have one after my friend told me how good they were, although she suggested not getting it too big because all the cream can give you a stomach ache afterwards.

Not heeding her advice the next afternoon I went down to the harbor and found an ice-cream place. I asked for a large soft-ice cream dipped in the chocolate powder. The man proceeded to make the biggest ice-cream in the history of mankind and hand it over to me. I was so astounded I attempted to take picture of it in one hand while holding it in the other. Unfortunately the perspective does not give its true size but you get the idea in comparison to my hand.

The problems began almost immediately, for the ice-cream was quite heavy and supported only by the tiny waffle cone. While trying to take a picture of the cone and holding it with only one hand I broke a hole in the side. So now as the ice cream melted it ran down the side of my hand (as if just controlling the edges of this bad boy wasn’t hard enough).

From this point it was all downhill because there was no way I could eat the entire ice-cream fast enough before it melted. To top it off I was in a pretty packed area down by the waterfront, standing around feeling very foolish as my hand slowly became soaked with ice cream. I tried to eat it as fast as possible but with this amount it was to no avail and I inhaled it while trying to casually hide behind a building but still catching everyone giving me odd looks.

10 minutes of straight eating later the cone was gone, I was able to wash up and know that if I am really, really, hungry for ice cream again that its time for a medium, or to bring a bowl.