off the beaten path

Time for one last post before I leave for spring break. This will be short(er than usual) because i have to get up early in the morning.
We went to the Royal Danish Ballet and saw Romeo and Juliet. It was beautiful.
The queen came to the performance. Here she is in her special box up to the top right. Not very good seats in my opinion. It was interesting because every time she would enter her box, everyone stood up in the whole theater. And then at the end of the ballet, the dancers each bowed to her first, and then the audience second. It made for a lot of bowing! It is funny how having a queen is normal to them.

It was Ally's first ballet. She was excited :) We had floor seats, too!

The next day we went to the zoo! The elephant house there was designed by Norman Foster, but it was a little of a let down. Other buildings there (like the giraffe and hippo buildings were more interesting). I guess being famous doesn't mean you are a good designer.
Here is my polar bear pose. ROAR!

They played a lot! It was fun to watch them jump off rocks and into the water and chase each other.

The penguins were so close! There wasn't even glass around them. adorable.

heehee.

The giraffes were my favorite. I could stay there for hours and watch them. They are such peaceful animals....at least in their domesticated form!

This last weekend I spent most of my time in studio, since our project was due this week. My host parents were out of town though, and the grandparents stayed here. They do not speak English at all. So it was fun trying to communicate. Because they are old, they did not know how to do anything in this house. I had to show them how to answer the phone and turn off the tv--all with gestures.

I had the most tragic event of my Danish life so far this week though. I finished my project at 2:30 am on Wednesday morning, and the trains stop running at 12:30. So, I had to take a night bus. It is a very long story, but I ended up never seeing my stop on the bus, and I ended up in a farm town far north of Copenhagen. (type in helsingor on google maps if you want to see)
It was 4:30 in the morning and very cold out and I was getting sick. Not fun. And to top it off, the one person awake in the town at the gas station couldnt speak English, and had no interest in helping me....she locked me out of the gas station. So I had the lovely experience of wandering around in the dark without knowing where I was.
Finally, I flagged down a car and found out directions to the train station. And at 5:15 in the morning was able to take the train back to Copenhagen. I finally landed in my bed at 6:30. It was a long, lonely, somewhat scary, and very frustrating night. But I suppose if that is the worst thing that has to happen to me while I am in Denmark, then I can survive. This is probably not the story my mom wants to read, however.
Birgitte made me tea and fresh orange juice the next morning when I woke up. My host parents have definitely taken every opportunity to tease me about this though.

I feel the need to share the vaccuum cleaners at this house with you. This one is a new one I discovered in the cabinet today cause I needed to clean my room. It means business.
This is the one they normally use. It is a robot...like the ones in the skymall catalogs.
Well, I am headed off for my 3 weeks of traveling tomorrow morning. I will be in Germany and the Netherlands for the first week with my school study tour.
And then the next 2 weeks I will be with friends in Italy and Czech Republic. Hopefully I won't be too exhausted from traveling after all this :)

sweden and birthdays

Last weekend, we took the train to Malmö, Sweden. It takes about 25 minutes to get there and costs about 25 dollars. (well, it takes 25 minutes when you get off at the right stop. haha). First pic in Sweden!
The shopping is a lot cheaper there, since there are 8 Swedish kroner to the dollar, instead of 5.75 Danish Kroner to the dollar.
note: the picture above is also an ode to the last time I wore that scarf David got me from South Ameria...I lost it in Sweden :( poo. Well, I wore it well. May it Rest in Peace on someone else's neck.

On the way to Calatrava's tower (for those that are not architecturally inclined: Calatrava is an architect, and he designed a residential skyscraper in Malmo), we passed this awesome playground. It looks like an alien ship has landed.

Of course we played.

Here is my 'Tower of Pisa' picture with the skycraper.


The building is in a pretty cool area that has some other neat buildings around it. Everyone was out that day and taking strolls since it was sunny. It's funny how with the first hint of sun here, everyone is outside and sporting their sunglasses.

This little guy is peering into the souvenir shop window. He was adorable, pressing his nose up against the glass. The shop had lots of little horses and vikings...all that typical Swedish stuff.
Here is the train station in the evening just before we left to come back to Copenhagen.

My life group from K-State sent me Rice Krispie treats!! The ones with fruity pebbles were especially delish.

My host mom talked me into going running with her at 7:45 in the morning the other day. I was scared cause she goes running all the time. She took me on the "short" run (3.5 km. ha.) through the park by their house (fully equipped with forests, a castle, rose gardens, greenhouses, and the running trail of course). I tried to trail behind her....so then I could kinda slow down a bit until she turned around to look at me...and then I would speed up. lol. I am such a cheater. But I did make it. (PS I am not a runner.)

After that I checked out the Botanical Gardens here. It was super humid inside the greenhouse, so my camera was fogging up. But being in there made me realize that I actually miss the humidity from Houston. It felt so good in there and made me feel at home. Maybe I should live in a rainforest when i grow up.


And I decided to be even more cultural and go to the Statens Museum for Kunst (State Art Museum). This was a cool scupture space inside, inbetween and older building and a newer addition.


It was Birgitte's (my host mom) birthday this week. For birthdays in Denmark, the house is decorated with Danish flags, and the birthday soldier is placed by the front door. I sneaked a picture with him. My host sister was sick that day, so she spent the whole day places miniature flags around the house. And usually when it is a kid's birthday, there is a big family celebration (I went to one Saturday that lasted 8 hours) where we eat boller (rolls) and cake and have hot chocolate/coffee/tea.....on a table with flags and little soldiers all over it. :)

We went out to dinner to celebrate (since Birgitte is not a child we didnt have a party with the whole extended family. but dont worry, I have had the pleasure of plenty of those....).
I decided to get what all the rest of the adults got, and it ended up being a 4 course meal consisting of:
3 h'orderves (eggplant, zuccini, and octopus)
pasta with muscles
potatoes and some kind of roast
tirimisu
...all with red wine, of course.

I was glad to find that 2 of the 6 muscle shells on my pasta were empty. and 2 of them were really small. And I really only had 1 big one...so I got that over with first.

It's funny thinking about things Americans do that Danes think are rude (like eat with the fork in the wrong hand), but the Danes let their kids run all over the restaurant that night and climb on the furniture...which I think is way ruder.


Ally and I made cookies (yess. real, live, American cookies) in her Kollegium. We each have (had) a bag. they are gone now.

Language:
I watched the DaVinci code with my host family the other night. It was in English with Danish subtitles. I found it so hard on the parts where they speak French in the movie though. Because I was then hearing French and reading Danish--my brain was NOT having it. haha. I tried to ignore the subtitles and just listen to the French...but I couldn't. So then I decided to read the Danish and ignore the French. It worked a little better.

I think I am understanding more and more Danish every week that goes by.
Some phrases I have understood that people have asked me in Danish the past few weeks (yesss, people are thinking I am Danish!):
Can you get out that way?
---at the Botanical Gardens
Do you want red or white wine? (saying no is out of the question in Denmark, by the way)
---an old man at one of the birthday parties
DON'T USE FLASH!
---at the art museum (oops.)
Would you like a bag?
---several different stores

Tonight it was just me and Mads and Karoline eating dinner together (my little brother and sister), so they taught me some new vocab:
væmmelig (nasty)
skør (crazy)
useful words to know.


I have less than 2 weeks until I leave for Spring Break. I have many thing due next week before that happens, so i will have to buckle down this week....sometime.

Last is a picture from the underground metro. I like sitting in the front or back cars where you can look out onto the tracks.