Now I Know I'm in Denmark

...Because I went to the Viking Ship Museum this weekend. It was really cool. Here are some pictures.

 Some super fancy dramatic lighting.

The Viking ships that the museum features were discovered at the bottom of the bay in the 1960s. They are all different types. The one on the right (sorry that you can't see the whole thing) is the longest, and it's a warship. It's estimated that it held approximately 80 rowers. 

It's amazing to me that these ships survived at all, considering the fact that they're made of wood. It seems like they would have disintegrated underwater. But, fortunately, the Vikings made ships that lasted. 

As well as the original Viking ships in the pictures above, the Viking Ship Museum also has many awesome replica ships. Apparently they are kept under tarps during the winter, but come spring the people at the museum take these replicas out on the water and, I'm assuming, go forth to terrorize the coastal villages of Europe.

This is the view from the museum. That's all ice, by the way. Good Viking weather. Apparently there's a fjord somewhere out there, but I'm not exactly sure where. I've never actually seen a fjord (apart from on maps) so I don't really know what I'm looking for. If you'll pardon the geeky literary reference, Slartibartfast would be ashamed of me. 

 

  The Viking Ship Museum is located in the town of Roskilde, which also contains Roskilde Cathedral. This is the cathedral which holds the bodies of most of the Danish monarchs. We were supposed to get a tour of the cathedral, but when we arrived in town we found that it had unexpectedly closed in order to have an extra church service, so we didn't get to go inside. That was really disappointing, but I did at least get some pictures of the outside.

 

We did get to see one dead royal guy's tomb, anyway. On the other side of this gate is the grave of the most recent Danish king (the current queen's father). He asked to be buried outside under the sky rather than in the cathedral.

And speaking of the Danish monarchy, I realize that I forgot to mention something that I did last week. During the study abroad program's orientation I got to see the changing of the guard. The Danish royal family lives in a palace complex in Copenhagen, guarded by a bunch of guys in uniforms and furry black hats. There is another palace elsewhere in the city, which also has guards. At noon every day the guards march through the city from one palace to the other and switch places, with much ceremony and saluting. It was a lot of fun to watch, and I really want one of those hats. Here are some pictures.  

I wonder if part of their military training is learning to march around in those hats. It looks like they can't see a thing.

 Another thing that I forgot to mention but that you might have noticed is that finally, this weekend, I saw the sun. It was actually out for quite a while on Saturday, while I was at Kronborg Castle. For now it seems to have gone back to hiding behind the clouds, but maybe... someday... I'll see it again. 

So, I hear you guys have snow. Go sledding for me, okay? Because as you can probably tell, here in the frozen North we have no snow whatsoever. 

That's all for now. Hej hej!

Classes, Castles and Salty Licorice

     I can't believe I've already been here for more than a week. It seems like I just arrived. Classes started on Thursday. The classrooms are just down the street from the apartment where I live, and I managed to find my way to all of my classes, despite the fact that one of the buildings must have originally been intended as a maze. I'm taking six classes: European literature, marine biology, Danish language and culture, Russian literature, Ancient Greece and something called "Memory and Identity" which is a requirement and deals with European cultural identities. It should be fairly interesting. As of right now, I have had each class once (except for Ancient Greece, which doesn't start for a few weeks) and they all seem like they will be quite enjoyable. The teacher in the European literature class introduced herself by telling us that she's a geek, so I'm quite confident that I'm going to like that class.
    Oh, and here's something that will probably only be meaningful to my friends at school: the study abroad program has a very small library in one of the academic buildings here, and I was exploring it - well, I say "exploring", it's just one room - and I came across a book by Professor Pleshakov. I was so surprised that I almost took a picture of it. Someone in that library has good taste.
    Here's a rundown on some other things I've been up to.

  



 Exhibit A: Salty licorice

    I heard of this stuff through, strangely enough, anime, and knew it as salmiakki which is, in fact, the Finnish name for it. In English it's salty licorice. It seems to be present throughout Scandinavia, and I was determined to try some while here. So I picked some up at a local grocery store and, once I had plucked up the courage, tried some. It tastes just like salty licorice. With an emphasis on the salt. It was... strange and mostly, but not entirely, unpleasant. My tongue felt numb for at least ten minutes afterward. I might wait a while before having another piece. 

  I also went on a few trips this weekend, led by people from the study abroad program. Yesterday I went to the town of Elsinore (or Helsingør in Danish) which contains Kronborg Castle, best known as the castle from "Hamlet". 

Kronborg Castle. I had assumed it would be bigger.

  

Behold, Sweden! Kronborg Castle is located at the point where Denmark is closest to Sweden. This is because back in the Middle Ages the Danish king decided to tax all of the ships that sailed through the little channel in between Denmark and Sweden, and so he had two fortresses built: one on the spot where Kronborg Castle is now, and one on the other side of the channel. Because, of course in those days Sweden belonged to Denmark.

 
Any ship that didn't pay the tax could expect a rain of cannonballs.

  




The moat. And... ramparts? Are those ramparts? I never can tell.

The great hall.

It was kind of dark in some of the rooms so the color here isn't great, but the castle was full of tapestries. As castles tend to be.

I don't remember exactly what this room was for.

The inner courtyard.

This is from one of the many paintings in the castle. It shows Danish Queen Margrethe I accepting the crowns of the kings of Sweden and Norway. It was during her reign that Denmark subjugated Sweden and Norway and created what was known as the Kalmar Union.

The organ in the castle's little chapel.

The dungeons were very dark and damp and cold with low ceilings. The emphasis here is on dark. I wasn't able to get many pictures, but this one should give you a general idea of what they were like. Apparently, the soldiers stationed down in the dungeons were given copious amounts of alcohol in order to better deal with the conditions.

I also walked around the town a bit and took some pictures. Some of the houses looked quite old.

I have to go to bed now, but I'll probably do another post tomorrow because I haven't covered all of my weekend excursions. Hej hej!

Settling In

   I'm pretty sure that I'm no longer jet-lagged, though the sun does set earlier and rise later here than at home, so that's messing with me a bit. I moved into my room yesterday. I am staying in one of the program's residential communities in the city. I had originally wanted to live with a host family, but that would have meant taking the train on my own and I didn't think I could manage that. The residential community is nice because it is right in the middle of the city and very close to where my classes will be. I ended up with a single, which I hadn't been expecting.

 This is the outside of the apartment.

...And this is my room. It's... cozy.














   Since my last post my entourage and I have done a bit more wandering around the city, trying to figure out how to get from one place to another. It turns out that I have a terrible memory for directions, because I'm still not entirely sure how to get from my apartment to a lot of the places we visited. But it's okay because that's what maps are for.
   Here are some pictures I have taken during the past few days. It was extremely foggy on Saturday, so you'll be able to tell which ones I took then.

 


A huge anchor by one of the canals.

  

This is an old boat that originally was used as a floating lighthouse. Now they just keep it around because it looks cool. By the way, the street in the background with the different colored buildings seems to be the most popular street in the city among people who design guide books. Every single guide book about Copenhagen that I have seen has had a picture of this street on the cover.

  




Copenhagen has water taxis, just like Venice. This is one of them. Unlike in Venice, the Danish water taxis are bright yellow.

  



I don't know the name of this church, but I thought the inside was interesting.

  



 Lego is a Danish company, and so there are some very cool Lego stores in Copenhagen. See if you can spot the one part of this picture that isn't made of Legos.

  

Some interesting local architecture.

  A statue of Hermes on top of a building.

Danish is one of the coolest and most intimidating languages that I have ever encountered. This is a street sign, by the way.

A statue in one of the squares. I'm pretty sure it's a fountain, but apparently they turn the water off during the winter.










    I spent most of the day today in orientation. There are nearly 700 kids in the program, including a few other people from MHC. Our assignment for today was to travel around the city in groups and find different landmarks. This succeeded in getting me thoroughly confused, but fortunately I have plenty of maps. Orientation will continue tomorrow and Wednesday, and classes are going to start on Thursday. I'll let you know how that goes.

So it Begins

Well, I'm here. I'm extremely jet-lagged and my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton, but I'll try to be somewhat coherent.
 We (me and my entourage, consisting of my mom and a family friend) arrived this morning at 7:30AM local time and 1:30 AM according to my body clock, so that wasn't fun. I had been hoping to catch a glimpse of the city from the air, but not only did we arrive before sunrise, but it was so foggy that I literally couldn't see anything out the window until about a minute before we landed.
Picture time!

Here we have my introduction to Denmark.









   We went through the airport very quickly, mostly because we didn't have to go through security. At least, not that I noticed. They just stamped our passports and let us go.
   At the airport we met up with a Danish friend of the family friend we had brought with us, and he drove us around Copenhagen and showed us the sights. The sun was up at this point but the fog still clung to everything. On top of that it was cloudy and drizzly. The ambiance was quite nice, actually. I managed to get a few pictures.

Did I mention the fog?

 


   This is the little mermaid from the story by Hans Christian Andersen. Who, in case you didn't know, was Danish. She sits out on a rock at the edge of the harbor and gets gawked at by tourists.

  


This is the home of the Danish royal family. Hopefully I'll have better pictures for you later. They have very minimal security and, as you can see, people are allowed to drive up and take pictures. There are uniformed guards in huge black hats who are stationed at the entrances, but I wasn't able to get a good picture of one. That will be my goal for this semester.

 

Copenhagen literally means "trading harbor" and so there are boats everywhere, parked in the harbor and along the canals. Most of the canals, and part of the harbor, are frozen at the moment.

Here are some house boats.

I'm not quite sure what's up with this boat.








    After the tour we checked into our hotel and then walked around the city a bit. I almost fell asleep while standing up at least twice. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, and now I need to go to bed. Good night!