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!