Travels in det Mørke Jylland- Part 3

  Okay, this should be my last post about Jylland, because I need to move on to talk about all the other stuff I've been doing. Yikes..
  I believe I left off with my Danish danish. That was a bit of a cliffhanger, I know. Sorry about that.
  After the Danish danish, we all went to see a Danish reggae band perform. Now, it was news to me that there is even such a thing as a Danish reggae band. But since I have had the rare opportunity to actually see one, I will provide a picture.

There you have it. The elusive Danish Reggae Band (Daniscus reggaeus) in its natural habitat.











Their music was far too loud for my taste, but catchy. We didn't stay for the whole concert because we were all tired from a day of strenuous bus sitting, but the songs we did hear were, in my opinion, pretty good. A thumbs up for Danish reggae.

  The next day we went to Jelling to see the Jelling Stones. Jelling is the location of two huge burial mounds constructed for Gorm the Old, the first king of Denmark, by his son Harald Bluetooth, the first Danish king to have a piece of electronic equipment named after him. It is also the location of the Jelling Stones, runic stones commissioned by Harald Bluetooth that include references to the Vikings' forced conversion to Christianity (courtesy of Harald Bluetooth) and which also include the first usage of the name "Denmark" for this particular bit of northern Europe.

One of the mounds, and a little church that wasn't built until much later.

One of the mounds.

One side of the main Jelling Stone, with an inscription about Gorm the Old.

Another side.

Gorm the Old was buried in bits, several different times. The bits ended up under the church. This white squiggle marks the location of one of them. Don't ask me which one.









   After leaving Jelling we went to Kolding to see Koldinghus, a restored castle that is now used as an art museum.

Koldinghus and some cool trees.

The courtyard.

 The tower.

The tower provided a nice view of the town. Unfortunately you can't really see the view because some touristy bugger got in the way.

Koldinghus had a exhibit on Beatles-related things, which was cool and  had the added benefit of teaching me new, fun Danish words. I now know "submarine" and "help" (hjaelp).









After that we returned to Copenhagen.
Overall I enjoyed the trip, and learned a lot. I also probably got a lot more sleep on that bus than I had been getting in the average school week, which was nice. I would conclude with something deep and profound about Danish culture, possibly involving pastry, but it's very late and I need to go to bed.

Hej hej!

We Interrupt This Blog for an Important Announcement...

    Yesterday I walked into a bookstore. Which isn't that notable, actually, because I tend to walk into bookstores whenever an opportunity presents itself. And I've been walking into them quite a lot here, because there are several that aren't too far from the apartment and I have a bit more free time than I'm used to. However, this instance was unique in that the bookstore was one I had been searching for for weeks, since walking into it with my entourage shortly after arriving in Copenhagen. I remembered this one because it had a quite large selection of very shiny books, including several shelves of Discworld books in English. If I go too long without Discworld, I've found, I tend to go slightly rabid, so it was just as well that I found this place. 

   However yesterday, as I browsed the shelves and tried not to drool too much, I found something even better. It was relatively inexpensive, it was on a shelf that was low enough for me to reach, it would be an awesome addition to my collection of books by this particular author... it was, in short, perfect. And after standing there debating, I finally got up the nerve to actually buy it. Being someone who is mildly skittish of interacting with anyone standing on the other side of a counter, this was a pretty big thing for me, but the greatness of this find was able to drown out my fear. 

   Here's what I found. (Drumroll...)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In DANISH!

     Just to explain, I'm a... bit of a Douglas Adams fan. Just a bit. And Mommy, you told me I shouldn't hesitate about spending money. And now I get to learn how to say "Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster" in Danish, so really, it's a win/win situation.

    More pictures from Jylland will be forthcoming. 

  Ingen panik! Hej hej! 

Travels in det Mørke Jylland- Part 2

Right. Carrying on...
   After we left the folkehøjskole we went straight to prison.
   No, really. The main point this field trip was to provide us with varied experiences of the unique aspects of Danish culture. This was why we got to spend time at the folkehøjskole. Well, another very unusual and notable Danish institution is the open prison. These are prisons with no gates and very minimal security. And we got to visit one.

I'm afraid this is one of the only pictures that you're going to get. We weren't really allowed to take pictures in the prison itself. This is the road that leads to the prison. I think the weather really helped the ambience, don't you?








   When we arrived we were met by a woman who turned out to be the warden and a young-ish guy in a sweatshirt who turned out to be one of the inmates. They talked to us for a bit about how exactly open prisons work. The basic idea is that, rather than merely punishing criminals, prisons should focus on helping to reform the inmates and prepare them for re-entering society. The sentence times are relatively short (compared to those in the US) and the primary punishment is the removal of freedom which, the inmate assured us, was punishment enough. The inmates are allowed to leave the prison once every three weeks and, apparently, most of them come back. They cook for themselves (which means they get access to, you know, knives and stuff) and are allowed computers if they have a good reason for needing one. The inmate who we were talking with, for instance, was using his computer to take online business classes. The inmates are generally put to work doing various menial jobs at the prison in order to keep them busy. But, as I mentioned, there are no fences. There are some security guards, but apart from that... well, the name "open prison" really explains itself.
   After this discussion we got a brief tour of the prison, which involved us driving through the prison complex in the bus, and then going inside one of the...er... dormitories, I guess would be the word? The complex was fairly large, with several dormitories and a church and some sports facilities. The dormitories themselves weren't particularly nice and the rooms were very small and the hallways smelled of cigarette smoke, but for a prison it probably was quite posh. The walls inside were painted a cheerful shade of blue, and there was a foosball table. Not bad at all.

One of the prison dormitories. Not bad, eh?











    Anyway, after the tour we got some time to ask the warden and the inmate more questions, and then we left prison. On bail, of course. By the way, we found out that the inmate we were talking with was there for financial crimes (embezzlement, specifically, I think - thank you, Terry Pratchett, for teaching me that word) but it turns out that he was framed. The warden actually said so. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was a little disappointed about that. I mean, we get to meet a criminal, but he didn't actually do anything wrong? What a gyp.

    Then we went to lunch at a very nice restaurant with a buffet and, more importantly, a nice collection of Scandinavian flags out front.

I'm a bit of a flag enthusiast, in case you didn't know. This is, from left to right, Norway, Iceland, Finland and, way on the end, Sweden.
The Danish flag is off screen, on an extra tall, extra special flagpole. I would show you a picture, but you all know what the Danish flag looks like, right?

Oh, what the heck. Here it is.












    After lunch we went to the Vejen Kunst Museum in the town of Vejen, where we saw some very cool sculptures by the artist Niels Hansen Jacobsen and some different very cool sculptures by the artist Eva Steen Christiensen. The ones by Jacobsen are the ones that look like actual sculptures and are slightly creepy, and the ones by Christiensen are the ones that are strange and artsy and occasionally seem to involve cutting bits out of carpets.

 

This is very possibly the coolest fountain on the planet. That's a troll in the middle, in case you didn't notice. A TROLL.

Did I mention the troll?

This statue is called "Death and the Mother" and it's based on the story of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen.

And this is "The Shadow", also based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen.

I think I'm going to stop here for now, but I will end with a very exciting picture.

              There it is. My first Danish danish. I had it for dessert that night, after we left the museum, and it was really good. And those gummies on top were, I'm pretty sure, the best gummies I have ever eaten. They had more flavor than our bland, weak Amurrican gummies.

    Anyway, that's all for now. Happy Valentines Day, and all that.

   Hej hej!

Travels in det Mørke Jylland- Part 1

  Okay, I'm going to try to cover everything that's happened in the past week and a half in one post. It should be interesting.
   First of all, I met my Danish visiting family. What is a Danish visiting family? It's pretty self-explanatory. Kids who aren't living with host families can ask to be paired up with a local Danish family, who they can spend time with and get to know. I had really wanted to live with a host family, but that would have required me to take public transportation by myself to and from school every day, and I didn't think I could handle that. Having a visiting family seemed like a good compromise.
   Anyway, I went to visit my visiting family for the first time last Wednesday, and I saw them again three days ago.  Both times I went to their house and they fed me, so that was already a reason for me to like them. They may be almost as awesome as my actual family. In fact, my Danish sisters are almost certainly cooler than my real sister. The parents are both really nice and friendly and welcoming, and their kids are really great. They have a son in fourth grade who can speak English ridiculously well, and two daughters- one who is in second grade and one who is a toddler- who can't speak English. Which is great, because it means I have someone to practice my Danish on. And they're all blonde, in case you were wondering. We haven't done much together yet, apart from eat dinner and talk and spend time at their house, but I enjoy their company so I'm okay with that.
   I may have a picture for you at some point. Right now I still feel kind of awkward about taking pictures of them.

   The other major thing that happened in the past week- last weekend, actually- was I went on my first major field trip. This I do have pictures from. Everyone in the study abroad program has a core class, and all of the core classes went on what are called "study tours" last weekend. Most of the classes, including mine, traveled to Jylland (or Jutland, as we Amurricans pronounce it). If you look at a map of Denmark (which you should, because maps are fun and Denmark is awesome) Jylland is the big long island on the left. It's the largest part of Denmark and, according to my visiting family, is seen by the rest of Denmark as hicksville central. Apparently there's a Danish saying that is used to describe anything that seems backward or primitive, which is "that could only happen in det mørke Jylland (the dark Jutland)". Very nice.
   All Danish stereotypes aside, my own impression of Jylland was slightly different. This summer I drove with my mom and my grandparents to Saint Louis, Missouri. The view out the window, once you get out into the midwest, is very distinctive. It looks a bit like this:


This is somewhere in between New York and Saint Louis.

And this is somewhere in Jutland. Flat, lots of farms. Jutland basically looks like the middle of the United States, but with colder weather. And with wind turbines.

...Lots and lots of wind turbines. There's a reason the climate change conference last year was in Denmark. They are quite concerned about global warming here. It's really great.













In order to get from the island with Copenhagen on it to Jylland we had to cross over this impressive bridge. It's one of the longest bridges in the world.









  Our first stop in Jylland was in the town of Ry, and specifically at the Ry Højskole. This school is very special and interesting because it is one of Denmark's many folkehøjskoles. How's that for a Danish word? A folkehøjskole is a school where students can go for half a year to rediscover the joys of learning. There are no tests or grades. The idea is to simply learn for the fun of it. Many students choose to attend folkehøjskoles in order to explore new interests or find something different to do with their lives. I was ready to move right in. 

The school.

The school's lakeside view (sauna not shown). 






















  After we arrived at the school we were greeted by a student walking by and calling "Hello America!" We weren't entirely sure how to react to that. We had a very good lunch in the dining hall and then got to choose between several different workshop options. The one I chose involved walking around Ry and getting to know some of the students. It was really interesting talking to them and hearing their various reasons for choosing to go to the folkehøjskole. Part of the walk involved up hiking up what must have been a mountain by Danish standards. We stopped at the top and looked at the view, which included a glimpse of one of the largest lakes in Denmark in the distance.

The tallest mountain in Denmark is something like 500 feet tall. This must have been pretty close.

See the lake?









     After the walk we had dinner, I went to another workshop where I completely and utterly failed to play the guiter, and then I went to bed.
   The next morning we had breakfast at the school,  attended the morning assembly (which involved singing, which I thought was cool), then we left Ry Højskole and headed south.

Everyone on the bus was very lively.












On that note, it is very late so I'm going to stop for now. I'll continue with this tomorrow, hopefully.

Hej hej!

A Trebuchet! ...and Some Other Stuff

Well, I'm back from Jutland. I'll tell you about that later.
 Last weekend I went on two trips: one to Frederiksborg Castle and one to Esrum Abbey. I went to Frederiksborg Castle on Saturday. It was unusually cold and windy, and for some reason there were a ton of people on this particular trip. This meant that we were split up into groups, and my group got to enter the castle last, so that we got some quality time out in the cold. It gave me plenty of time to take pictures of the outside of the castle, though.

This was after the tour. Of course, the sun waited until we were about to leave to make an appearance.












 While Kronborg Castle's primary use was as a fortress and a place from which the channel tax could be collected, Frederiksborg Castle was build exclusively to be a shiny, impressive house for the Danish royal family. Most of it was constructed during the reign of Christian IV, who was responsible for most of the major building projects in Denmark. He liked extravagant architecture that displayed the wealth and power of the Danish monarchy, though by funding all of these building projects, as well as getting involved in (and losing) a large number of wars, Christian IV effectively destroyed the wealth of the Danish monarchy. He is, for some reason, one of the most well-loved Danish kings.
  By the way, if you are ever in doubt about the name of a Danish king, if you guess either "Christian" or "Frederick" you will have a 50% chance of being right. Apparently, the Danish royal family is hereditarily bad at thinking up names for their children.

This is the main dining hall in the castle.

A section of the ceiling in the dining hall. Mmmm, deer.

The ridiculously ornate chapel.

The walls of the chapel are covered with the coat-of-arms of all of the people who have received royal orders from the Danish monarch. Most of these people are Danes.

...But not all of them. As you can see, President Eisenhower got a royal order from the Danish king in the year MCMXLV.

The audience chamber, where the king would meet with the peons.

...Complete with an elevator chair that rises out of the floor. Apparently it still works. Our tour guide told us that the current queen tried it once.

The great hall.

And finally, my favorite painting from inside the castle. That kid's going to shoot his eye out.












The next day I went to Esrum Abbey, which dates from sometime during the Middle Ages. 1100s, maybe? Anyway, it's quite old, and not much of the original abbey remains.

What does remain seems to have shrunk over the years.

A bit of the original wall painting.

 But the really exciting thing about the abbey was that we got to compete in various Middle Ages-related competitions, and learn a bit about medieval weapons and warfare. It was awesome.

Battering ram!

I was a huge fan of this particular game because I have always loved whacking people in the head with sticks.

That's not me, by the way. If that was me, that guy would be curled up in a ball on the ground.

This, however, is me. In chain mail. I was really tempted to steal it, because chain mail is awesome, and not nearly as heavy as I had imagined. It's a bugger to get on and off, though.

Archery! This guy is dressed in the uniform of a medieval British archer. He showed us bows and arrows from several different time periods. It was interesting to see how the shape of arrowheads changed over the years, in order to adapt to advancements in armor design. He told us that during the Middle Ages, the average poundage for a bow was around 180 lbs. For comparison, modern top-level recurve shooters usually have bows that are between 40 and 50 lbs. We are such weaklings these days.

We all got to try shooting longbows and, as I had anticipated, I did miserably. Not only did I not have a sight, but you have to angle the bow to keep the arrow from sliding off. I also opted for the 45 pound bow, the heaviest one he had, so that probably didn't help. Only one of my three arrows hit the target, but what the heck. It was still fun.

You should all know what this is. This is called a trebuchet, and it's one of my all-time favorite siege weapons. I was extremely psyched that we got to actually use one (as in, practically jumping up and down). Here's how it works.

A trebuchet's most important components are a long arm with a fabric pouch on the end, which is attached to a huge counterweight, which you can see to your left.

You pull the long arm down (thereby raising the counterweight) and secure it by sliding a metal bar across and looping a rope around the arm. Then you put your projectile of choice - in this case a cabbage- into the fabric pouch.

Finally, you yank the metal bar back, which releases the long arm, which swings up as the counterweight comes down and launches the projectile up and out of the pouch and toward your enemy in a very dramatic and awe-inspiring fashion. If you ever get the chance to see a trebuchet in action, you will understand my enthusiasm. It is truly awesome.

And finally, jousting. The object of the game was to sit on the wooden horse, holding a big stick, and be pushed down the track. You had to try to hit the target with the stick.

The target was this hanging guy's shield. I don't want to know what he did to deserve that.










   After we finished all of the activities we were given some snacks and then got on the bus and returned to Copenhagen. On the bus I talked to two people who I found that I have a lot in common with. It might be possible that I've found some friends, which is pretty cool for me.
  I think I should end this post now. I'll tell you about everything else I've been up to... soon.

 Hej hej!