My first time leaving Copenhagen overnight.
My first time not eating 730 Keops dinner two nights in a row (sigh).
My first time ever staying in a hostel.
My first time being away from the "keops crew."
My first time eating a traditional Danish meal.
My first time meeting Finnish boys.
My first time I felt like returning to Keops was returning home.
There were a lot of firsts and some were good, some not so good. So where did all these firsts come from? Well, on Thursday morning at 5:45 am I awoke to go on my first "short study tour." Within DIS there are different programs, most of them being some kind of major, and students choose a program they are interested in. For instance, since I am a Strategic Communications major at Elon, I chose to be in the Communications & Mass Media (CMM) program so that I could learn more about international communications. It is a great way to focus study tours and classes so that they are specific to your interests. Each program then goes on a short and long study tour during the semester. Our short study tour took us to Ebeltoft, Kolding and Ødense, all different parts of Denmark.
After arriving at the crack of dawn on Thursday, we took off to visit the Jelling Stones. The Jelling stones are massive carved runestones from the 10th century, raised by King Gorm (the first King of Denmark) and his son Harald Bluetooth, to celebrate the Danes conversion to Christianity. They are kind of like the "birth certificate" of Denmark. We then went to lunch at an Inn and this is where I had my first traditional Danish meal. I hate to say it, but I really don't like Danish food. At all. I feel as though the Danish cuisine is made up of everything that I don't like. Nevertheless, it was nice to be fed rather than cook and get to know the people in my program a little better.
Our next stop was The European Film College in Ebeltoft. We were welcomed with coffee and bread & jam, which was wonderful. We listened to a lecture by Søren Høy, a film journalist, writer, and former TV host and also the principal of the college. He gave us a lot of great tips and really stressed that experience is key in a career, rather than education. After that we had dinner at the school and watched Twilight: New Moon in their big theatre.
Then came my next first: the hostel. The Ebeltoft hostel was struggling. The room was TINY and 4 of us were smashed together. I slept on the top bunk and didn't really sleep a wink. To say the least, my first hostel experience was not the greatest.
Friday we headed to Ødense, a town that I had actually been to before for my Hans Christian Andersen field study. Here we visited Brandts, a center of art and culture that had an Art Hall, Photo Art and Danish Media museum. We also visited TV 2, which is a Danish government-owned television station. We heard a presentation by one of the chief editors, then one of the anchors of the crime show came and spoke to us. We also got to meet "the Anderson Cooper of Denmark" but unfortunately they didn't tell us this until after he left so I didn't get a picture.
We arrived at our new hostel in Kolding and it was AWESOME. It definitely revived my view of a hostel from the previous night. After dinner at the hostel all of us went out to a pub called "Lanteern" with our new Finnish friends. The Architecture students were also staying at the same hostel, so all of them were there too. Needless to say, the bar was filled with Americans, something I have found is hard to get away from cause there are SO many DIS students. After a late-night pizza eat (very common here in Denmark, pizza places are EVERYWHERE and they stay open all night usually), we went back to the hostel and crashed after not getting much sleep the night before.
Saturday, our final day, began at Trapholt, a museum for art, design and handicraft. We got to see an awesome exhibition displaying the work of Peter Callesen called "Out of Nothing," an exhibit where everything was cut from paper. Here are some pictures from that:
We also got to hear from Trapholt's PR director, Trine Nissen, so it was neat to see what she had to say about her job there. After that we went over to Koldinghus, a royal castle built in the 13th century.
We finished off the trip with a great lunch in Kolding at a place called Lucca, where we got Turkey sandwiches with cheese, bacon, cucumber, lettuce, tomato and this sauce that was kind of like a mixture of ranch and thousand island. Great way to finish off the tour!!
Overall, it was a good trip. It was definitely hard being away from Copenhagen and Keops, where I feel comfortable now. Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to get back out of my comfort zone and learn more about Denmark and about myself!
For now, hej hej!
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