Take back the city for yourself tonight

3:04am. Fallen back into my never-ending pattern of not sleeping. 3:04 wouldnt be bad if I hadn't gotten 2.5 hours of sleep last night. Its okay, McMann's research and the travel channel seem to be occupying my mind sufficiently at the moment.

Last few weeks: started volunteering. learned to say blue. had my best misunderstanding yet. celebrate Mary Ann's birthday. had cow heart (no i was not aware of this at the time). had my first midterm of the semester. booked my trip to Berlin. booked my trip to Budapest. discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a club (yeah I would). made my first actual Danish purchase other than food. had my first interview for the summer. went to the Danish Resistance Museum. went to the National Museum. had some great skype dates catching up with people. yelled at my computer, many times. saw the Little Mermaid. listened to Snow Patrol obsessively. explained to my brother that I was not in fact patrolling snow. fallen asleep on the s-tog. waited for the night bus for 40 minutes. introduced the family to grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. gotten incredibly frustrated with talking in circles. written a paper on international whaling law.

That should be enough of a night rant. I have an 8:30 so Im thinking at this point Ill crash for a few and go take the camera out for some early morning picture-taking. Center of African Studies at the University of Copenhagen is celebrating its 25th anniversary tomorrow so planning on heading there later in the day for some discussion and music. Have an interview at 7. Who knows where it'll go from there.

Stumbling blocks

One of the classes Ive been most excited for this semester is my holocaust and genocide class. Im incredibly interested in conflict regions, and most of what Ive studied, somewhat on my own, have been ones with genocide or vast human rights abuses. Obviously its not the most uplifting subject, clearly seen with the my teacher's comment from the first day that he would prefer no one cries. He's incredibly knowledgeable, his specialty is the Holocaust but he's also pretty well-versed on the Armenian genocide. This isn't my first time reading dense material on conflicts or the Holocaust, but this class is very different than anything Im used to. It's so strange to discuss first-hand accounts and these readings that physically make me nauseous at times in class- everyone has such a dissociated, "academic" tone about it. I understand the necessity for that, sitting and crying about these things is going to get nothing accomplished and really has very little point, but its very hard for me to wrap my head around discussing the slaughter of millions of people like I would talk about the color of the wallpaper in the room. We spent today talking about euthanasia and the set-up in the camps and someone asked where they extracted the gold teeth as if she was asking what's tomorrow's homework. Im not expecting people to cry- trust me Id prefer if the didn't but it definitely takes its toll. It doesnt help that I have human rights in Africa a few hours after...or what it seems like the lack of human rights.

So far, I feel as though Ive learned that there is nothing that can stop genocide/mass human rights abuses and there is no way to make any policies or explanations in regards to Africa because we really know nothing and every approach is wrong because we are westerners. I do agree with the latter to a certain degree...but then how can we make any foreign policy for any region? ...Today has been very thought-provoking and making me slightly question if I can handle working in human rights or if I am even somewhat qualified or will ever be? Its always great when your life ambitions get slightly knocked out from under you :)

Jenny, Jill and the Jonas brothers

Had a big dinner to celebrate Maj Britt's birthday with a few friends of her friends and the family. The three hours that followed were a conglomeration of stories about the Faroe Islands (apparently theyre having a problem since the population is so small that there are some diseases showing up from interbreeding? yikes), stories about their childhoods when Poulina used to trick them into doing chores and the usual random comments. Oh, and also, I tried lamb. Ive officially eaten more meat in the last month than probably the last 2 years. Im pretty sure my family now thinks Im going to eat it when I come home now...Im sorry guys but I dont think its going to happen.

Went over to McCabe's after and went out wandering for a good bar. Everything had crazy lines so while we were waiting to get into one we saw another door. Thinking we were being extremely slick, we went in through that door. Turns out it was a smaller bar next door, but for about 3 seconds we felt really cool. I dont know where we ended up but it was beautifully decked out in surf boards and Quicksilver labels. We luckily grabbed a few chairs and were soon joined by 10 Danes since we had one of 3 tables in the place. We also befriended 2 Jonas' (apparently a very common name?) one of who was wearing a cowboy hat (its fastelavn which is the Danish halloween). He asked me to "fake an American accent" Im still not sure what that meant, but after multiple attempts I said howdy and he got very excited so apparently Texas is the epitome of America. The trains run every hour at night so we were getting ready by about 3 when one of the Jonas brothers accidentally spilled beer perfectly so it looked like I peed my pants. That was the cue to head out so I caught the train back. The half an hour ride is so much better with beer-stained pants, I may make it a regular part of my nights.

Oh and for the Jenny and Jill reference...I was Jenny, Katey was Jill. Figured if we're going to be American, we may as well be VERY American :)

Oof, Homburg

This past weekend my European Politics program had our first study tour..we go on a longer one for a week later in the semester, but this was just for Thursday-Saturday night. Most of the study tours were to Jutland, Denmark which is the mainland that is connected to continental Europe. We got to go to Hamburg Germany as well, Im assuming since there's not much to discuss in rural Denmark about the EU? The trip consisted of a stop by the Kommune (City Hall) on the border between Denmark and Germany since the two are currently discussing the construction of a bridge as part of a larger EU plan to connect Europe. After a ferry trip into Germany we went on a walking tour of the city, which mostly consisted of us walking on ice and trying our best not to make too big of asses out of ourselves. Also had a ferry tour of the shipping yards (we saw a lot of fog and shipping containers). Check-in at hostel and then dinner and tour of a microbrewery. Beer was great..the massive platter of mystery meet was another story. Next day, we got a tour of Parliament, and went to the Neuengamme concentration camp. A lot of it was no longer there because it was turned into a prison a few years after the end of WWII, but we got to see a few parts and there was a museum-type floor with information and video testimonials. Biggest surprise was probably how close it was to the town because Ive always pictured the camps as being in the middle of nowhere so that people didnt really know. Its also very eerily quiet and peaceful.

Saturday we drove into Schleswig in Southern Denmark..they call it the "Danish Gettysburg" where Denmark lost to the Germans. Our tour guide was hilarious though..Ive never seen someone so excited and definitely felt like I was 5 years old at story-time.

It was Majbritt's birthday that night so we went over to her place, which is about a 3 minute walk from where we live and met some of her friends, most of who are from the Faroe Islands (I dont remember if I mentioned it but the family isnt actually Danish but Farish)

Oh and I met with the organization Im volunteering for today..well kind of. Apparently something happened and they closed it so we went and grabbed coffee at Cafe Castro (yeah, as in the Cuban one) and talked about the program. Basically, Im going to be playing soccer with the kids, tutoring occasionally (which will be interesting considering my amazing knowledge of Danish) and going out with two of them a few times on Friday or Saturday night to talk to the youth and hand out "condoms and candy"..I think that's my favorite. Aright, I should study for my test tomorrow.

Roar

My 13-year old host brother is currently singing Taylor Swift at the top of his lungs and dancing in the living room :)

This is him with his favorite mask...he loves to scare the crap out of me with it. I love my life :)

Potpourri in Swedish blizzards

Lots of updates so this may be a tad long. Last week can basically be summed up with class and my first experience lost in Copenhagen. Basically, after a night out at Streckers and a great pool place by Kateys, we were heading back, thinking that the train ran until 110. Little did we know it stopped at 1250 so the one we caught only went two stops and then we got kicked off. After trying to find the night bus we gave up and did the half hour walk back to Katey's place where I cuddled with her while Spanky attempted to fit on her couch..which would have been too small for me to give you an idea of its size.

We decided to head over to Malmo, Sweden for the weekend since its only a 30 minute train ride away. Spank and I went on Friday and Katey joined us on Saturday evening since she wanted to stick around and go to the monthly bike auction. We knew we arrived in Sweden when we were greeted by a view of IKEA on the horizon. Spanky and I got off on the first Malmo station (we asked if there were two and got laughed at so we assumed it was the right one...but it wasn't). After getting back on the train we got off at Malmo Central and wondered around in the blizzard until we found our hostel which was about a half an hour away. After getting settled in, we went and grabbed some pizza at the nearest place since it was freezing outside. FYI, they were not fond of Americans and we got some death stares once we opened our mouths and proceeded to explain ourselves with pointing and gestures. Pizza was good though. Night was pretty uneventful as we had no desire to go back outside so we just hung around the hostel watching random Swedish tv shows. We found one similar to Saturday Night Live and from that they pretty much think Americans are represented by "Im a barbie girl" and cowboys.


Saturday we decided to make a massive circle around Malmo and see everything possible in a day. We started the day off with the Folkets Park, which is an amusement park- it has a batman ride!! Its closed so we headed off to the Chocolate Factory...which really turned out to be a little cafe and one room "museum" but I got to see the home of the Tooty Fruity. After some more getting lost...street names are impossible to find in Sweden too..we went to St. John's Church of Roses which was gorgeous and had hand-carved roses very embedded in the architecture. Warming up was also a huge plus because I couldnt feel my hands at this point. After that we found Konsthallen, which is a modern art museum. As my usual reaction to modern art- loved some, very confused by others. They had a room with four projects flashing pictures of a car wash..Im sorry I still dont get it. Some of the photography was really interesting though and they had an exhibit about the sexual revolution which was intriguing to say the least. Also, people here are A LOT more fond of and open with nudity because it is everywhere..I dont mean on the streets but in posters and books and art and just all in your face. From the museum, we stopped by the Opera House, which we couldn't actually get into but the whole building is incredibly modern and not what I imagined at all.

We spent the main part of the day in Malmöhus Castle, which is definitely different from any castle you can imagine. First of all, as we were walking up to it, there was a massive picture of Nelson Mandela hanging on the outside and (not with the picture) a sign which said "white people only." I have no idea what this meant and really hope that this was part of some exhibit of something because thats an incredibly twisted and disturbing combination.

As for the castle, the whole thing is turned into a museum of the its history and the history of the region. They have a very intricate and detailed exhibit of the prison system with testimonies and pictures etc. Also, Im pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be part of the exhibit but they had a section with mice to show that there were mice everywhere, but the mice just had babies and if you dont know, mice eat their young...probably the most disturbing part of the day. In the castle basement was an aquarium with a bunch of different fish and snakes..I said it wasn't like any other castle. To further intrigue me, there was a huge exhibit on Nelson Mandela (which explains his picture outside). We didnt have much time so we rushed through it but it looked very well done. Never thought I would go to Sweden to learn about Mandela. They also had an exhibit on AIDS and HIV, but we didnt stick around to see it.

At this point we met Katey at the station and went to St. Peter's Church, which will without a doubt leave you speechless. Ive seen a lot of beautiful and intricately decorated churches so far but this one was impeccable. After, we went to las empanadas..which turned out to be a very strange mixture of italian and mexican food. This was later made more confusing when we saw Burger King advertising to "super size your mexican meal" Later that night we went to Big Mamma's Pizzeria and Shwarma house. They seem to like to just get everything in all at ones. We tried to go out that night but apparently Malmo only consists of high class bars with people over 50 so instead we got some wine, what we decided must be Swedish nattys, 37% chocolate cookies (we have yet to figure out what the 63% is but they tasted great), some little cinnamon rolls and chips and spent the night in the hostel watching a strange British mystery movie and playing checkers. Living the good life. Anywho, came back to Copenhagen Sunday and did the insane amount of work I had to catch up on..which I will continue to do tonight.

Human rights in Africa started today....I spent out 10 minute break talking to a Danish woman who spent 3 years volunteering in Congo. Class seems great but our whole great will be a paper in the end and apparently they grade crazy hard. My mondays will now be 10-545. Fun times ahead. Also, got my volunteer assignment today- Palklub. Ill be helping organize the after school programming for immigrant children, which seems very fun. Aright I think this is more than long enough.