My Last Two Weeks in Denmark

My last two weeks in Denmark were a whirlwind of school, sightseeing, spending time with my host family and saying goodbyes to my friends and classmates.

Two weeks before departure:

The second to last week I spent in Denmark I dedicated mostly to schoolwork – I passed a lot of my time in various libraries, cafes, and at my desk furiously writing my way to the end of the semester. I knew I had about a week’s worth of work left, so although not due until the last days of my semester, I chose to get it all done early and then spend my last week relaxing and enjoying myself. I finished up most of my work, all my classes and said goodbye to all my teachers and classmates. My Sustainability in Europe class (the one I travelled with) had its final goodbye that Wednesday, where my professor decided to take us to a beer tasting at a micro-brewery in her neighborhood. We enjoyed one great last night of beers, cheers and tears before saying our farewells.

During that weekend, I decided to spend most of my time with my host family. On Saturday we had another Danish Christmas. In the afternoon we went out and bought a Christmas tree for the house. Fun fact: Danes put their Christmas trees in the center of their living rooms so on Christmas everyone can gather together and dance around the tree while singing. They also have a tradition of lighting real candles on the trees, so despite my concerns about burning down the house, we lit maybe ten on the top of the tree. We decorated the tree with lots of Danish flags, woven baskets, and both bought and homemade ornaments. Afterwards we had a traditional Christmas dinner of pork, red cabbage, sugar potatoes, and some salad. For dessert, we had rice pudding with cherry sauce and gummy bears! Typically in the rice pudding there are lots of chopped almonds and one whole almond and the person that gets the whole almond in their dish wins a prize. This year, since I can’t have almonds, we used gummy bears instead. I found the gummy bear in mine (not surprisingly as my host mom rigged the game in my favor by putting an extra gummy bear in my dish which was quite funny) and I won some Christmas cookies. After dinner we made some more Christmas cookies from scratch (by some I mean dozens and dozens and dozens) and watched the annual New Year’s programming on YouTube. Overall, a great Christmas celebration!

The next day we visited the family we travelled to Italy with for dinner so I could say goodbye to them. We watched the girls’ rendition of the New Years’ programming that they filmed the year before just for fun. The programming consists of a hilarious skit that has been played on tv for decades that is of an old butler waiting on his Mistress at a dinner party where he becomes excessively drunk, three songs sung by the national choirs, and an address given by the queen. The girls’ versions were absolutely hilarious so we had a lot of fun watching those. We also had a nice dinner, played some games, and had dessert before saying goodbye.

Last week in Denmark:

My last week abroad I spent finishing up my assignments and sightseeing. My only sit-down exam was for economics and was Monday afternoon so I had the entire rest of my week off besides just finishing up some of my papers. Here’s a brief description of my last week:

Tuesday morning I walked around the harbor for a while before heading over to the Royal Family’s castle, Amalienborg. You’re allowed to go into one of the four buildings where there’s a little museum set up and you can also see the recent portrait of the Family that looks like a scary movie. Luckily it looks a bit better in real life than in pictures, but still was an interesting design choice. After the museum I headed back out the courtyard and witnessed the Changing of the Guard for the first time this semester. How I didn’t realize that the soldiers march about a mile through downtown Copenhagen every day of the week around noon until the last week I was there is beyond me. I’m glad I was able to witness it though! From there I headed to the Nationalmuset for about half an hour before I was supposed to meet up with some friends. The National Museum has extensive exhibits on everything Denmark dating back to the Stone Age. I’d been there once before but could still spend several hours there wandering around the many exhibits. I met up with some friends a bit later in the day to visit another Christmas market in Christiania. As it was in Christiania we weren’t sure what to expect, but it was a typical market in the auditorium there – there were lots of stands selling everything from hand knitted gloves and hats to tree ornaments.

Wednesday morning I spent starting my Christmas and souvenir shopping that I left until the last minute. I also spent a bit of time at DIS finishing up one of my papers before meeting up with one of my friends to head to Tivoli for the last time of the year. Despite having already seen it, it was still amazing to visit for the holiday season. We had some more æbleskiver and gløgg of course and enjoyed the markets and lights. When we had seen everything, we also decided to wander around the Copenhagen pedestrian streets to enjoy their lights at night as they are all lit from above and there are fantastic window displays in many of the shops.

Thursday I spent with Madhuri exploring the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Both of us had wanted to see it this semester but we didn’t get around to it until the last minute. It is located in Helsingør which is a 45 minute car ride away, so it was quite a struggle to get there through public transportation. An S-tog (commuter train), two buses, and an Ørsundstog (coastal train) later, we finally made it to the Louisiana. My favorite exhibit by far was based on the Arctic. The exhibits were huge, so there was a lot to see – there were hundreds of images of the landscapes in the artic, exhibits on expeditions through the Arctic, simulations of icebergs collapsing, and an exhibit where you could watch snowflakes grow. There was also an exhibit on artists Jorn and Pollock and the permanent exhibits of the museum. By far the best room in the museum, though, is an installation where the walls are covered in mirrors and the floor has a layer of water on it. Hanging from the ceiling are 100 lights that change color and are reflected an infinite amount of times through the mirrors and water. It is definitely a sight worth seeing. In addition, the Louisiana is located right on the water, so from the second floor there is an amazing view of the Ørsund and of Sweden, especially as we were there at sunset. Despite the hassle of getting there, the Louisiana was well worth the effort.

Friday, as it was my last day in the city, I had to run a few errands. Most importantly, I had to return my bike L. As much of a pain as that bike was with the tires never able to keep their air pressure and constantly having holes, it was still sad to say good-bye. I also had to finish my Christmas shopping (seriously last minute) and I spent a lot of time with friends. One of my friends took me to Grød, a restaurant that only sells delicious porridge, a must-have while in Copenhagen. Afterwards we walked around the city for a bit, visited Sankt Peders Bageri for the last time (my favorite bakery EVER), and met up with some more friends to watch the St. Lucia festival in Copenhagen. St. Lucia is a big holiday for the Danes, with concerts in all the schools during the day, and a wonderful tradition in the Copenhagen canals at night. Every year, about 100 kayakers decorate their kayaks with Christmas lights, mini Christmas trees, wreaths and a variety of other decorations and sail through the canals together. They make several stops throughout the city to sing where hundreds of people gather. My host mom’s brief explanation of St. Lucia’s Day is that it is meant to “bring light to the dark” that is Copenhagen in the winter. This fits really well with the entire holiday season in Denmark and wintertime in general – Danes focus a lot on a feeling of warmth and coziness called hygge. It was an amazing sight to see – hundreds of people gathered in the cold and rain to celebrate light and the holiday season in a unique way.

My last day in Denmark, Saturday, I spent entirely with my host family. I had finished all my assignments so it was time to spend a little more time with them before packing and heading home the next day. In the afternoon, Lasse, Jens and I went out to a forest while Linea and Lisette were at work so we could have a nice walk. We also went into a nice restaurant that reminded me a lot of ski lodges in New England and had some hot chocolate and gløgg. Afterwards we headed to Lisette’s work to pick her up. She was just finishing up an event at the shopping mall, so Lasse and I participated in making a Christmas candle which we burned later in the day. When we got home, I packed for a few hours before dinner. We had a nice last dinner, swapped some presents (they made me a beautiful book of pictures of all of us throughout the semester) and had a game night. We also decided last minute to frost the remaining Christmas cookies that we had made the week before at 12:30am. So of course we had some fun with that before heading to bed.

Sunday I woke up early to finish packing and cleaning up my room. We had a nice breakfast together before heading to the airport. It was a bit of a struggle to get all of my bags checked correctly and find security, but eventually it was time to say a tearful goodbye. I could never emphasize enough how thankful I am for my Danish family – it was incredibly difficult to say goodbye and realize that I do not know when I will see them again. I truly enjoyed living with them and learned so much from the experience.

Unluckily, my flight was delayed for two hours, but I found some friends in the airport (a large portion of the travelers were DIS students) to spend the time with before boarding. We headed to Reykjavik, Iceland for our transfer, which meant a really interesting view out the window. Since we were late leaving Denmark, we started flying around sunset (3pm) and because of the time changes, we followed the sunset east for three hours. Let me just say, the sunset and night sky in Iceland in the winter are amazing. The North Star looked just as it looks in cartoons with a huge, bright cross in the sky – it truly is indescribable. Also, Iceland is really cool looking – there are a ton of islands covered in ice and snow that look amazing in the sunset, and the airport itself is located in the middle of nowhere. Literally, we flew over the land and all I could see anywhere was ice. Ice, ice and more ice. There were no roads and no lights; nothing. As we approached the airport, we could see the city off in the distance, but the utter emptiness of the land was remarkable. Anyways, as we were late leaving Copenhagen, we had to run to our connecting flight which they actually delayed for us (most of the flight would have been empty otherwise) and we boarded for our final leg into Boston. We reached Boston around 7pm EST time, had fun filing reports for our missing bags which did not all make the connection in Iceland, and made it through customs easily enough.

I then walked out of the arrivals gate, reunited with my family and we headed home as my semester abroad came to an end.