Old McDonald Had A Farm :)

On Monday the family and I went to a farm because a bunch of lambs were just born! They were precious :)

We saw quite a few new born lambs, a calf, baby goats, and some ponies...too cute. They all had to be inside for two weeks and then they are allowed to go outside and roam free on the grass; however, that was not good enough for one of the little goats. He was adorable! He was completely white on half of his body, and the other half was black. He had managed to squeeze through the holes in the fence and was playing with a trash can that was used to hold the food; although he was determined, he did not succeed in getting into the food.

Of course the adventure couldn't just end with playing with little, tiny baby farm animals...oh no we ate lamb for dinner :)

This is the goat I was talking about

He was really shy :)

Which one doesn't belong??

St. Patrick's Day

To begin with on Wednesdays there are no classes so it is always a nice relaxing break in the middle of the week, and that is always fabulous. Secondly, I was in a three legged charity race.

You paid 50 kroner to enter the race ($10) and all proceeds went to a charity called BØRNEfonden which all profits go to children who are in poor living conditions. The money helps provide homes, food, and education.

The race began at Kennedy's Bar and it was an Irish Pub. Here you pledged your 50 kr and they gave you a map along with the first drink. From here you went to the Shamrock Inn and you were tied together with your partner...here came the fun part. You were duck tapped together around your ankles in the very very back corner of the bar. Then you had to side step (still attached to each other) around the other 600 people there to get out of the place so you could line up...it was rough.

Our duck tape broke before we got to stop number three and in order to not be disqualified you had to find a solution and fix it as soon as possible. We used my scarf =] Other than that we didn't have any troubles. We met quite a few new people, funny thing is...we didn't really meet any Danes...

It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed it soo much; needless to say it was a nice break from just constantly doing school work!

Waiting in line at the Shamrock Inn for it to begin

Stamps!

Phillip and Henrick...

A man playing the bagpipes at stop #7

Finished! (I couldn't drink that beer...I ended up leaving it somewhere)

Birthday Party and FCK

So on Saturday night I went to my first Danish birthday party at my "aunt" Lillian's house. It was her birthday and all of my "cousins, aunts, and uncles" came over. We had a huge three course meal that was absolutely delicious. We started off with a salad, then we had some sort of meet that was barbecued...I believe it was pork...but I could be completely wrong about that and more salad and new potatoes (which we eat a few times a week), and then we had dessert! For dessert we had chocolate cake, ice cream, and bread and butter pudding...yes bread and butter pudding...odd and fairly decent but its not something I would ever make to eat for myself.

After the meal my "cousins" and I went upstairs to Michael's room and talked and watched American Idol...yes American Idol on the Danish tv...pretty interesting. It was pretty neat to watch but it was wayyy behind because it was the episode after the man sang "pants on the ground."

The night lasted for about 6 hours, which seems incredibly long but it by fairly quickly and was a lot of fun. I was able to meet several new people and meet those that my host family holds close to their own hearts!

On Sunday night I went to a soccer game! It was FCK (F.C.Københaven) against Brondby. I had soo much fun and it really was exciting...because the fans in Denmark are quite violent when it comes to defending and cheering on their favorite team. I was a "FCK fan" for the night and the opposing team were lighting flares and sparklers in the stands and a few of them ended up on the field so they had to pause the game to remove them. There was singing and chanting and it was just crazy! FCK won the game and the final score was FCK:1 Brondby:0....the only goal scored was scored after an hour of play time...it was intense.

Here are some pictures and a video that is the theme song of FCK and was sung repeatedly throughout the game...I have a video of the fans doing this but it will not let me upload it :(

FCK's mascot--the lion

FCK Fans

Another stunt the FCK fans did

Brondby's fans mad that we scored..please

notice the flare on the field

We scored after 72 minutes of game time!

McDonalds & Twilight

Last night was the Climate Seminar and Ashley and I had decided that we would go. It was based off of how to live a sustainable life and what can a city do to be sustainable; it was also free food and wine.

Well before the seminar I had a group meeting for a project in one of classes and I had an hour and a half to kill before Ashley came to the city and the seminar began. I was starving and I was out of kroner (the danish money) so I had to go to somewhere that I knew would take my debit card...the only place I could think of was McDonalds.

So I go in and tada the menu is in English!! Sad news is that there is no dollar menu...there is the equivalent of a two dollar menu but there is like one thing on it; apples. So I order a cheese burger and a milkshake and its 47.50 kr or about nine dollars :( and nothing really taste the same...but whatever I'm now full.

After I left McDonalds I started to walk back towards DIS (Danish Institute for Study Abroad) because that's where I'm supposed to meet Ashley at. On my way I see a bookstore and I decided to stop by because I am running low on reading materials for the train and I wanted to see what their English selection looked like.

May I begin with the fact that this is a smaller bookstore so I did not have high hopes for finding anything worth getting. I walk in and there is a nice little sign that say English Books and wander that way. Once I get over there I realize that there are very few books and they are all Twilight, mind you that at the front of the store they had a huge display of these books in the Danish form.

Well that's all I've got...

"Beware the Swedes are Crazy!"

I am back from Stockholm, Sweden!

So after Tallinn, Estonia my group crossed the Baltic Sea over to Stockholm, Sweden. It is freaking cold and windy and I don't like cold and windy, just in case you were wondering. :)

We stayed at the "Quality Globe Hotel" next to the Globe, which is the largest spherical building in the world (I really think they wanted to make sure we could find it, at night it glowed red from the lights.)

I'm only going to tell you about one of the visits we made here because it was the best and the others weren't really that exciting...

We went to a "preschool" that was for children from birth up to age 7 and it was a Reggio Emilia school, which is based of a man from Italy who believed that during this time in life children are developing their identity and should learn through exploration.

When we got there they came outside and took a group photo of us and within minutes their were posters up with this photo on it to welcome us to the facility and to let the children know that the visitors were there. We went inside and removed our shoes (custom for over here because of the snow) and the children walked us to our seats.

Then two precious little boys (about 5 yrs old) handed us each a coffee cup, poured us coffee or tea, add milk if we wanted it, and gave us each a cube of sugar along with a cookie.

We were then given three different performances: we saw a ballet dance by five little girls, saw a free style dance (to Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas) by three little boys, and a belly dance performance by five more little girls. It was so freaking adorable!

After Neville (the owner from Australia, picture and Australian English accent with a twist of a Danish English accent...amazing) gave us a few minutes of a lecture about the principles, values of the school he let us roam free and go see the place.

About two seconds after walking into the first room (mind you the kids just roam where ever they want) a little boy came up to me a stole my camera...yes he stole my camera. I kinda just followed him around to see what he was going to do, since there was no possible way to speak to him. He walked around and took about 50 pictures of the place, it was really neat because then I could see the place through his eyes: what he thinks of as important and what he loves. I would post pictures but since there are pictures of children in them I am not allowed to post them on the internet. Sorry :(

One of the most interesting things that I learned about this school is that there is a total of 62 languages known by the children combined. For example the little boy who stole my camera could speak five different languages, too bad one of those five wasn't English.

Well that's all I've got for Sweden...it kinda felt like a bigger Copenhagen with a little bit of an Americanized touch. Oh, but before I end I must add that while I was here I got a bruise...probably the biggest bruise I have ever gotten and is about the size of a honey pomelo because I fell down the lovely stairs that are between the Globe and the hotel...hurts so bad :(

I'm On A Boat!

It is currently Wednesday night and last night my group travelled from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden by cruise.

We got on the boat at 4:45pm and we didn't dock until 10am this morning. It was an absolute blast and it was deffinately one of the best nights I've had during my time over here so far!

Dinner began at 5:30 and it was all you can eat buffet and we all basically died and went to heaven. We ate so much and the boat set sail at 6. It was a rough start and it was difficult to walk because we were rocking so hard...not a good start, right? After a little bit the boat evened out but since there was so much ice over the Baltic Sea, every now and again it got rough.

After dinner we walked around and went into all of the stores and went and saw were all of the clubs and bars were so that way we could decide where we wanted to go and also because we were just excited to be there.

Our cabins were super tiny and in no time it looked trashed because of all of the stuff we had spread everywhere.

Basically the rest of the night we hung out and danced the night away...and quite a few people were smashed so bad that they don't remember being on the boat...how sad...it was basically one of those nights, that you just had to be there.

Owen (one of the three guys on the trip) kept making friends and introducing them to all of the girls and kept telling them that Americans are fascinated by Estonian men, he is one of those who doesn't remember most of the night.

Anyways...there is a taste of last night but I'm not going to spend time describing in detail about the night and the boat because I am now in Sweden and that doesn't mean sitting around on the internet all night :)

two of my three roommates

all you can eat buffet dinner

one of the bars

smile at the ceiling :)

ice on the right side of the boat

ice on the left side of the boat

the boat!

So Why Are You Going To Tallinn?

So I'm posting this as an earlier date, but I wanted my posts to "be in order" its actually Sunday night.

So for my long study tour with DIS I went to Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden. We flew out of Copenhagen on Sunday afternoon and kicked the trip off in Tallinn. When I told people where my class was going for the study tour the first question was always "why are you going to Tallinn?" I didn't really have an answer for them and I wasn't particularly excited about going to Tallinn because I had never heard of it and it didn't sound like a fun place to go. I am happy to say that I was wrong.

Tallinn is a beautiful place and I would actually go back there one day. We stayed really close to the old medieval town, so this is where I am most familiar with. Sunday night we didn't really do much, but we went to a restaurant called Olde Hansa. It was a medieval restaurant where everything was set as if it were back in the day. People dressed in costume, there was old pottery, and everything looked amazing!

We went in and hung up our coats and we had to "wash" our hands...aka there was a big vat of water and a lady poured water over our hands and then we dried them on a towel. We had to do this because we had to "break the bread with our hands." For dinner we had: two different kinds of fresh baked bread with different sauces and things to put on it, and assortment for the main course (lentils, ham, chicken, sauerkraut, and others that I don't remember), "cheesecake", cinnamon beer, water, and black tea...mind you this dinner was like four hours long. It was fun, but way to long and when it was over we kinda just split ourselves into groups and went and walked around the old town to get a feel for and to get to see it, since we only had a day and a half there. The moon was beautiful and we took gorgeous pictures of churches and steeples and saw monuments that we have no clue what they were for, but the wasn't the point, the point was that we we're seeing a country that we would have never thought to see.

The next morning we went and saw a Jewish school, a synagogue, and the Jewish community building. All were very interesting but none of them really applied to children with special needs (which is what my class is studying). We went to lunch at the African Kitchen (too adorable) and it was very cozy, pillows everywhere and beautiful art covered the walls. We ate a lot and drank wine as we relaxed and took a break from the snow before our tour with Mee-Na (the way she stressed her name) began. Mee-Na took us on a walking tour of the old town and showed us places such as the parliament building, the Russian Cathedral, the Russia Embassy, and where Marzipan was invented (by a guy names Marts!) I also learned that any building that is pink (yes, pink) is an important building (such as parliament or an embassy.) Oh, and at the Russian Cathedral they had a "symbolic grave of Jesus Christ" take what you want from that...

Another place we went to see while we were there was a boarding school that was originally for children with tuberculosis and asthma. Now the students have diabetes, asthma, or something along those lines. During WWII it was turned into a hospital for the Soviets and the room our lecture was in was a horse stable...quite interesting if you ask me. I thought these people were crazy when they told me that children with diabetes and asthma go there instead of go to a normal school, but then they explained to us that if these children went to school near home and they had a diabetic or asthma attack, they would be dead before they ever reached a hospital I realized how lucky I was to grow up in a country where things like this didn't even cross our minds.

One thing that I thought was pretty interesting in Tallinn, was that they took ANY currency you had...and if you gave them "American money" it was like they struck gold.

Tallinn was beautiful and when I found out that I was going there I must say I was disappointed...I mean, people were going to Istanbul, Prague, London, and Paris...I was going to Estonia which most people have never heard of. Now I'm really glad that I was able to go here, because now I have seen an amazing country that is tying to form its own nation and has just gotten out of Russian control.