my nordic semester

Oookkkayy! First of all, i want to offer my sincerest apologies for my complete lack of blog activity over the past couple of weeks -it’s been super hectic, and I thus just haven’t had the opportunity to write at all on my haps in copes!

Okay so I will give you all a brief run down on my adventures as of late. I think I will just submit two blog entries, seeing as one giant one to encompass both the past few weeks, plus my trip to Russia is just too gigantic, so here are my latest goings-on in the land of Danes:

After the Tori Amos concert, my dad came to Copenhagen after his cycling tour in Espagne, and stayed for a couple of days which was nice! We went for a couple of meals and I got to show him around my beloved city. During this time I also had a silly group assignment to do for media sociology which was a bit of a fail but oh well! Karen, Anna and I struggled through (not really, we didn’t try too hard to be honest….), ate pizza, drank tea, and eventually gave the presentation. Stefan Koeller didn’t love it, but we passed nonetheless!

The following Friday night was the Erasmus Students Network Pub Crawl which was funny haha. Erasmus (for those of us who are not European) is the exchange network within Europe that funds European students’ studying abroad (damn me being Australian = no money!!!). So basically it was all international students running around town doing shots and then getting rejected from clubs for being underage (some clubs here demand that you are 23 years of age…what the hell….). Nevertheless, all in all was a fun night!

We visited some interesting bars...

The following week was super fun! My friends from Australia came to stay with me and we did some super exciting things! First Jack came from Hamburg on Tuesday, during which time we chilled and looked around the city and made some good dinners which was nice. We also went to Malmö (my first trip to Sweden!) for the day to do some shopping, where we bought big bad-ass winter coats stuffed with goosefeathers, white high-tops and some really good quality Swedish thermal underwear! It was a very pleasant day, Malmö is a really charming little medieval sort of town on the West coast. I’ll be returning there when I go to see Regina Spektor in December.

Griffins -apparently the symbol of Malmö...?

Then on Thursday night, Georgia came from Amsterdam, and on Friday we walked through the beautiful Frederiksberg Gardens and just relaxed in my apartment.

The Frederiksberg Gardens

Then, that evening, in Rådesplatsen (Copenhagen Central Square), the Olympic Committee were to announce the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games. We were going for Rio out of Tokyo, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid, because the South American continent had never hosted the Olympics before, and for the first time, they won! It was so exciting being in the square, the atmosphere was fantastic! There were trampolinists doing flips and crazy stunts in the middle of everyone, and bmx bikes riding around us on some course and the stage was really cool. After the announcement we went and picked up Fiona from Central Station, who had just caught the train from Viborg (on the other side of Denmark), and brought her back to the square to watch the free concert. They had some great Danish artists like Ida Corr and that chick that sings “Come on down to the creeps” -sorry, forgot her name haha.

Copenhagen Countdown Concert.

That weekend was lovely! I showed Fiona, Jack and Georgia around town, we visitied Christiania and we went out to the MeatPacking district (which, oddly enough, is the happening place for clubbing in Copenhagen) with one of my housemates, Louisa, and one of my uni-mates, Karen, with whom i did the silly media presentation. We had a fun night and met some interesting peeps.

Back to Christiania again!

Hitting up the MeatPacking District.

Sunday was one of my favourite days during my friends’ stay. We went, with Lauren from one my classes, to Helsingør in the North of Zealand (the island of Denmark on which Copenhagen lies) to see Hamlet’s Castle, where the original Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is actually set. This was very exciting for me, being the crazy Shakespeare nerd that I am, so I very much enjoyed the guided tour of the castle that we received (also the pizza we bought for lunch in town -i love food too much).

Hamlet's Castle in Helsingør.

On Monday, after Fiona had left back for Viborg the night before, I had my first ever encounter with the iconic Copenhagen Little Mermaid -for some odd reason, one of the number on tourist sites of this city. She’s not that exciting to be honest -a small, stone mermaid, just chilling on a rock in the harbour. Nevertheless, Georgia wanted to see her while she was here, so we went along.

The Little Mermaid.

On the Tuesday, I was back to flying solo in Denmark, after Jack left for Stockholm in the morning, and Georgia returned to Amsterdam in the evening. Before she left however, we did one last tourist site in the city -we visited The Summer Palace of the Danish Royal Family, which was very charming, set right in Nørreport, in the city centre, just a block from my university campus. After that we said goodbye, and she finished her looking around the city before going to the airport and flying home.

The Summer Palace.

The rest of the week, for me, was basically about getting ready for Russia (I left the following Friday morning), and getting an essay done that I needed to start and finish for media sociology, which was a little bit stressful (not to worry, I passed in the end)! On the night before I left, I had a steamboat dinner and cheese night with my housemates, which was awesome and free and I didn’t have to cook anything! I love free stuff. And they were really good cheeses that Vanessa was given by some company trying to make a deal with her business firm, and it was a spectacular steamboat! I guess that’s what happens when all your housemates are from Denmark, or, as one of mine is, Shanghai!

Yummy yummy Shanghai Steamboat!

Cheeeeese Night!

Fun fun! The following morning I was awake at 5am -packed and ready to catch the metro to Lufthavn (airport), where my adventure to the land of Russia was to begin. Stay tuned for the full story. Hej hej!