To be or not to be...

Today I went to Kronborg Castle in Helsingor or as it is more commonly know, "Hamlet's Castle." It was a really interesting trip and I learned a lot! The castle is beautiful and full of original artwork and tapestries.

Kronborg Castle

Me in front of Kronborg

This is Frederik II, the king who built Kronborg

This is Christian IV, Frederik II's son and Denmark's most famous king. He had 23 children with 2 wives and several mistresses... Pretty impressive for a man as good looking as him.

A painting on the ceiling in the king's apartment. The C with the 4 in it stands for Christian IV.

The trumpet tower. Whenever the king wanted to make a speech during a party he would signal drums so that the trumpeters could hear them and start playing to get everyone's attention.

The great hall where they host parties. It was common for each guest to eat 8 kg of food and drink 8 liters of wine. In case you got too full, they had servants who walked around between courses with feathers to tickle the back of your throat and then they held out a bucket so you could empty your stomach and continue eating.

An original painting depicting the Swedish king giving his crown to Queen Margaret.

This one was also on the ceiling but in the Queen's apartment. There's a story about this man who had been told that one of kids would kill him so to prevent that from happening he ate them. But his wife hid one kid and when that one grew up he killed his father and cut open his stomach and all his brothers and sisters came out. This is where they say the Greek gods came from.

Often times they would have dishes that you didn't eat and were there purely for show.

A jail cell that gets narrower and narrower so you can move the gate to make the cell smaller and smaller until eventually the prisoner can only stand.

Holger the Dane. He is sleeping now but if Denmark is ever attacked by foreign enemies he'll wake up and protect the country.

The church

The pigeon tower. The castle was built when pigeons were still used as part of the postal system. It's a Danish version of the Owlery at Hagwarts.

Sweden! This is place where Denmark and Sweden are the closest; they're only 4 kilometers apart.

Getting into the swing of things.

So I'm starting to feel really settled here. I know how the transportation works and I'm confident that I can find my way home from pretty much anywhere. I've had all my classes twice now so we're actually learning things and getting into some really interesting material. This weekend I went to Sweden with my family to go skiing/snowboarding. It was like an hour and a half away and we spent the day there. It was really fun! Sweden reminds me very much of rural Minnesota-- well at least the part of Sweden we were in. We grilled sausages for lunch and made sure to make it back in time for the Vikings game. We stayed up until 4:30 in the morning watching the Vikings lose... Luckily I didn't have to leave for class until 11 that morning!

Today, in my Human Health and Disease we toured the Radiology wing and learned all about X-Rays, CT scans, MRIs and ultra-sounds. They showed us how to do an ultra sound examination and I volunteered to have them take a look inside me. So I got to see one of my kidneys, my liver, spleen, bladder, stomach and abdominal muscles up close and personal. So cool! We also learned how to read an x-ray, an MRI and a CT scan, so it was a super interesting class! Tonight I have a dinner with my Danish class so we can practice ordering things which I am very much looking forward to.

Here's some more pictures from my ski trip:

This is the bridge over to Sweden. We left around 7AM so we got to see the sunrise-- gorgeous!

There were 3 main runs

Jose


Me (In a bunch of hand-me-down clothes)


Jose and Me (after Jose fell down)

Frederik (A family friend), Jose, and Me

Jose and Me

Lisbeth

Jan and Jose

Jan making us a delicious lunch

Some Pictures

Amalienborg (The Royal Palace)

Rosenborg Palace in the Royal Gardens

A walkway in the Royal Gardens

One of the oldest houses in Copenhagen. It's one of the few buildings that survived an attack in the 1800's that burned down most of the city.
The hall where we had our opening ceremony. It was the original Copenhagen University building.

I am officially in love...

So I have been here for one week now and I can officially say that I am in love with this city. I love the charming little buildings and the busy cobblestone streets. I love the buses and the metro and my morning commute. I love the Danes. I have yet to meet someone who isn't friendly and genuinely excited to talk to me. I love the lifestyle that the Danes lead. It is so relaxed and welcoming. And even though it sounds like a throat disease, I even love the Danish language.

I started my classes on Thursday and I'm excited for every one of them. On Mondays and Thursdays I have biomedical ethics and complexity of cancer. My professor for biomedical ethics is incredibly passionate about the subject and although we've only had one class I can already tell it's going to be a very interesting class. Our class has wide variety of students with very different perspectives. We have pre-med, pre-law, economics, philosophy and many other majors represented so I think we are going to have some great discussions. My complexity of cancer is taught by two young doctors who are constantly joking around with each other and with the class so I think it's going to be a really fun class. On Tuesdays and Fridays I have Danish and human health and disease. I'm excited to learn Danish and have already been practicing a bit with my host family. They laugh at my pronunciation but I'm sure I sound ridiculous so I don't mind at all. I'm just happy to have someone correct me. I think human health and disease class might end up being my favorite class. We hold class in a hospital and learn how to diagnose and treat the most common diseases. We get to tour several different sections of the hospital and talk to actual patients. So I'm very excited for the rest of my semester and can't wait to see what the next four months have in store for me.

Jeg Hedder Chelsea. Jeg kommer fra Minnesota.

So today was day one of orientation. They are definitely starting things slowly and there was a lot of down time but it was nice to meet other students. We started the day with an opening ceremony with a wind quintet and some speeches about what to expect and how to make the most of our experience here. Then we got a tour of DIS and all the facilities available to us. And lastly I had a crash course in Danish in which we learned some of the basic dialog phrases and the names of common foods. I have the same general schedule for the next two days, with various orientation classes and then my real classes start on Thursday!

Pictures from last night:

Josephine and me at Amager Strand, the beach that is very close to my house.
(It was a little windy...)

Anne, Lisbeth, Jan and myself at Sticks N Sushi for Dinner

Our dinner. Mmmm...

The bar that was showing the Vikings game. We ended up sitting in front of some Dallas fans but they were definitely outnumbered. There was even a man with a Vikings hat complete with horns and braids!


Jan, Lisbeth and me cheering the Vikings on to Victory.

I made it!

Well I'm officially in Copenhagen! And after 13 and a half hours of sleep I am ready to take this city by storm! Last night we went to a party that was for everyone who had gone on a ski trip with my host family and it was really fun! I had no idea what was going on most of the time because everyone was speaking Danish (obviously) but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. I loved just watching everyone interact.
My host family is fabulous! Jan is my Danish Dad and he manages nine Sticks and Sushi restaurants in the Copenhagen area. He likes to joke around and reminds me a lot of my American dad... My Danish mom is Lisbeth. She owns her own salon and was nice enough to drive me back last night when she noticed I was nodding off during the ski movie. Oops! And last but certainly not least, my little Danish sister, Josephine or Jose. She's 18 and finishing up her last year of high school. She'll graduate at the end of June and then wants to go on to law school. My room is perfect (Thanks Emma!) and their house is very charming.
Today I have to go to DIS (Danish Institute for Study Abroad) for an orientation-type meeting and then we're off to dinner at Sticks and Sushi. And don't worry, Lisbeth found a sports bar that will be playing the Vikings game so I won't miss a thing!

This is their living room

Dining Room

Kitchen

My Bed

My Desk

Pre-Departure

Well, I officially leave for Copenhagen, Denmark in T-minus 5 hours and 40 minutes! I am super excited to start my adventure and also very impressed with myself for actually being ready. For the first time in my life I was completely packed by 9 PM on the day before I leave. My flight is at 3:30 so I should be in Amsterdam tomorrow morning at 6 AM and in Copenhagen around 12:30!

I'm going to do my best to keep this updated, just bug me about it if it's been a while. Then next time I post something, I'll be in Copenhagen!!!