So the past couple days have been a whirlwind of activity. On Wednesday my Danish class went to the Danish Resistance Museum and learned all about the German occupation of Denmark during WWII. Basically, Denmark knew they had no chance so they were civil with the Germans and were able to keep running their country on their own. Eventually the resistance movement gained some strength but all and all it was a relatively mild WWII experience for the Danes. The picture to the right is of a Danish tank used in the resistance movement. Holes were added to the door after the war was over to make it look more dramatic, otherwise it was completely untouched.

Wednesday evening my family took me to see Skatteøen (Treasure Island) at the Folketeatret in Copenhagen. It was a musical so even though I didn't really understand the exact dialogue, it was still entertaining to watch and I could follow the storyline pretty well. My host parents are friends with the man who plays John Silver (Right) so we got to go backstage and see all the scenes and dressing rooms and what not-- very cool.

On Thursday I left for my short study tour around Denmark. We traveled with my Human Health and Disease class, which consists of 13 girls. Because we are such a small group (most are around 35) we got a really nice bus which made the long bus rides so much more enjoyable. Our first stop was Koldinghus (a castle in Kolding). This castle is different because they didn't try to renovate it to look like the original. The castle had changed so much throughout history that it was hard to choose a certain look so instead they just made it accessible and left it pretty much as it was following a fire in the 19th century. This meant that there was a strong contrast between the new platforms and stairs and the old original building structures, something that was very interesting to me.

Next was a visit to a General Practitioner's clinic in Vejle for the more academic side of our study tour. He told us a little bit about his average day and we learned a lot about the Danish health care system. It was incredibly fascinating and I think we could learn a lot from them.

The next day started off with two visits to different research hospitals in Århus (very cool for me but I won't bore you with the details) and ended with ARoS, the art museum in Århus. Perhaps my favorite part of this museum was the sculpture entitled "Boy." It was a 30 meter tall boy that was so lifelike it was creepy. There was also a really cool interactive exhibit by a Danish artist with smoking benches, moving walls and spinning mirrors.

On the last day of our study tour we visited some German bunkers from WWII that had been turned into a museum and then made our way to Odense. Odense is famous for the home of Hans Christian Andersen so naturally we went to the Hans Christian Andersen Museum where I learned way more about the man than I would have ever needed to know. I even saw his dentures and a lock of his hair. After a very nice lunch in a restaurant called "The Ugly Duckling," (how appropriate) it was back to Copenhagen. It was a busy three days but I learned a lot and got to see a lot of Denmark. Also, I got to know the girls in my class pretty well and now I'm even more excited for the rest of my semester!

This is a map of where we went...
A/E = Copenhagen
B= Vejle
C = Århus
D = Odense

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