Category: life

Today, my friend Kristen and I went to the Coffee Collective’s [Danish Coffee Company] warehouse and ended up doing a coffee tasting. Neither one of us had ever done one before so, it was quite interesting.

Today was a very long day. Some random things that made me smile, or laugh inside include;

• this tip jar below at one of my favorite (chain) cafés in Denmark

• While I felt bad for the person who owned this now broken umbrella, it also made me realize how much I enjoy walking in the rain. My older sister always hated umbrellas, and I have to give her props. Umbrellas are a hassle, especially when wearing wellies and hopping in puddles is way more fun.
  
• Lastly my host family was one being honored for hosting for over 5 years. That is quite a lot of students (two a year) to open their home to. Thank goodness none of the students before me scared them off!

family photo

This evening I was lucky enough to be home for dinner again (after what seems like an eternity of dinner out, even though its only been a week). My host family had a dinner party scheduled with a family they have known for over 20 years. They met each year at a ski resort from the time their kids were very young.

The “ski family” was super adorable, and very interesting to talk to. I was able to talk about everything from board games, like Settlers of Catan (a favorite of my friends back home), Apple products, and the medical field’s role in Denmark. The daughter is married to a Spaniard, who now works in Denmark so understanding how he came to Copenhagen and his take on Danish traditions and cultural differences was also interesting to discuss.

I am very thankful for these get togethers and meeting the friends of my host family. It has exposed me to the feeling of hygge on an entirely different level. Along with hygge, it makes me more inclined to go out and meet and discuss random topics with strangers. Such discussions (from my experience) tend to provide you with new ways to think about your life and values.

yellow smoke of new ideas (shot in Vienna of an artistic street exhibition)

As I near the tail end (I have about 1.5 months left) of my study abroad experience I have taken tons of interest to look through my notes of observations. It has been a hectic two weeks with lots of random but good discussions that have made my mind difficult to “turn off”.

My human trafficking course had an optional field study (around 8pm) to the Red Light District here in Copenhagen. Only three people showed up, which was interesting in itself, but it allowed for a deeper connection and chance to really bond with our professor. Plus, a cluster of twenty students would have been very obvious and would have made the tour less connectable.

I got back together with some people from my innovation in design thinking class and had intellectual and very random conversations with various classmates and my professor. Four of us ended up helping my professor brainstorm a new course, which is still in development (being part of the Empathize stage in his project).

Today I went in for a Danish language help session and discovered even the most tedious task of memorizing vocabulary and sentence structure to be a rewarding and connectable skill. (Hun=she, as in “hunnie” or sweetheart)

I would say my top buzzwords for this semester would be:

background photo; view from Church of Our Savior

One thing I didn’t expect to need while abroad was a hair cut (hår skære). Since my travel break with my Urban Studies class is coming up, I figured this was the week to figure it out and get my hair chopped.

I went to the place advised by my school, a School for Hairstylists, where its a bit cheaper than a fancy salon. The woman who I got to cut my hair didn’t speak any English, but surprisingly we understood each other very well and she cut my hair the perfect length!

(sorry, no pictures of the hair, but here’s a pretty mural)

The experience was similar to a beauty school in the United States, where you: get your hair washed, then cut, then dried. It was actually much more relaxing not being able to “chit-chat” as my eardrums were able to enjoy the quiet atmosphere(except for the hairdryer of course).