Danielle's May Sem Blog

Thursday, May 31, 2012

More of london

London is nuts there are people everywhere! We have been to some wonderful places! and shops! We have also seen the Lion King musical and Wicked!

More posting later! its my last day and I want to enjoy it!

Click here for some pictures! LONDON PICTURES!

Monday, May 28, 2012

Day 20, LONDON!

Today we got to London. The weather is gorgeous, the food was amazing, and it is a beautiful place. So it should be a grand time! I don't have much to say about today because we were traveling! but the subway system is a little scary and shakey! Also London is huge, I would say it is the New York of England. I guess that really suprised me today! We ate at this cool tavern/pub that had amazing food. I had fish and chips (yes me eating fish! weird? I know right!). For desert we had Sticky toffee pudding! IT WAS AMAZING!!! Also today we found out that the group fund has enough money to pay for Wicked! So we will be seeing that on Wednesday! I'm really excited for that! Also on thursday we have a free day, I am hoping to take a tour to France from 8am to 8pm. I hope it all works. Tomorrow we visit the school and venture more into the city!

Nåtte! (good night!)
Snipp Snapp Snute!

Day 19, SWEDEN & Tivoli!

May 27th, Sweden, Tivoli,

Today we got to sleep in a little bit, which was needed! As the trip goes on, the more tired we get! But today we are headed to Sweden! Yes SWEDEN! We found out that Sweden was only about thirty-five minutes away from us, which was convenient! We boarded our train and were ready to go. But suddenly ran into a problem. (So I’m going to say this like I would be explaining it in real life. We have these Copenhagen card’s that allow us discounts at certain places such as museums, shops, restaurants, and free transportation. So we were like perfect! It will get us to Sweden and back. Little did we know... We got on the train and the train ticket guy went on a rage about how “stupid” we were that we didn’t get a ticket and that we should know our cities from each other and also our countries. He said that “oh you guys must be American’s,” which kind of made me very mad. But without a ticket we would be having to pay a $125 fine, so we immediately got off the train ((a stop before ours)). We than bought a ticket to get us to our stop and were ready to have some fun, not a frantic mess! So we went into the town and walked around for an hour, because the shops weren’t open yet. But when noon came we went to this AMAZING coffee place. It was called “The Coffee House.” I just ordered a large mocha, because I had packed a sandwich from breakfast. The coffee was the best coffee I had all trip, I was so thankful. After that we did some shopping ((go figure!)) and explored the fun country of Sweden!)

After we got back from Sweden I decided to pack up, because we would be leaving early morning. Then we decided to get one last use of our Copenhagen card before it expired at 8pm, and we went into Tivoli. At Tivoli we walked around, played on the playground (yes playground, I felt like such a little kid, but it was so much fun!) and had a nice Italian dinner! After we came back, I skyped my mommy and daddy, which is always nice! And went to bed!

SNIPP SNAPP SNUTE!!

TO SEE MY PICTURES CLICK THIS!!

Sweden Pictures!

Day 18, Castle, shopping, Ice Bar & Eurovision

May 26th,

Today we went to another castle! This one was different then the other castle we visited in Odense because this one had royalty live in it. The castle dates back to the 1400’s with a history of several Danish King’s living there. The castle was similar to the other in the way that it looked, however this castle had a different style of architecture. In this castle there was also a courtyard in the middle and walls around it protecting it. A couple things that I found interesting were that all the fireplaces had C4 engraved in them, and that was because the king Christian the forth liked to show off his hierarchy. I also found the dungens to be really interesting, however they were super creepy! The location of this castle was very important during the building of it, because at the time it was built the King ruled Sweden, Norway and Denmark, so he had to be at a good location to reach all of them. The castle laid on the coast of Denmark about thirty-five minutes from Copenhagen, and across the harbor was Sweden. (This of course interested our group, because we were like, well can we visit Sweden. And our group leaders said yes, so we planned to visit Sweden the next day!)

Later that day we did a lot of shopping, because the next day (sunday 27th) was Saint’s day, and all the shops were closed.

Around night time we found out that Copenhagen had an Ice Bar, yes an ICE BAR! Yes it was made of all ice. When we got there we were given these suits that almost looked like eskimo suits. They were huge jackets that were insulated and had gloves attached to them so we wouldn’t get cold. When we first entered the Ice bar we were so surprised by the temperature! It wasn’t cold at all, well for someone who goes to school in Fargo/Moorhead. After two hours none of us were really that cold, so I guess there is one benefit to the Fargo/Moorhead weather, you can spend a lot of time in an Ice Bar. The Ice bar was super fascinating, the walls were all blocks of ice, that had things carved into them, and the glasses that we got were ice glasses. Everything in the Ice bar, was ice.. Obviously! But it was a lot fun because they had American music playing, and then they played a song we recognized from a school visit and we got so excited! If you are ever in Copenhagen, you HAVE TO check this out!

After the Ice bar, we went back to the hotel and relaxed. (Well I watched Eurovision!) Which is like an American Idol for European countries. Every country has their own competition to nominate someone to represent their country. And this night it was the finale, which was 24 different countries. Sadly Norway did terrible. But I was also rooting for Sweden who WON! & the Russian song was adorable, it was a group of older ladies singing. If you get a chance to watch some of the videos, go on youtube and type in Eurovision 2012 Sweden (to see sweden’s) Russia.. Etc. It was cool to see how Eurovision worked on live T.V. because we reenact it at Norwegian camp with every cabin making a dance to a certain country (with that country’s song) and the “country” aka cabin with the best dance win’s the Eurovision!

View from the Castle, Sweden in the distance!

The Ballroom!

Bedroom!

Ice Bar!

Kristin and I!

Ice Bar!

Saturday, May 26, 2012

School visit, harbor tour, resistance museum (Day 17)

Today has been a very long day! It started out bright and early, and we had a school visit today. I was really excited to see this school because I had loved the other Danish schools that we visited. We took a taxi to the school (which took a lot longer than I thought it would because there is a TON of construction going on in Copenhagen!) With our group we also took a good friend of our group leaders, Olaf. He used to be a principle for a long time in Odense, but has just retired after a long good trip as a principal and teacher. Anyways when we got to the school it suprised me, because it did not look like a school. It is kind of weird, but out of this whole trip only one school out of like ten has looked like an American school from the outside. I think that this is a very neat aspect that the schools abroad have, and it also gives more character! When we first entered the school we were directed to the principal's office (no we were not introuble!) When we got entered the office there was coffee and water sitting on the table, all ready for us to drink and mingle. Then we were later surpried when the principal entered and brought us Danish rolls!
After a long and good conversation with the prinicpal, (she was amazing by the way! she had this wonderful bubbly joyful and mommy personality to her!) it was time to go outside into the sun to see the kids! The one interesting thing was, that this school visit would be different because the kids get the chance to participate in a parade once a year around the town, and today was the day! it was so much fun to see the kids all dressed up and wanting to march around town holding balloons and flags that said their school on it. It was also really neat to see a lot of young children playing instuments, because in the U.S music is one thing that is getting cut back on, and it did not appear to look like that at all here. After a long two hours, we had marched with the kids and were pooped. (mainly because it was really hot outside and we all had nice dress pants on, and we were sweating!)

After our school visit we changed quickly and then would head downtown Copenhagen (or the oldest part) to have a canal tour. As we were on our way, we suprisingly ran into the Concordia College soccer coach! what a small world! It was by chance that a girl in our group had a Concordia shirt on, and he stopped us! When we got on the tour of the harbor, it was stunning. I had no idea that Copenhagen was like Venice in a way. It was also very interesting to see all the old buildings alongside the harbor that were turned into shops. It was also really cool to see the new modern architecture that has spiked throughout all of Scandinavia. Like the Copenhagen Music Hall, and Library were very modern!
After our tour we walked to a museum that was all about Danish Resistance in WWII. On the way we were lucky enough to pass through this courtyard where the Royalty lives. (aka the Queen, Crown prince) It was really cool because you could walk right up to their front door and take pictures, unlike the white house in Washington you are more than four hundred feet away. It was interesting to think how much more Danish people are trusted in their country and how much the royalty awknowledges. Also it was really cool to see the young men who were guarding the buildings!

We finally then reached the museum, and I was really excited because I find WWII stuff really interesting! We than went and visited the "lille havfrue" (aka the little mermaid) statue!
Then we went sightseeing, aka SHOPPING! & we went to a rock concert at Tivoli.