Danielle's May Sem Blog: 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!