Danielle's May Sem Blog: 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.