21 !

Hello. I haven't written in a while and I guess I should do a massive life update.

May has been a really amazing month so far. First of all... I am DONE with school! Woohoo! HELLO SUMMER!

No more class, essays, or exams to deal with. The last exam was for my Health in Emergencies and Refugee Health class. It was an intense 4 hour typed exam. That's right, typed. I've never had a typed exam before, but I actually quite like it. The exam room was set up with rows and rows of computers. It's a lot less painful than writing for 4 hours, and I can type a lot faster than I write. There were 11 short essay questions. I ended up with about 6 pages. The max was 8, I believe.

 Every day, I bike to class. It takes about 10 minutes. This is where I park my bike outside of my campus... along with the 100923480 other student bikes.

 Then I walk down some brightly colored hallways with automatic doors. This whole building use to be an old hospital. Now it's been converted to be part of the university campus: the Center for Sundhed og Samfund (Health and Society).

 Some fellow classmates chatting it up after class : )

So anyway. There's a little taste of what school is like here on exchange. It worked out PERFECTLY that my last exam was on May 14th because my birthday was the day after!!!! It's been one of the best birthdays ever. I'm very lucky to be surrounded by good friends from all over the world and to have the birthday wishes from everyone back home as well. The day started with... 

 Surprise birthday pancakes!!!!!!!!!!!! (i.e. the BEST kind of pancakes)

 Followed by .. Surprise birthday berry cake!!!!!!!!

Birthday flowers!!!!!

It turns out that Daria also has the same birthday as me, so we decided to celebrate together and to throw one big party for all our friends. The theme? Crazy hats and mustaches. It was an AMAZING night. I didn't end up sleeping until the sun came out the next morning. The pictures are pretty ridiculous and hella funny.

Møns Klint

Yesterday we took a trip to Møns Klint (the cliffs of Møns). It's a beautiful park with white chalk cliffs all along the coast. We hiked in the forest, walked along the chalky beach, took silly pictures, had a picnic, and took in the fresh air. The water was tinted a beautiful shade of light blue from the chalk. I really suck at writing, so I'll just post the pictures.

Louisiana

Last month, I took a day trip with Tory to Louisiana (the museum of modern art). It's a bit outside of Copenhagen, but definitely worth the trip. Out of all the museums and art galleries I've been to... it's gotta be one of my favorites.

It had to do with the whole atmosphere and layout of the museum. It wasn't overwhelming with rooms upon endless rooms of art. It didn't have the arrogance of certain art galleries that really intimidate me. Instead, it was like the art, architecture, and landscape all worked together to create a nice refreshing and relaxed atmosphere by the quiet sea side.

 The museum was right beside a beautiful coastline. 

Part of the museum brings you outside to the sculpture park. I'm just really immature.

 It was all about the natural lighting.

I loved how certain pieces play with the architecture and landscape outside.
It really looks like you can just dive off into the ocean. 

The one one the left was one of my favorites. The one on the right was one of her favorites.

But nothing beats this installation piece.. it's amazing what lights, mirrors, and water can do. 

It's called "Gleaming Lights of the Souls". 

Package from Home

It's the end of the long weekend and the first Sunday of May. This is significant because the S-Trains are free on the first Sunday of every month. So in light of the good weather, we headed to a beach outside of Copenhagen.

 We all tried to be good students and brought along our textbooks for school. However, the textbooks inevitably became comfortable pillows as we lay down and just enjoyed the sound of the waves and breaks of sunshine between the clouds.

We got home and I was just sitting with my laptop in bed when my room mate handed me a PACKAGE from HOME!! I was so excited because I love getting things in the mail. Check this out:

Sweet words from my sweet housemates... the letters, cards, and notes really made me smile.

Chocolate eggs for a belated Easter! 

 and best of all... TEA from TIMMIES!! I've missed eating at Tim Hortons and my daily double double and toasted multigrain bagel with light cream cheese. It really reminded me of home.

I've officially lived in Copenhagen for 4 months. I'm really loving my time here. However, I know in my mind that all of this is temporary. I've made a whole new life for myself... new lifestyle, address, friends, school, bank account and everything. It's hard knowing that in 2 months or so, I'm going to have to leave this all behind. I'm always torn between Copenhagen and Canada. Copenhagen is so exciting because everything is so new and different and I'm constantly comparing things to Canada. 

I've really missed the people back home and I often wonder if life will be really different when I go home. So, this package from my room mates in Canada really meant a lot to me. It was so thoughtful and made me smile from ear to ear. 

Disaster Management

The volcano explosion in Iceland has really caused some funky weather here in Copenhagen. April is almost over and the weather is still unusually cold. This is how crazy it is. Last Tuesday, it was pouring rain while I was walking to class, then it was snowing while I was sitting in class, then it was hailing during break, and finally blue sky and sunshine when I got back home. Talk about multiple personalities!

The ash clouds also caused quite the chaos for my friends who were traveling. Sara was stuck in Switzerland for a couple of extra days and had to miss a few days of class. Stef's flight to Paris was canceled, so she had to take a 13 hour train ride instead. Some other friends went to Japan, and were able to fly into the Stockholm airport, but the connection flight to Copenhagen was canceled. I REALLY hope that the volcano has settled because I'll be pretty upset if it messes up my travel plans for May and June!

last Thursday night's crazy skies and pretty lights

Speaking of natural disasters....
I am absolutely in love with my new course in Health in Emergency Situations and Refugee Health. It's a masters level course that Sara and I had to get special permission to take. Now I understand why. All my class mates come with a good background in disaster management and relief work. They are a lot older and some have even traveled to Copenhagen just to take this course. In my class, there are 3 physicians from a local Danish hospital, a teacher and doctor from Kenya, a doctor from Nigeria, a nurse from Sweden, several people who have worked with Doctors without Borders, and many other Master students. Our lecturers come from a variety of professional backgrounds (the one we had today had just come back from Haiti), and our professor is just amazing. Everyone is so passionate about the subject.

To be honest though, I'm really intimidated by the level of experience in the class sometimes. The pace is very fast, the topics are complex, and the students are very critical. There's a lot of class participation and group activities.  However, it just motivates me and makes me want to learn more about everything.

The size of the class is relatively small compared to what I'm used to back home. I've come to know a lot of my classmates. We all went over to our professor Siri's house for dinner last Wednesday. Her place was super cozy with candles, antique asian furniture, fresh flowers, little Buddha statues, tapestries, and other artifacts. You can tell that she's a very well traveled individual. It was nice to sit and relax in the sun room with wine, good company, and intellectual conversation.

Anyway, I've been pretty busy with this course. I also have a paper due this week... so I should get back to work. But before I go, let me leave you with this amusing picture of a scene from the kitchen window. We had a good laugh at this.

That's the window to our broom closet and we didn't think the landlord would appreciate a bird's nest in there.. so, we had to close it.

Royal Happenings

Too many cool things have happened in the last couple of days and I feel like I never have enough time to actually sit down and blog about them. I've been so busy recently with essays, exams and the start of my new course. It's a 4 week intensive course called Health in Emergencies and Refugee Health. It is so good that it deserves a separate blog post altogether. 


Anyway, 


Wednesday the 14th; ballet at the Royal Theater

We went to the Royal Theater at Kongens Nytorv to see a ballet of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was actually organized through ESN (Erasmus Student Network) - they had 10 tickets available, and of course, we jumped on the opportunity. It has got to be my favorite Shakespearean comedy. 

 During intermission, all the elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen went and had wine at the bar, on the balcony, and in the beautifully decorated rooms. We took to exploring the theater instead. 

The fairies all wore body suits like this that looked naked under certain lighting and showed every muscle of the body. They were so in shape! The person who played the mischievous Puck did a really great job. He definitely got some chuckles out of the audience. 

I really love watching live performances. The actors, dancers, orchestra, lights, curtains, audience....  it's all so exciting when it's actually real and you can feel the amount of hard work and practice that has gone into putting on a production such as this. It definitely beats sitting in front of a TV.


Friday the 16th; Long live the Queen

Last Friday was Queen Margrethe II 's 70th birthday. I have never seen this many danish flags concentrated in one place. It was looking out at a sea of red! This picture was taken at around 12 o'clock noon, when the Queen is scheduled to come out onto the balcony of the royal palaces and wave to the masses below. 

 Then, a royal procession of horses, guards, trumpeters, and security people accompany the queen on her royal carriage on a parade through the center of the city to the main square. Adults and children alike gather around to watch the Queen go by. 

This is the only shot of her that I managed to get. It looks like the giant lemonade stand is going to eat her up!  

Of course it was all very exciting and what not. But this presented a real problem to us because we were hungry and needed to get to the other side of the street, but couldn't do so until the whole parade had gone by! It was such a nice day outside and we decided to enjoy the outdoor restaurant seating. 

Night Time

Okay, so I've been meaning to get a few shots of Copenhagen by night. These were taken about 5 minutes ago from our living room window. I really like the stillness of the night. It's only interrupted by the hums of the occasional car and the sporadic laughter and singing of late night party people... 

On the right side of the canal, you can see the National Museum. On the left side is a whole different island which is home to a bunch of royal buildings, museums, the royal library/ black diamond and some other important buildings. Then, the tall building at the very back is a hotel. It's on yet another island, known as Amager (pronounced, "ah mah"). The Copenhagen University south campus is right beside the hotel.

I just handed in my essay for social inequalities today. It was due at 10 in the morning. I pretty much worked all night. Then at 9:00 AM, I speed biked to CSS (the city campus) to get my stuff printed, ran over to the Panum Institute in north campus, and dropped it off in the office with 5 minutes to spare. Talk about cutting it close.

I didn't end up going to Prague, but I've had a lot of fun here in Copenhagen instead. More deets on that later.

Charades

A lot of people are taking advantage of the good weather and holidays to go traveling right now and my friend circle has declined a bit. We're missing two housemates and I even have my own room for about 2 weeks. I feel so left out. I have no classes for the next week and a half... so I might as well look around for some cheap flights for a weekend trip. Maybe I'll go to Prague? 

Last Sunday, we had an epic dessert dinner and games night. Everyone was super into the games and we had some good, clean, wholesome fun. Here were the teams:

Thoughts on my Bike!

I just wanted to share this video that my good friend posted:
It really made me smile. Thanks Tenzin!

Dragør

On Saturday, Mischa, Stef, and I biked to the southern part of Amager to the cute little coastal town of Dragør. It's NOT pronounced at all like the way you'd think it would be pronounced, so don't even try. It was a 15 km (ish) bike ride there and it took us about an hour.

First, we climbed on top of these fortresses to get a view of the ocean. It was a super windy day.

Then we parked our bikes inside the town center and went for a little walk. It's honestly the cutest, most quaint little town that I've ever seen. It's a very old place and all the houses are painted sunshine yellow. The narrow cobblestone streets tell a story of their own.

We stepped inside a little coffee shop for a little pick-me-up before embarking on the hour long journey home. Hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles really does the trick on a windy day.

On the way home, the chain on Stef's bike fell off about 6 or 7 times. So we kept stopping and going and stopping. It was pretty frustrating! Mischa got his hands all dirty, but it was no use. We finally gave up and took turns pulling Stef along on the bicycle. It was hard work, but at least she got a free ride.

Having a good bicycle in proper working order is so important for getting around Copenhagen.
About a month ago, my chain started being really stupid and kept on slipping. So Stefan came over last week and helped me fix it. He sort of took it apart and positioned the wheel back more. I don't really understand what he did, but I'm just glad it works. 

I'm back to riding : )