Dollhouses & Hyggelig

Last Friday, we went on a tour of the Danish National Museum. Our tour guide was pretty good, but I never had the patience for listening to history - so I wandered ahead of the group. We came upon this magical room with the most beautiful dollhouses. I fell in love! It's probably the little girl in me, but I could probably spend hours playing with them. Look at the detail! This family is having a turkey dinner with broccoli, bacon and ham.

I also had the most amazing dinner on Sunday night. My roommate Julia and my classmate Claudia hosted a traditional German/ Austrian dinner at my apartment. Cooking for 16 people is not an easy task at all! Julia and Claudia started cooking at around 3:30 and we didn't finish until around 7:00. However, it was definitely worth it.

A major Danish cultural phenomenon is "hyggelig". When I asked a Dane to explain what this means, they told me that it stood for coziness, comfort, snug, feeling at home. It's a mentality. Perhaps hyggelig is like staying in on a cold snowy winter night with good friends, drinking hot chocolate or wine, with candles and good music. But I'm not sure exactly how to use the word yet...

Anyway, my point is that I think our dinner was very hygge. We didn't really have enough proper seating, tables, forks or knives... but somehow we made it work. It was also very economical. Dining out in Copenhagen is pretty expensive, so this is a good way to go. We all split the cost of the groceries. It was 25 kr per person. This works out to be about 5 Canadian dollars.

I've been quite sick these past couple of days, so I've been staying in bed. However, I think I'm starting to feel better now. Tomorrow, I am buying a bicycle from an exchange student who is leaving Denmark soon. I am excited to finally have a bike! It will make it much easier to get around Copenhagen. It is dark green and it has a basket in the front. On Friday, I have the written portion of my danish language exam. Next Monday is the oral exam. Then I'm off to Berlinnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!