Wow.
The time since my last blog-post has been a whirlwind of new sights, fun nights, and great people. I am glad, though unaccustomed, to take a moment for personal reflection. I entered this leg of my study-abroad journey with hopes and apprehensions, as one would with any major change. With the passing of time over these July and August summer months, the notion has solidified in my mind that my stay here in København has become a period of my life that I regret having not in the least, and upon which I will always look back fondly, though perhaps with a tinge of sadness upon the realization of its finality. (But is it not a good sign that my emotions will be mixed? Better than to feel nothing at all. What I ask for are timeless experiences, whether 'good' or 'bad', not an unemotional passing of the days.)
My last post left off with my parent's party in Broager. The following weekend, July 16-18, I traveled to Oslo, Norway to attend Hong's birthday. Hong, along with his University buddy Tormod, had roomed with me back in Berkeley. Tormod came for the fall semester, while Hong was there for the spring. Hong had a very entertaining party, which Tormod also attended, at his apartment on that Saturday the 17th, which was followed by drinks out on the town in Oslo. At one point I ended up outside the King's palace with Tormod and had an interesting early morning conversation with one of the guards. Other highlights of the trip included Tormod showing me his dorm, which again blew me away compared to American standards, and Hong's family serving us an amazing meal at his parent's restaurant. The menu for the night included shark fin soup and a filet mignon. Needless to say I felt spoiled. It was great to see those guys, meet their families, and have locals to show me around a new city.
Regretfully I cannot remember much worth mentioning from the succeeding two weeks. My journey picked up again after I had the final exam for the first portion of my summer Danish course on July 29th. The next morning I took a bus to Berlin with a group of 6 other Americans from my program. We spent 3 nights and 3 days in the city, and it was a blast. The first night we went out to a traditional German restaurant and had sausages with potatoes and sauerkraut. We all decided to accompany our meal with a German dark beer. It may have been the best beer of my life. I know I must go back to taste that again. Over the course of our days there we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the city Cathedral, the Berlin Wall, the City's Park, and the Reichstag (a.k.a the German Parliament building and the site of Hitler's seizing of power), the highlight of which was standing at the point on the Reichstag's roof where this famous picture was taken. Berlin has great nightlife, with fun bars and clubs. It is a city I'd recommend visiting to anyone and it is probably my second favorite European city behind Copenhagen, of course.
On Monday August 2nd, I left Berlin and flew to Barcelona, then took a train to the town of Tarragona, where my childhood friend Charlie Smith had spent his summer studying. His program was set to finish on the 4th, and we had plans to travel together, along with a friend he made in Tarragona, to Amsterdam, where the rest of the group I was previously traveling with had destined themselves. Tarragona was unbearably hot and humid for this San Francisco kid, the only salvation a nearby pristine beach. There were Roman ruins there too, which of course got me excited. (If you don't know, I'm a little obsessed with Roman history.) My two days there were slow, because of the heat, but enjoyable.
We arrived in Amsterdam the night of August 4th. We stayed in a hostel right by Vondelpark. The park reminded me a bit of the panhandle/hippy hill back in San Francisco. Amsterdam is one interesting town. Some observations: the cannabis culture is pervasive, all the signs and advertisements are in English (not a good thing), the streets go in half circles and are intersected by innumerable canals thereby making it nearly impossible to navigate, and the architecture is beautiful. Visiting the Van Gogh Museum was awesome and something I'd recommend to anyone who comes to Amsterdam. We also toured the Heineken factory and enjoyed the free samples at the end. The Heini in Amsterdam tastes better than the stuff we've got in the US. Charlie and I flew back to Copenhagen on Friday the 6th, and enjoyed some much needed rest. I did provide him with some danish beer though, which we documented (for facebook) and he seemed to enjoy.
The next weekend, I flew to Budapest, Hungary to meet Julcsi, pronounced (yool-chee), a Hungarian girl from my dorm that a couple of other guys in my Danish class had gotten to know. Upon arriving at the airport, we had a bit of an inceident, where one of my fellow travelers had booked his flights one day after we had planned to leave. This put him in an unenviable position with regards to minimum class attendance, as we were already set to miss our maximum amount of days--we were skipping class on Monday and Tuesday. He was forced to join us a day late and shell out hundreds more for an early return ticket. Ouch! Julcsi kindly set us up with a hostel that happened to be her old high school dormitory, and planned out a comprehensive itinerary for our stay, including a day and night at the Hungarian music festival Sziget. With her as our local Hungarian tour guide, we saw the King's Palace, the Parliament, the square where the 1956 revolution's student protests took place, the city's Basilica, numerous quaint cafes, and fun bars at night. Sziget was boundless fun--for the first time in my life I was pulled onto the stage during a live concert! (It was during Major Lazer's set.) I do declare this trip to Hungary to be the highlight of my summer. Thanks Julcs!
Returning from Hungary left me with only one remaining weekend in Copenhagen before my flight to SFO on the 27th. I spent Saturday August 21st, my last weekend night, in much the same way as my first night, if you reference my previous post. A party was held in one of the kitchens in my dorm. This time, however, I was not an unknown surrounded by strangers. As I walked throughout the party, I saw many familiar faces from these past two months: friends from Danish class, friends who live on my floor, friends from throughout the kollegium. It was then, after a few drinks of course, that I realized how truly lucky I have been. Somehow, but in definite ways, I had managed to create for myself a sense of being at home. I will miss this place, but for the ability to have that feeling I will be eternally grateful to everyone who shared it with me. I could not have written it out better, for my first night and last (weekend) night were the perfect bookends to a storybook summer.
Books
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
"Lights of ships moved in the fairway — a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars. 'And this also,' said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth.'"
Music
"Suddenly is Sooner Than You Think" - Dntel
People
George Orwell
The socialist who scares more people about socialism than anyone else. (He critiqued it in order to ensure it's ultimate viability.)
I just finished 1984, then read his wikipedia entry, and discovered that he was stationed near Tarragona when he fought in the Spanish Civil War, on the communist side of course.
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