Traveling Through Denmark...

Hello Family and Friends,

Sorry it has taken so long for me to write another post, but that just means you will have a lot more to read! I have had quite a crazy week this past week! I am so excited to share it all with you!

My week started a little on the depressing side… I got sick with a cough and sore throat, so I did a lot of sleeping and reading in order to get better as quickly as possible. Unfortunately along with the sickness came a crazy week! I left on Thursday morning at about 7am for a short study tour through Western Denmark. As I am sure you can guess, I was completely dreading it! I went to the doctor before I left and have decided that I am not a big fan of the Danish heath care system, and have definitely learned to appreciate my doctors at home!

Well… I left on my tour, not knowing anyone, and feeling pretty crappy and slept the entire bus ride to Ribe. Ribe is a pretty decent sized town in Western Denmark about 5 hours from Copenhagen by bus. It is a very old town but absolutely beautiful. We attended an educational event at a Danish high school where we learned about a program created by a man to take children that have not been dealt the best cards and place them into an environment where they have the opportunity to succeed. Truly, I have never been so inspired in my entire life. I have a whole new perspective on so many things. I feel like I now have a direction that I am following. Typing out everything isn’t exactly something that I think everyone is interested in, but if you are interested in my experience and what I learned and my goals, please email me and I will send you a paper that I am writing for my class based on my experience and my findings of what I am now 100% driven to accomplish.

After we left the high school we were taken to a hostel in the center of the city, where we were the only people in the entire hostel. On the bus we signed up for rooms, and I just wrote my name down on a random room, because I didn’t know anyone… And I got really lucky! I ended up with 2 girls that have already been here for a semester and were so excited to listen to me go on and on about how amazing I believed the experience to be. Their names are Emily and Katie, and they are so great! From that moment on, we totally bonded and I fell in love with my class!

That evening we ate dinner in our hostel as a class with our amazing teacher Helle and the director of DIS who attended out trip with us, Anders. After dinner, Anders took us on a tour of Ribe, as the night watchman would have walked years and years ago. We saw beautiful sights, but I do not have any great pictures from there because it was dark. After our tour, I felt sick and tired and went right to bed, and got a great night sleep!

The next morning, at 7am, we had breakfast at the hostel. A very traditional Danish breakfast that I love!!! After breakfast we headed to a new city called Arhus. Arhus is the 2nd largest city in Denmark, after Copenhagen. Arhus is much more modernized because it is a college town, so we knew we would have a great time!

We had another educational visit to attend, that Katie told me I would love just as much as the first visit that we had the day before. This was a visit to a school called Kaospilots where people ages 21+ apply to go here for 3 years in order to learn how to become an entrepreneur. The true goal of this program is to teach you about yourself, and how to establish what your goals are and how to put them into action. This is a school for the creative type of person, and it took a lot for me to not submit an application. Don’t worry… I AM COMING HOME!

We went through a program for a few hours about learning about ourselves and establishing goals. I have never felt so in touch with myself and who I am before. It was truly an unbelievable experience to learn so much about myself in such a short amount of time. This event took the goals that I discovered the day before seem possible!

After our amazing trip to Kaospilots, we went to a delicious lunch at a beautiful Italian restaurant and ate so much food! It was the first great meal I have had since I have been in Denmark and I am still thinking about it! We had a fresh salad of different types of greens with roasted pine nuts and sundried tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette dressing and for our entrée huge tortellini stuffed with portabella mushrooms and cheese with a delicious mushroom sauce on top with of course more cheese! I was in heaven!

After our 5 star lunch, we went to the art museum in Arhus. It was so beautiful walking in. It was all white inside with spiral staircases. The building in itself was a masterpiece. I saw a lot of beautiful art as well as a lot of frightening things that are considered modern art. After this trip, I have decided that I am not a big fan of modern art, but I learned something new so that is always a good thing! The most beautiful part to me was the view of the city from the windows of the museum. I love what the architecture is like here. Just colorful, old, and beautiful! Something that seems like it came right off a movie set!

After our experience at the Arhus Art Museum, we headed just outside of the city to our hostel that was pretty much in the woods. It was really old and really gross… a totally different experience from our first hostel stay. After we got settled into our rooms, we all piled on the bus and headed back into the city for a night of fun on our own… and it sure was fun! Myself, Katie, Emily, and 5 boys went to a little hole in the wall bar where we played a drinking game with dice, headed next door to a cheap pizza place where we ate some cheese pizza then met up with our fellow DIS-ers at a very typical college bar. We had a great time! Our psychology class bonded so much over this evening and had more fun that I have had since I have been here!

We took a cab back to our hostel, had a snow ball fight, and finally went to bed. There is no other way to explain it, but I could not wait to start the next day! I absolutely fell in love with psychology and the group that I get to share these experiences with! I know that our long study tour is going to be outrageous!

After a long night of fun, I woke up the next day, had a typical Danish breakfast again, and got on the bus to head toward Roskilde. Roskilde is a very old city, where lots of royalty is buried. When we got there we went right to a restaurant and had a delicious lunch of fish, shrimp, caviar, salad… YUMMM!!! The food we ate was just so phenomenal!

Roskilde is also the home of the Viking museum… It was a very cool place to visit. I was pretty tired, so didn’t pay too much attention, but I took loads of pictures and have attached a few! I will need to go back and pay attention to everything! The scenery of Roskilde is truly beautiful and I took tons of pictures, but we were not there very long so I did not experience too much of the city.

After our short trip to Roskilde, we got right on the bus and headed right back to Copenhagen. This was a very short trip, but I have gained so much from these few days, including new goals, new ideas, new friends, and have also seen more of Denmark! This trip made me so thankful for this experience, and I am so lucky to be here learning what I am learning!

I hope you enjoyed my very long post, but I promise I will try to begin writing more often! Hope everyone had a good week! Miss you all! Feel free to comment or send me facebook messages or emails if you have more questions!

Much love! -Alli