So much to write about! This past weekend I went on a short study tour with my European Culture & History class. We left at seven a.m. Thursday morning and got back around five p.m. on Saturday evening and it was...um...AWESOME. Let me just bullet point the itinerary:
Thursday:
- Drove to Western Denmark and visited an open prison in the morning. We met with the warden and with an inmate named Bjarne who gave us a tour of the place and explained the way that an open prison works. Basically all the prisoners there are free to roam the grounds, hang out in the church/cafe, go from room to room, get on their computers and facebook and skype (side note--Bjarne had a Logitech mouse, which I teased my dad about), cook dinner together every night (even using those huge bread knives--yeah), and do whatever they want as long as they ask for permission from the guards. They also get to go on visits every third week to other parts of the country so they can visit their loved ones! I thought it was a pretty revolutionary idea, although sort of neat. The warden was a nice lady; she asked us if an open prison would work in the States and most of us said no, although I think it might work for drug offenders. (Bjarne himself is in there for seven years cause he got busted for trying to smuggle thousands of pounds of cocaine or marijuana or something.) I have a lot of respect for the way the open prison works, but I wasn't too thrilled about the fact that four of the prisoners at this place were in there for manslaughter charges. I just don't think that's right. I'm glad the Danes don't believe in capital punishment because I don't either, but I also don't think that a man who killed another person should be allowed to go hang out in a cafe and leave for weekend visits. The warden said something though which shows she has a truly different perspective: she said she believes that everyone is playing the game of life, and that people who commit crimes shouldn't be removed from this game forever; she believes she is merely "taking them out of the game for a while" until they can re-enter the game. I don't know, what do you all think? Thoughts??
- That afternoon we drove to Jelling, where the first Danish kings lived. We learned about Gorm the Old, the first Danish king from the 9th century, which is pretty interesting cause Denmark has the oldest monarchy in the world. There is a poster I've seen all over the place here about how the current monarch, Queen Margarethe, is a descendant of Gorm the Old:
Pretty neat, right? I might buy it at some point. We also learned about Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth (the phones are named after him), who Christianized Denmark and insisted that his father be moved from his original burial mound into the church. Or something like that. Point is he wanted Denmark to accept Christianity, I think because he was under pressure from other, more powerful nations. Regardless, Jelling was WAY fun when we actually got to go outside and see the burial mounds and the church that Harald built. Jakob and Ditte, our professors/study tour leaders, led us up to the top of Gorm's burial mound, and Jakob pulled out a bottle of Gammel Dansk, traditional Danish liquer, and then passed around small plastic shot glasses to each person in my class. And then all 31 students, plus Jakob and Ditte, toasted to the memory of Gorm the Old and took shots altogether on the top of the famous burial mound in Jelling, Denmark. Jealous yet? (Here's a picture for you, Eddie; I know you'd google it anyway.)
- After Jelling, we got back on the bus and departed for Skanderborg, where we stayed for the night. It was this beautiful hostel/camping place in the middle of nowhere, but we all stayed in these adorable cabins that fit six people and...surprise...they had televisions! So my cabin of girls watched "Friends" before dinner, which was a nice treat. And then after dinner we got a tour of the underground bunkers from WWII. The Nazis stayed in there and used ENIGMA to send coded messages. We got to practice sending an ENIGMA message and we also got to see all of the artifacts and weapons and uniforms the Nazis and the Danes wore during the war. And thennn we all went into a room and Jakob provided crate upon crate upon crate of some Danish beer, which we all drank happily, and we also had the opportunity to go roast hot dogs at the bon fire, but I just stayed inside and my friend Trude and I talked to our professor, Ditte, about what it's like for her to raise children in Denmark and what she thinks about the immigration issue. Fun times. Slash I love run-on sentences. Pictures: 1) my cabin, 2) Skanderborg hostel/camp site
Friday: - After breakfast, we drove to Ry Hojskole, which is one of the best known folkehojskoles in Denmark. The hojskole system is really interesting: its basic premise is that students should have some time between high school and university to figure out what it is they want to do with the rest of their lives. So young Danes will go stay at these hojskoles, which are mainly funded by the state, and will take classes and do outdoor activities and join the theater group or the chorus group or what have you, and they will essentially live as if they are in college except they won't receive grades. It's a kind of exploration period in their lives, a time in which they figure out not only what they want to study and what they want to do, but how they want to live and what will make them happy. I sat in on a journalism class and was able to talk to five Danish students, and we compared the American education system with the Danish one, noting how in the States you go straight to college from high school and if you don't, people think you must have some kind of problem. I told them that if I had taken a couple of years off before I'd gone to Vanderbilt, people would have wondered if I had a mental issue. They all thought that was hilarious and laughed a lot. But the radically different hojskole system certainly was good for making me think critically about American education: shouldn't we maybe take some time off before rushing to college and choosing our majors? I don't know. I feel lucky that I was able to choose my majors relatively easily. A lot of the American students on my program were very taken with the hojskole though. It certainly was beautiful and there was a general prevailing attitude that life is short and should be celebrated and felt out. We also got to sing some Danish songs, and at the end of the afternoon, the Danish students sang for us! Please see video.
- After that, we drove to Arhus and saw the modern art museum, Aros, which was pretty cool. I'm not really the museum type, but there were some neat exhibits. That giant crouching guy was pretty cool I guess....
- So then we did dinner and got on the bus and drove to our hostel in Kolding. That night was so much fun; Jakob and Ditte took a bunch of us into town, which involved going downhill from the mountain we were on, and showed us a small but fun bar where I hung out for about four hours. I had to go outside to use the bathroom and ended up having a funny conversation with a 27 year old Danish woman about the Danish word for plumbing, which I cannot remember but which definitely had the word "sucker" in it, and then I had her laughing when I started talking about Joe the Plumber. Good times. Got to hang out with all of the people on my trip though, which was good, and had an all-around great night!
- Saturday morning it was time for a scavenger hunt around Kolding in the pouring rain. Not so fun. Can't say I actually know what we saw, either, since I was too preoccupied with how wet my feet were and how numb my fingers were, haha. But we ended up at Koldinghus, the castle in Kolding, which was built to protect the city from Germany or Sweden or one of those menacing (Sweden? menacing?) countries. It burned down about a dozen times or something, yet it still stands today. We had lunch in the dungeon, which was strangely cozy. The food was delicious. But then what happened? ...Oh yeah, I got locked in the bathroom. Seriously. I'm not sure what happened, but I got stuck in there and someone had to go get a screw drive. Crisis averted :) Then we got back on the bus and drove home to Copenhagen.
^Beautiful town of Kolding, as seen from the top of the castle.
^Chillin' in the bathroom while I waited to be rescued. Truth be told I was kinda amused.
Oh! P.S. I also went to Malmo, Sweden last Wednesday. It's only like 30 minutes away! Took a train there, simple as that. Spent the day shopping and--what else--eating. Bought Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Swedish--it's got the neatest cover ever!
K seriously done.
