Salamanca

This week I visited my partner, Dan, in Salamanca, Spain! He is studying at the university there, but I had the week off from DIS! 

I arrived in Spain Friday night, and within the first ten minutes it struck me how hard talking in Spanish was going to be. Although I had taken classes for years, the Danish words were coming to mind first! So not only was I slower to begin with, but I must have been painfully slow to the very patient people I spoke with. Nevertheless I figured out how to get to the AirBnB I was staying at and took the train to Salamanca the next morning! (And it was such a beautiful ride!!!! There were mountains with snow and we went through tunnels!!!!) 

Saturday Dan showed me around Salamanca! We saw the Roman bridge and most of the central city. There were so many people out! Even by 9pm the streets were full, including people from every age and families out together. We also got the beautiful combination of melted chocolate and churros (I didn't love the churros but we got melted chocolate several times over the rest of the week).

On Sunday we went grocery shopping (my fav) and for lunch I took Dan out for a late birthday meal! We went to Mandala, which was kind of as obnoxious as it sounds, but the food was sooooo good. It was a super cheap four part meal: stuffed peppers in a kind of caramel sauce, eggplant and veggies, arroz con leche, and white wine. The weather was so so good again--I was definitely a little red by the end of the day. 

On Monday Dan had classes, so I worked in the library for awhile and afterwards we went to el parque de los jesuits, which is a huge green area just outside the original city. All the trees were flowering and it was so pretty. But the majority of our time there was spent watching the ducks and geese at this little pond. We also sat around in plaza mayor for awhile (it's super common for people just to sit in the middle of the square) and it was a lot of fun to people watch!

Tuesday Dan had classes again, and the weather only got worse the rest of the week. I think the was the most low key day for us -- we just went for walks, made meals, and watched TV with the other people in Dan's apartment!

Wednesday morning we did homemade pancakes! European style, of course. The other highlight was that I went to El Teatro de Juan Encima to watch the documentary Shadow Girl (Niña Sombra) about a blind filmmaker from Chile. It was super interesting and beautiful, even though I didn't understand most of the dialogue. 

Thursday morning Dan and I went to Casa Lis, an art nouveau and Art Deco museum! I loved the statues that looked speedy, but I could have done without the three galleries full of dolls. Casa Lis also had a gorgeous view of the city! We then went to the garden by the cathedral, which is one of the best in Salamanca! 

Iconic.

Dropping our mixtape Dabby2k17 next Wednesday

Will we get our act together? Stay tuned.

That night, we hit. the. town. We started with tapas at Cafe Atelier, a rad vegan/vegetarian place next to Mandala. We had seven little plates to split, including peppers, soy burgers, lentil soup, yellow gazpacho, and stuffed mushrooms. 10/10 would recommend!!! Even though it was a little chilly, it was still fun to walk around and see all the people. We then went to a bar that looked like the inside of a submarine! And even though we showed up late by my standards, things wouldn't have picked up there until about 3am. So we set out for mojitos elsewhere and eventually found ourselves at Doze, which was a little quirky but had great cheesecake. 

Friday was my final day so we revisited some of the places and foods that had been highlights! We also spent a solid few hours making burritos from scratch--and they weren't a failure! :) 

Saturday I caught my flight back to Copen (I'm writing this post miles up and through semi-terrifying turbulence!). But it was a super relaxing week and a great change of pace from the study tour trips I had before!  Next up: my parents are coming in five days! Stay tuned for exponentially more pictures courtesy of my mother, the photographer. :) 

Long Study Tour: Amsterdam

Our class, went to Amsterdam last week to, fittingly, study prostitution and human trafficking. I had to keep a travel journal of the week (I'm honestly super proud of it), but that means that I might skim here because I've already written about it extensively!

Also also, for my internship here I am taking video clips of just about everything. Here is a link to the GoogleDrive folder to view them if you like! They are mostly only a few seconds each and would take far too long to upload here.

The flight over was stunning. The Netherlands are legit criss-crossed by canals and the sun was reflecting off them and the clouds were fluffy and perfect and the grass was literally greener.

On the first day, we settled into the hotel, ate a plate of hummus for lunch, and had dinner at an old gate to the city. It was a three course meal and took hours and hours!! After that we went to the Red Light Secrets Museum of Prostitution, where they had turned an old brothel into a tourist trap. It was really really interesting to actually see the red light district - there are a lot more kinds of bodies and a lot more disgusting men than I had imagined!

On Monday we went to the Prostitution Information Center, where a super passionate women told us about the views of all sex workers and took us on a tour of the RLD in the daytime. It was raining and I couldn't hear very much so let's move on.

In the afternoon we went to the Anne Frank House. It was really really weird knowing that I had tried to go in 11 years ago, and it was really really weird having flashbacks to eighth grade when our class read the diary. It was also really really weird not having the emotional response that I expected to, and really really weird that we didn't do anything as a class afterwards to talk about it. Long story short, it wasn't as moving as I was expecting/hoping because it was pretty crowded and was kind of sparse.

This was the first time the sun came out!

That night though, I visited another dear friend of mine from Colby: Anahita! She is doing her Masters in Leiden, an hour south of Amsterdam by train, so I met her there to make dinner! We got a sushi kit and k i l l e d it. It was so nice to see her and Leiden was even cuter and quirkier than Amsterdam!

Tuesday we heard from Prostitution & Health Centre 292, a joint organization run by a government worker and a social worker that helps sex workers with health care, entry strategies, and 'social wellbeing.' It was pretty neat to see an organization like that that's halfway between GO and NGO!

We then met with Not For Sale, which is an anti-trafficking social enterprise. That have a super interesting (and definitely not perfect) set up, where women who were trafficked can stay in a safe house if they work at this soup kitchen. The ingredients are sourced from Hungary, where many sex workers in Amsterdam come from, to fight poverty there. The women are also trained by specialists and get certificates for different work skills in the soup kitchen/restaurant. And finally they have partnered with businesses who will employ or let-intern some of the women. This was the first time we heard about loverboys (guys who 'woo' a girl, isolate her, psychologically abuse her, then prostitute her). It was pretty terrifying and sad but then we were off for the rest of the day. I watched a lot of BTS (@Emma @Divanna).

Wednesday we met with CoMensha and I'm still a little confused about what they do. But they are anti-trafficking and meet with the UN I think as well as other nationally based organizations. As I understood it, they mostly put people in contact with each other.

That afternoon we went to the Van Gogh Museum and it was just alright. I didn't have a very fun day because I was writing a research grant application.

Thursday though we went to the Hague! We started at Humanity House, which is like a museum but more like a haunted house honestly. It is supposed to simulate how a refugee feels/goes through, so you walk through abandoned rooms and mock-up government organizations. It was overall a little questionable, but the final part where we got to see videos of refugees telling their stories was definitely the most moving. (Nobody was wearing a headscarf and they actually covered some of the conflicts in Asia and Africa @USMedia!!!)

After that we heard from a woman with What You Will, a group that meets with middle-school aged girls and boys to prevent trafficking. They talked more about the loverboys, and about some of the stuff I do with Hardy Girls!

In the afternoon we listened to another person who I'm unsure exactly what they do, but they are called a Rapporteur. He talked to us about things we had already heard, so it wasn't my favorite.
We then headed back to Amsterdam for our final group dinner at an incredible Indonesian restaurant!!!

Anahita met up with me in Amsterdam that night and we went to a place called Foodhallen, which is super hipstery/gentrificationy. It is an old tram station that's been converted into a 'street food' market thing.

This beer was brewed by sisters and had elderflower how perfff!!!!!
s/o 2 anahita for this pic ty <3

This was on the drive back from Den Haag!

Friday morning we packed up and had our final talk with a man from the UK who is a sex tourist in Amsterdam (aka he goes there to see prostitutes). It was definitely a little uncomfortable listening to him fetishize Japanese women and describe his photo project. But he was more 'normal' than I think most of us expected.

Anyways after that we went to the airport and flew back to Copenhagen!! As you are probably feeling right now, the whole week was just a ton of information with no clear answers. Nobody in Amsterdam could agree on numbers, not ever how many windows are in the RLD. I'm really interested to see where the class leads now, because it is starting to feel like we have heard all sides!

Walden Visits!!!

The Wednesday after Bornholm my dear friend from Colby, Walden (aka Victoria but no one really calls her that amirite Walden) came to visit me!!! She had spent the first half of her break in Budapest (including the baths) and the second half here in Denmark. :)

The evening Walden arrived I greeted her with my new all-time-favorite bakery special: the onsdagsnagl (ohns-day-snial (rhymes with dial)). It is just a glorified and especially-cheap-on-Wednesday cinnamon roll! We were supposed to go to a class event but I got lost and we did the next best thing: Thai for dinner.

The next day, I went to classes while Walden and Merete went to our beloved castle. In the evening, we went to the most beautiful ballet I've seen yet. It was at the Royal Theater and was another class event, but I had snagged a free ticket for Walden to join! It was called Dans2Go and had three acts: the first two were pretty regular stuff to my uncultured eyes. But the finale was mind blowing. It was super modern and incorporated technical stuff and interesting lighting and existential something and in the final moments everyone was dancing what had been individual throughout at the same time and it was really glorious. Men were lifting men and I was into it.

Check it here: http://video.kglteater.dk/dans2go-2017

Now just imagine it with snow!

Now just imagine it with a bunch of Americans in the front row wearing flannel!

The next day I had classes again, so Walden explored Copenhagen through til the afternoon! We then met up and walked to Christiansborg, Cafe Paludan, Huset, Vela, and called it a night!

Christianborg's tower was LIT

What a cutie!!!!

Walden is so good at postcards you should see the cursive :)
This is at Cafe Paludan, the book cafe!

We played a whole game of Scrabble with no Ws in Cafe Bastard, first floor of Huset!

*Not pictured - Walden in an awesome black dress at Vela*

Saturday was our last day but a great day. Merete was very very sick so we made her "soup" (milk and potatoes) before going to Louisiana in the afternoon! It was cool to see again, and a moment Walden has been looking forward to for years!

The William Kentridge exhibition, Thick Time, was A M A Z I N G.
Really you should read about it!!! 

We also saw the (arguably) most instagramed art exhibit, Gleaming Lights of the Soul by Yayoi Kusami.
And if you wanna read about it.

Afterwards we had a long wait for the train, so we got dinner at one of the millions of 7-11s! That night Walden left, and I was so sad to lose my roommate. :(( See you in September bb <<33

She left Copenhagen airport early early Sunday morning. I left Copenhagen airport for Amsterdam just a few hours later!

Bornholm

This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to stay with my neighbors, Alex and Dorte, at one of their two summer homes in Bornholm! Bornholm is a little island south of Sweden, and it used to be huge for the fishing industry but is now a vacation island with cute towns and white sand beaches on the south shore. 

I left straight from classes Friday, caught the bus to Sweden, then the ferry to Bornholm, and was there by 6pm! They took me to dinner at a quirky pub near their house, where every square inch of wall was covered by some painting or antique artifact that had been donated (rumor: it's all stolen) by the locals. There were even license plates from Illinois to my left. It was really delicious and we even had pancakes with ice cream for dessert!

I had personal paparazzi this trip so get ready.

Saturday morning Dorte baked buns for breakfast then Alex and I went on a walk past the lake their house looks out over, the harbor to the north shore, and through castle ruins! Dorte picked us up and we drove along the east coast, stopping at Gudhjelm (God's home, what a name)  and Svaneke (where we got beer and chocolates! I found the first beer I liked there - Sweet Mary - created for the crown princesses when she married). It was then lunch time and we had reservations in Nexø for a TOP NOTCH restaurant with a FOUR COURSE lunch and a view of the sea it was fine I'm fine. But I never thought I would have a meal so fancy for lunch. 

There were 28 pictures before 10am.

Leonora, a bad Dane but a good wife, was imprisoned here! 

The view from the restaurant

We then continued to the most southern point and saw their other summer home and the small beach they go to there! It was such fine sand and shallow green waters 100m out. But then we went to THE beach, where there is a huge tower that used to be used for spying on Poland. We walked a quarter of a mile just to get to the beach, but it was so stunning once we got there. We walked out on a sand dune too, which was really cool and full of soft spots. Then we walked through the sand dunes to see the lighthouse and my little heart almost died. I've never wanted to paint anything so badly and I don't even paint. But all the colors were so so beautiful.

From there we headed back home, trying to spot buffalo to no avail. We spent the rest of the evening talking about how unimportant marriage is to the Danes, munching on chocolates, and sitting by the fire place. 

Sunday was a rain day so we went to Bornholm's art museum because they have their own school or painters. It had a small fountain/stream of holy water that went through the middle of the whole museum, and an exhibit dedicated to a man who painted while on drugs (but who is not an addict, they stressed). There was also a section dedicated to ceramics, because they have a long history of being expert pottery people! 

You can see the stream of holy water on the bottom left corner!

In the afternoon we packed and got the house ready for their friends who will be there in a few weeks. We then caught the evening ferry, played card games (which was a great distraction because I was definitely feeling a little sick from the rockiness), drove back through Sweden and Copenhagen, and made it to Hillerød before 10pm. 

Even though it was supposed to be sunshine island, the fog never quite lifted. It was beautiful as it was but I would love to see it in the summertime, too! Other students have also gone on bike trips around the island, and there are several competing ice cream shops that are desperately looking for a judge called Abby Snyder.

Core Course Week: Sweden

Hello! I have forgotten too many things so here is one week of classes and what we did for it! DIS sets it up so that you choose a core course to travel with on two different breaks. The first break is local, so we went an hour over to Sweden, and the second break is coming up in a few weeks and will be in Amsterdam!

So to kick it off, we drove to Malmö and immediately settled in to our first talk by a former trans sex worker who now helps with a sex worker's rights organization. We learned about the Swedish model of criminalizing the purchase of sex and how that affects the sex workers. The next talk was from law enforcement and further explained the rationale behind that kind of law. The final talk was by a radical feminist who helped draft the legislation and believed that all prostitution is rape. Afterwards, we went to the hotel and were free for the night, so I got dinner at a Swedish/tapas place and had drinks at Bee Kök and Bar! 

The next day held more talks, and we listened to a PhD candidate who presented her research on the complex experiences of sex workers at Gothenburg University. In the afternoon we listened to three women who run a church organization where they have coffee and therapy for sex workers. We had the rest of the evening free again, and some of us walked around the city for a few hours before getting dinner and going out later that night to Greta's. 

The final day we went back to Denmark to see the Louisiana art museum, and it was pretty cool! It had an exhibit by Louise Bourgeois that was like the female version of Tim Burton but for modern art even though it was at least fifty years old. That night I returned home and had a dinner party with Ingrid and Pier where I tried Danish snaps for the first time! 

You can check out all the pictures/videos (unedited, watch out) from the trip that I took for DIS here!

Overall I thought it was a great trip because of all the varying view points, and because it felt like I was starting to get closer to other students!

Fredericksborg, Helsingborg, Christiansborg

Wow it has been too long so I'm just going to give you the highlights of the past ten days! Just assume that the spaces are all filled with hour long train rides, biking in the mist, watching Danish news, homework, and naps.

Last Saturday, I went to the Fredericksborgslot! It is the castle literally five minutes away, the prettiest one in Denmark, really the greatest. You gotta see it. Amazing. The inside is the National History Museum, and while I usually don't, this time I did an audio tour and it was actually really good? 10/10 would recommend. They played organ music for you and didn't linger too long on any one painting of a Danish king or conquest!

The ballroom!

What most rooms looked like! Old furniture and paintings galore.

The chapel, where people still get married!

The next day I went to the cinema here for the first time! It is so cute, with 20 little circle tables in the lounge for getting coffee or having a beer. The inside was refurbished too! Dottre (not sure how to spell it, sorry), Merete and I watched Jackie, but I'm not sure if any of us would recommend it. We also walked past the castle to get there, and caught it on one of the last nights lit up!

That weekend I also had a lingering cold that has finally passed, and I managed to ride my bike to the train station for the first time! 

Tuesday is the next remarkable day - I had a meeting for my internship with DIS!! You heard that right, I get to be a student videographer which means I can check out nice cameras, and I'm pumped. To kill some time I went to Cafe Retro and had one of the best drinks of my life, hot elderflower. I really wish I could tell you what it was but I have no clue. Like tea but no bag? And very sweet? Anyways if you get the chance, drink it!! After that, I got dinner with Mette at Atlas Bar, which was hyggeligt! We then watched Rams at the DIS movie theater (where I have one of my classes) with DIS Film Club, and I thought it was such a great movie. DIS then paid for us to all get drinks afterwards at Huset, a really neat movie theater/cafe place! (But for some reason no good photos of Huset exist..)

They have some killer goat cheese in beet patties.

I curled up in one of those old sofas with Zadie Smith for awhile!

Honestly, it's worth your time.

On Wednesday, my LGBTQ in Europe class visited Rasmus Norqvist, an out politician for the Alternative. The Danish system of government is super super interesting, and the alternative is also trying to do what sounds like some rad work on shifting political culture to honesty and community-leader inspired policy. That also meant I was back at Christiansborg (the parliament) for the third time in three weeks (the other time being an assignment on the tapestries!).

I took this photo of the stock exchange aka unicorn horn building from the top of Christianborg's tower!
Now you know why I don't post my own pics.

On Friday, I had tea with Ingrid so she could practice her English! This has become a weekly event for both of us, and there is always yummy licorice tea waiting for me. For dinner, another host student in Hillerod had organized a "hygge dinner" that DIS sponsors, where some of the people in your town can get together! It was so lovely, and the house they live in is amazing. The convo only died out after four hours, when people had to catch the last train or their host wouldn't wait longer to pick them up. 

The next morning, I was up early to go to Sweden. Also no big. Some of the other students from last night and I caught a train then a mega ferry to hop over to another country. Hassle free. Really cheap. We spent the morning and early afternoon in Helsingborg, where we walked around the watch tower, this old church, down the shoreline, and through some pedestrian shopping streets before having lunch and crossing back over!

There is sand too, and there were people polar plunging!!

It wasn't at night but it still looked like this!!

Town halllllll

The watch tower opens in March so maybe Helsingborg part two soon?

Once back, I made a quick turn around to Copenhagen to have dinner with Merete, Kathrine, and Mette! It was also a lot of fun and filled with delicious food. I think we managed to watch every "America First, ___ Second" video too! I then caught a bus out of Nørrebro and over to Vesterbro to meet up with Emma and her friend Anna at Vela! In short, it was a revelation and had great strawberry daiquiris. The next morning, I was up and out by 8am to walk with the neighbors around our beloved castle! It was a breezy 5k for such a late night, but the brunch after was delicious enough to make it worth it five times over. (A lot of Danes make their own bread and my stomach is happy. I also had a Danish pastry for the first time here!!!!)

After a few more naps that brings the blog up to speed! Next week is dedicated to my core course, prostitution and the sex trade, so I'll be going over to Sweden again to hear from sex workers and lawyers there!