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!