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!