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!