You don’t know me.

Before I came to Europe, people kept warning me about all of the anti-American sentiment that was prevalent over here.  I dismissed these warnings, partially because I didn’t believe them, but also because I tend to be quite pessimistic about the United States myself.  I had no idea how offended I could feel when someone criticized my country without having a reason to do so.

Sure, my European friends will tease me and other Americans about our little quirks – spelling everything with a ‘z’ instead of an ’s’ and then calling it “zee” instead of “zed,” for example – but it was all in good fun.  I had never had actual insults directed at me or at the US until last week.

In Paris, my friend Stephanie and I were walking through the exhibits at the Centre Pompidou.  We were looking at a strange piece which seemed to be two gigantic lungs covered by blankets, breathing in and out.  A French guy who worked at the museum approached us and said “Shh, they’re sleeping!” and then proceeded to drag us through a ridiculously long conversation.  He asked us where we were from, and didn’t understand when Stephanie kept saying “the United States.”  I actually had to tell him in French the name of our country before he understood.

Even though he didn’t recognize the name of our country (the French word for United States literally translates to “united states,” and he apparently spoke at least decent English), he told us all about the lack of sophistication and education that most Americans have.  He was saying that some parts of the United States are generally okay, but there are lots of rural areas where everyone is ignorant of the rest of the world and knows nothing about foreign countries (I’m not saying these don’t exist; see my hometown for example).  He kept elaborating on this point of view until Stephanie asked him whether or not he’d ever been to the United States.  He replied that he had not, but he had watched a French documentary which told him all of these things!

I am usually the first to criticize the US for being a bit backwards, too conservative, unconcerned with foreign affairs, and generally just a misguided country.  Still, I was offended.  He may not have been totally inaccurate in much of what he was saying, but to approach someone and begin to make broad, demeaning generalizations about their country – which you have never even been to – is deeply offensive.  Not to mention hypocritical – here he was telling two Americans who were exploring his country and its culture that Americans know nothing about the rest of the world, when he himself had never traveled to our country!

A similar incident happened again this week in Copenhagen.  On Wednesday, I went on a field study with my Muslims in the West class to a Muslim private school.  One of the teachers at the school, an ethnic Dane who practices Islam, gave us a really interesting presentation on the school and what does and doesn’t work about it.  He was really friendly and gave a really unique perspective, but most of all he was very down to Earth and seemed willing to merge his religious beliefs with the reality of 21st century Denmark.  However, he brought us into a classroom of ninth graders (this is generally the highest mandatory grade in school before going to gymnasium, which is comparable to high school) where their teacher, a woman whom he described as being half-Danish and half-Polish, proceeded to tear us apart for being American.

My class lined up in front of the black board so that we were facing all of the students in the room, and this teacher went to the back of the room and said, “So we were all wondering, why did you choose to come to Denmark, of all places?”  When some of us explained our various reasons – the opportunities provided by DIS, the opportunity to travel, interest in Scandinavia, etc. – she followed up by saying something like, “I just don’t understand, because most Americans don’t seem to know anything about the rest of the world and you’re all here in another country to learn about it.”

A few people tried to explain that we DO care about learning about the world and that IS why we’re here, and it’s not so easy to say that all Americans are ignorant.  One of the DIS interns who accompanied us on our field study explained that we were all students from good universities, so it was more likely that we would come from wealthy backgrounds and therefore would know more about the world.  I, along with several other students, challenged her on this.  We tried to explain to the class that socioeconomic background had little to do with your ignorance of the world; a rich person could be just as uninformed as a poor person, and not all of us were rich just because we went to good universities.  The teacher didn’t seem to accept this though, asking, “So if I go to a poor state like Mississippi, no one will know anything about European countries, but rich states will because you have state control over education?”  She explained that Danish education was controlled at the federal level, so because the Danish government wanted students to learn about the rest of the world, all Danish students are inherently more informed than all American students.

She kept repeating over and over, “Well we learn about Barack Obama in our classrooms, but you never learn about Danish politics!  It’s not right that we know so much about the rest of the world, and you know so little about it!  All you ever study is American history and American politics, but we study that and our own history and politics!”

At this point, I was not only offended but disgusted by the fact that anyone with such a lack of rationality to her reasoning was permitted to be a school teacher in this or any country.  I raised my hand to speak and explained a couple of things:

1. It is not fair to characterize American education or ignorance by class.  I am not wealthy, but I worked hard to get a scholarship so that I could go to a good university.  My parents do not have college educations, but they still know who other world leaders are.
2. Just because Danes study the United States does not mean that they know “more about the world” than we do.  She made no statements regarding Danish knowledge of anything outside of the US and Europe.  Americans actually do know quite a bit about Latin America – do Danes?
3. In the United States, we DO actually study other countries’ history.  Perhaps not everyone had the best teachers, but the subject matter was at the very least a part of our curriculum.
4. Danes probably do know about more countries than we do, but most of those countries are in Europe, and many are the size of states in the United States (and most Americans at least know something about most of the states).  A Dane could fly for three hours and pass over six countries.  An American could fly for seven hours and still be in the United States.  It’s easier to know about more countries when they are so much smaller and more geographically accessible.
5. Whether or not it should be this way, the fact remains the United States is – at least for now – the world’s only superpower.  International organizations hinge on the actions of the United States.  Perhaps in a better world this would not be so, but it’s an unavoidable truth.  Therefore, of course Danes have to learn about Barack Obama, as he governs a tremendously powerful country.  Americans are obviously going to be less likely to study a tiny country like Denmark, because Denmark’s actions don’t have the same kind of impact on the US that the US’s actions have on Denmark.

I made sure to use the prime minister of Denmark’s name (Lars Løkke Rasmussen) so that she would know that I did in fact know about their leader.

I really am critical of Americans’ lack of knowledge about the rest of the world, but even I have my limits.  It’s really not right for anyone to approach a national of another country and begin to tell them the faults of their culture.  How can we ever foster cross-cultural understanding if everyone’s beliefs are based on misrepresentative documentaries, socioeconomic stereotypes and offensive generalizations?

I LOVE PARIS!

Normally, I try to come up with a witty title for my blog posts, but there is no point in trying to express myself this way as I write about Paris because, quite simply, it was an AMAZING city.

I have always, always wanted to go to Paris, and I love studying French.  However, I feel like Paris is such a cliché tourist destination, so I was expecting to be a little bit annoyed with it (see my feelings about Florence below).  This was totally wrong!  People do not (or should not) love Paris because of the romance built up around it in our heads – people should love Paris because it’s a fantastic city with so much to see and experience.  I spent six days in Paris and didn’t even do half of what I wanted to!

I was planning to get to Paris on Sunday afternoon, but all of the trains from Milano Centrale station were booked, so I had to [pay a ridiculous sum of money to] extend my stay in my hotel and didn’t arrive in Paris until Monday night.  Having lost two days in Paris, I was a little bit disappointed, especially since it rained a lot for my last days in Milan, so I couldn’t do much besides treat myself to dinner and watch CNN International to cheer on Nancy Pelosi as she pushed a healthcare bill through the House.

In typical Ian fashion, I was sketched out by riding the Paris Metro alone at night, so my friend Ali from GW came to meet me at Gare de Lyon to escort me to my hostel.  My hostel, St. Christopher’s, was in the 19th arrondissement, which is a rather sketchy part of Paris.  Walking down the street to the hostel, I was a bit paranoid – until I saw the gorgeous building in which I was supposed to be staying!  My hostel looked like a huge bird’s nest, lit up with different colors and built along a beautiful canal.  It was really nice inside, with a popular restaurant and bar and lots of young people hanging out.  No wonder it was rated HostelWorld.com’s best hostel in France last year.

The next morning, I woke up early and decided to start exploring the city on my own until my friend Stephanie from DIS arrived in the evening.  I went to the Louvre first, though it was closed, so I proceeded through the Jardin de Tuileries.  When I got to the Place de la Concorde, a teenage boy showed me a gold ring and asked me if it was mine, telling me he’d found it on the ground.  Being intelligent enough to know that this was a swindling technique, I told him (in French) that it was not mine.  He insisted that it was too small for his finger and tried to force it on me, but I put my hands in my pockets.  He still kept trying to drop it in a pocket or something as I darted from side to side away from him, and finally, realizing defeat, he cursed in French and spat in my direction.  When he walked away, he walked backwards so he could watch me and kept shaking his fist menacingly.  Oh mon dieu!

I sat in a café for a bit to get over having been spat on, and then proceeded to l’Arc de Triomph (which was being made to look especially patriotic and had cameras all around it, but more on that later) and then went to the Notre Dame.  I had wanted to go to the Centre Pompidou, but all of the museums were closed on Tuesday, and they were also closed the next day for Remembrance Day.  Instead, I proceeded on to the Notre Dame.  I found this terribly disappointing – after seeing the Duomo in Milan, and after having huge expectations based on one of my favorite films, I was anticipating something much more epic.

The next day with Stephanie, we went with some girls from our hostel to l’Arc de Triomph to see a Remembrance Day ceremony.  Little did I know, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel (and more importantly, the fiercest of first ladies, Carla Bruni) were there!  Sarkozy and Merkel spoke in their native languages about the importance of Franco-German relations (somewhere my European Union professor is having a heart attack because the Franco-German motor is the keystone of his lectures).  We then went to the Eiffel Tower.  I chose not to go up because I really hate heights, and honestly, knowing how much I freak out at the tops of roller coasters and tall buildings, I don’t really regret my decision.  Instead, I went to lunch with Ali.

I made everyone go with me to the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.  Not only did the Pont de l’Alma provide stunning views of the Eiffel Tower at sunset, but I also wanted to see the liberty flame over the bridge.  This is the bridge in which Diana, Princess of Wales was in a tragic car accident.  I wanted to see the flame, which many people think is actually a monument to her as it was plastered with photos of the princess for many years.  There was writing all over the concrete barrier above the tunnel, much of it dated 2009, paying tribute to Diana.  It was really moving to be there.

That night, Stephanie and I hung out with our friend Chris, another DIS student who happened to be staying in our hostel (there were at least three in our hostel, we saw some others randomly on the streets of Paris, and I had seen several in Italy!).  We drank a considerable amount – wine is SO CHEAP in France!  Less than two euros will buy you quality wine in an actual glass bottle.  No Franzia for me!

The next day, I mostly revisited things I’d already seen for Stephanie’s benefit, and we had lunch with Stephanie’s friend.  This brought us to a really cool Jewish/gay neighborhood with great vintage shops.  That afternoon, we went to the Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum that is built inside out.  I really liked this exhibit and am glad we did it; also, we ran into Chris there and then all had dinner together afterwards.

Stephanie left the next morning, so I was on my own for most of the day.  I went to the Musée de Louvre in the morning.  Honestly, I was a little bit tired of seeing thousands and thousands of religious paintings, but it was really exciting to see some of DaVinci’s work in person, and of course I made sure to see the Venus de Milo.  I did make myself walk through almost every wing of the museum so that I didn’t feel like I’d done simply the tourist version of the Louvre and then left.  I wasn’t, however, concerned with getting my money’s worth – my Danish residence permit got me free admission!

Afterwards, I went to the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was ridiculously beautiful!  There were lots of young people sitting around the fountain and laying in the yard, enjoying the beautiful Parisian day.  I got out my journal and sat in one of the chairs and wrote, soaking up some sunshine and enjoying the pleasant atmosphere.

That night, I had dinner with Ali and a bunch of GW students who were also studying at the American University of Paris.  I didn’t know them all well, but it was really nice to be with people from my university again.  I don’t think I realized how much I missed GW until then.  Sure, I bitch about the student body when I’m there, but I do find an enormous amount of comfort in GW and in hanging out with the type of people I’m used to.

On Saturday, my friend Julia called me, and we met up in Montmartre at the Pigalle metro stop.  After taking some pictures in front of the Moulin Rouge (no Nicole Kidman sightings, sadly), we progressed to the Scare Coeur, which is really breathtaking.  It’s amazing that this church isn’t more famous than the Notre Dame, because it is absolutely beautiful, and so are the views that one gets from its stairs that ascend the highest hill in Paris.

After wandering around the charming area of Montmartre for a while, Julia and I went to the Musée d’Orsay.  This was one of the biggest highlights of Paris for me.  I took an art history class at GW during my freshman year and the focus was realism and impressionism, so I had seen almost every painting in the museum before, but to really be able to look at the brush strokes and appreciate the size of some of the works was fantastic.  I had such an appreciation for the art that I wouldn’t have had without taking that class, and the museum was just great.

That night, I had dinner with Ali again and left to go back to my hostel and start packing.  I think it’s safe to say that I miss Paris considerably, which is a little bit ridiculous if I was only there for a week.  Can you really miss something you had so briefly?  All I know is, I can’t wait to go back someday…

Ti voglio bene, Italia

I headed north from Rome on a train and got to Florence on a rainy afternoon.  Despite the bad weather, I decided to go for a walk around the city before meeting a DIS friend for dinner, but I went back to my hostel for an early bedtime.

The next morning, I woke up early for the free breakfast that my hostel was providing.  At breakfast, a guy staying in the same room in our hostel asked me if I would mind his company while I explored the city for the day.  I actually never remembered his name (awkward!), but we stayed together for most of the day.

Florence is an absolutely gorgeous city.  Walking the streets is like walking through a living museum.  All of the buildings maintain an Old World look and charm (despite the globalized brand names that adorn their gables), and there are famous buildings and iconic sculptures around every street corner.  The exterior of the Duomo is perhaps the most beautiful part of the city – the bright colors and intricate designs on this building, taken as a whole, are amazing and unlike almost anything else (it wasn’t my favorite cathedral, but I’ll get to that in a bit).

Although walking the streets of the city provided some of the most beautiful sites I had ever seen, there was still better to come.  Walking through the famous leather market, where I purchased three scarves for €10!, I ran into two people who had been staying in my hostel in Rome.  This sounds like a miraculous coincidence, but Florence is a rather small and walkable city.  They told me that they were planning to go to the Piazzale Michelangelo.  This public square tops a high hill that overlooks the city, providing the most breathtaking panoramic views of Florence.  It had rained lightly in the morning, so by the time I climbed to the top of the hill, there was a beautiful rainbow stretching across the sky, and a light mist hung over the beautiful Tuscan hills that provide a gorgeous backdrop to the colorful little city.  Florence is really like a jewel shining in Tuscany, but  I didn’t actually love my time there.  It was full of American and Asian tourists, so almost no one I saw was Italian.  Because of all the tourists, things in Florence were overpriced and sometimes tacky.  Still, the city is ridiculously gorgeous and full of interesting and uniquely beautiful sites.

After Florence, I progressed to Milan.  I was excited to be back in a more traditional, metropolitan city, but most of all, I was excited to see my friend Alessandra.  She did a foreign exchange program and studied for a semester in my high school during my senior year.  I hadn’t seen Ale since she returned to Italy at the end of 2006, so after three years of only occasional Facebook wall posts, we were past due for catching up!

Milan was a really beautiful city, which is surprising since most people complain that is too industrial and offers little to do for tourists.  I actually didn’t know what a tourist was supposed to do in Milan, so I let Ale be my guide.  She took me to all of the famous buildings, gelaterias and restaurants, but also to smaller locations and trendy bars frequented by the young Milanese.  The first place she took me was the Duomo in Milan, which is hands down the most beautiful church I have ever seen.  It’s pristine white exterior, gorgeous sculptures and enormous size make it so much more impressive and beautiful than almost any other building in the world.  I was completely underwhelmed by the Notre Dame, and I think that’s because I saw the Duomo in Milan first!

The rest of the city is relatively dull from a totally tourist perspective.  There are beautiful buildings and charming streets, particularly in and around the shopping districts.  I had a wonderful time in Milan, but probably because I was able to live a bit like a local.  Ale took me to Cova, a famous café in Milan, where we had the most delicious (and expensive) hot chocolate and chocolate cake that I’d ever tasted!  It was gorgeous little place, and eating inside at a table near ours was one of the highest paid fashion models in Italy.  I also went with Ale to dinner at some of her favorite restaurants, which were out of the way of most touristy areas and therefore had even better food at even better prices (although finding places with English-language menus was not always easy).

I’m not sure why so many people skip or gloss over Milan on their stays in Italy, but it’s definitely a beautiful city that is worth visiting!

When in Rome… do as the Irish do.

Hans Christian Andersen was right when he said “to travel is to live” – I’ve been traveling for over a week now, and I really do feel like, in a way, I’m really living for the very first time.  The more places I visit and people I meet, the more I realize that there are even more places I still need to visit and people I still need to meet.  Really coming to terms with this makes me feel so much more… alive!

I started out my journy by flying to Rome last Saturday.  What was supposed to be a rather quick flight with a connection in Riga, Latvia turned into a transportation nightmare.  The AirBaltic plane departed almost two hours late from Copenhagen, which meant that I missed my connecting flight in Riga.  I was on the plane with my friends Hanna and Annie; Hanna was going to Venice, but Annie was supposed to be on my flight to Rome.  As soon as we landed in Riga, they rushed Annie and I onto a plane to Helsinki, Finland where we were supposed to be connecting to Rome two hours later.  We did make it to Rome – eight hours after we were supposed to – but our luggage didn’t arrive until Tuesday night.  I ended up having to buy some clothes at the Benetton in Roma Termini station after two days of wearing the same thing.  In short, I no longer like Latvia.  Sorry, guys.

My friend Shannon from George Washington met me at Roma Termini when my train from the airport arrived, and after checking into my hostel, we went for a walk to see the city at night.  Shannon is studying in Rome, so she was really able to show me around.  We went to the Piazza della Republica and – perhaps my favorite moment of my entire time in Rome – the Trevi Fountain.  It’s so beautiful at night, with lights in the water and all of the happy couples taking pictures together in front of the pristine white sculptures.

The next morning, I decided to see some of Rome on my own, and I spent most of my time wandering from piazza to piazza and exploring some of the major monuments.  Rome is such a wonderful city!  It maintains a kind of majestic, ancient beauty with the Colloseum imposed on the Roman skyline, and it has a more common era charm in the form of winding cobble-stoned streets.  The city does feel and function like a regular “big city,” but in true Italian fashion, it is much more chaotic.  Buses and trams arrive randomly and hundreds of people pile into them without paying for a ticket, without concern for things like capacity limits, comfort and common courtesy.  After months of Copenhagen’s organizational rigidity, the chaos of Rome was relaxing, refreshing and exciting.

My favorite (touristy) parts of Rome were the Colosseum and the Vatican, but I suppose that is to be expected.  The Colosseum really is amazing.  One just cannot get over how enormous it is.  I don’t know how it was possible to ever build such a structure, but it is so impressive!  Many tourist attractions don’t live up to their reputation (in fact, most don’t), but this is certainly worth a visit.  After seeing the Colosseum, I used my ticket to get into the Roman Forum and Palatino, etc.  These ruins started out as being very underwhelming and unintersting (I couldn’t find anything that told me what I was looking at), but as I progressed through the seemingly neverending labrynth of ancient structures, I began to appreciate the beauty and significance of the ruins.

The Vatican is absurdly extravagant – the amount of gold and valuable art in one square foot of St. Peter’s Basilica is worth enough to feed the whole of Zimbabwe.  Of course, the building really is magnificent.  The Vatican museums are totally worth paying to get into.  After seeing countless painted ceilings, it does get a bit uninteresting, but at the climax of the walk through the museums is the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing.  I suppose it’s a bit underwhelming to some – you can’t take photos of the artwork on the walls, and most of the paintings are so famous that you barely feel the need to look at them twice.  Still, standing in that huge chapel and realizing that one man painted EVERYTHING on the ceiling and walls is a really startling experience that I think everyone should have.

Some of the most fun I had in Rome was one night when I was waiting around the Piazza Navona to get my luggage (we sent it to Annie’s friend’s apartment on the Piazza).  I went to dinner alone that night and had, as is typical in Italy, a great meal, but our bags still hadn’t arrived and it was pouring rain outside.  As it was a weeknight in November, very few places of business were open, so I was having difficulty locating a bar in which I could escape the rain.  The only place I could find was La Boticella – a Pittsburgh Steelers themed bar.

Now, those who know me will be the first to tell you that I know absolutely nothing about American football, nor do I care to learn.  Still, I needed warmth, dryness, an English-speaking bartender to chat with, and probably some alcohol.  It was awkward at first, but I did meet an older man from Meadville!  After a while, I started talking with an Australian woman who was with her boyfriend in Rome and also cared nothing about the Steelers.  When this conversation started to go in no particular direction, I began talking to a group of students from Northern Ireland who were on a high school class trip.  We got along really well, and I ended up following them to the bus stop (after their teacher told me it was “a wee bit strange”) because I assumed that by 10:00 p.m. my luggage was not coming, and I needed to know how to get back to Roma Termini, which was near my hostel and theirs as well.

Right as we were about to board the bus, Annie called to say that our luggage had arrived, so I didn’t get to hang out with the Northern Irish for very long, but some of us are now Facebook friends!  They were all so much fun and so enthusiastic about meeting an American.  One student from the class even hugged me because he had never hugged an American before.

Keep checking my blog for updates.  I went from Rome to Florence and from there to Milan; tomorrow I’m heading for Paris, but I’ll try to write about Florence soon enough.

Arrivederci, Copenhagen!

After celebrating J-dag at the DIS Halloween party tonight (where I will be dressed as a slutty viking), I’ll be coming back for a few hours of sleep (maybe) and then flying to Rome in the morning to start my two week travel break!

Of course, I leave in less than 24 hours and have yet to pack, purchase my costume for tonight, book train reservations, finish a paper that’s due today, or pretty much do anything else responsible with my life.  But I’m sure it will work out, right?

Islam up-close

Yesterday, I had my first field study in a while.  This time, I was off to explore the city with my Muslims in the West class.  We were accompanied by a number of administrators who, I think, were both from DIS and various universities’ study abroad offices in the US.

For this particular field study, we first walked around the largely immigrant neighborhood of Nørrebro (the neighborhood where I live) and then went to a mosque, also in Nørrebro but a bit further from the city center than my apartment.  In our exploration of the neighborhood, we mostly hit up locations that I have seen numerous times before – a square full of cool sculptures where an Italian tourist was stabbed a few years back, a church from which Iraqi refugees were brutally evicted by the Danish police, and the cemetary mentioned in my previous post.

The mosque visit was interesting as it was my first time ever being in a mosque.  I was a bit startled when, standing in front of an old warehouse, my professor declared that we had arrived at our destination.  I was expecting an ornate sort of temple, however small it might be.  I suppose that even in Washington, one doesn’t often see (or at least notice) mosques, so I really had no idea what to expect – I should have known that a truly mosque-like mosque would not be well-received with the Danes.  Still, in an agnostic country full of beautiful Lutheran churches that shimmer with gold, one would think a mosque could amount to more than renovated storage building.

We proceeded immediately to a library on an upper floor of the building where a scholar from the mosque delivered to us a PowerPoint presentation on Islam in Europe.  It was interesting to hear his point of view, particularly on Sharia law.  He seemed generally in favor of governing according to Sharia law, at least within the Muslim community.  He even expressed support for capital punishment, as it is prescribed by God in certain circumstances.  This really bothered me, as I am fiercely opposed to capital punishment and consider it rather barbaric.  Perhaps such beliefs are part of the reason why I struggle to accept religion as peaceful.

Karim (here I refer to the man who delivered the presentation, although that is also the name of my professor) went on to express support for certain minority-group rights – he seemed generally positive about the possibility of being tried under Sharia law in England.  I generally believe in equality before the law, which I consider to include the idea that everyone be tried under the same law.  If you happen to think that laws should be different f0r different ethnic communities in the same country, I suggest you challenge yourself and read this book, which explains how multicultural rights can have negative effects for women (Islamic laws, for example, certainly do not benefit women - imagine being forced to remain in a marriage in which you feel abused because a judge believes that God wants you to stay married!).  Still, it was interesting to hear from the perspective of an actual Muslim on the matter.  Previously, I had only ever discussed such things with other non-Muslims.

The presentation ran over the time limit, so I had to leave before we could finish touring the mosque.  I had been quite eager to see what the inside looked like as I only caught a glimpse.  I guess that means I’ll just have to find an excuse to go back to one, someday.

Halloween celebrations, mostly

Since returning from my long study tour in Belgium and the Netherlands, things have been moving at an awkward pace. It’s hard to focus on school when I’m so busy trying to coordinate my visits to Italy and France next month during our two week travel break. I’m also trying to make the most of Copenhagen now, since I’ll be gone for over two weeks of November, coming back to take finals and then going back to the US until January; I’m going to really miss my friends, both at DIS and from Denmark, while I’m gone from Copenhagen. Anyways, I thought I’d give an update on my life since coming back to Denmark over a week ago, and that means I am going to have to write a lot about Halloween. ‘Tis the season!

On Saturday, the day that I returned from Amsterdam, I met up with my friends Cheryl and André to go to Tivoli (the amusement park in Copenhagen) for the Halloween festivities. The park closes in early October each year and re-opens at the end of the month, fully decorated for Halloween. They had special foods at all of the concession stands, and there were an infinite amount of pumpkins in every possible location. The decorations – lots of scarecrows and jack-o-lanterns – were really cool, if not a bit tacky. Then again, tacky is sort of why I liked them, not only because I generally equate tacky with being fun, but also because it was so interesting to see the Danish interpretation of an American holiday. I think that they mostly got it right, but the focus was much more on autumn and the harvest than on gothic horror and haunted houses.

On this past Sunday, I met up with Cheryl again and we went for a walk around the famous cemetary near my apartment in Nørrebro. In the US, this might fit perfectly into my description of a month full of Halloween festivities, but I’m really reaching to include the visit in this post. The cemetary includes the graves of Hans Christian Andersen, Neils Bohr, Søren Kierkegaard, and other famous Danes (and some American jazz musicians!). The reason this doesn’t fit well into the creepy, ghoulish themes of Halloween is that the cemetary is really much more like a park than a zone full of dead bodies. There are lots of wide sidewalks lined symmetrically with trees, and many Danes take strolls through the park, pushing along their infants in carriages. It’s so picturesque and lovely – especially in autumn – that one can hardly think of it as frightening or saddening.

On Wednesday, I met up with some of my friends from DIS to carve pumpkins.  We went to my friend Hanna’s kollegium (a sort of Danish dormitory) and purchased pumpkins at a market nearby.  I found out that carving pumpkins is not so easy – I could barely make my knife carve in a straight line.  I guess I forgot that when I carved pumpkins in the past it was more like watching my father as he did the actual labor.  We roasted the seeds from our pumpkins and ended up eating almost all of them (that’s about a pumpkin’s worth of seeds each, mind you!), and we also made gluewine, a European holiday treat consisting of heated wine, cinnamon, sugar and other ingredients.  It was all great fun and reminded a lot of hanging out in actual dormitory back home, which is something I’ve missed in Copenhagen.  DIS sometimes feels more like an educational summer camp (minus the ’summer’ part), so it was great to have a college-y experience again.

Last night, I had dinner at Cheryl’s and we also made gluewine (this time with oranges!).  I think Copenhagen really does make people drink too much.

J’aime des gaufres.

I’ve been rather lazy about updating my blog this week, but it’s hard getting back into the swing of things. On Saturday (October 10) morning, I returned from my week-long study tour in Brussels, The Hague and Amsterdam, and since then I’ve been trying to get my sleeping and studying patterns back into a normal cycle.

The trip was overall fantastic. I won’t go into an hour-by-hour breakdown of the events as I did with the shorter study tour to Germany, simply because that would make this post almost unmanageably long. I will, however, give a rundown and general overview of everything that my class did.

We left by bus from Copenhagen to Brussels at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning and did not arrive in Brussels until about 11 p.m. after a few stops on the way for food. Our tour leaders were Frazer, a DIS intern, and Jacob, the professor of the European Union class with which I was on this tour. When we got to Brussels that first night, everyone was too tired to really do much but too restless to sleep, so we walked around the city in groups and admired the gorgeous night-time views of the city center. We checked into our hotel – Maison du Dragon – which was run by a Chinese family. It was actually a rather nice hotel, but it was on a street lined with porn shops and all of the newspapers and television programs in the hotel lobby were in Mandarin.

Every morning for the whole week, we woke up rather early (usually before 8 a.m.) to get dressed in business attire and have a quick breakfast in the hotel before heading off to a different EU insitution. On Monday, we went to the Council of the European Union and got to sit in one of the rooms where the ministers actually meet to hear a presentation. After visiting the Council, we went to Planete Chocolat, where a woman taught us about the fine art of chocolate making – and where I had the most amazing chocolate seashells and hot chocolate! Later that day, we toured the Cantillon Brewery, where I was not particularly interested in learning about the way beer is made, but I did find out that Belgian beers actually do taste quite good, even to someone who doesn’t much like beer (and according to the tourguide at the brewery, Belgian beer will not give you a hangover!). The Cantillon beer had a certain fruity flavor to it that made it quite drinkable. Our group then had dinner at Le Grand Café, where I had already gone with two friends for lunch. Lesson of the day: read the itinerary before heading out on your own.

On Tuesday morning, we went to the European Commission to hear another presentation from a woman who told us all about milk prices. We had already heard about milk prices the day before and would continue to hear about them all week. On Monday, there had been a huge demonstration outside of the Council building, where farmers were showing their anger about the “milk crisis” in the EU. (You have to understand that the EU has a Common Agricultural Policy.) The woman at the Commission seemed alarmingly bored with her life and was not thrilled to be giving us a presentation so early in the morning, but they offered us free coffee and orange juice, so I was more than content to be there, filling my veins with caffeine. That afternoon, we went to the Permanent Representation of Denmark to the EU. It was stiflingly hot in the room where the Dane gave his presentation, but I do remember that he was the epitome of a Dane – gorgeous, tall, blond, blue-eyed, physically fit, intelligent. I couldn’t help but wonder if Denmark had hand-picked their most Danish Dane to represent their national interests.

Wednesday was a great day because we got to sleep in, and the presentation we were to hear that morning was done in our hotel instead of across town and several Metro stops away. This presentation was from the US Mission to the EU, which is sort of like the United States’ embassy for the European Union. The two presenters mostly talked about what they do at the EU, which wasn’t particularly unique from any other function of the State Department. I think that people who didn’t know much about the State Department’s work found it informative, though, and the presenters were much more lively than the Danes we had been listening to all week. That afternoon, we had to interview political actors (meaning lobbyists) in small groups for a paper we wrote upon our return to Copenhagen. My group interviewed a reprsentative of the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union.

Wednesday night was also a great night because we went to Chez Leon for dinner – better known as “the place to eat mussels in Brussels.” I had never had mussels before, but I can safely say after this meal that they are delicious (just like everything else in Belgium, but more on that later). We had so much fun as a group stabbing the mussels, pulling them out of their shells and devouring them whole. I even got a second helping, and my friend, Heather, and I filled up a huge bowl with the shells of our mussels!

On Thursday, we had to be awake particularly early for our visit to NATO headquarters – so much for sleeping in the day before. Security was tight, and we couldn’t even get off the bus in the parking lot until someone came to fetch us and escort us to the security gate. We heard a presentation inside from an American, which was truthfully only milding interesting. That afternoon, we headed back into the city and visited the European Parliament to hear a presentation from a Danish MEP. It wasn’t the most exciting presentation ever, but I was excited to sit in the chamber of parliament where the MEPs actually convene, and the enormous glass building in which the parliament is located is stunning!

In all, I loved Brussels. I think that many of the students in our class were underwhelmed, which is especially understandable considering the awful rainy weather that we experienced for most of our stay. We had almost no time to sight-see, but I went with friends whenever we could squeeze in a few minutes, and we did see Mannekin Pis and the royal palace. Also, a major tourist attraction is Delirium Café, a bar that holds the Guinness World Record for having 2,004 beers in stock. We went there with Jacob on the first night, and the other group of EPS (our DIS program) students turned up with their tour leader and one of my all-time favorite people, Julia. It was at Delirium that I found out there is such a thing as cherry-flavored beer – delicious! Other than Delirium, I didn’t go out a whole lot in Brussels, but instead played drinking games with friends in the hotel and had late-night conversations. We did search in vain for a discotheque one night and almost went to a party with a group of Belgian college students we met on the streets, but in general we just stayed in the hotel. I don’t regret that as much as one would think – it was during our conversations in those hotel rooms that I felt as if I were not only hanging out with my DIS classmates, but actually making friends for life. There is something to be said for a group of Americans stuck together in a random situation – we really know how to bond with each other and make it meaningful.

The academic events in Brussels were not the best, as far as I was concerned. They were informative, to be sure, but every presentation we heard was from a Dane working at the EU. I understood that this must have been easier for DIS to coordinate given Jacob’s connections, but it would have been nice to hear the perspective of different member states, particularly powerful old members, like France and Germany, and poor new members, like Romania and Bulgaria. Still, going into the EU institutions and seeing how it’s all actually done in Brussels was potentially a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I don’t regret my decision to do this program at all.

I was glad for the opportunity to (successfully!) practice my French in Brussels, but my favorite part of the city aside from the great people and great memories had to be the food. The waffles were TO DIE FOR, and the pommes frites (French fries) more than live up to their reputation as the best in the world. The chocolate is fantastic, the beer is delicious, and the mussels were very tasty. Belgian waffles are particularly good because they are not crispy like American waffles, but soft and coated with a sugary glaze, and often eaten with ice cream, fruit, or chocolate on top. I’m pretty sure I could spend the rest of my life eating my way through Belgium.

On Thursday night, we left Brussels and headed to The Hague. Our hostel was disgustingly dirty, but as Jacob shared our collective disdain for the place, DIS paid for us to have several drinks at dinner that night. After dinner, I walked around with a group of friends and had a bit more to drink in some of the local bars. We wanted a discotheque, but the only one in the center of town was playing some kind of Jewish folk music that didn’t seem particularly appealing. I was surprised by two things about The Hague – one, that there were lots of beautiful skyscrapers (I pictured it as much quainter and traditional looking), and two, that there were lots and lots of people out and about on a Thursday night (I pictured it as a city full of rather mundane international lawyers).

The next morning, we went to a presentation from a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and afterwards, we got to witness part of the trial that was going on! This was probably the biggest highlight of the trip (well, other than the waffles). The prosecutor was interrogating a witness in the Ante Gotovina case. She slowly built up her case in proving that the witness had changed his previous statements solely to favor the accused – it was getting really dramatic right when we had to leave. I’m so glad I was able to see this, especially since the Court’s mandate will expire in the near future, and so few people ever get the opportunity to witness such a trial. I couldn’t believe that on the other side of the glass behind which we were viewing the trial sat a man who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. It was an experience I do not take for granted!

After the trial, we boarded a bus to Amsterdam. Here, we didn’t have anything academic planned, so after lunch and a canal tour of the city, we were free to go on our own. Amsterdam is really the most beautiful city I have ever seen! I had never really thought about going there – most Americans who go to Amsterdam go for the weed or the prostitutes, so it never occurred to me that there was actually a city worth seeing. The canals were gorgeous, and literally every street from any angle was photogenic and beautiful. In terms of appearance, I could not imagine a more perfect city. When we got there, Queen Beatrix drove by us in her motorcade! I went with a group of friends to the Anne Frank House, which was really moving (much more so, I think, than the Holocaust Museum in DC), and then when just walked around, took pictures on the Homomonument (a pink triangle that extends over one of the canals), and explored the red light district. Walking through the red light district really changed my perception of prostitution – my inner feminist was bleeding when it saw dozens of women standing behind glass windows, waiting to be purchased. It was as if they were no more than pieces of meat in the window of a butchershop! Still, even this could not detract from the beauty of Amsterdam and the wonderful experience that I had there. We even ended up eating dinner at an apparently famous restaurant by chance when a local pointed us to it after we asked him where we could get something to eat.

Overall, I really enjoyed the study tour. Sure, there were some downsides (not enough time to be a tourist, not enough time to meet the locals, early mornings and late nights, dressing up every day), but I had experiences that I could not have had without DIS, and I bonded with classmates who I will now always consider my friends.

Thank you for not smoking (when you get to America)

Having three midterms, one ten-page paper, one short answer exam, and no working computer has put me on a severe time limit this week, but I wanted to take a brief study break at the DIS computer lab to update everyone on what I’ve been doing since my last post.

On Saturday night, I went to a burlesque party at a hotel in Copenhagen with some of my European friends.  I was wearing a pretty conservative outfit compared to some of what we saw, although my suspenders did have the word ‘boy’ printed on their straps.  I obviously know how to stay classy while abroad.  The party was relatively dull because, in true Danish fashion, none of the guests wanted to socialize with people they didn’t already know.  We ended up leaving fairly early in the night, but on the way home my friend convinced me to go into one of Copenhagen’s sketchiest gay bars.  Mind you, we were still in full burlesque costume and had acquired some sparkling eye make-up from cosmetologists at the burlesque party.

I’ve spent most of the time since then studying, but I do want to highlight one of my favorite study abroad experiences thus far.  Yesterday, I went with students from my European Politics and Danish Politics classes to a local gymnasium (high school) to discuss the United States with some of the students there.  I love to hear about how other people perceive my culture and my country, so this was a real treat for me!

When we arrived at the gymnasium, we were paired up with Danish students who gave us a guided tour of their high school.  I have to say, it was much more like an American high school as depicted in teen comedies from the 1990s than any actual American high school.  They had a huge common room made of marble with beautiful statues in it, and according to the students, the high school threw monthly Friday night parties in the common room – with alcohol!  There were outdoor courtyards to eat in, foosball tables in the cafeteria, and everyone looked like a supermodel (even moreso than Danes who usually look like supermodels).  I’ve decided that the Danes don’t have awkward high school phases like Americans do – everyone looks and dresses like they’re in a fashion magazine pictorial from cradle to grave.

After our guided tour, we were paired into groups to discuss certain issues – national security, alcohol consumption, political systems, etc. – on which Denmark and the United States differ.  It was interesting to hear the students’ perspectives, but most of all I was excited to hear and answer their questions (and misconceptions) about the United States.

For me, this visit was especially interesting since all of the students we met were in the school’s American Studies program, which means that they are going to Washington, DC in March!  I immediately informed them that my university is located in Washington, DC and was happy to play the expert on local goings-on.  The first questions that every single one of them asked me was, ‘Is there a good nightlife in DC?  Will there be stuff for us to do?’.  When they told me that they were almost all 17 and would not turn 18 before their trip, I had to let them know that they were not going to experience very much nightlife in Washington.  While you still can’t drink at night clubs when you’re 18, you can at least get into some of the city’s venues.  The students also asked if they would be able to buy cigarettes, because almost all of them smoke and were worried about going a week without cigarettes.  I had to break it to them that they weren’t going to be old enough to purchase or smoke cigarettes, but that they might be able to have someone in the class buy for them, as long as they were sneaky.  It must be hard to go to a country with such strict rules; even though Danes seem to love following their society’s rules, they just don’t have the same kind of rules to follow.  I felt like I was telling them to break the law or something, but my conscience was put to rest when some of them informed me that they have already Googled information on fake IDs.  Danes are so on top of things.

After being a responsible adult and warning them of the high fines for using a fake ID in the US, I gave some of the students my e-mail address so that they could send me any questions they have about DC.  I really like talking to foreigners, and I really like talking about DC, so I hope that they contact me.  I’ll probably have to give them more tips on how to have fun in Washington (but I did refrain thus far from telling them where they can secure alcohol without being carded!).  Come to think of it, they all look older than I do and dress better than I can afford to, so maybe they’ll have fun after all.

Guess who’s coming to dinner

Since my MacBook Pro has decided that it doesn’t want to connect to WiFi and generally dislikes staying turned on even when its battery is fully charged, I’ve been forced to spend excessive amounts of time in the various computer labs at the DIS building.  While I am highly inconvenienced by having to make the half-hour trek to Vestergade every time I want to update my Facebook status, there are a few upsides to not having internet access.  For one thing, I’m getting exercise by walking to DIS so frequently, which wasn’t important to me until I discovered the chocolatflager cookies at Døgn Netto.  Also, I’m a bit more studious now that Heidi Montag’s tweets and the latest BBC News updates (obviously I regard each with equal importance) can’t distract me.  But the biggest bonus to not having internet access at home has been the friendships I’ve formed – or at least strengthened – in the DIS computer labs.

Americans like to complain, and they like to socialize with strangers.  Socializing with strangers who also want to complain about not having internet access is like a dream come true for an expat trying to forge new bonds.  This is how I’ve gotten closer to several DIS students in the computer labs – by complaining about my lack of internet.  One of these individuals is my friend Elisabeth.  We were using the computers on Friday afternoon when she turned to me and invited me to dinner at her aunt and uncle’s house.  You see, Elisabeth is a Danish American whose extended family still live in Denmark.

After making the train ride to her family’s house, I was already appreciating the offer.  It’s so interesting to venture out into suburban Copenhagen.  Not even twenty minutes from the city are farms, as I found out when I went too far on the bus from the train station and was waiting for Elisabeth at a bus stop next to fields full of cows and horses.  This might be reminiscent of my hometown in rural Pennsylvania, except that Danish farms are maintained for practical purposes and are generally not owned by gun-obsessed people wearing screenprinted wolf t-shirts.

I don’t know if our dinner was so typical of normal Danish life, but it certainly lived up to everything that DIS’s pre-departure literature said a dinner here would be.  We started out by snacking and talking to Elisabeth’s uncle as he prepared dinner, and when we finally sat down around the table, there were an almost endless amount of courses to work our way through.  Every bite was delicious, and this is coming from someone with rather unusual self-imposed dietary restrictions.  We even ended with raspberry cheesecake, which confirmed the meal as an epic success.

It was really intersting to talk to Elisabeth’s family.  So far, I have only met younger Danes (other than my professors), and many of them are not even ethnic Danes but rather European Union citizens living and working in Copenhagen.  I couldn’t be happier knowing these people, but I was interested in hearing how other types of Danes viewed their society, as well as my society.  It was reassuring to hear that they were largely in support of their universal health care.  I had previously feared that, like in the US, socialist ideals were almost exclusively popular with younger people, although this was probably a ridiculous concern considering the general leftist worldview of the Danish people.

All in all, it was one of the best nights I’ve had so far in Denmark, and one of the most interesting cultural experiences.  I guess the moral of the story is that if you have to go without internet while abroad, turn it into a social event.