As I said last post, I went on my "short study tour" to Western Denmark this past weekend with my European Business Strategy class. After visiting Saxo Bank and Nilfisk vacuum company, we started heading west and our bus arrived in Randers, Denmark 4 hours later. The drive was beautiful, through quaint towns and rolling countryside. Here are a few pictures of the drive.
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| lighthouse and cottage on the coast |
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| Most of Denmark is powered by these wind turbines |
Randers, Denmark, the first town we stayed in, was pretty much deserted. We were told it was where the "redneck Danes" live, so you can imagine that this was a very different place from Copenhagen. After checking into our hostel and havinig a quick dinner we went to "Randers Legeland," which looked to us like a hotspot for a ten year olds birthday party. If you can believe it I actually participated in Sumo Wrestling in huge sumo suits, mechanical bull-riding, human foosball, and gladiator. It was the randomest night of my life, but surprisingly fun!
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| For the record, I went 3 for 3....new hidden talent! |
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| biggest slice of pizza I'd ever seen! Split that baby 4 ways |
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| Burmese Python! |
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| If Britney can do it, I can do it! |
After the zoo we headed to Odense, Denmark; the third largest city. I went to a cute cafe for dinner with two girls from UVA ; only problem was that the menu was completely in Danish. Thinking I was ordering a light meal of fresh Bruschetta that would look like this...
I ended up with this...
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| heart attack on a plate Bruschetta is apparently a little different in Denmark.. |
Our professor actually lead the charge out to the bar that night and hung out with us the whole time! Its pretty cool we got to know our professor better over a few beers at a club...definitely different than UVA. Here is a picture of me with two girls from UVA who I met over here and am actually going to do some travelling with them.
The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and went to see the Hans Christian Anderson Museum located in the house he grew up in. The town was very quaint and beautiful. HCA is known for many childhood stories, The Little Mermaid, Ugly Duckling, and the Princess and the Pea among the most well known. The Danes LOVE this guy...I would say UVA's love for Thomas Jefferson times 2.
Next stop was a castle tour and micro-brewery visit in a small town in Jutland. The castle was beautiful, and we got to taste a variety of local beers and learned a lot about the industry. It was a great way to finish the trip! We all enjoyed the trip a lot, but were very anxious to get back to the bustle of Copenhagen. I was surprised at how much I missed the city even being away for only 3 days!
In a spur of the moment decision, Cally, Alex and I decided to go see Citizen Cope play in the city Saturday night after we got back. He was great but the concert was very, very bizarre. For the entire concert, the crowd was dead silent. When people tried to talk or sing along during the concert they were actually getting "shushed" to be quiet; a drastically different concert experience than in the states! And one that we were not ready for, since we were constantly getting yelled at for singing along..oops :)
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| front row! |
Overall, it was a great weekend! Class this morning was a snap back to reality, especially since my alarm didn't go off for my 8:30 class. After my roomate woke me up at 8:45 I had to literally run to class.. and had a very near colision with 2 angry bicyclists...Danes are serious about jaywalking.
That's all for now! I'm having dinner at my Danish family's house on wednesday, so I'll let you know how that goes!
xoxoxxox
Kelly
p.s. Mary I am so jealous of your weather! Scandinavia is still chilly as ever.
Countdown: Paris in 3 days!!!
Hi Kelly! Looks like you're having an awesome time....keep the pictures and stories coming....we'll be following along now that we know about the blog!
ReplyDelete- Cousin Daniel (aka "favorite cousin Daniel")