Friday 3 September 2010

Rollar Coster Week

Wow. This week blinked by but looking back, it was so full of activity!
to fill you in on what I left out about Tuesday (tirsdag).
After a day full of classes I wandered the city centre for a few hours and ended up at to what I have come to think of as "my fountain" in the royal gardens park. Studying in such a beautiful place is hard but worth it because the atmosphere is so happy.


Today, the city was alive with music! everywhere I went, my hears wear exposed to some kind of tune. Just in the hours walking around I encountered a young blues soloist who rocked on this guitar,
a man playing some instrument I'd never seen before but it sounded like a mix between a harp and a drum? (idk, but i liked it!)
Choir students that sounded AMAZING!!!!! Their voices were so harmonic and clear! This picture is a far cry from the beauty the group produced.
A group of older men getting down in a square :) people were actually dancing around them
All of this was just on the way to the park.
After a while, Justin met me in the gardens and we went to a pub where I'd heard a jazz trio would be playing. Yay for Carlsberg beer, good jazz, nachos and a bartender/owner named Charlie who watches (and shows on the pubs TVs) American football on Sundays!!  :):):)
After more exploring and a trip to the Netto to find some sack lunch foods, we headed home. But not before we found a couple more musical performances to enjoy.
a taste of Spanish guitar on one street and the accordion on the next
I went home on a cloud of music and even homework couldn't bring me down :)

Wednesday My Danish Language and Culture class took a trip to Christiania, a completely autonomous  community of about 1000 people living in their own little commune who live by their own rules and ideas.
It was founded in 191 by hippies and today it is the second largest tourist attraction in Copenhagen. People go their to learn about the alternative way of life, buy a special Christiania bike or buy their marijuana (It is legal in the Christiania but now where else in Copenhagen.) The street called pusher street is where the hash is sold and apparently it is famous? There is currently a lot of political discussion surrounding Christiania and if the community should be allowed to stay the way it is or if changes must be made. If you want to know more, look up Christiania on YouTube and there should be some videos.
this is on the back of the entrance sign, so for people who are leaving Christiania.




Dad, heres another motorcycle to add to your garage :)
a school and play area

our class is nice a small! only 12 girls and we are all in the Child Development program so we can focus more on language we can use with the kids


a birdhouse for mom, i think this bird hotel is a bit fancier than ours. the shot of tons of birdhouses all in one tree earlier was also for you :)
 
afterwards our teacher, Susanne, bought us all ice cream :) and we ate it overlooking a canal
Jstuin and i had an adventure to the Black Diamond Library that afternoon. A huge library down by the water.
 
dana this is for you- we found this in a little courtyard. Its like a toy version of the training thing that Kel learned to tilt on in the books. haha it was really funny and totally random!

Thursday was my first day at my practicum and Iwish I were feeling better so I could tell you about it better.
I worked in a classroom of mostly four yearsold but with a couple 3 and 5 year olds as well.
After playing for a bit with a small group of kids (with tiny nails and hammers and hamering shapes into a corkboard) it was field trip time.
The next few hours found me amazed by the whole outing. 28 little kids and 7 adults took at 45 minute walk and short metro trip into the centre of the city to go to the childrens film festival going on this week. After watching two short films, and having having lunch, we headed back for a short nap time and outside play. The differences in how this trip progressed verses how a similar day would go in an American school was really interesting to consider.
I made lots of new friends this day. I love how comfortable the children are with their teachers. From the moment I got there until I left i constantly had a child or two holding my hand, crawling in my lap or talking to me (in a language i could not understand but that didnt seem to matter to them :) ) At separate times, two different teachers commented on how well i was fitting in with the kids and how they could see that the kids loved me already. this was such a great first day!!!!!
as a treat, i stopped in an icecream shop on my way home (and tried basil icecream!) When i went to pay, she didnt have enough change in the draw for the bill i had so she just gave me my vanilla and hazelnut ice cream for free! It was a cherry on top of a special day.:)
Around 630 our SRA came over to show us how to cook some traditional danish food, it was all VERY different, she wrote out the menu in danish but hasnt sent us a translation yet. The meal included new kind of potato salad, some traditional openfaced sandwhiches with liver patte and pickled beets, another with a fish,apple and curry mix, and another with egg, bacon and something else. We also had boiled potatoes with a parsley gravy and some kind of really thick bacon. Dessert was the best part, a milky vanilly yogurt poured over vanllia cracker/cookies.
So many new flavors!

Friday= lot of classes, a test (already?!?) and me feeling very sick.
By the afternoon I had no voice and a fever starting. Justin and I searched for soup as soon as we got out of class. and found a WONDERFUL cheap tomato soup with fresh bread :)
i came home a passed out for a few hours beforw waking up and drowing myself in lemonand honey water and trying to eat the danish version of top ramen.
We are heading to Ikea tomorro with DIS so hopefully im feeling better, I guess we'll see.

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