christiania

Christiania, or the Freetown of Christiania... is a residential area unlike any other in Denmark. This mess of historic military buildings, makeshift housing and ramshackle businesses... is home to approximately 1,000 people...
Up until 1961, the 101-acre site that Christiania now occupies was an army barracks. When the army moved out, a group of like-minded Christianshavn residents decided to knock down the fence... and access the land as a playground and open space. Meanwhile, an exhibition... which examined the hippie movement, and an alternative lifestyle newspaper... galvanized Copenhagen's experimentalists. The paper ran an article on the barracks with various proposals for its use, including as housing for the young. This was all the encouragement that hundreds of 'dropouts' from across Denmark needed and soon the site began to fill up. On November 19, 1971, the new residents founded what they like to call the Freetown of Christiania, although it was promptly declared illegal by the authorities. However, the number of residents had already grown to the extent that, despite their best and often most violent efforts, the police failed to clear the barricades.  
In subsequent years, the community formed its own system of government, built schools, shops, cafes, restaurants, various cooperatives and music venues, and embarked on recycling programs and nascent solar- and wind-power projects. 
Christiania is unique. Until very recently it was a community that existed within Copenhagen, but outside of its laws and conventions... Christiania has been under threat like never before... and the first casualty was the world-famous Pusher Street, where soft drugs were being sold openly from stalls like market produce. 
In January 2004 Christiania voted to tear down the booths selling ready rolled spliffs, cannabis resin and other soft drugs - before the government ordered the police to do it forcibly...
Flower power staggers on in Christiania and, by way of evidence, no wall is left undaubed with murals, graffiti and, well, daubs, and large, shaggy dogs of indeterminate breed roam unhindered.
-  Time Out: Copenhagen

sorry for the long background information but i thought you should all know the story about the place where i was today :)

today was a beautiful day! one of the coldest so far but the sun was shining for the first time since i've been here. apparently there was an hour of sunlight on thursday, but being my day off, i had slept through the entire day only to have the sun set within half an hour of waking up. gahh i don't like the short winter days here.

my friend and i went to explore the "hippie commune" of denmark. unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside the free state so no pictures! you just have to come here and see for yourself or just keep thinking that it's too good to be true.

christiania (aka hippe commune) is only a small part of a larger island called christianshavn but the entrance into the free state is marked by their own little gate. as soon as you enter, you can smell the hash (what they call it in denmark) everywhere and it is completely different from the rest of copenhagen. groups of people are hovering over trash cans on fire for warmth as well as to light their "doobies" as my friend likes to call it. and they have their own little version of the fun factory with a booth selling spray paint in front. we didn't get to see the residential area but we stopped in to try their own beer named after themselves, christiania.

copenhagen is very small and you can probably walk around it in a day. denmark in general is small. it takes about 3 hours to cross the entire country from east to west. if you fall asleep on the train, you could also very easily end up in sweden in literally one or two train stops. everything is so clean and automatic (no chance of swine flu here). almost all cars are manual and most foods are organic. that is probably why the danes are such tall, beautiful, gorgeous people. i have yet to see an ugly person... even among the older people. and for the amount of beer they drink, they are beer-gut-less (although they say the nation is getting larger as a whole and by larger i mean fat). if i bring back anything, it'll definitely be a higher tolerance for beer. don't be fooled! most danish women can outdrink american men for sure.

and the jayz song was on...
really! they love "empire state of mind" here. it's always playing. yes... they are very up to date with our music and our movies. even the danish bands sing in english so i could very well live in copenhagen :)

the thorup hansen family

today i met the entire thorup hansen family (my host family). but i forgot to take a picture of them. oops!

my address is kirsebaervaenget 8B, 2970 horsholm. try saying that!

knud arnum hansen | he is the father and is 54 years old. he likes to play bridge (the card game) and likes to watch handball
lene thorup | she is the mother and is also 54 years old. she is the most fluent in english and works part time at a nursery
grandpa hansen | he is an architect, engineer, and carpenter and he has his own wood shop where he makes really thin bowls and tables. it's amazing
grandma hansen | she's just wonderful
jakob thorup hansen | he is the youngest of three children at 20 years old. he is the only child living in the house and he works at a school with 3rd graders. he likes soccer and playstation 3
mads thorup hansen | he is the oldest son at 25 years old and he just graduated from college today (danish school system is completely different so don't ask)
katrine thorup hansen | she is the oldest child and only daughter at 27 years old (same as my brother) and she is getting married on the day that i leave copenhagen!

today i finally met my other fellow carnegie mellon students. yay! now i have friends :)
and look what i found today...

double yay!
and i have no class tomorrow... woo!

(fyi... there are 660 students in this program and 116 are in the architecture+design program and 30% are living with host families and there are 11 different programs to study)

great danes

here are some interesting things i've learned about the danish people and their kingdom...

[] denmark is a welfare society and the kingdom of denmark includes greenland as well. denmark is made up of 460+ islands! there is water everywhere, it's very green, and the people are extremely environmentally aware.

[] danes do not do small talk. especially in the morning. most danes do not like to wake up early in the morning (yay!) and so become very quiet and introverted.

[] danes are very blunt and direct. it's not meant to be rude but that is how they are. it can be misunderstood as rudeness but they don't understand why americans feel the need to sugarcoat anything.

[] there is some crazy obsession with 7-11 here. there is one starbucks in all of denmark, which is in the copenhagen international airport. the next closest one is in germany. and yet, they have 7-11's on almost every corner... its frequency is at the level of starbucks in manhattan.

[] danes have a high tolerance of trust in each other. they lock the wheels of the bike but do not lock the bike frame to anything. they just lean it in the bicycle racks and it never gets stolen. that's strong :)

[] tip is not needed because minimum wage is about $20/hr. thus service is very limited in terms of how often waiters and bartenders come around. danes are very slow and laidback. they like to spend 15 min. reading their menu discussing what everyone is ordering. so when danes go to the u.s. they find our waiters to be very pushy.

[] danes are very comfortable walking around nude in their homes (though my host family doesn't do so, thank goodness) and it is socially acceptable for boys and girls to sleep over each other's homes. my host mother thinks i should have a night out with the boys (my danish brother and friends) and thinks it's totally fine to leave my danish brother and i on our own for a week while they vacation in india. i can't cook but apparently he's very good at ordering pizza :)

[] there is actually a football team in copenhagen (which was odd) but they mostly play handball and soccer so the yankees jeter shirt as a gift was a complete fail. my danish brother had no idea who they were but i reassured him that jeter was the best out there. and apparently south korea is amazing in handball.

dis (the study abroad institute) offers optional study tours and adventure trips for additional costs. some are academic and some are just for fun. but most of them are unaffordable for me. but they sound awesome like skiing for 8 days on the french alpes. however, there are more economic one-day trips. yay! so i have learned that lego was invented in denmark and the original legoland is here! must see.

i have also tried the popular open-face sandwiches of denmark. they are literally open sandwiches. i have also tried wienerbrod which is a danish pastry, very croissant-like. i have yet to try the infamous herring known to denmark.

tomorrow is the last day of orientation and thursday is the first day of classes... but i have no thursday classes!!! woo :)

thinking ahead, i feel terrible about having to miss dinner with the family because of loads of studio work. i hope this will be enough incentive for me to get my work done. i hope two days of no classes will help me better manage my time and reduce the number of all-nighters this semester.

bicycle nation

the bicycle culture in copenhagen is one of the greatest things i've ever seen. the city truly deserves to be called the bicycle nation. EVERYONE rides a bike: old men, young men, men in suits, women in heels, women in fur coats, students, children, mothers, mothers with babies... everyone. and they ride it ALL THE TIME regardless of rain, ice, snow, hail, sleet, hurricanes, tornadoes (maybe not the last two)... nothing will stop them. most of the bikes also have baskets in the front and rear for briefcases, bookbags, groceries, babies, almost anything. just the diversity of the cyclists' population alone deserves documentation.

it had snowed overnight and it continues to be cold. it feels like copenhagen is just beginning its winter while new york is getting warmer :(

today was another orientation day filled with opening ceremonies, tours, survival danish, and textbooks. the textbook rental was so efficient: you hand them your list of courses and they hand you a gigantic blue ikea bag with all your textbooks ready for you. american universities totally need to adopt this method.

as if they're not awesome already, my host mother packed me a sandwich for lunch, walked me to the bus stop, picked me up from the bus stop, and greeted me with a tight squeeze and asked about my day. i feel like a child again :)

# of times i got lost today: 2 (and i presume it will only increase)

walking on sunshine...?

6 hours to london...

10 hours waiting in london...

2 hours to copenhagen...

i'm finally here!
... on the coldest and gloomiest day in copenhagen :(

it makes me wonder why i left pittsburgh for a european replica...

...two words: host family ♥

why my host family is amazing:

1. they recognized me at first sight... saving us the awkwardness of staring at each other wondering if i was her and they were them

2. they walked me to my classrooms... which was out of the way, 15 miles away from their home, in freezing cold windy weather

3. they want to play american taboo... regardless of the fact that danish taboo exists and english is not their native language

4. they gave me a bike to ride... and spent hours fixing the broken lights and readjusting the seat height for tiny little me

5. they tried to teach me danish... epic fail

6. they are design-forward

7. they will show me traditional danish life... although they are not typical danes and eat thai chicken curry for dinner

8. they scoped out every korean restaurant in copenhagen... there are three!!!

9. they picked out posters for my room but waited for me to put it up together

10. they want to make me a dance room... hahaha

11. they color coded which towels everyone use

12. they want to make me a dog tag with our home address... in case i get lost

13. they always wait for everyone at the table before eating

14. mom cooks, dad & son do the dishes

15. we sit, drink tea & eat biscuits, listen to bloodhound gang and the beatles... lol

an otherwise gray and gloomy day, my host family brought out the sunshine today :)

and my favorite part about travelling is... foreign currencie$$$! so pretty ♥