Dansk Marguerite

So it’s been a while since the semester has ended, but in the interest of creating a complete account of my semester (for future me to look back on) I have to include the last few days. In fact, I think these days were the most important.

First of all, I FINALLY saw Christiania in the daylight (which I would do two more times before leaving Copenhagen). 

Erica and Morgan let me tag along

I liked a lot of the artwork and buildings, but overall was not really impressed. And pusher street, where everyone buys weed, is not exactly the friendliest place on Earth. Especially now that I know it’s run by gangs.





Side note: Pusher street, aka the “green light” district, is a no photo zone. Much to the dismay of pretty much everyone who goes there. It is a sight to behold.

After that adventure, it was time to head out to yet another football match! This time it was FCK vs. Standard League (a team from Belgium) in the UEFA playoffs.

The ceremonial lifting of the UEFA banner… or something

I had gotten tickets with my friend Tim (from dansk class) and met up with his friends at an American diner over by Kulør Bar for dinner before the game. We all ordered chicken strips and caesar salads (instead of house salads) which were served to us as fried chicken on top of caesar salads. Miscommunication, I think. Oh well.

We took a bus (full of Belgians) to Parken for the game. Caroline (one of Tim’s friends) actually speaks French so she was translating their conversations for me. Apparently a Danish girl on the bus had her last name (Vincent) tattooed on her knuckles, which happened to be some Belgian guy’s first name. They got a kick out of that one.

So Tim, Asa, Matt, Caroline, Bene and I made our way to the game and sat up in the balcony (like last time). We tried to stay warm and watched ourselves some football. Unfortunately, FCK lost 1-0, but all Tim and I wanted was to see a goal, we never specified who would score it.

It was cool to get to know some new people, but sad that it was the end of the semester! Bene and I lived in the same kollegium (even knew the same people) and our paths had never crossed. Asa and I probably spent half the game talking about baseball (he’s a Red Sox fan) and Minnesota (both his parents are from there). Maybe he’ll make his way out to their homeland and I can show him a real baseball stadium (jk, Fenway’s pretty cool I GUESS).

It was a good night. Even though we lost.

I got up bright and early the next morning (although 50 minutes late) to pick up my parents from the airport. Brought them to my humble abode, made breakfast, and went on a preliminary tour of the city. Checked into the super nice Hotel Kong Arthur that sits on the canal that borders Nørrebro.

We had open-faced sandwiches and Julebryg for lunch (sooo Danish) and I split for the closing ceremony. It was long and long. The speeches went on and on. The student speakers were pretty interesting, but the adults could have learned a thing or two. They had a mini-graduation for the seniors who were finishing their degrees at DIS.

Later, I ran into Tim at the “champagne reception” at Studenterhuset:

Daisy, I was so afraid that you were one of those graduating seniors. I’m glad you weren’t, because could not imagine anything more depressing than having your college graduation followed by a sing-along of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

He has a point. It was not the classiest ceremony I’ve ever been to, despite the many performances by the DIS Strings, who are assembled from students at the Royal Academy of Music. They tried to do a danish sing-along as well, which was hilarious to witness. But an hour and a half later it was over and we were all rushing to Studenterhuset for snacks and goodbyes…

First of all, the place was packed and the champagne was cheap. But did I mind? No. All that mattered was that many (but not nearly enough) of my DIS friends were gathered in one place so I could say farewell to them. Schuyler and I had a nice chat about our Campaigns project and about his goal to sneak ten bottles of champagne out of the party. I’m going to miss his shenanigans.

Saying goodbye to my HCA friends (from Bates) was pretty sad. Seeing them throughout the semester could always brighten my day:

Hank, Steph, me, Ansley

I found a couple more of my blog readers. I guess they enjoyed my recount of that wonderful weekend on Funen. Thanks guys :)
Saw the crew from the FCK game and said goodbye.

I’m going to pretend I think you’re gross for the next five minutes so we don’t have to say goodbye.

Despite his attempt, Tim and I ended up hugging it out. It was pretty epic. Dansk class would not have been the same without him.

Speaking of that class, I ran into Rachel U on a few occasions but we never got our official goodbye hug. At that point we were still hoping for a Chili Mili date or something. Rach, if you’re reading this, I hope we stay in touch. Keep blogging… and taler lidt dansk. Jeg er single!

Finally, it was the last time I was going to see Emily, which made me ver ver sad. Throughout CT and CCM she was there, rolling her eyes along with me. Since I was too sad to say goodbye at the reception, I asked her to come over and make dinner with the Keops crew so we could hang out as long as possible.



After saying goodbyes and making the rounds a few times, Emily, Erica, Morgan, Alex and I made our way back to Keops to use up the rest of our food. Dinner consisted of multiple types of veggies, pastaroni, chicken nuggets and spaghetti/red sauce. Plus, crackers, Garlan, Pringles, fruit, and Skittles. Random, I know.

It was quite the emotional day. Worlds collided with my parents coming to Copenhagen, and I was excited/relieved to finally have them there, but I was also facing the reality of my friends leaving and the semester truly being over. Needless to say, I had a few weak moments; especially while I was only barely managing our eclectic feast, and when I was leading my parents through a mildly unfamiliar part of town with all their luggage… in the rain. But I survived the lowest lows and could ride the highs for the rest of the week. I took my parents all over the city and made it back to America safe and sound.

Maybe soon I’ll truly be able to reflect on the semester and come up with some lessons learned, maybe even some good reverse culture-shock anecdotes, but for now I’m going to look back fondly and try to move forward as the person I have become. Thank you to everyone I met along the way. I am forever changed and will never forget you or any of the adventures we had together. To all of my DIS friends who have now spread out all over the country, and to my beloved Copenhagen, I hope we can be reunited someday. I look forward to seeing you again.

I got up relatively painlessly at 9:30 this morning and was at DIS studying with Jean by 10:30. Pretty impressive, I think. We talked through everything, with a cameo by Jake at the end. By the time we hit noon I felt good about the material. Let’s do this.

I walked into the exam room and was immediately greeted by three slightly hung over friends who wanted to know what happened last night. Apparently everybody had been fuzzier than they (or I) had thought. Luckily, I had nothing very interesting to report.

The exam was 13 questions, with the last one worth 30% of the grade. WOAH. It didn’t really matter though, I felt comfortable answering everything. After the disappointing Current Trends/Danish grades it will be nice to have a couple nice, shiny A’s to round it out. (Sorry if that’s overconfident of me, I know Jante would be disappointed…)

Speaking of which, I returned home today with my final CCM grade in my inbox. Holy crap was that a good way to wrap up my last day of term. Having someone you respect (and may have a total teacher-crush on) compliment your work and understanding of the material, not to mention all that teamwork feels good. The commentary on my presentations was icing. Being called the “biggest surprise” of the semester, while unusual (because it’s hard to get me to shut up most of the time) was a bright red cherry on top. Thanks for the great semester, and the enormous ego boost, teach :)

The afternoon was made even better by lunch at Pizza Sandwich with Alex, Ken and Kate (the Carls). I caught him up on the week’s activities and we both got to enjoy not worrying about any more finals.

My reward once I got back was watching the Glee Christmas special, which was totally precious and I’m really glad I have it to watch over and over during break. It definitely gets me in the holiday spirit!

I also started a little disassembling and packing. Went through and sorted out old notes/handouts to be recycled, took down all my wall decorations, and (just for fun) looked through all the notes/letters/photos I brought to remind me of home…

THEN it was time for an event over two months in the making! Yes, we finally had dinner at Valby. I know I met a few of them at brunch last month, but it’s exciting to go see them in their natural habitat. I hear SO much about them. We all gathered in the kitchen to make tacos while a bunch of the other Valby residents were making their dinners, which made for quite the evening.

Canada remembered me from brunch, she’s just SO nice. No wonder Americans get advised to say they’re Canadian. They’re like Aussies with milder accents. Speaking of which, there are also many Aussies in Denmark, evident by the four or five who we met in Valby tonight… Plus I was reintroduced to Maria (Spain) and Finland. Once again, I laughed as he was being introduced because Erica realized he was the cute one. She just looks at me, wide eyed, and says, “Finland.” I lost it. So did she. We are crack addicts.

I met Norway, Portugal, Frenchie (who I have a total girl crush on, along with every person who has ever met her) and another American. I am so SO terrible with names, but at least I got countries down, right?

“Hey Sebastian, are you stealing my internet?”

“No, I’m playing Angry Birds.”

Apparently Norway got a kick out of us butchering dansk. I mean, the language itself is amusing to Swedes and Norwegians because it’s like “speaking with a potato in your mouth” but I’ll bet our interpretation is even more ridiculous. He was sitting on the couch, playing Angry Birds and smirking at our sad attempts.

We sat and talked for hours. It was maybe one of the best nights I’ve had all semester. Very relaxed but it never really got dull. There are so many people buzzing in and out of the kitchen, the stimuli never stop. Everybody was studying for (or procrastinating exams), including one girl who was preparing for a test in a class she’s never actually gone to. That’s brave.

Time feels like it’s flying too fast now. I only have one more day to prep for my parents arriving. Everybody is going home this weekend. I have to be out of my dorm on Monday. SLOW DOWN. I need to breathe a little.

In.

Out.

Today I reread my plane letters from August. Instead of making me cry, this time they put a warm, fuzzy sense of excitement in my tummy. There are some very wonderful people waiting for me back home, people I will be reunited with in eight short days.

In order to maintain my motivation, I have a few of those cards propped up on my desk now. They will remind me why I am leaving this paradise; I have been blessed with these people in my life and I just can’t bear to be away from them any longer.

Gee, what did I do on Tuesday?

I studied for my exam finished season 2 of American Dreams and took a three to four hour nap. Yeah, that happened. Mostly because it could. I was not too worried about my exam.

Erica and her friend Morgan wanted to go out for a drink, whilst Morgan from Comm wanted me to join the rest of our (awesome) class for one last Kulør Tuesday. So I did both! 

We headed out to The Globe and snagged our little alcove from last time. Erica and I split a cider and Morgan got to try her first Carlsberg! I think hard cider is possibly the best thing to ever happen to alcoholic beverages, but Erica has had a hard time finding it in the States. Here’s hoping that The Local/Kieran’s stock it. That’s my best bet!

Then I headed over to Kulør by myself (so brave) around 11:30. Walked all the way there, didn’t get lost once. The place was PACKED. We had to squeeze in to the main part of the dance floor, I was getting stepped on and it was one big hot mess. Morgan, Regan and MC were there, along with Taylor, Sarah, Maddie, Linda, Jenna, Lindsay, Jack and Jake.

Nina too, but she’s not in the Comm B crowd. She is, however, in JvPR and we had noon exam the next day.

I saw lots of people from all throughout the semester: Alix and Schuyler from CCM, Kate from Greece, Tim and Rachel from dansk, Nadav from Keops, people all over the map. It was awesome. After getting a little tired of the crowds, I hung out on the periph with M and Kelsey (from Olaf) and danced like a maniac. Then, all of a sudden in was 2am and Morgan was ready to leave.

Fun fact: There is not a soul on Strøget at 2:30am on a Tuesday. I walked, alone, all the way to Nørreport (I felt more like a stroll than a metro ride) and probably only saw a total of four people. Crazy.

Got to Nørreport, which at this point has bus lanes all rearranged because of construction. As I walked up to what I thought might be the right stop, an 81N pulled away. That sounded familiar.

I walked by McDonalds and, coincidentally, Alix and Lindsay! They said hi and as I walked away, the guy outside McDonalds turns to them, points at me, and says:

Is her name really Daisy?

Side note: At Kulør, Regs introduced me to a couple guys she met, one American named Mike (or something) and his Danish roommate. I told the American my name and he turns to his roommate and says my name is “Stacy.” No, sir. It’s not. One thing I will miss about Danes is that here “Daisy” is more likely than fricking “Stacy.” I get that they are similar in a loud room, and I don’t blame anyone for getting it wrong, but it was nice to have people get it right on the first try for a change. (By the way, this is how some people end up serial killers.)

As I stood there, waiting for the next bus to come, several people decided I was the expert and asked me what was coming there. Once in english, once in danish, once in a language I did NOT recognize. The latter party eventually typed “81N” on his iphone so I nodded and pointed at the ground. In fact, the exact bus I needed stopped right in front of me after about ten minutes. Turns out I my life goes more smoothly alone than with other people! (Proof: Ireland)

Got home around 3am and needed a shower REAL bad. A 3:30 bedtime is not exactly IDEAL preparation for a final exam, but you only get a last Kulør, in Denmark with a bunch of your friends, once, right? (Unless you’re Cedric, then you get it about three times).