last weekend in april

i went for a run over down grondels parkvej to a lake and around the lake. cute little goslings. GORGEOUS weather.
i came back home and did some homework.
i went into osterbro. i went back to the danish resistance museum because i wanted to look at the pics and stuff more than we had time to during the guided tour on wednesday. i walked through churchill park which was very pretty. there is a big windmill. i walked around kastellet which is where the army and special intelligence is house but there are battlements in the shape of a star that you can walk on and see a ways. its right near the water. very pretty.
it started to rain which was odd becuase it had been really sunny and warm.
i went back home and did more writing of papers and reading. i called home.
i had dinner with ida and jens. karen was at a sort of prom (gala fest) at her school. we were going to have steak but ida went to a friends house and jens fell asleep so we ended up getting pizza to eat. ida and jens have many friends that they keep in touch and go visit.
i watched the holiday which is a cute movie. i talked with molly, mccurdy and megan online. they are all doing well.
sunday i did lots of work again. i went running with ally and jessie around the lakes and in faelledparken. we had a nice chat while we were running.
i had dinner with the host family. we had steak, potatoes, veggies and a rhubarb crisp for dessert. they didn't put berries in with the rhubarb like we usually do in the states.

• went for a run down the canal by the black diamond library. went to class. learned about the welfare state (govt. provides education, healthcare and social security for the people with money the people provide by insurance, family based, or by taxes, individual based. democracy, solidarity and egalitarianism are all important to the welfare state. the US is not a welfare state we decided. in enviro history we also learned about the welfare state. democracy is ok for the environment bc people complain and make the government improve living conditions. it is hard to reconcile the desire for continued economic growth and conservation policies. in danish we had a group presentation about sexuality in the DK, China and the US. prostitution is legalized here abortion is legalized and you can have a registered partnership. China there is a one child policy. you can have one child and then you must use a form of birth control.
  we a good discussion about women's rights and the usefullness of sex edc. in schools.
• after danish i met briefly with my group for edc. to work on our group exam.
  
• ashley emily and i went to the galathea to meet one of emily's teachers (emily is taking marine bio) who was on the ship when it was doing research from australia to the soloman islands. the harbor is near the little mermaid.
• i had dinner on my own. my host family is all off. karen at a promlike dance, jens sailing and ida with a friend.
  

I went to the forest for practicum today but elizabeth stayed at the school because she wanted to leave earlier to be with her dad. we went on a tour of the forest. there were red snails and a pond to explore, a stick structure to climb over, and a rope swing to swing on (to Mars). interestingly the pedagog just kept walking didn't really pay attention to whether the kids were all there behind him or running ahead. amazingly the kids did keep up and stopped if they got to far ahead without being asked. a group of boys was playing a very involved and in depth star wars make believe. i pushed a girl and a boy who kept taking turns on a rope swing back at the site.we made potato pancakes and cooked them over a fire. the pedagog asked me to get a ladle but they didn't know that word so she asked for a spoon with a cup on the end. i had a nice talk with the pedagogs about their philosophy and how they go about planning. one of the pedagogs made a compost hole for the food waste. evidence of the environmentally friendly nature of the school. also one of the pedagogs got angry at the kids for putting paper in the bins where the washclothes they use to dry thier hands are supposed to go. one boy got sick to his stomach, a girl hit her head on the tree, and another boy had an eye infection. the day was full of excitement. three of the girls were making a mess with mudpies and generally not listening so they were punished by sitting by themselves and facing opposite directions.
i went to dinner on nyhavn (elizabeth's dad's treat b/c he's visiting). emily also came i had salmon, pasta and a tomato sauce. i also tried some of the mussels that we got to share.

number the stars

What a wonderful day I've had. I went running down Grodal's Parkvej which is a new path sort of near my house by the S-train stop. It ended up at this pretty lake that I ran around. I freaked out a mama duck with a brood of little ducklings. They were tiny and yellow and fuzzy-SO CUTE! I had breakfast with Ida and Karen. Karen has been working hard on a music performance she has to do.
I took the s-train over to the Frihedeets Museum (Danish Resistance Museum). We had a guide take us around. He told us about how Denmark surrendered to Germany in 1.5 hours after being threatened because they are such a tiny country and didn' t want violence. The kidn of Denmark was Christian X at the time. He is known for going riding around the town and talking with the people. There is a rumor that he wore a star of david to express solidarity and sympathy with the jewish people but the guide says this is not true.A small number of Danes did join the Germans and go to fight for Germany (Freedom Corps and Helper Corps). The majority of Danes just kept living their daily lives and working and ignoring the occupation. Germany exploited the Danish agriculture to feed the German people. Also many German soldiers came to Denmark for vacation...the guide called this the whipped cream front vs. the Eastern front. The Danish government paid for this...Germany was supposed to pay them back after the war but they lost the war and didn't have to pay. Some of the Danes were active in the resistance movement. This involved solidarity with each other, printing fliers, and destroying some facilities. The guide showed us a pic called 5 pigs with only drawings of 4 pigs but when you fold it properly you get a picture of Hitler who is the 5th pig. There were 7500 Jews in Denmark. 700 got to Sweden. of the 500 others only 50 were actually killed. Those who were sent to camps were sent to work camps not extermination camps and the Danish govt. sent money and resources for them in the camps and to keep them there. May 5th was the official day when Denmark was liberated. This info came out on the news on May 4th however and people were celebrating and attacking the German soldiers. Little did these people know that the surrender was not effective until May 5th so more people were killed at that point in Denmark than during the war itself.
After that we got on a train to go to Gilleleje. It is SUCH a cute town. You go through beautiful fairly forested countryside to get there with fields covered in yellow flowers.
In the town we went to see the church where 80 jews were hidden. The Germans found out and raided the church everyone but one boy who escaped into the bell tower by climbing ropes was captured. From the windows in the attic of the church you can see the harbor where the boats were to take the jews to sweden.
After the church we walked down the harbor. There is a huge festival there and people try to stand as long as they can on top of a pole stuck into the water. There were places to get food and tons of really nice looking sailboats.
We walked up to a museum that had a replica of what the boats would have looked like and how the jewish people were hidden down below.
There was a path that Soren Kirkegaard used to walk up and down a lot.
After that we went to the beach and sat and hung out. People were trying to skip rocks.
It was a fairly long train ride back to Copenhagen.

april 23rd

i went for a run around the lakes this morning. my goodness swans make a lot of noise when they take flight! i talked with my host family at breakfast. there was a quiz about capitals of countries and general geography. ida was asking the questions in danish and karen and i were both answering. i am so happy to be able to understand quite a bit of what they are saying now. i can't speak danish back very well but i can understand it! the quiz was in the paper bc danish children don't know their geography.
went into practicum class. we talked about the purpose of oral exams and what to expect of your group oral exam at the end of the semester. i am in a group with ashley, morgan, and erin. we are going to talk about edc. philosophy in the US and denmark in terms of individuality and group mentality, socialization, etc. we also talked about what to do for our portfolio (a 15 page report we have to write abotu our observations at the schools each week).
i met with my group for danish (emily, amanda, and cheng). we are doing a presentation tomorrow about family and social life in Denmark vs. the US. it is tomorrow.
in theory class we learned abotu how to help parents with special needs cope with having a child with special needs. we got a paper back where we had to talk about how a child with special nees at our practicum site was being dealt with. i did well.

ballet and legoland

saturday i went for a run around the lakes. i did a bunch of homework. I met elizabeth, erica and lauren (erica and lauren are studying abroad in vienna and we visited them there) at the royal theatre to see the danish ballet corps perform the ballet Napoli. it was an amazing performance. its basically a romance. it starts out in Naples with happy crowd scenes and three men fighting over a woman. one guy ends up marrying her. the two lovers are in a shipwreck. the guy has to go and save his wife from a sea god. she forgets him but remembers eventually adn they go back to Naples and there are more happy crowd reunion scenes. tambourines are used and there is lots of jumping and athletic moves in this part. there were three acts with about a 15 minute intermission between each. there is a lot of expressive acting/miming instead of dancing in the first part. the costumes were fun. the queen came to watch even though princess mary had a baby daughter earlier in the day. it was one of the dancers 40 year anniversary of being in the company so there was a lot of clapping and celebration of that at the end of the show. the royal theatre is pretty with paintings on the ceilings. There are 3 levels of seats.
sunday i went for a run around the lakes and then i went to legoland. it is a three hour bus ride. there are gorgeous yellow mustard plant flowers in all the fields. we went over two bridges to get from Zealand to Fyn to Jutland where legoland is. in legoland we went on a boat ride with a lego constructions that are pirate themed. we went on a roller coaster that was fantasy (knights and dragons) themed. we also went on a ride where you design the way you want to be moved. you sit in a chair on the end of this mechanical arm and it moves you around almost like a roller coaster would. we got icecream which is much creamier here. we took a boat ride around a loop with famous buildings from around the world (statue of liberty, capitol building, acropolis, etc.) we also walked around in lego villages representing lots of different cities. there was a model of the football park where we went to see the game last weekend. we went up in a enclosed glass bubble thing that spins slowly up a central pole. you can get a good view of the park. there was a really cool lego mt. rushmore. in the wild west area of the park there was a saloon with a lego guy who had lost all his clothes except his hat in bets. I went around with Amanda, Ginni and Pwin who are all friends of mine from the PCD program.

thursday april 19th
Walked into Stenurten. It was a bit rainy and very windy out.
Did some coloring with the children. Made a Noah's arc by putting plastic animals into a pirate ship with one child and then sorted the animals and counted how many of each there were with another kid. I had a pillow fight and took turns burying girls in piles of pillows and popping out. Music was on- pop music from a few years ago. Sara our old supervisor quit and went to a new school to work but we have a new supervisor who seems really nice.
Went for a run around the lakes.
Did homework (papers and reading).
Went into chorus. We worked on Kvinde Mine. A fairly famous danish song by Kim Larsen. We were all kind of unenergetic b/c of work and stuff. Rachel, the director, was being very peppy though. We talked about "the pill" and drugs that effect your period because there had been an article about it in the paper.
went home, did some homework, talked on IM to megan while she was in her design class and went to bed.
friday
went for a run around the lakes again. pretty with the sun on the water. quite a few other people out. had fun catching up to and passing people. i went around all 5 which i don't always do.
karen went to a play last night of a bunch of skits her classmates did. she also was telling me about this fancy yummy icecream she got to take becuase it had partially melted and then froze again so they couldn't sell it from the bakery where she works. ida worked at home all day today and had friends over this afternoon.
had class. we talked a bit about the french elections in 20th century. apparently to be in politics in france you have to go to this one university. i guess i hope royale wins because she is a woman and a socialist, but i don't really know much about sarkozy or le Pen. after talking about the elections we went on to learn about the EU and NATO and when different countries joined and why some countries haven't switched to the EURO. the main purpose the the EU seems to be political stability.
in enviro. history we learned about urbanization, pollution, population concetrations and all the horrible stuff humans are putting into the air and the water.
in danish we learned about subordinate clauses (because (fordi), while (mens), etc.) we learned how to say that i am looking forward to (jeg glaeder mig til at.....)
then i signed up last minute for the bornholm bike trip. it is suppsed to be a GORGEOUS place and even though i'm not much of a biker that apparently doesn't matter at all. i figure i am here why not take advantage of the opportunity.
talked to mccurdy on im. she will be working at MIT this summer. she is doing front of house for the bryn mawr production of a winters tale.