WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 7th

Guess Ida and Jens alarm clock has been misbehaving and got set wrong. They were all up and about at 5AM and then went back to bed for a bit.
Karen explained the news to me. Article about Fogh and Bush not getting along. Also article about how Denmark is going to stop giving Iraqi people asylum. Kosovo metally ill people are going to be allowed to stay in Denmark for a while. Here everyone has their mothers and fathers last names apparently. No dumb taking the father's name.
Went for a run in a new part of Copenhagen. Didn't see anything especially unusual. The roads do not always go straight. Many are old fashioned medieval crooked ones. Got very frustrated waiting for the green street light to go at the billion road crossings I have to make.
Took the bus to the lakes and walked around the lakes in a roundabout way to DIS. Funny all black hunchback birds with white bills that keep diving down under the water.
Made my way over to DIS eventually and ate lunch with Elizabeth Ashley and Emily.
Went to The Nationalmuseet. It was awesome. Catherine Miller Little led the trip. She did a 10k race on Saturday that I ended up not deciding to do. We chatted about Smith coaches we both knew.
Looked at some religious artifacts and artwork.
Went on a tour of the museum (20th Century Demark focus). The museum guide started out talking about Georges Brandes and Johannes Jenson (former was a women's right activist and activist for the working class and the latter was a social darwinism (the fittest races naturally go to the top). She talked about the Women's society in Denmark. Women go the vote here in 1915. There were some pretty terrible living conditions in Denmark and stratification in society. Denmark really didn't do much in WWI or WWII. The goulash nobility provided canned food to the soldiers. They didn't lose many people to violence. Denmark was occupied by Germany but helped a ton of Jews escape to Sweden. Denmark had industry in its agriculture and exports lots of dairy products and pigs. She talked about Christiania, the hippish place where they pay no rent are not really subject to laws and are very liberal and loose. She talked about the red stocking womens movement where there were lots of protests and women wanted equal pay and rights to men. America has had a huge influence recently on Denmark. In the 70s/80s Denmark had a large anti-nukes protest. Denmark has also had anti-communist posters and protests mainly because of US influence. Denmark is liberal in terms of homosexuality. They were one of the first ones to legalize same sex partnerships as I noticed on the sign when I went to my CPR number at the Kommune.
After all of that I went and kept Jennifer Powers (she goes to a women's college and is in my enviro. history class) company while she had lunch. Then we both went to look at Egyptian and Roman artifacts. I love the hieroglyphics. There was a mummified alligator! It is so neat to see things that are so old. We only touched on a tiny, itsy, bitsy, miniscule, microscopic, part of the museum. I really want to go back and see old European/viking artifacts and all the other amazing stuff they have. For a small country the Danes sure are proud of (and know!) their history. I guess it's hard not to when you are surrounded by it.
Just a little side note. I enjoy living with a family because of the greater insight into the culture. The kollegiums may be easier to meet other Danes our age but not necessarily. I'll meet people just by going through life and if I don't "meet the Danes" other than my host family and potentially runners at the marathon training then that is OK with me. Sometimes it gets a bit lonely not being in a dorm and having people to interact with all the time but I think that is because classes are not as difficult here so far and I don't have organized sports to fill the time. It is more relaxing and quiet than at Smith even though it may not seem like it from all I've been writing about in my blog. I've been pretty busy and met quite a range of people given the uncentralized nature. I guess everyone is taken away from their networks of friends and must adapt. My host family is very busy with work and school so we haven't done many activities together but we have long talks at breakfast and dinner. I feel very lucky to have ended up where I did and very settled in.