Freezing in Malmo...and everywhere else.

This past week has been very busy...Sweden, host family meetup, and a frigid walking tour through Copenhagen on Sunday. We don't have class on Wednesdays (although we have field studies fairly regularly), so I went with the two other girls from Wheaton to Malmo, Sweden. The train ride was beautiful, and we were able to see St. Peter's Church, Malmohous Castle, and the old square in Malmo. Malmo is definitely a place for a day trip, but it is fairly compact, and the sights are close together. The church is the oldest building in Malmo, and it is beautiful! The castle on the other hand was a little bizarre...I put a few pictures on Facebook to convey the level of strangeness for this former prizon/castle and current museum. The exhibits range from 1920's textiles and fashion to a mirrored room with twinkling lights...normal. In between those rooms, there's a turret with two cannons in the bottom, a nokia phone in a display case, and a wall of prisoner photos. It might have helped if we had picked up the audio guides, but I doubt they really would have helped us! It's nice to know that Sweden is so close (although I'm not sure the Danes are so thrilled about that.) They have a wee bit of history. We were able to meet up with other students living with host families in our area on Saturday and toured the town/city of Roskilde. We walked through the town and down by the water, and it has some great shopping areas. It was freezing (no surprise), but we had a good time! Sunday was another adventure...I signed up to go on a walking tour of Copenhagen (with an emphasis on the life of Hans Christian Andersen/the Golden Age.) Unfortunately, it was snowing, and the wind was so bitter. I don't think my cold will ever go away if this weather keeps up! Ah well. If a cold is the only thing to complain about, I am very lucky!

On a slightly different note, I'm now on my third week in Denmark, and I have made some adjustments and learned a lot about how things work. To begin with, for a country that is so happy, efficient, successful, intelligent, etc, I can't understand why bike helmets aren't required by LAW. Bikers fly through the icy slush on the streets, and they're closer to each other than Tony Stewart's bumper is to every car in his path (a little NASCAR shoutout...) The bike lanes in the city are fairly wide, but they're still stuffed with bikes a la Danish herring in those little cans. Having already wiped out once and tensing up at the sight of every car pulling past me, I would think people would feel slightly safer with a helmet on. Most of the female cyclists also bike with some kind of high heeled shoe or boot on, so I'm sure a helmet would ruin their image or something. Along with the bikes, public transit is incredibly popular here (as it is in most of Europe). I take the train into Copenhagen every day, and we are a 7-10 minute bike ride from the station. The train ride should take about 40 minutes, but the trains have been delayed and problematic during the last week. I have yet to make it to my 8:30 am core class on time because the 7:28 train refuses to run on time. It took over an hour to make it into the city this morning, and not being in control of my commute has been a challenge. If I'm running a few minutes late at school, I may be a couple of minutes late to class, but if I miss the train, I will be very late to school! The commute means that a 10 am class really isn't that late because I need to be at the train station by 9am for the train. The days can sometimes feel very long, especially if I have class during the day and stay in the city for dinner/the evening. The same goes for the commute home. Because we live in a small town, the trains don't run every few minutes. Sometimes, there's an hour between each train, and we always manage to miss the 5:17. However, the train ride can be really relaxing, and it's a good chance to people watch. There are just some conveniences that cars and a small campus provide for, but that isn't the Danish way!!