Annie in Copenhagen!

There used to be an amazing piece of graffiti on some fence at the top of my street and I was gutted to see a few weeks ago it had all been painted over, however yesterday I walked by to find a group of artists painting a new mural on the wall!

not yet finished..

Artists at work!

Just realised that I haven’t written in weeeeks! Mostly because I had 2 weeks at home in England over Easter but anyway here’s my update:

Before I left for England there was a variety of activities. The dinner at Christiania was AMAZING! For 20k you get to fill your boots, quite literally. The Dinner started with a veggie curry with rice, salad and bread, followed by pastries and fruit salad. The big bonus was that any leftover bread could be taken home at the end of the night, I’m talking a whole loaf! Apparently all the bread/pastries are donated by local bakeries at the end of the day, somebody may as well eat them. However seeing as I am not a big bread eater I declined to take a loaf home! But the dinner was great, and I just think it’s a brilliantly simple idea. The room seemed to be full of mostly students as well as some locals, including a guy we got chatting to who I guess is homeless, and said himself that the set-up is really great for people like him to come and get a warm meal and company. After this Ines, Anna and I decided to head to Cafe Stella for some Cocktails, seeing as they had an offer on for 40k for a cocktail which is pretty cheap for this city! Anyway they were delicious!

That weekend the weather was quite mild so again Ines, Anna and I decided to jump on our bikes and head to the beach! We set off for Amager Strand! It was about a half an hour cycle out of the city, through the suburb of Amager which has a totally different feel from the centre, but is really nice. The beach was great…we did end up at the wrong place at first but soon found the strand. I can imagine it is really gorgeous there in the summer, and that it’ll be packed! Can’t wait to go back when it has warmed up a bit!

I have also visited Peder Oxe again after the disaster that was the previous Monday! This time it was just Anna, Elina, Ines and I, so it was much more successful. And I just can’t turn down food that is that good and that cheap! Also on Monday Elina and I attempted to be cultured and go to the National Museum only to find it was closed!! So instead we headed back to mine and drank tea for a few hours!!

On the Tuesday I headed to the airport to go home…turned out to be a bit of a nightmare though! Arrived at the airport to find out that my flight to Manchester with EasyJet had been cancelled!! So I stood in the queue along with many other irritated passengers to find out what could be done. When I got to the desk I was told there wouldn’t be another flight I could transfer onto for another 3 days so I could either go then or get on a BA flight leaving in half an hour! They were in a mad rush to get people on the flight so I just decided to pay the £160 and get home…via Heathrow! I had to run through the airport and was the last on the plane!

I luckily was able to get back to CPH fine, flying the day before the Iceland Volcano caused all the flights to be cancelled!

On Friday, it was the Queen of Denmark’s 70th birthday so I did something I would never do in England and went to the palace with the other few thousand people to see the Queen waving from her balcony!! It was pretty cool and although at my height I could barely see the Queen, except for a blue dot in the distance, I’m glad I went. The Danes were pretty pushy and did not like anyone who might block their view!! Quite funny! But I had fun waving my flag!

After all the busy-ness of having so many visitors I have had quite a quiet week.

Sam left on Monday, Wednesday was St Patricks Day, and oddly enough there was a big event at Radhuspladsen, Town Hall Square, for it. There was Irish Music and Dancers, everyone dressed in green and plenty of Irish Coffee. From there there was a parade…however we managed to loose it…I don’t know how, its not often theres a few hundred people dressed in green marching around Copenhagen! But later on we heard the music and they all marched past us! As it was getting cold we decided to go for a drink and something to eat…went to Cafe Retro which I had never been before and its a great place, but sadly it was full so ended up at Cafe Stella where we munched down some great Nachos with a beer.

I always find it so wierd how whenever I have been abroad St Patricks Day is celebrated in quite a big way…I have never really done anything much for St Patricks Day at home. When I was in Malawi in Africa I went to another big St Paddys day party. I guess the Irish are quite a proud bunch so gather together on this day to celebrate, wherever they may be!

On Friday I went to a party organised by a group called ESN, which is the Erasmus Student Network. Erasmus is the exchange programme I am with. It was at a venue called Global, and began with traditional Danish Hot dogs which was good, then there was a band called Pachanka..who were actually really great, its is difficult to describe the music they played, it was definately a Spanish/Lation sound but with an edge. Anyway they were great.

The weekend slipped by quite quietly and then on Monday I arranged for 12 of us to go and eat at a place called Peder Oxe, where I’d heard they did good, cheap burgers on a monday night. Well that turned out to all go horribly wrong. Stupidly there is 2 restaurants with the same name, 1 upstairs and 1 in the cellar. I had booked with the very expensive posh restaurant upstairs without realising my mistake or that there was even any difference. So when we turned up at 7pm the waitress had no idea who we were…it was really crowded so our group ended up splitting up! Not the night I had hoped for. But we did find a table and the burgers we ate were really really good. Out of the 12 that started I ended up with only Anna, Ines and Elina but it was still fun and we sat and enjoyed some drinks together afterwards! But I hope for better luck next time!

Today I am finally starting to tackle the work I have to do, realising that time is moving quickly! Obviously doing a bit of procrastination here, but at least I have finally settled on a title for one of my courses! Which is a big improvement.

On Thursday I am going to a dinner at Christiania, the hippy state in Copenhagen, so I’m really looking forward to that, hopefully it will be something quite different!

I’ve had a very busy few weeks with lots of visitors! Last Wednesday my parents, brother and grandma arrived in town for my birthday! So we had a lovely few days exploring the city together, me being the tour guide! And on the Thursday it was my 21st birthday, so after a morning opening presents we headed out to Cafe Leo for the biggest brunch I have ever seen! Followed by a visit to Frederik’s Church and Amelianborg castle to look around the newly refurbished King Frederik VIII’s Palace. After this we walked up to see The Little Mermaid, first time I’d seen it in daylight! That evening after Cake and Champagne at the apartment my parents were renting we went out for a lovely dinner at Cafe Apropos.

The next day we went down Stroget for a bit of shopping, stopping off for an amazing hot chocolate at Cafe Norden.

On the Saturday we went to Carlsberg Brewery, which was surprisingly pretty interesting and Dad made full use of the free beers afterwards! That night we all went to Wagamamas for dinner which was delicious!

On Sunday morning, my Mum and I took a quick look around the Danish Design Centre, before my family had to go and catch their flight home.

Last Tuesday I went to watch a film at the Katten, the sociology common room, we watched a Danish film called Twinkling Lanterns…it was really good, kind of a mix between gangster and comedy! And accompanied by tons of popcorn and sweets which is always good!

One of the best things about the past few weeks is that the Sun has come out to play!! The snow has all gone and its so much warmer…well its above zero!

On Friday, Sam came to Copenhagen!! Which made me soooooooo happy! It had been 6 weeks since I’d seen him so it was so good to spend some time together…we didn’t do too much, just wandered around the city, ate good food and sat in coffee shops!

After being a bit grumpy this morning about the weather, I emerged from my lecture this afternoon to blue blue skies and glorious sunshine! This made me so soooo happy! So I decided to walk home via Stroget, the main shopping street. I came to a square and there was these seriously amazing musicians playing, a couple, boy on guitar and girl playing the double bass, and the music was just awesome! So I sat on the fountain on listened to the music for about a quarter of an hour, just thinking how beautiful the moment was and how lucky I felt to be there!

Last week I did a couple of shifts at the student bar, The Studenterhuset. Its led by volunteers so we don’t get paid except in the form of beer tokens, but its so fun! And I just love the atmosphere of working behind a bar, and really enjoyed being behind the bar again, plus I’ve made some friends in the process too so that’s always good.

On Saturday I went to a dinner party, we all took a dish and there was sooo much yummy food! We then watched The Big Lebowski accompanied by White Russians…which I did not enjoy! So I stuck to cider!! But the film was funny.

The weather is getting a little warmer..but the rain is beginning. But right now its snowing AGAIN, I really wish it would just stop snowing!

I made a bit of an idiot of myself on my bike the other day too, managed to crash straight into the back of two others who stopped really quickly…and my brakes are abit rusty so I didn’t quite stop in time!! Ouch!

But definately the best news of this week is that all my family are coming tomorrow! I am SOO excited! My mum, dad, grandma and brother are all arriving tomorrow morning for 5 days, as it’s my birthday on Thursday. Have got lots of plans, gona take dad and brother to the Carlsberg brewery, Grandma to see the palace as it’s open to the public at the moment and I think Mum just wants to spend the entire 5 days shopping and sitting in Coffee Shops! Plus we’ve planned a nice birthday dinner on Thursday Evening! Can’t wait!

Last Friday I had the best ever surprise, I was just about to go out to a party when my landlord brings me my post, and I couldn’t believe it, I had been sent a bouquet of 20 gorgeous red roses from Sam for Valentines Day! I was one happy girl that evening!

That night I went to a party hosted by the Sociology Department, what’s so different here is that the students from each department have a room, a sort of common room with kitchen and everything to call their own, and so we had a party there complete with a dinner which was a very cheap and very tasty Chilli! So I spent the evening there, getting to know some more of the students and drinking beer, which I still find disgusting by the way!

It has been so long since I posted I am trying to think what else I have been doing,…I spent an evening at Ikea trying to find a bed for Elina who has just been sleeping on a mattress, but no success. But I did get a few things to make my room more homely.

Tuesday was pancake day, or Shrove Tuesday, so I decided to host a pancake party to share the english tradition with some of my International Friends. I invited my 2 Danish friends, my mentor Maria and her friend Sofia, 3 Fins; Elina, Tomi and Tiina, an Austrian; Anna and Sam from Australia. So it was quite busy and after a bit of a slow start with the pancakes sticking we had a really great night, and I was so glad everyone had come and got involved!

On Thursday I emerged from my lecture to a horrendous snow storm!! I was so so cross that it was snowing again because the snow had pretty much all gone up until then, and life is just so much easier without snow! So I struggled home on my bicycle, abandoning my plans to go shopping. The journey home was awful, mainly due to the wind blowing snow right onto my glasses and into my eyes so I couldn’t see a thing. Got talking to a man at the traffic lights who was having an equally difficult time with his glasses!

Yesterday I went to a huge Flea Market with Elina, it was really nice to go somewhere a little bit different but I didn’t buy anything except some big fat Chocolate Raisens which I had been craving for about a week but hadn’t been able to find in any of the shops! And then last night I went round to a friends place to watch Mamma Mia, which is always great cos its such a good silly film to watch, we then went into town, first to a place called Temple Bar but there was just nowhere to sit so we headed on to Moose Bar…which I wasn’t a fan of purely because of the smoke in there! From what I gather its one of the few places you can smoke indoors so people were taking advantage of that! But the beer was cheap so we stayed for a few hours…and I ended up not getting up till 1 this afternoon!