The story continues...

To all my readers - if you're frustrated by my lengthy time between posts, you're not alone, I am too.  However, if the time has creeped by, and you feel as though the minutes slowly turn into hours that stretch into days, you might be.  Or at least you're not in my company.  Time has flown since my trip to Western Denmark, and I can't believe I'm coming up to my second study tour!  I am very crushed for time these days.  I don't think I've ever said that I have no bit of extra time and meant it like I have the past few days.  I'm even writing this during some in-between times spent on the train, computer lab at DIS, and finally, I will probably finish right before turning my lights off for bed. 

The past couple weeks have simply been a continuation to my great adventure! From classes to friends, weekends biking to weekends with my host family, and nights out in the city to cozy nights cooking or in my new home, I truley believe I am getting as much out of this experience as I can!

I'll start with some smaller things and move into the longer stories.  Things I love about my study abroad: the friendly Danes, positive psychology, no class on Wednesdays, a cozy home with a great host family, my cooking class, new friends, city life, travel, and so much more.  In fact, I think I can say my only complaint as of now is a small wardrobe that's growing into a boring one!  Positive side of that is in October when my parents come maybe a few things can be switched out...or maybe I just need to do some shopping :)

A quick note on positive psychology.  I absolutely love it.  Sometimes, partly as a result of the Danish teaching style I believe, what exactly we're learning seems a little ambiguous compared to the straight forward teaching styles in the US.  I'm definitely getting it though.  I love that what we learn fits what I have always believed so well.  Today we had a guest lecturer on hope and he even pulled Emerson into the mix.  For those who don't know, I'm a big fan of Emerson.  Sometimes there are things in a person's life when it seems like all the stars align into a giant arrow saying "THAT WAY!"  I think mine are aligning and pointing in this direction.  It's amazing how things like this fall into place. I still don't know what exactly I want to do post graduation, but I am already looking into positive psychology related labs I can work in at IU when I return.

So now for the longer story...

I have had almost two weeks now to think about how I want to tell you about my weekend biking in Bornholm, and still haven't come up with the best way.  Here's what I've been thinking, maybe we can vote on best leads.

Lead 1:
I had a weekend.  I had a _____ weekend.  I had a good weekend, a bad weekend, a sad weekend? A tough, treacherous, windy, hopeless, courageous, triumphant, adventurous, spectacular weekend?  All of the above, perhaps, but if I had to pick one I'd go with the latter.

Lead 2:
My weekend began late Friday night, when I took my 30 pound bag stuffed over the edge like I was prepared for a week in the arctic, and got in the car with my host dad to meet the ferry full of DIS students to leave for our night long boat ride over to the Denmark's island, Bornholm.

Lead 3:

WANTED:

Biking tour guide, for telling innocent girls lies, sticking with us for way too long,

 and being leader of "The Killer" bike tour.  

Maybe between my three leads you've gotten a general sense of the weekend?  

I spent Friday night on the floor of a ferry, on the long ride over to the beautiful island of Bornholm.  I would say most of the time was spent on quality girl talk and giggles, with the rest spent on sleep.  When I woke up early to the rattling of the boat stopping and the traditional Bornholm song blasting (maybe you should look it up...) "tired" was the last word on my mind!  I was so excited to be there and could not wait to get started.  Although we were allowed to do whatever we pleased, there were three suggested tours and groups you could join if you'd like.  My friend suggested taking "the killer" tour and since it included a stop at a beach that exports sand for hourglasses, and because "it's not like anyone here is a serious biker anyway" (I said this at breakfast, to which a new friend said, "actually...I kind of am," which I brushed off), I said "let's do it!"

I believe I got on my bike, with a backpack weighed down by jackets, my video camera, and a HUGE jug of chocolate milk provided to me by my host family, I was literally singing "I'm so freeee! I love biking!"  Fast forward ten minutes - we're ALL walking  our bikes up a huge hill :)

So the glee continued and we stopped at some marvelous sights.  

Eleanor, Lena, and I at our first stop, a beautiful overlook of a rocky shore

Second stop, a little closer to the shore.

 Third stop, an old lookout tower that we climbed up!  

As the ride (I forgot to mention, a 65 kilometer bike ride, that's around 40 miles!) progressed I fell further and further to the back.  Ok, I was in the back from the start, but I said I fell further to the back, not in the back.  Luckily, I was in good company.  So we took a nice and much needed break!

Eventually, half way through the trip, we caught up with the group at the beautiful beach!  It was as much as I could have hoped for!  The sand was light and soft and the ocean was deep and rough!  The wind was so strong that day, a big component that added to the biking struggle, that the top layer of sand was constantly rushing under our feet.  At one point I was posing for a picture, about 10 feet from the shore, and the waves rushed over my feet!!!  Luckily it wasn't too cold and didn't bother me later, it just surprised me in the moment!

Lena caught the moment in action!

After our lovely time at the beach and some delicious ice cream, a specialty of Bornholm, the big group broke down into small ones, and I chose the one that was going to lunch!  Funny enough, I didn't actually buy lunch, I opted to have some of the many snacks my host family gave me for lunch while Lean and Eleanor got a sandwich and the rest of the group enjoyed (???) some traditional herring.  I thought my time for trying herring should be at a different time.  So while the group...let's just say ate, not enjoyed...their herring, we three girls found some shopping!  As Eleanor ended her blog with, best part of the trip: Lena bought shoes!  I think it entertained the tour leader a little bit, thought we didn't think much of it at the time.  

As the day went on and the wind grew stronger we approached what can only be described as near death!!! We were in gear 1 on flat ground and our legs were falling off.  I call it biking upstream.  Now comes in the true role of the Wanted man, seen earlier.  We wanted to walk, and he came back and wanted us to bike!  We wanted to know how much longer, and no matter where we were, he always said close, about 20 kilometers.  We wanted the wind to stop, and he said, it will as soon as we turn right (we never turned right...).  Also, we wanted him to leave us alone, and that didn't happen until "15 kilometers"and a "straight shot" away from the hostel.

Well, it was not 15 kilometers, and it was not a straight shot!  We figured this out as soon as we came into a split in the road that took you directly left or directly right.  We were at the intersection of two roads, that both had the same name!  There were a few houses nearby, a lot of farm land, and we were in the company of some cows.  We sat down, looked at a map, decided we were totally lost, then decided to take a break.  It really seemed like the best option.  We were past the near death experience, we were past aching, burning, and hurting legs, and we were past the frustration we faced earlier in the day.  We just thought everything was really funny.  I'm glad I was in the good company of someone who can laugh at a potentially dreadful situation.  It really was the adventure of the weekend.  So we rested, walked, studied the map, and decided to call a cab!  So we called a cab, got lost in the Danish the machine spoke, and approached two little boys playing outside.  We somehow communicated to them that we'd like to speak with their parents, and the very nice Danish man came out on his child's request and then went back in to call us a taxi!!!

We may have felt some embarrassment and shame, but I will tell you that we made it back before the wanted man!  They got even more lost, and didn't pull out their resources to get a taxi, and came back late for dinner and more tired than ever!  I used my resources, still got a verryyy long bike ride, and a really great story :) 

Sunday we enjoyed the beautiful sights of Bornholm, posted below.  

Overlooking our hostel, which had a beautiful view of the harbor!

Yummy bakery!

We found the perfect spot to enjoy our pastries!

 The Oluf HØst Museum, a famous Danish artist, and the museum is in the house he lived in!

Since Bornholm I would not say my adventures have come to a stop, or even slowed down.  I enjoyed last weekend at a family reunion with my host family, which was really fun and very interesting.  They do similar things that we do.  Eat, talk, play with and watch the kids play, eat and talk more...It was really nice to meet my host families extended family and to have that time with them.  I also like seeing the inside of a different Danish home, and one that was in the country as opposed to my families city/suburban home.  

As mentioned before, I've really enjoyed having no classes on Wednesdays!  Two Wednesdays ago I explored the city with a friend!  We walked all over, shopped, explored new places, and ended it with a fresh pastry and a glass of wine by the canal!  It was very nice, and "so european" of us :)

Yesterday I spent part of my Wednesday on a field study with my History of Copenhagen class.  We got a private tour of the inside of one of the mansions in the Queen's Palace square!  It is one of the most well preserved palace squares in all of Europe, as was the inside of the mansion we toured!  It is where even today the Queen hosts her fanciest dinner parties and where very special and important guests may stay.  It has been preserved in the same state it was in when built, in the 17th century!  As my very excited tour guide put it i was "dazzled" and "bewildered" by the "leap back in history" that I took.  I don't put the quotations in because he was wrong at all, but only to point out a few of the spectacular adjectives he was always using!  I think he learned his English from the British, but I have never heard any native English speaker use as many colorful adjectives in any amount of time as he packed into the one hour tour.  Unfortunately cameras were not allowed, or I would have great pictures to show you!  Instead you'll have to imagine a serious of rooms that grow bigger and more elaborate as they lead up to a great hall.  Imagine walls covered in paintings or huge sheets of elaborate fabrics, molding on the ceiling, floors still from the 17th century, loud colors, beautiful and elegant furniture, and feelings of grand royalty and riches!  

I will leave you with all of that, and the knowledge that I am leaving for yet another study tour tomorrow!  Except this time it will be an entire week.  I will try to report back to you soon after!  I am thinking about you and thinking about home and I hope you are enjoying your own adventures in the US! 

How are you feeling?

Right now I feel energized, happy, fresh, inspired, and like I'm beginning an adventure that will never really end.

So how are YOU feeling, right now?  This kind of self-reflection was a common theme throughout my lessons in Western Denmark.  I just returned from a three day study trip with my Positive Psychology class and had an unforgettable time.  Each day we had an academic activity, a cultural activity, yummy food, free time, and at least four hours on a bus. I loved every minute of it.  It was a great time to learn more about positive psychology, see more of the country I'm quickly falling in love with, and meet new friends, all of whom I'll be spending an entire week with in Scotland!

Our first stop was the most inspiring, interesting, and emotional one for me.  It was at a business school in a town called Esbjerg.  This school has a very unique program called "The Skills Project" that many of the students in the school don't even know about.  Each student enrolled in the program comes from a very difficult background, which for many means abuse, neglect, bullied childhoods, drug and alcohol use, suicide attempts, and low self esteem, respect, and confidence.  They have all been let down by either mothers, fathers, or teachers.  When chosen for this program they begin an 8 week program that literally turns their lives around.  83% of the students completing this program go on to start an education or get a job.  My class had the opportunity to hear from the man who started and runs the program, the psychologist, and students who have completed the program.  Hearing the student's stories, and then hearing their success and positive views on life is truly inspirational and moving.  It is through positive psychology techniques that they learn that there lives are valuable, that they are smart, have potential to grow, and can love and be loved.  The students were very open to talking about their lives in the past and how it has changed.  It amazes me how in only eight weeks a person can change so drastically, and that all of it is done through changing their frame of mind.  The positivity, potential, and hope that lies within human nature will never cease to amaze and inspire me.

On further visits, to an elementary school where we learned how positive psychology can be implemented in children and education, and to a university level business school called kaospilots where we did more personal self-reflection, I learned that asking yourself and others "how are you?" is not only important for people coming from backgrounds like the students in "The Skills Project," it is important for everyone.  In Denmark "How are you?" is not a greeting used like it is in the US.  Here, it is an honest question that is not asked unless you really do have time to hear the answer.  We learned through each visit that no answer is wrong, and that everyone needs to be heard.  Through self-reflection and understanding of ourselves and others work can be done to change problems or to enhance a happy life you already lead.

So that wraps it up for the academic, reflective, and emotionally charged parts of the trip - but I'll let you know it does not wrap up all of it!

Thursday night, after visiting "The Skills Project" we drove to a town called Ribe.  It's the oldest city in Denmark, and it shows!  It is the cutest and quaintest town I have seen in all of Europe.  I felt like I was in a museum and the families I saw eating dinner through candle lit windows were just cardboard silhouettes in a fake room, and that the tall slanting roofs were made of cheap plastic, and the cobblestone paths were mounted on a concrete museum floor.  It was too cute to be true!

After my positive psychology class and another one joining us on this leg of the trip (about 60 students total) took over the restaurants in the town of Ribe, some of us went on the Night Watchman Walk.  A long, long time ago the night watchman would walk around the streets of Ribe, singing songs, and looking out for the town.  Today it is a free tourist attraction, and you can follow the "night watchman" on his walk through the town, listen to him sing, and stop for information at certain landmarks, such as the oldest cathedral in Scandinavia or the oldest house in the town.  It was a little rainy, but I think that added to the ambiance.

DIS picked out some very nice hostels for us!  So nice that I think I should show you some pictures.  Here's my "hostel" on the first night. 

I started the second day very early with a morning meditation lead by my psychology professor.  One of the joys of studying with a psychology group :)  We moved on to the elementary school and then to a fun hands on science park!  Best parts of that was a giant blue cube with a waterfall running down the outside and fun attractions inside,

Riding segways around an obstacle course,

and a fun, unconventional teeter-totter.

The coolest room was a...can you guess? Yes, a science of the brain room!  There was one activity that measured your brain waves.  Two people sat on opposite sides of a table with a tiny ball in the middle of it, and but a headband with prongs on it on.  The goal was to be calm.  Brain waves were measured and whoever is the calmest pushes the ball to the other side of the table.  Some of you may think I am calm, but I went against my positive psychology practicum teacher, who was also the leader of my tour and the woman who began this program at DIS.  She went into immediate meditation and completely kicked my butt!

That evening we drove to a town called Hadersleve.  It was a very "hyggelige" evening.  That is a word that is best translated to mean cozy, and is something the Danes have perfected and made a major part of their culture.  DIS arranged a wonderful dinner for us that evening which was already paid for!  We had a yummy Danish dinner...

...and desert! Yum - banana split!

Afterwards the "hostel dad" made us a big bonfire and we made snobrød (twisty bread) around the campfire.  We all thought we would go into town to see a live band at one of the bars, but the fire was so hyggelige we all enjoyed a view of the stars, cabins and lake, good company and conversation, and some beer and wine instead.  What a great evening!

Our fire and everyone cooking their snobrød.

A few pictures of yet another "hostel" we stayed in.

That was five cities, thirty new friends, and million great memories in three days.  I'm happy to be back in yet another home I've found for myself and can't wait to tell you about my next adventures!

Sun, Sand and Denmark

In high school I had a fairly short walk from my car to the building, but in the winter it felt like a mile.  For the dark, early mornings when it was particularly windy and cold I developed a strategy to help the walk pass by a little quicker.  I would imagine a beach on the other side of my school, around where the football field was, and picture myself going there after school to leisurely enjoy the sun, sand and surf.

I now find myself walking to a train station every day before school, luckily not in the dark or the cold yet (although it will be soon), but my imagination requires much less work than it did in high school.  I enjoy a nice view of the ocean while waiting for my train, and catch the salty smell in the air on my walk home.  It's not always going to be the sunny, warm days I envisioned in high school, but hopefully when it gets cold at least part of the vision will be already taken care of!

Here is my view from the train station:

While on the topic of trains, I'd like to give a thanks to the train conductors of Denmark.  There has been more than one occasion in which I am running up the stairs to the train stop, frantically trying to catch the train on time, when I see the cute little train conductor stick his head out of the window, wave to me, and wait! I can also tell you that I have encountered more than one occasion similar to this (by bus, not train) in the US, when the door is practically shut in my face while I watch the bus drive away!

Two weekends ago, my first full weekend here, my host parents took me on a trip through the Danish countryside!  Our destination was one of the two cliffs in Denmark, each is made out of chalk!  I didn't get to touch the cliff, but they said it looks, feels, and acts just like chalk.  We drove by farms, quaint houses, stables, windmills...it was beautiful!  I was surprised to see no dilapidated houses or broken skeletons of old barns, as you might see on a drive through the countryside in the US.  The drive to my cabin is beautiful, but full of funny odds and ends.  The Danish countryside is quaint, clean, and very picturesque.  

We made one stop at a nature center which had a beautiful view and an old tower you could climb up to look out into the ocean.  

After the first stop we drove on to our final destination.  It was an old church, built in the 1200s, near the side of a cliff.  Over the years as the cliff eroded it became closer and closer to falling over the edge.  In 1910 they actually did close the church, and in 1929 part of it fell over the edge. It is now open for display and supported with money from taxes.  The church was very interesting to see and the shore was beautiful!  The inside of the church still had faint paintings on the walls and an old, pretty alter.

There was a balcony outside of the church, where you could look down and see the shore and realize how close to the edge you really are!  Some of you will be happy to know I was in the company of someone afraid of heights, which kept me farther from the edge most of the time :)

Here is a view of the church from the shore, at the bottom of the cliff.  There were steep stairs to get to the bottom!  You can see how the church is very close to the edge!

Before leaving we looked around in a gift shop, which  really was of interest because it was an old house that still had the furniture in it and got some ice cream!  I think Anne enjoys ice cream almost as much as I do :)  We sat at a picnic table and enjoyed the nice weather and a pretty view of the church and the ocean before leaving.  On the way back we saw a beautiful rainbow!  It was a perfect arch and lasted for a long part of our drive!  A few days later on the train ride home I saw another equally beautiful rainbow!  This one wasn't as clearly a full arch, but it was a double rainbow!  I told Anne that I'm starting to think they're a regular thing here, but she said they're really not, I've just been lucky.  When I told this to my Grammie she said that soon Anne will learn, rainbows are a regular for me :) I hope she is right!  I couldn't get a picture to show the rainbow as vibrant as it really was, but you can get the idea.

So that was two weekends ago, but I also got to enjoy some beautiful weather and the ocean this past weekend.  On Sunday I went to a DIS picnic just north of the city on a beach Copenhagen is most known for.  It was a beautiful day with a lot of activity and a lot of fun!

People brought their horses to the beach and swam with them in the water!  

The next picture was taken at the beach right by my house.  I went with Anne, Verner, Anders and three of his cousins who were visiting all day on Saturday.  

When I go back I'll miss being so close to the ocean!  Even when it's not warm enough for me to swim in, it is so beautiful to look at!

I will try to post soon to tell you about my classes, be prepared to be my first psychological subjects!  I also have a study tour this weekend too, so I will have much to report on when I get back!

I hope you have a wonderful week!