Short Study Tour!

It is almost March! Where is the time going?!?!?!?!? Right now I am actually sitting in the downtown København Royal Library just distracting myself from doing work… so I figured what a great time to write a new entry.

Well last week/weekend I went on my first study tour! Because IBE (international business and economics) program is larger than most other programs we were split into two groups. I am in section B… B meaning Best group, haha, no I am just kidding… but I must admit going on these trips is definitely a great way to get to know your fellow class mates a little better.
The first trip was to A.P. Møller-Mærsk. It is the world’s largest shipping company and is also involved with the oil industry and retail, particularly Bilka and Netto (2 grocery stores in Denmark). The visit was very professional in a sense. We went to the headquarters in downtown København and watched a touching presentation on the history of the company, its business structure and its broad goals for the future. They also introduced a great program for post graduate students that train you in different fields such as international logistics and finance that directly correlate with Mærsk. We took a very small tour of the headquarters and saw some pretty amazing models of their ships.

Our second company visit was on February 14th, actually at DIS. We had a visitor by the name of Lars from SAS (Scandinavian Airlines). Not to jump ahead but this was my favorite ‘visit’… Going into the presentation I was thinking to myself ok just listen and weed out the B.S. because when you speak to most companies or companies come and give a presentation to students, etc. they are usually only going to present the optimistic facts and figures. Well… this was a VERY different presentation. Lars definitely supported his company and gave us useful information on its structure but he also mentioned the various struggles that the company is going through. Being an airline company I guess you can never assume anything right? I won’t get into detail but all in all I was blown away by the HONESTY the man portrayed about his company. Is that because I have been brainwashed to think you can never trust the corporate world… I am not really sure. But another interesting thing is that I actually pulled off an article offline before entering the presentation just so I had some up to date information on recent events involving the company. It was actually a Forbes article claiming all these come back strategies and amazing quarterly figures from SAS… lets just say I found out WHY that was the case during the presentation. I am sure I could have found it out if I had researched more but it was interesting to hear the perspective of an insider.

Anyways I guess you had to be there to really appreciate it… but once that was over, our group was on a bus to Odense. This the 3rd largest city in Denmark and it rests on the island of Funen (actually sounds more like foon’). We toured the Hans Christen Andersen’s house and museum. That was fairly interesting…. If you are unaware of who Hans Christen Andersen is (like me… kind of sad I know), he authored several fairy tale stories some of which include the Little Mermaid, Princess and the Pea… and in think Emperor’s New Clothes (don’t quote me on that one). After the visit to his house we explored the city. It really was beautiful to say the least… in a way sort of a like a mini-København (notice I like to use the øøøø’s whenever possible because it makes me feel cool, haha).

Then we were off to Haderslav which is on the mainland peninsula of Jutland or Jylland in Danish. We stayed in a hostel near the small town and naturally took advantage of its night life. Started with a round or two of KINGS at the hostel then off to the centre of town. Everyone went out that night and had a great time! Of course when I got back with a few people we realized that we were locked out of our hostel…. So I volunteered to climb our manmade ladder consisting of tables and chairs we found outside and opened the second story window to get in…. that was a thrill. I think it was actually more of a thrill when I woke up in the morning and realized what I did…. Haha.

I must admit, that morning was quite a drag for everyone… BUT you have to remember that we are all ‘adults’ so we had to deal with it. After a long breakfast at the hostel (which was actually great!) we headed to ecco our last company visit. The presentation was made by this beautiful girl from Canada. Needless to say, most of the guys were alert during this presentation… even after a long night- ecco clearly planned well. Then we finished our visit was an amazing lunch they provided for us (my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it). I guess you could describe the lunch as the type of food that most corporations in America probably gave their employees before they started slashing costs due to competition abroad and realized that salmon steaks were just not a suitable option…. Ok maybe Google and Wegman’s employees still get this food at lunch.

Then we were off to Århus. This is the second largest city in Denmark and is located on the nose or the central northeast section of Jylland. We visited a very interesting museum called ARoS. I won’t get to into that, but there were some ‘interesting’ pieces of ‘art’ there. There were a couple of exhibits that just blew me away, mainly the content of the ‘art’ and what it was attempting to portray. If you ever get a chance to go… just go in with an open mind… there was one exhibit that I really enjoyed. It was video special effects… and the artist who made this video was inspired by a near death experience where he almost drown as a young child. You just have to go and see it…

After the art museum a few of us went to ‘Den Gamle By’ which is an open air museum. It is basically an old Danish town, constructed using authentic old Danish homes and building that were transported to Århus to recreate what a typical town would have been like ‘back in the day’. Check it out online… it was interesting.

We went out that night and then drove back home the next day and actually had the change to ride a fast ferry from Århus to Odden. For those of you who are from Rochester, NY reading this… yes it was a said reminder of our fast ferry… except this one was operational… ouch that hurts!

ANYWAYS on the way back I bought a hot dog and asked for mustard… yeah it was the most expensive hotdog I have ever had…. About $8. the sad thing is I could not finish it because they but horseradish like mustard on it and I almost puked when I tried finishing it. But then I got to try a popular Danish drink called Gammel Dansk, meaning ‘old danish’. It was not good, but some people might have pretended they liked it just to look cool. Believe me… the aftertaste is not worth it.

Then I arrived home Saturday night and naturally went out. Because I can be kind of random sometimes and meet random people, I ended up going out with a group of Danes I met the previous weekend. We went to this bar called the Rock… it definitely was not my cup of tea, but it was a lot of fun I have to admit. my self esteem was slightly boosted that night because while I was waiting in line, I talking to the bouncer and this girl from Norway behind me goes ‘oh my god are you from America!?’. Yes I said. Then she asks where? I say NY… then she flips out saying I can’t believe you are from there blah blah blah. I couldn’t even get a word in and tell here that I live 6.5 hours away…. and that I have been there like 3 times… haha but even when I told her she didn’t care…. Why I am telling you this? Because when we went in she paid roughly $12 to get me in then paid another $ 8 for my coat and we didn’t even hang out… ok ill take that.

That was that. This past week of school went very fast for some reason… I feel like it was vacation or something. I guess that is what happens when you start realizing how much you like the place.

Ok that’s all for now. Your thoughts???????????????????????????

Vi ses!

1 Month passes...

Well I am slightly past my 1st month in Denmark and all and all it has been great! Of course everything is what you make of it I suppose. I must admit the weather has been slightly depressing and the blank expressions on the faces of Danes in the streets do not necessarily reverse the effects of sun deprivation. But I stay busy and social and it works out.

You know that my blogs are totally random and I am going to keep them that way because when I am writing about something I am always thinking about something else:

So… recently there was a little accident in a town near Ishøj (my town of residence). Apparently there were plumbers working on some piping that was connected with sewage treatment and drinking water. Well they ‘fixed’ the problem ad the plant and informed the town that it was safe to turn on the water again. Naturally everyone did. BUT…. They plumbers hooked up the wrong pipes! So the ‘treated’ sewage water was pumping through the drinking water and the drinking water was pumping through the sewage pipes going out to sea. So basically people started drinking it and many grew severely ill… Gross…

I have come to the conclusion that I am not meeting enough Danes. I am in Denmark, soooo where are the Danes? To fix this problem I decided that I should join the youth department of the current political party in power, Venstre. The party is a center right party but the word ‘Venstre’ literally means ‘left’. They are what Americans would call a centrist-libertarian party which basically advocates classical economic liberalism, somewhat progressive social views and support for the welfare state. I joined last week and I am already going to a conference this weekend in Jutland or Jylland which in the main peninsula off the island. I will let you know how it goes (if I remember).

One of the characteristics of this culture which is annoying the crap out of me is their absorption of American culture. I am not anti-american by any means, but when you go to a country like Denmark you expect it to be different. Don’t get me wrong, Denmark is different to some degree but I feel as if there is a cultural convergence occurring where typical Danish language and culture is mixing with that of the U.S.. For instance many people who know English try to speak American English not British English. American music is HUGE in Denmark. I barely hear any music in Danish. Pop culture is highly influential and rap is more evident then I would have expected. There are quite a few rap type thugs I have ran into to. Now that is kind of sad in my opinion, especially in an economically egalitarian society. I will not get too into it but I would love to hear your criticisms.

At this point I would like to point out a few things I have noticed about either Danish culture or Denmark in general considering that I have had some time to analyze it. Here it goes, (sorry if I am being redundant):

1) Apparently Denmark is trying to be the fashion capital of the world because I have seen some weird combinations of clothes or what some people call clothes. For being an environmentally conscious country I would have expected to see a higher degree of respect for animals…. Well apparently it is better to save a tree or plant over killing a furry little animal. For instance I see mink coats everywhere! I hear that there are mink farms in Denmark and they slaughter these poor little animals and sew their hides together every so delicately to make these lavish coats. I see them a lot considering the cold weather… poor minks. Even worse and more in your face are the fox’s. Apparently it is fashionable to go in your back yard murder a fox and wrap its carcass around your neck. It really is kind of disturbing because the face of the fox is the part that women use to pin the to the tail to make the ‘scarf’.
It’s called synthetics, they are actually more effective and in some cases cheaper

2) Anti-Swede. After a few classes and a couple of museum tours, I have slowly begun to realize that there is some resent toward their northern neighbour of Sweden (Sverige, if you want to be correct). Anyways the 2nd day of my Nordic Mythology class, my Viking-like professor says to the class some thing like the Swedish Vikings ‘ravaged the town like heartless beasts’ and then he goes, well wait a second is anyone of Swedish descent here? Only two people raised their hands, a blond girl in class and me. Everyone laughed and expected it to be insulting. I thought it was funny. But then the professor kept saying things like ‘Ghastly Swedish Vikings!’ etc. without ever really thinking about it, ha ha. Then I went to a museum a couple of days later and the tour guide was talking about a particular war between Sweden and Denmark and she brought up a point like Denmark was foolish for negotiating something with Sweden because you can never trust a Swede! Haha, ok…
3) As some of you may know… there are some different laws in Denmark, laws that would probably never be passed at home. But one recent proposal in parliament caught my attention and made me laugh. They are proposing that they should make bullying illegal! WOW! That would have been amazing at some specific point in my life I suppose… but apparently if you are caught bullying you are subject to immediate removal from school, for the year! I do not believe it has passed yet, but the parliament is aware of it and will most likely vote on it.

That’s all for now. Your thoughts?
.

Going on week 4: Sweden, Danish, Soccer and Fredriksborg

(<--Poor pig)

Going on week 4… I have to admit I set a couple personal goals before I came to Denmark this semester. Some of these goals include punctuality and getting to bed on time. I am sad to say I have FAILED so far. I have been getting better at the punctuality aspect of my life; especially considering that it is very rude in Denmark to be even a minute late (I guess you could argue the same in the states depending on who your are dealing with).

With the ‘going to bed on time’ goal, I must give myself credit for enjoying authentic Danish culture long into the night, especially for the first couple of weeks when we are all getting accustomed to the culture here. For instance if I decide to stay home one night, I end up talking to my host family until about 2am+ in the morning and then expect myself to get up at 6:45 to make the train. Hmmmm sounds like a similar situation back at Elon. But in all honesty I enjoy the conversation and I learn a lot more about the culture and language. This past Saturday when I returned home from Sweden around midnight, my host family and I drank a few more beers and then I tried to speak Danish. Wow did that work! Haha.
(Getting slaughtered by a viking sword. A manly death!)
A side note on the language: yes I already told you it is difficult, and the saying goes Danish sounds like a throat disease and if you can only speak it properly with a potato in your mouth. Well I will be the first to say the potato theory is TRUE. I was joking around with my family the other night about the potato theory, and what do you know we were eating potatoes. So I put one in my mouth and said the statement that all Danes love to hear foreigners attempt ‘rød grød meh fluth’. It kind of sounds like ‘hraolw-t, koal-dth mey flu-thea’ with a hulking noise for the first two words. It means something similar to strawberry with crème… something like that. I am determined to master it.

Today my indoor soccer shoes arrived, which is great considering that last week when I played I developed huge blisters and bleeding feet due to the fact that I bought the wrong size shoes and still tried to make them work. My host sister Lynn has a boyfriend named Lasse who is on the local Ishøj team and invited me to join. It was really a lot of fun and took me back to the times I used to play club indoor at home. We are not that great, but it is still a lot of fun and I get my running in. One of the most hilarious moments for me was when most of guys pulled out a Carlsberg beer and smoked a cigarette during the break as opposed to drinking water and munching on oranges, haha. I could have sworn that alcohol DEHYDRATES the body, but maybe it’s different here.
By the way these pictures are of my first study tour with my nordic mythology class. We visited a Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, an ancient burial ground (<-- seen left), an old church with an authentic Rune stone placed near the entrance. My favorite place was the viking ship museum because the process in which the located these sunken ships, retieved them and preserved them was just amazing. You'll have to visit if you want the details.

I almost forgot to mention something that made me laugh the other day at Fredriksborg Palace. After the tour some of the students and I walked through part of the town to check out some of the shops that were open. I saw this one place that sold authentic Scandinavian sweaters with a distinct design. Companies like Dalegarn and Dale of Norway were popular in this one particular store. Of course I saw one that I liked and naturally checked the price. The sweater was 2650 Kroner!!! That is over $500!!! Can we say E-Bay? (Well I checked and it came down to the fact that their expensive and used…lose, lose situation). It doesn’t get any better… my host dad paid 7000 kroner for his eye glasses, which is roughly $1,250!!!! The average Dane pays between $700+ for eye glasses… where is the free health care kick back or subsidy? Good question huh?

Real quick and off topic kind of but interesting… I was talking to my host family last night about travelling in Europe and they told me that they used to hitch hike around Europe and at times be able to use rental cars nearly free. How you ask? They would ask rental companies whether or not they had any vehicles that needed to be sent back to where they were travelling. If there was a car they did not charge them, they just had to pay for gas because the vehicle was going to the area anyway (maybe I did not explain that well, but if you do understand that is an amazing deal). They also told me that people in specific countries would not serve them or ignore them because they thought they were German and at that time many people were still resentful of Germany for the destruction they caused in the World War II. Interestingly when travelling through Germany my host parents said that the Germans were extremely hospitable and at times would perform random acts of kindness such as give them money because they felt they needed to do something in repayment for their country’s atrocities. WOW!

Anyways enough procrastination, I have to catch up on about 120 pgs of reading. I am off to København Business School so I can feel important when I am doing my work.


Your thoughts are provoking. Enlighten me.

Hej fra København!

Well it has been a couple weeks now since I have been in Copenhagen and I already feel like I am at home. I live with a host family in town south of København called Ishøj. About 20% of the population is immigrant so I constantly see people of different origins traveling on the train in the morning.

Speaking of the train, the transportation system is excellent in København. Trains usually run more often in the early morning hours and also what we might consider rush hour in the states around 3-6pm. The trains stop running around midnight – 1pm in the morning so if you are out for a drink or two and you cannot make it back in time there is a decent bus system that will take to your town and runs all night.

The first week was quite overwhelming from the belching noises of the dutch language (which I have to admit was scary at first) on the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Copenhagen to learning to live with a family you have never met before and of course meeting other students in the program. DIS has accommodated the students well in terms of providing several orientation events to learn about Denmark, the local culture and language and providing situations for students to meet each other.

Some of my favorite events include:

1) Having the DIS opening ceremony in an amazing museum.

2) Visiting the Carlsberg Factory and drinking at the expense of DIS.

3) Going on a whirl wind tour of the city.

4) Going to a local Danish pub called Penden and having practicing Danish with people from Jutland and Greenland (the funny thing is I recently learned that people who speak Danish is København can barely understand people from Jutland, so it didn’t really too much, haha.)

5) Visiting Copenhagen Business School and then having a few drinks at the Nexus bar on Thursday nights inside the school (bar inside a school… yeah that’s pretty amazing).

6) Going to Malmö, Sweden with some DIS student I have met and meeting up with my cousin Daniel (this was the highlight of my experience so far because I have been infatuated with that country for a long time). Malmö is a smaller city than København but somewhat similar in architecture considering that it was once owned by Denmark.

7) Visiting Fredriksborg Palace north of København which was absolutely beautiful. It is truly hard to describe in words but it must have been the most detailed palace I have ever seen. I will post pictures soon.The real reason I am going here of course is to STUDY abroad, so I will catch you up on my thoughts concerning that reality. The classes are definitely different here. In Denmark classes are not structured like they are in the United States where you have a lot of written homework and quizzes and tests all the time. In my opinion they are more lectured based and great for people who are self motivated and have slightly more individualism. The reason I say this is because a lot of the weight of the grades that you receive is based on the midterm and final and possibly a paper or two. So keeping on top of your work is extremely important and there is no one to hold your hand along the way.There is also more group work from what I have noticed which is in my opinion a reflection of their society in Denmark where people are more concerned about the well being of team and not as much advancing the individual.-----------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a few random characteristics to this society which I have grown to understand already.

1) Everyone generally looks very similar, at least from my point of view. This is probably one of the most homogenous societies I have ever witnessed and it definitely shows. There is definitely a presence of people from outside the country especially Muslims.

2) Almost everyone speaks a little English and many speak it very well, which has been kind of nice for someone who never learned a drop of Danish before he came, but believe me I am trying. Danish is VERY difficult. It is not so much memorizing the words that make it difficult, but the pronunciation is extremely hard and it constantly changes depending on the way in which a word is written. I have taken Japanese for a semester and consider Danish even harder!

3) People are reserved but definitely friendly once you break the ice.

4) No one talks on the train, metro and barely on the streets as well. It is kind of strange to me, but I am getting used to it.

5) Denmark is one of the highest taxed countries in the world and to give you a figure I will say that some individuals in certain tax brackets are expected to pay up to 70% of their income!!! Wow! And to buy a new car in Denmark it costs you the original price + (up to) 200% tax + mandatory 25% VAT!!!! WOW! So if you buy a car that is worth $15,000 in the states, you would have to buy the same car here for roughly $50,000!!! And I am NOT kidding. Hence their wide use of public transportation and bikes. My host brother said to me in a discussion about taxes "how else do you think we pay for all the services" (i.e. free healthcare, etc).

6) People are very environment conscious here and use some very interesting techniques to conserve, recycle and create electricity (up to 20% of the electricity is provided by windmills)

7) Not many people are married even if they have kids, cohabitation is quite popular.

8) Everything is EXPENSIVE! Thank god I live with a host family that helps me out with GREAT Danish food because I would be starving otherwise.

9) Danes have a great sense of humor, really dry and sarcastic, in ways somewhat like me. This definitely helped me break the ice with my host family.

10) Handball is a very popular professional sport. Denmark got third placement just yesterday. They beat France, thank God.There were a few things that seemed foreign to me since I have arrived such as:- The clothing (to some degree, like girls wearing dead fox’s around their necks. But apparently they protect nature and the environment here, right…)

- The impact of American culture such as music and even language. I talked a kid yesterday to ask for directions and I thought he was from the U.S. by the way he spoke but he was from Denmark. He told me it is because he watches a lot of American T.V. that he was able to pick up the accent. Interesting and kind of unfortunate. Another thing that I notice is American type thuggish ness among some youth; wearing heavy gold chains, dressed like a thug, walking like a thug, intimidating like a thug…perhaps the popularity and “coolness” of MTV is to blame. That’s my opinion of course.

- The Clintons are really popular in Denmark and more recently I have seen a few articles on Hillary and even a magazine cover with her face on it. I guess it is easy to take the heart of a country you have no political future in.

- Lately there have been some punk youth gatherings to fight for the survival of this house that kids go to and hang out. The house was sold to a Christian group and now the youth is protesting. I saw a few gathering the other day and I swear some of them were about 11 or 12 years old and smoking cigarettes, really strange and kind of sad.

Well that is all for now. I promise that the rest of my entries will not be this long, but I needed to catch you up on my experience thus far. If you have any comments please post them I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.