Throwing Caution to the Wind

The week of May 6^th was the last week of classes at DIS and my last week in Denmark before Nina’s visit, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and spend my last days in Denmark in ways that would be the most meaningful. I had over 30 pages of papers due the following week, but in a very un-alana fashion I decided to forgo writing them as much as possible to spend more time with friends around Copenhagen. You’ll just have to continue reading this blog post to see if I got my papers done in time.

Wednesday was the European Council Simulation game that was the culmination of our European Union class. We were divided into three person teams at the beginning of the semester, each representing a country in the European Union. We were given background materials to read up on the Eurozone crisis that the European Union is currently weathering.  Each country wrote a position paper summarizing their country's position on the Growth and Stability Pact, the Eurozone Plus Pact, the European Semester, what levels of fiscal discipline countries should be forced to adhere to and what standards countries newly entering the Eurozone should have to meet, among other important issues. 

In real life, the European Council is the body in the EU that consists of heads of states and prime ministers from each member state. Each country gets one vote. In our European Council, we rotated turns serving as the head of state – the only person who was allowed to speak on behalf of a particular country at the table. Although a lot of us had a hard time fully comprehending the specifics of European Union economic policy, since we didn’t talk about it in class and didn't have an economics background, the SIM game proved to be quite a bit of fun. There were several table rounds where each country stated their position and lots of rounds of arguing, insulting, and fast and fierce negotiating – just like in the real European Council. As Jacob, our professor, warned us, you’ll become these roles more quickly than you can ever imagine and that’s when it becomes great fun.  The European Council eventually settled on a resolution that almost every country agreed to, with Spain not voting and Denmark agreeing while adding a footnote to their agreement (apparently this “I agree but” strategy is quite common in European Politics). We didn't take any really good pictures of the SIM game but I'm including the best one I've got of the tables set up before hand and delegates milling around, getting ready to start.

Getting ready before the SIM game

After the SIM game was over there was a champagne reception to close our European Politics class. This entire class had become quite close, bonded together by our experiences on the short study tour and in Brussels, and of course by an unyielding love of Jacob Butski. 

Eliza and I at the champagne reception

My European Politics gang after the SIM game

Since in Denmark one excuse to drink is never enough, a group of us went to LA bar, a popular bar in Copenhagen that has notoriously cheap tequila to match their tacky Hawaiian surfer motif, for some post-SIM game celebratory tequila shots. My friends from the European Politics class and I had decided that it was a good idea to go out drinking the night before the SIM game and so that afternoon’s appearance at LA bar marked our second time in less than 24 hours. We wondered if maybe that was a bit too much, but such was the nature of my last week in DK.

Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning I finished 2 papers that were due that day, for a total of 6 pages completed.

Thursday was cinco de mayo and even though I have never really celebrated cinco de mayo in the United States I figured my time in Denmark was as good a time as any to start. We went to a salsa club in Copenhagen, Club Mambo, and took our moves our for a spin on the dance floor. Some of us may or may not have had two left feet. I just couldn’t seem to get my feet to step just the right distance apart from each other or get them to move gracefully like my partner's feet did. Still, we had a great time and some of our friends have quite the salsa talent which was fun to see!

Friday I had another five pages of papers due and I quickly made the final edits to that paper early Friday morning. Best paper I have ever written no? But five coherent, good enough pages on the role nationalism has played in the long twentieth century? Certainly.

Once the weather got warm, Copenhagen became even more picturesque and I wanted to do nothing but spend all of my time outside. A group of friends at my kollegium decided to take advantage of the warm Friday evening and have a potluck barbeque. We had burgers, potato salad, chips and guac, fruit salad and many other delicious treats.  Maybe 15 of us assembled on blankets on the lawn by the trekroner pond. Although we had been complaining all semester about what an ugly place trekeroner was to live (and it was), seeing it in under cloudless blue skies, with the twinkle of the sun reflecting on the pond, eating and laughing with friends, it didn’t seem like such a bad place to be.

Saturday was devoted to work, especially since I had to get up early on Sunday morning to go rock climbing! Similar to Lego Land, I had signed up for this trip back in February when it felt like it would never get warm. I hoped that if I signed up for the latest possible date in May it might actually be rock climbing appropriate weather. The group that had gone in late April got rained and sleeted on but we got incredible lucky. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was a perfect, not too hot, not too cold. A van drove us to Helsingør, Denmark, where we took the ferry to Helsingorg, Sweden and then drove another 45 minutes to the Kullen Penninsula of Sweden. 

The Swedish Coast

Me and Alyssa

Jumping on the Swedish coast

The Swedish coast is absolutely beautiful. After a short lesson on how to use the gear and the British commands for belayer and climber, we wasted no time getting started! Four routes were set up, ranging from fairly easy to extremely difficult. The hardest two lacked any obvious locations to put your hands or feet and you were forced to wedge yourself in between two smooth rock faces and shimmy your way up. I’ve rock climbed at summer camp and at an indoor rock gym before, but I by no means consider myself an experienced rock climber, especially compared to my sister, who is has taught climbing and competed in rock climbing tournaments. I kept thinking of her the whole day and how much she would have loved being there. 

Climbing Rocks

I had also never climbed outdoors before and I quickly learned that climbing outdoors is very different than climbing in a rock gym. The hand and foot holds were not strategically placed there by a climbing instructor to create a path of a particular rigor. Instead, nature created that rock face as it is, usefully placed grips be damned. There are also small rocks and pieces of dirt that fell while we were climbing, to which we were told to yell “below!” to warn our belayer or anyone else at the bottom of the mountain.

After several hours of climbing we broke for lunch and enjoyed delicious sandwiches from Chili Milli’s, a healthy foods restaurant downtown. I attempted the two easier climbs and enjoyed sitting on the rocks taking in the coast while others attempted the other two more excruciating, sore-muscle inducing climbs. 

Swimming in the Baltic

Towards the end of the afternoon we couldn’t resist taking a dip in the Baltic sea –it looked so refreshing! In fact, it was freezing and the ground was covered with insanely slippery moss-coated rocks that made it nearly impossible to stand up. We waded in enough to say we had swam in the Baltic and then promptly retreated and laid ourselves out on large, toasty rocks to dry. The day ended with a meal in a nice restaurant in Humlabæk (which, in our sweaty and filthy rock climbing clothes we were completely undressed for. So much for refuting stereotypes of Americans as slobs). Overall a really memorable, fun, day on the scenic Swedish coast.

 Monday and Tuesday I begrudgingly locked myself in my room in Korallen to write the remaining 21+ pages that had to be written before Tuesday. One 6 page paper on Russia during the Soviet years and one 15 page research paper about women’s political leadership in Denmark and the EU. They both turned out pretty decently, the research paper I was particularly pleased with since it is a topic I'm very interested in. The most important thing was that both were e-mailed out just in the nick of time as I ran to catch the train to the airport to pick up Nina! The schoolwork part of my week was perhaps more harried than my usual style but I don’t regret how I allotted my time. The friends I made and the days and nights out in Copenhagen are something that I am still missing deeply now that I am home and something that I will not likely forget. Schoolwork is important, but in this situation it came second, and sometimes that’s just alright.

Stay tuned to find out what sorts of fun ensued once Nina got off the plane and joined me for a week in Copenhagen!