Conference Coordination in Copenhagen

The team...working hard in the penthouse!

View from penthouse deck.

The conference team: action photo!

Part of my Erasmus Mundus Association (EMA) duties brought me to a neighboring Nordic country for a long weekend. I was part of a rockin' team who organized and hosted a Humanities conference, Human(i)ties Perspective, in Copenhagen. The team consisted of seven of us, representing five countries...I love international teamwork, because you learn so much about cultural values around work. We rented a penthouse apartment through Airbnb that slept six of us...and that made for a very fun before and after-conference experience. My role as photographer kept me busy throughout the weekend and there was not much time for anything else but a 2 a.m. yoga session that my fellow team members convinced me to teach (oh, alright...twist my arm.)

Danish Heaven

Imagine this…we took a train, bus, ferry, another bus, and a car to get to the sweet peninsula village of Mols. Charlie's Danish relatives own a few summer cottages in Mols located right by the sea—this is where we stayed for 2 nights/3 days. HEAVEN! We ate amazing food (salmon, fresh veggies picked from the gardens, homemade bread, and more), met many of his relatives (about 20), were educated about life in this small village, and enjoyed the tranquility of the Danish way of life. We were enamored by all of the relatives, they were so kind and you could feel a true family love that kept them all living in close proximity to one another. We spent a good amount of time with the patriarch of the family, Hans and his lovely wife, Birde (Helle's parents). He is retired and proudly spoke of the Danish social welfare system every chance he got (and joked about how the Americans view them as "communists"). He lives the sweet life as a pensioner; he showed us his garden and greenhouse, discussed the importance of hobbies at his age, and showered us with a lovely wedding gift made by his creative hands in his wood shop. His wife was equally amazing, a knitter and a baker of the most delicious homemade bread. Hans took us on a tour of the Mols countryside which was incredibly beautiful because May is blooming season for one of their crops--Raps (see fields of gold in the video). He pointed out the viking burial chambers that are now protected (random hills in farmland), we stopped for some photos of the Paskær barrow (Denmark's largest and most well-preserved stone circle), and then we climbed Mols Mountain for mountain-top views of the incredible countryside flowing into the sea. On our last day, before bidding farewell to Mols, we stopped at the Kalø castle ruins (circa 1313) for a 15-minute walk up the medieval road leading to the castle. More great views of the countryside!

For me, this trip opened the window to Charlie's roots, but I think this trip was especially amazing for Charlie as he got in touch with his European heritage.

Danish Hail

Nyhavn waterfront

Helle & Lily ready for the Tivoli rides!

Great aerial view of Copenhagen.

On Wednesday, Charlie and I boarded a little puddle-jumper of a plane that flew us to Copenhagen from Jyväskylä (yeah for Estonian Air flights). But, boo for lost luggage! We had a layover in Tallin, Estonia where our luggage got left behind, luckily they delivered it to our apartment at Hotel Nebo on the second day. In Copenhagen, we met up with Charlie's American cousins (Cathy & Kayla) and his Danish cousin (Helle, who we think is Charlie's fourth cousin if we did the relative branch counting correctly). Helle has a sweet little daughter named Lillie and she was very excited to go to Tivoli, the amusement park right in city center. All of us adults decided to join Lillie on the Tivoli adventure. For the most part it was a cloudy day and after a little discussion we (Cathy, Charlie, and I) decided to wait in line to ride the "Vertigo" (what looked like a puking-good ride). Little did we know we were about to have the ride of our life. After approximately 15 minutes in line our turn came. I slipped off my shoes, took off my scarf, and Charlie took off his glasses and we put them safely in the storage compartments to the side of the ride. The safety ride dude strapped us in and the airplane began to spin around in all different directions then it made a huge loop into the sky, before we knew we were upside down. Suddenly the heavens opened up and our ride became a wet ride, no wait...that was not rain that was HAIL.
Ouch! Every time the plane whipped around for another loop we took it in the face--ice cold hard rocks stung our face. The language flying from our mouths would have made a sailor blush. Finally, the plane came to a safe landing, but the hail continued. Where was the safety ride dude when we needed him? We were strapped in with no way to escape the storm. Charlie was screaming his head off for the dude to come get us...all I could do was laugh (was this really happening to us?) Finally, the dude came and undid the safety straps and about one inch of hail covered our laps. Wow...ready for the next ride?

The crew walking through the city center.

Despite the hail-ish ride, we enjoyed our time in Copenhagen. It is such a great city! While the others toured around (Marble Church, Nyhavn, Royal jewels, etc.) I nestled into a cafe and got some work done (yes, work on vacation--the project I was working on had a due date only a few days away). I also had a meeting with a research center in Copenhagen--they wanted to interview me about my PhD project.

Copenhagen is a beautiful Scandanavian city!

After a nap, we were off to discover and explore the charming city that is famous for bacon (yes, that is right, Bacon). Luckily, the Danish have decided to preserve the ageless beauty of the city and there are endless spires, copper topped architecture and statues. We found ourselves a cute little danish cafe with brilliant pepper cookies, gingerbread and danish pastries (we visited this cafe everyday.) The Nyhavn harbor is the most beautiful Scandinavian harbor I have seen, even under the grey skies, the color of the boxy 17th century buildings were popping (see top photo). The Danish are bike-friendly, in fact they have bike lanes all over the city and during rush hour you are more likely to be run over by a cyclist rather than a motor-vehicle. Copenhagen is cheaper than Oslo, so we splurged and had ourselves a nice dinner at a Mediterranean buffet for 69Kroner = $12US.

Denmark is also known for it's socially liberal views and one of the "tourist" attractions is the self-governing, free city of Christiana. This shanty-town began back in the 70's as a "social experiment" for hippies, artists and musicians, now it has become a city of 1,000 who peddle drugs and drink heavily. Walking through the free city, we saw numerous people with blurry eyes at different stages of nirvana. As we walked down "Pusher Street", the main drag (no pun-intended), a gang of policeman sauntered past us, packin' big guns. Just recently, the police enforcement of Copenhagen have decided to crack down on the hash market in Christiana, you might have seen this on CNN.

Copenhagen by Ferry!

COPENHAGEN OR BUST...

3 of my classmates & I went to Copenhagen, Denmark by overnight ferry (a.k.a. the overnight party cruise). After boarding the ferry at 5 p.m., we discovered hot-tubs, 4 bars/clubs, a duty-free shop (with cheaply priced wine), eateries and 9 decks. This boat was the epitome of a "love boat", minus Julie McCoy & Issac. Our night got started with some wine/cheese/flat bread/olives in our small little cabin. After 3 bottles of wine, we made our way the bars where we danced the night away to the sounds of a cheesy live band and a DJ ripping booty songs. My head hit the pillow at 5 a.m., just in time for the wake-up call at 9 a.m. Yes, there was much more to that night...but I would need a novel to tell you about it. Let's just say, it was memorable! We arrived in Copenhagen, found our hostel and met up with 3 more of our classmates who decided to forgo the party cruise for an overnight bus excursion.

Off to Copenhagen...

Today I woke up and discovered the trains on the track by my student village were out of commission. Therefore, I had to take a bus to another train station and jump on a different train. Sweet, a nice way to spend a snowy morning. Luckily, I had woken up earlier than usual. Just wanted to share with you the trials and tribulations of living the european lifestyle...you never know about public transportation! Here is a photo of a snowy day at my student village. Yeah baby!!

I have a busy next few weeks, therefore my blog posts may be far and few between...but I'll try my hardest to be faithful.

November 15-19 Trip to Copenhagen
November 23-30 Write paper
November 30-Move out & move into Ali's
December 5-7-Travel to Stockholm & Uppsala, Sweden (maybe)
December 8-10-Ski Lillehammer, Norway
December 11-To Denver, Colorado
January 1-To Helsinki, Finland