Thursday
Bright and early Thursday morning (RIP), we hopped on a five-hour train ride to Hamburg, which included the train getting on a ferry (amazing). Upon arriving, we immediately checked into our hostel and went to our first lecture, which was at the Danish Consulate. After that, we headed over to the town hall to talk to the Head of European Politics at the Senate Chancellery. The lecture was definitely my favorite of the entire weekend. We learned a bit more about the history of Hamburg and the relations between municipalities like Hamburg and the EU, which provided me a real-life example for a lot of the information we talked about in class. Then, we headed to a traditional German restaurant for dinner. This will be the first of many times I talk about food on this trip, because DIS wined and dined us so well. An amazing lasagna meal with appetizer, dessert, and a drink left me feeling good and really gave me some time to sit down and bond with the other students in my core course! Plus, it was a great way to end a jam-packed day.
Friday
Friday was FULL of activities, starting out with a HafenCity walking tour. It was cool to learn about HafenCity, the new re-vamped warehouse district, but the tour itself was underwhelming and freezing. To be honest, not all of these lectures and events during core course week are a hit, and HafenCity was one of those. But, it was still interesting to learn about the project! After that, a group of girls and I went to get hamburgers for lunch (when in Hamburg…), and I was happily surprised to find a really good veggie burger option!!! Then, the class went an economic think tank and then back to the Danish consulate to hear about a lecture about the Fehmarnbelt project. The Fehmarnbelt project is an effort to build a tunnel to improve transportation between Denmark and Germany, and it was really interesting to learn about how the geopolitics of the region affected the funding and reality of the project. After that, we went to dinner and, not going to lie, it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Pasta made IN A CHEESE WHEEL with truffles, and amazing tapas for appetizers and desert. Afterwards we went to a jazz orchestra concert, which I really got into, surprisingly. Then, we rounded out the day with a little bit of class-bonding at a “purple bar.” All in all, a packed but good day.
Saturday
Saturday, our tour of the town hall was cancelled, which ended up being good because it meant that we had a few hours of free time in Hamburg. I ended up going to the Tiny Europe exhibit, which is two floors of model cities in Europe. It is insanely tiny and detailed and I was really impressed. That was the end of our trip, and so after that we returned home to Copenhagen!
While not all of the lectures were the most interesting thing in the world, there were still some really really cool ones, and I still learned a lot during this trip. Plus, I relished in the opportunity to travel and get to know my classmates that I am going to Brussels with in less than a month! Hamburg was really industrial and not the prettiest city in the world, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and the food (pretzels and beer and hamburgers), were SO GOOD.
SEE YA back in Cope!
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Maya is a senior International Studies major, spending the spring 2018 semester in Denmark through DIS Study Abroad in Scandinavia.
Read more from Maya at travelingpapaya.wordpress.com
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