This week served to allow me to rest and recuperate from my long study tour (although resting and recuperating in study abroad terms is kind of an oxymoron). While I did get the time to take naps in, I still went to all of my classes, found the time to see a bit more of Danish cultural life, and traveled someplace this weekend! So, not exactly a super relaxing time.
This weeks highlights include finally using too good to go, homemade mac and cheese, and a weekend in Hamburg with my Holocaust and Genocide class.
Too Good to Go
Too Good to Go is a Danish app that aims to reduce food waste by allowing bakeries and restaurants to sell their leftovers at the end of the day, instead of throwing them out! The best part is that it is super cheap. I finally got around to trying it this week, and ended up with a full loaf of bread, five pastries and six different types of bread rolls… all for 29 dkk. That would have been a good deal from US standards (about 5 dollars), but from CPH standards this is AMAZING. You couldn’t even buy two pastries at a bakery for 29 dkk!! Trust me when I say I will definitely be using it again (pro tip, you have to change your app store to Denmark to download it, but it is super easy to do so).
Group Dinner
This Wednesday, I got together with a group of students from my core course to have a dinner night. We decided to make homemade mac and cheese (american kids can’t help but crave it), and it really hit the spot. Although this was only a few days out from spending a week straight together in Brussels, it was still really fun to get back together as a small group.
Weekend in Hamburg
I spent this past weekend with my Holocaust and Genocide class in Hamburg, Germany, visiting the Neuengamme concentration camp and the Bullenhuser Damm sub camp. It was a really interesting and powerful experience, and one that I have been looking forward to for a long time. Plus, having my professor as a tour guide made it so much better, as he is so insanely knowledgeable about the subject that he could answer any question we asked.
Even though Neuengamme was really interesting, I found Bullenhuser Damm the most powerful. We walked around the memorial rose garden as my professor read out the names of those killed there, mostly children. Hearing the names and seeing the memorials really humanized something that is oftentimes thought of in terms of statistics.
The other thing that I found the most interesting, was the statue outside of the Nicolai Kirche church. The statue portrayed a young German boy who had just lost everything in the aftermath of the allied bombings, however he was sitting on a pile of bricks brought from the Neuengamme concentration camp (which specialized in brick building). It was an interesting contrast, and one which truly embodied a “you reap what you sow” German mentality. While it wasn’t exactly a “pleasure” trip, it was a really academically and personally invigorating one.
That is all for week seven, Hej Hej!
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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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