It is officially spring!!! That should mean flowers, sun, and most importantly, warm weather. Unfortunately, that is not what spring means in Copenhagen. This time of year is accompanied with more cold, grey skies and more tourists. I know that Danes see me, and my fellow DIS students, as American tourists. However, the fact that I am living here for four months makes me feel like an impermanent resident. This self-proclaimed title means that I can complain about tourists who get in my way as I try to walk to school. Even though the weather feels the same, there is a bit of a new atmosphere in Copenhagen and at DIS as we have crossed over the halfway point in our time here.
Anyways, this week was quite busy (like always), with the highlights including a new cooking adventure, peanut butter, and my parents being in town !!!!
Parents in town
Late Friday night, my parents flew into Copenhagen after spending a week in England. They spent Saturday and Sunday with me, and I got to show them my adopted home! Because they seem to have boundless energy, on Saturday we walked to essentially every tourist destination in the city (12 miles of walking in one day). From the round tower to the little mermaid, La Glace (the oldest confectionary in CPH – I finally tried their famous cake),
Nyhavn, the trampoline sidewalk, Parliament, the Black Diamond, my Kollegium and Christiania, they got a real view of Copenhagen.
Sunday was spent at Kronberg castle aka Hamlet’s castle, because Shakespeare based the play Hamlet here. It was my first trip there, and it was huge and really cool to see, a well-worth day-half-day trip from Copenhagen.
Seeing my parents was really fun, but also bizarre. I kind of feel like I have a different life here, it’s a new city, people, culture, and set of experiences that my parents haven’t experienced. So, throwing them into the middle of it was weird. However, it was cool for them to be able to see the places that I talk about in my stories, and meet the people that I spend all of my time with. Overall, it was so nice to see them, and weird to think that the next time we cross paths again will be back in Arkansas.
PEANUT BUTTER
This technically was related to my parents, but it was so exciting that it deserved its own highlight. My parents were nice enough to bring me, among other things, a ton of tiny travel sized containers of JIF PEANUT BUTTER!! While you can find peanut butter in Denmark, it is very different than what we have in the US. There’s really not a lot of processed sugar in Danish foods (what a shock), so the peanut butter tastes like real peanuts here. While I have mainly adjusted over to it, having US-style peanut butter was such a treat. Funnily enough, I barely even eat PB in the U.S., it is just such an American thing that I have been craving it while abroad – same with Mac and Cheese.
Fried Cauliflower
Once a week, I try to make a new recipe of some sort. This week, my roommate Liv and I tried to make General Tso’s fried cauliflower. Frying something as healthy as cauliflower felt like an oxymoron, but we did it and it ended up tasting ammmmazing.
I was talking to someone back home this week, and they asked if I had learned to cook any Danish food. What’s funny, is that I haven’t (most Danish food is either meat, or rye bread – two things I don’t really eat). However, I have learned to cook so many new dishes. From making my first lasagna and chili (I know those are really common dishes lol I just didn’t cook things like that before), to trying some inventive new veggie recipes, I have expanded my cooking pallet a lot this semester! I’ll keep you all posted on what I try to chef up next!
That is all for this week! Next week is Easter break, so I am leaving for Italy on Tuesday. So, until Italy, ciao!
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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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