Greetings from Copenhagen, Denmark! Yes I have done it again, convinced the University of Northern Colorado to let me study abroad. Not only am I studying abroad; I will be student teaching. Heaven help the poor children of Karlsrhue, Germany. No, I still do not speak German.

Before arriving in Denmark I landed outside of London and made my way to Cambridge for a day or so, what a cool city. Since I do not think I am ever going to graduate school I think someone I know needs to go there so I can go and visit again. It's just a suggestion.
I walked like crazy all over downtown Copenhagen. I think I could live here. I have been taking tons of pictures, mostly of interesting and famous buildings as the sea and the land are flat (though that does not make them uninteresting). This place is so cool, the people are all stylish and healthy looking and everyone speaks English, hooray! I am totally embarrassed that I do not speak the language and have to say everything in English. Next time I go someplace I am going to have to brush up on the language before I get there. Germany excluded as it is four days before my arrival.

I love the cobblestone streets, though I sometimes have trouble walking on them, but that is my own klutziness getting in the way. I am planning on bringing them back in popularity in the US. Brick work is definitely growing on me as well. I have not seen anything that was over the top modern or modern for simply the sake of being modern. No solid concrete buildings; yuck.

The edge of downtown is flanked by islands though I did not even realize they were islands until looking at a map. Everything is connected by bridges so the mainland and the islands weave together to form the city. I ventured to Christiania. Christiania is the portion of Christianhaven that was taken over by free thinking hippies in the sixties and never reclaimed by the Danish government. It started out as a community where everything was legal and essentially functioned as a commune. The community has functioned for around thirty years managing itself. I didn't sneak any pictures because though the hippies value peace I did not want to test them. They are not allowed to do heroin or coke anymore so they might be a little edgy.

I went to the the Viking Museum in Roskilde and the Dansk Design Center in downtown Copenhagen. Totally different ends of the spectrum but both are spectacularly cool and come highly recommended, in my book. At the Viking Museum boat archaeologists are piecing together and recreating Viking boats from six sunken vessels. The boats totally randomly happened to be in the bay and were discovered when the museum was dredging for the parking lot. A boat archaeologist explained to me in detail how they find, recover, preserve, and then reconstruct the boats using the information learned. They actually sail the reconstructed boats. The last expedition went from Denmark to Norway to Dublin. The next scheduled exhibition is headed for Glasgow, how cool is that?

Roskilde, Denmark home of the famous Roskilde Cathedral is the official burial place for the royal family of Denmark. There are caskets presumably of Vikings dating back to 1030. Some of the caskets are deliciously creepy with skulls and golden crowns others are extremely ornate; it gives you a window into the time period for sure.

Back in town I went to the Dansk Design Center which effectively made me fill like a hillbilly but was still really cool if slightly over the top at times. There were exhibitions from Danish designers of all kinds. The exhibits change frequently and I would love to go back and see what some new creative geniuses have cooked up. I am heading out of the city to find some new adventures of which I will surely keep you informed.

Amy