First Study Tour to Jutland: The Land of Apparent Danish Hillbillies

It's official. I have failed at learning to speak Danish. True, I could be taking a Danish language class to help but ehh I am not really in the mood. It's embarrassing that I can't pronounce the names of towns or the names of people. For instance, one girl told me her name probably 14 times and after I choked up some weird "oo" sounds to kind of make up one syllable of her name, she finally just stared and sighed then said her name was probably Katherine in English. Fair enough.
It's kind of like when you go to a nail salon and the Thai girl says her name is Patty, when in fact it is Bai-Ling. 
Most people here have English names, they just have different ways of pronouncing it. So about 65% of the time I sound like Helen Keller when I try to speak Danish.  Baby steps, we're working on it. When I say we're, I mean I.


Well, well what have I been up to. 


Wellllllll this weekend I went to Western Denmark aka Jutland! Seeing that most people think I am studying abroad in Amsterdam I should probably supply a map of Denmark.

O...that's Denmark.

Ahh, now you know where Denmark is. Yes, yes. Denmark is in fact made up of over 406 islands. I am on the island of Zealand (where Copenhagen is located). The biggest mainland is Jutland, which is connected to Europe (namely Germany). According to the Danes in my folkhojskole, they think that Jutland is made up of hillbillies. Which is not so! It is gorgeous! It's like English countryside and ahh just so lovely. 


Maybe I should back track and tell you the reason why I am in Jutland. Well, my core class is "Communications: Current Trends in News Media." With this class we get to do several "field trips" including going to London. Hey ho! Verrry nice. Well this past weekend we did a little class bonding and went to Jutland together. 


Waking up at literally the crack of dawn, I got on the train then the bus. At first, I was the awkward loner girl on the bus because I didn't really know anyone but that changed because you know me! We drove to Odense on the island of Funen, where we stopped at the Univ. of Southern Denmark. There we met up with a professor who was telling us about the Muhammed cartoons. One big difference between Americans and Danes is that Danes are brutally honest. They just tell it straight up. So when they say something that would be considered inappropriate in America, they just say it. They don't mean to sound rude, it's just the truth. Sorry, they're not sorry. After that we went the Brandts Museum, where we saw many modern art exhibitions including a Hentai exhibition (aka anime porn). I am sorry but it was just wrong to see Sailor Moon portraying the Karma Sutra. Not my style. 

This is just weird as it is. 

But the museum also had a media exhibition where we got to do a actual newscast! We wrote, edited, compiled, and filmed a news cast. It was pretty crazy because none of us had actual broadcast experience, but somehow in the 5 hours we had, it all came together. It was a good thing too because the Danish man who was teaching us was literally about to have aneurysm towards the end. I was coming close to charging up the defribillerator in the hall. CLEAR. 

Tonight, with DIS Nightly News..

After that we went to a symphony near Hans Christian Andersen's house, which was honestly the most gorgeous thing I have ever been too. I started crying in the middle of it. Yes, I cried. Moving on.


O then our professors took us out for drinks at a Irish pub. O my lucky charms, one thing I have to say about DIS is that they have AMAZING professors. The professors are so down to earth and really know what they are talking about. Most of them have real world experience in their fields and they really try to make your class as informative as possible. It really makes my classes that more enjoyable. They aren't afraid to say jokes or state the obvious. It is just fabulous. Like I said, our professors took the class out for drinks!! We had a good time laughing and getting to know our classmates but soon it was back to the hostel for us. The next morning, our professor took us to the Egreskov castle where the count and countess lived. SO pretty! The first thing I saw where peacocks roaming the grounds. Peacocks= Malfoy Manor for me. So naturally I coined the castle as Malfoy Manor. We went inside and saw all this neat stuff but I was not prepared for what was in the attic........
DEAR GOD. NO.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!

I should probably mention that I have a deathly fear of dolls. Dolls.. big, small, Madam Alexander, Raggedy Ann, the whole works..ABSOLUTELY NOT. They are all creepy and I will slay each one that comes within a 15 foot proximity of me. So note to little children...if you want Malibu Barbie to have legs for her leg warmers then I suggest you keep her safely away from me.
Back to the story, WELL this little wonder was hidden in the attic. This..this...play thing...has been in the attic for 300 years and the legend is, is that if it is removed then the castle will sink into the moat. Well, to my class's chagrin I almost had a conniption when I saw the mummified child replica quietly laying in the dark. Ahhhhhh gosh I am gagging thinking about it. 


Well it was safe to say I booked it out of there. Why is there a trail of fire down the stairs? Because I was moving that fast to get out of the attic. Happy to be breathing normally once again (and moving at a normal pace) we all went to the...canopy walk? Yes, this place had canopy walk where you could walk from tree to tree. They also had a Dracula crypt where I mistaken a woman in a wheel chair to be the Dracula replica, but that is besides the point. But the cherry on Washington's cherry tree was the stable. 


*Another side note...I have a slight animal obsession. Nay, I lied. I LOVE ANIMALS. I even love non-existent ones. Pegasus, centaurs, griffins...I love them all. Unicorns? They are completely real, don't challenge me to this debate.*


Well the stable was a time warp. It was like I stepped into the time machine (or maybe it was that sketch doll working it's voo doo magic)  and popped into the 1920s. The groom was dressed in a old fashion groom uniform and there was this man...this AWESOME man.. who was like the Mary Poppins of men. He had a on jacket with tails, classic gray pants, a waistcoat with a perfect pocket watch, and perfect round spectacles (not glasses, spectacles.) He asked if I liked horses and whether I would like to have a tour. I responded with such enthusiasm that he made a hearty chuckle at my exuberance (big words everybody). By this point, I was in such heaven that everything started adopting that soap opera glow to it. The groom let me groom the horses while the man told me the pedigree of the horses. Keep in mind, I was the only one in the stables so this was some special VIP treatment. Because this was just so perfect, some logical questions started popping  into my mind.
A) Wait...where is the rest of the group?
B) Seriously...why am I in 1920s England?
C) Who is this character speaking to me? 
D) Shit...am I dead? 


So I snapped out of it and asked what this man's occupation was. He said he was the butler of the royal family. BAM that is it! You are SO a butler! I can't believe this, you.are.a.butler. You should model for the butler agency because you are the quintessential butler. At this point, the rest of the class wandered in and they all stopped short when they realized I was in a stall... with a horse and a butler. Hey guys.

Chillin with the Queen's Oldenburg stallion, Orfeus.

Not hallucinations.

 The next morning we woke up and drove to the medieval town of Ribe. Sidenote: Ribe is the one town in Denmark I can actually say. We watched some disturbing yet very good Danish movies on the way.

We got there and climbed the oldest cathedral in Denmark, which made me question how the hell Quasimodo climbed all those steps to ring a damn bell everyday because I was basically was dry heaving by the time I got up there.

Okay, well obviously he opted for the quicker route. 

Show Off.

We then had another lovely dinner where we ate delicious food and had some wine. Some of us went to bars after that, but I chose to go on the night watch tour with the rest of the class which is A GOOD THING I DID. It was la awesomeness. The Night Watch man is a man (obviously) who during medieval times would walk the town of Ribe and lock the dates and protect it at night. Well this sassy son of a gun had the treat of recreating the medieval times for us. It was so much fun, because our professor translated everything and we got to go around this classical town at night. Was it cool? You can bet your bottom dollar on it. 

Certified BAMF.

Well if this trip couldn't get any better. We went blow karting. Yes, I said and spelled that correctly. Blow Karting. Imagine sailing but on land, and even cooler on a beach.  We went to this beach that was completely flat and the it went on for miles making it seem like we were in limbo (curse that doll's voo doo). We were introduced to this Aussie chap who taught us the fundamentals of blow karting and then we suited up and we were good to go. Make no mistake, these things can FLY! Pull the sail and you move at the speed of light.  Everyone had so much fun and we were all covered in sand in the end, but it was amazing. 

Did you see that? Of course, you didn't. I was moving too fast.

After that we went back to Kobenhaven. I love Denmark that is all. Skole to Jutland!


NOTE TO AMERICA. Girls.....please stop talking in fluctuating octaves. You hit decible levels unimaginable to the human mind. One minute your Cindi Lauper and the next you could pass for the japanese grudge girl.  Merci.


NOT A CUTE SOUND.