Settling In and Exploring

 There's this amazing café called Big Apple in the city. Not only do they make amazing juices, smoothies, and paninis but they also have this awesome space upstairs to just hang out. Needless to say I'll be spending a lot of time (and money) there during school. 

This is the door to my apartment - Apartment M - at Trekroner Kollegium, which is about 30 minutes outside the city by train.

This is the other side of our kollegium -- note the colors... 

 This is the lake right outside of my apartment door. We were told we couldn't go near the swans or feed them because they would attack us. I did see some people playing/feeding them the other day and I was a little nervous for them...

Roskilde University library. (This building is also right across a parking lot from my apartment and it is where our two Danish roommates go to school). 

 Glasses of wine with dinner = so classy :) 

Oh ya know...just sneaking into the McDonalds bathroom without paying for the code. We're badass. 

The Roskilde Jars in Roskilde (one train stop away from us or about a 15 minute bike ride) are the most famous monuments in the city. They are said to weight 28 tons and were presented to the town to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the ancient royal city. The jars supposedly symbolize life and death, as they can be used to store food or ashes. 

Mysterious vegetable spotted in ghetto Netto (one of the grocery stores to which our DIS food stipend applies). 

The chapel at Frederiksborg Palace in Hollerod. It was so beautiful and ornate (it is the original chapel from the 16th century - one of the only parts of the castle that didn't burn down in later years). 

The moat outside the castle!

The castle as seen from the gardens. Absolutely amazing (and we also lucked out with really nice weather albeit a bit windy). 

Andy and Jennifer in front of the castle. 

Note the crowns in the garden -- so European and very intricate. 

I'm about to start the first real week (no orientation, classes every day, etc). Next weekend I'm going rock climbing in Sweden so I'm sure I'll have more pictures and more exciting stories. 

Pictures!

I've decided that I don't actually want to write out a blog BUT I do want to share pictures so here it goes...

This is the Parliament building where the Queen (who is basically just a figurehead and has no real political power at this point) signs bills. Up and down the street there are other buildings that house the various ministries (education, finance, etc). 

This is the classic Copenhagen picture. Type Copenhagen into Google images and you get pretty much this exact one. But don't hate. It was Day 1. I was still a tourist (just kidding....definitely still am and will be for quite some time I'm sure).

This is by the Royal Palace. It's a beautiful fountain and then across the water is The Opera House.

For one of the orientation sessions we had to find a bunch of the touristy spots around the city and we happened to get to the Royal Palace just in time for the changing of the cards. Very cool!

Our first beer in Copenhagen (they actually did ask for our ID but after our willingness to give it to them they didn't even look)! At approximately 5pm (or 17:00 here). These are two of my friends -- Kelsie (left) and Jennifer (right). Jennifer is my suitemate and Kelsie lives at Trekroner Kollegium as well. The 3 of us just booked a flight to Paris for the weekend of Oct 29th to go see Bon Iver at the Pitchfork Music Festival! Epic. 

This was walking back from the Activities & Immersion Fair across the bridge. It turned into a gorgeous day!

Free shots for DIS students at Compass Bar? That happened. In fact, it happened around 1:20am after we got into the city at around midnight. It took us a very long while to figure out that the next train was at 2:18 (not 3:17 as we had feared) and it's important to note we all figured it out after we asked a Dane and they used their phone to look at the bus schedule. Oops! Now we know for next time.  The shots were licorice-esque and tasted like cherry cough syrup. In other words, I promptly asked the bartender for some water since the taste in my mouth was unbearable. He kindly agreed (and didn't even make me pay). 

That's all for now. Tomorrow is some more orientation and then classes start on Thursday. Hopefully I'll have more pictures to add soon!