For our Danish Language and Culture class, we took a trip to the Danish National Museum for a tour of the Danish historical exhibit. While this was educational, I'm not the biggest fan of museums; however, this trip was quickly remedied by the free concert tickets our professor gave our class for The William Blakes, a Danish rock band that has (as far as I know) virtually no connection to the romantic poet. I went to the concert in Amager (pronounced Amah [Danes tend to cut off at least half of the majority of words when speaking]) with my roommate, Thomas, which happened to be the weekend of the Danish equivalent of Halloween, Fastelavn. This meant that everyone at the concert was dressed in elaborate costumes, including the band. Our professor also joined us for the show and it was great to talk with him outside of school.
Around this time, I had my 21st birthday. People had commented that it'd probably be anticlimactic turning 21 in a country with a drinking age of 16, but I had to say it was an incredible day nonetheless. What I remember most is that it was the first day over 40 degrees all semester. The weeks before had been below 20, and so walking outside to a warm, sunny day was about all I needed. Things got better after getting an email that I had a package, which ended up being 21 cupcakes from a well known Danish Bakery sent by my Very loving parents.
Coincidentally, my birthday was during Restaurant Week in Copenhagen, a week-long event in which many local restaurants featured prix-fixe 3-course meals for 200DKK (roughly $35). This was an incredible deal, and after looking at a few menus, I made reservations at Cafe Victor for myself and seven of my friends from my program. We had an incredible meal and went out to celebrate at a local bar called The Happy Pig.
Shortly after my birthday, I went on two additionally memorable field studies. With my Biology of Marine Mammals class, I went to the private collections of the Danish Zoological Museum, where we got to see, and often touch, an enormous array of skeletons, and stuffed and preserved animal specimens. Our primary focus was the whales, dolphins, walruses, porpoises, seals, and polar bears, but the end of the tour was filled with pretty much every animal I could imagine and many more. It was incredible standing next to whale skeletons and trying to imagine how big the animal would be in real life (some whale are one and a half times taller than their skeletons). The most interesting part of this trip was definitely hearing the stories of some of the specimens, especially the Gaboon Viper at the end, an extremely poisonous snake which our tour guide had killed himself in the Amazon in an incredible story.
Narwhal Horns (made of pure ivory)
Walrus Tusks (each one weighs about 25 pounds)
Who wouldn't want to kiss a polar bear skull!?
Me standing next to a Sperm Whale's upper jaw (lower jaw can be seen on either side)
I prefer my lions bagged.
What buffaloes look like on the inside.
The Gaboon Viper, a snake no man (or baby) should ever be on a plane with
The last trip that I went on before going away this past week was to a closed prison. This took place the day after viewing the Danish film, R, which is a Danish prison movie which supposedly depicts an almost entirely accurate representation of gang violence and life in a closed prison. We got the chance to meet with and speak to two of the movie's stars after the screening, one of whom wrote the screenplay. We found out that only one actor in the movie had any previous acting experience and that virtually all of the rest of the actors were prior convicts who had served time in Danish closed prisons, including the screenwriter, in order to add to the film's authenticity. The film was extremely sobering; within the first 10 minutes viewers are shown a very graphic scene of prison violence, in which a new inmate must knock out another's teeth in order to avoid gang violence himself. Of course, when we actually went to the closed prison, we saw nothing of this harsh life--except from the guards who discussed how rival gangs were not allowed to walk in the same hallways at the same time and that movement in the prison was strictly monitored to avoid any similar altercations.
Overall, I was struck with how much freedom members of Danish closed prisons have compared to our prisoners in the US. If they are not extremely violent, they are allowed to order food off the internet and cook together in kitchens--some prisoners even cook and eat with the guards. Many are allowed to leave on weekends after a majority of their sentence has been served in order to visit family or start working at jobs, and they all own their own clothes and have their own rooms, that look much more like dormitories than prison cells. Sentences are also much shorter--we met a man who robbed and murdered someone for drugs who was serving 12 years, and said he could get off in 9 with good behavior. While at first this stunned many of us, I've developed more of an open mind as I learn more about the Scandinavian justice system, a system which promotes getting someone rehabilitated and out of prison as soon as possible so that they can successfully reenter society.
My final burst of culture took place at my Monday acrobatics class at AFUK on February 27th. I walked into the main entrance to the building to be greeted by a huge banquet hall full of tables with fine glasses and fancy cutlery. I was ushered to a different entrance of the building, confused, and told I could not walk through this way tonight. After getting into the practice room, I was informed that Denmark's minister of culture was going to be touring the facilities that evening with several European dignitaries as part of a tour of influential organizations receiving state funding in the fields of arts and culture. The minister entered our practice room and gave a speech to both the dignitaries and my class, discussing how much the circus academy gives back to society in Danish culture and how it had impressed many of the other members of the tour. Two members of the academy then gave a double trapeze performance for the minister, which was accompanied by a live theremin performance--an instrument I had never thought I'd see performed in person.
At the end of practice that evening, one of men in my class, Jacob, asked me if I was coming to Germany with them that weekend. I told him I didn't know anything about this, and he told me about Akrokiel, an acrobatics convention in Germany that the group went to every year that would be taking place that coming Friday-Sunday. This sounded like an incredible opportunity, but I had plans to go on my long study tour to London with my biomedicine class that Sunday and wouldn't be able to make it back to Copenhagen in time if I went. We discussed possible options, and I left that night determined to do everything in my power to make it to Germany to spend a weekend with 200 acrobats from all over Europe...
No comments:
Post a Comment