More photos

Expect posts on both Freetown Christiania and environmental sustainability in the near future. Today was a great day, and I learned quite a bit about each of those things. More to come, as I'll be participating in a large-scale anti-coal protest this Saturday, organized by folks from Christiania. So, the two topics intersect. I'll probably post sometime Sunday about what I think (spoiler: I like both Christiania and environmental sustainability. Hope that didn't ruin the ending).

In the meantime, a few more photos from the Jutland trip, as a few more friends have facebook'd. Specifically, many of the photos involve me. While I don't consider myself to be an important part of Jutland scenery, some of my friends and family want confirmation that I'm actually here, and not just making things up for this blog. Or maybe they don't believe me that I'm having fun, and need a picture of me smiling to be sure. Either way, I've got a handful of new photos (thanks Gina and Katia!)


(Scenery from the drive. Most of Denmark looks like this.)


(Katia's notebook at Kaospilots. If you can't read it, the text says "Best Experience so far in Denmark:" followed by a pile of M&M minis.)


(My good-lookin' self on a trampoline at the playground behind our hostel the first night.)


(Me scaling a little-kid climbing wall in an unnecessarily complicated fashion)


(There were legos inside the hostel in a common room. I was going for a "monster stomping through the city" look, but in retrospect my foot is not quite as menacing as I once thought.)


(View of the water from near our meeting room at the Danfoss Foundation. Just out-of-frame to the left, there was a few people taking their lunch break on the boardwalk. Nice place to work, I imagine.)


(Trekking the Danfoss wilderness. This picture makes it seem huge, but there's only about 15 meters of these tunnels. Still, pretty cool.)


(Trampoline at Danfoss. Wheeeeee!)


(Near the trampoline there was a spot just downhill that said something like "take photos from here." I didn't quite get why taking a photo from below would be any cooler. Until I saw this.)


(This is the Mission Impossible test that I mentioned in the third Jutland post. Nice action shot of Gina.)


(I have a Ph.D. in Rube Goldbergology! My hamsterwheelin' makes little balls go through the wire tubes on the top right.)


(Dinner at the BBQ place. My Psych of Happiness professor, Helle is kneeling on the left.)


("Twisted bread," a Danish campfire tradition.)

...Wherein Eli makes a "shaken, not stirred" joke

Last night I went to the basement bar (if you're just tuning in, that's exactly what it sounds like. There is a bar in the basement of my Kollegium). Folks are pretty generous about buying a tray of drinks and just passing them around to whoever's nearby. It led me to the realization that my sobriety for most of my life had less to do with my own concerns about safe drinking and more to do with the fact that I am very, very cheap. Friends would sometimes invite me to drink, and say "hey, they've got cheap alcohol at [name of place], we can get drunk for only $20 apiece!" My immediate response was always that a $40 board game would provide a lot more fun than two nights of cheap liquor, and that it just wasn't worth the money.

That said, despite the fact that I'm no longer a complete teetotaler, I'm keeping it light; I still have no desire to get so drunk that I pass out, or vomit, or can't find my room (which is about 200 feet away from the bar). So, I'm figuring out where my limits are in a safe way. How do I feel after four drinks? After seven? Do I want to have more, or is this my limit? I still don't like the idea of not being in control of my own body, so it was easy for me to decide to stop at the point when I was getting-tipsy-but-not-yet-wasted. I know for some people the whole point is to fall over, but that's not really me.

DIS warned us not to try to keep up with the Danes, because they would drink us under the table (or put in the passive voice, we would be drunk under the table, which amuses me more for some reason). Danes start drinking a lot in high school, so by the time they're in college, they've got quite the tolerance. This is, of course, a culture like in US frats: he who drinks the most is the manliest, and everyone else is, and I quote, "A pussy." But I've seen that before, and I was ready to take DIS's advice long before they ever gave it. Most Danes have met other American exchange students at one point or another, and expect us to be lightweights. Two weeks ago, a bunch of Americans came down to the bar at 11:30, and they all went to bed at 1:00 because they drank too much. I drank less and drank it slower, but I stayed up until sunrise meeting people and having some good conversations. Therefore, I think I win whatever inane contest we were having.

But of course, that was just three paragraphs of setup for the real story that sticks out in my mind. There were two guys at around 5:00AM who decided that they couldn't have any fun because out of the 10 or so people left in the bar, *I* was not drunk enough. I had already had a conversation with them earlier in the evening about being an American student in Denmark, etc., so they (one of them in particular) pulled out just about every coercive trick he could think of to get me to have a shot. He had clearly had this conversation before, and his happiness was definitely riding on getting me to have another drink; he tried everything, and I was proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone while still staying safe.

Paragraphs may be inadequate to understand the breadth of this guy's tactics. I think it calls for a bulleted list, with me assigning a title to each move.

• The "But what about this one" doctrine: The problem was that I hadn't tried that specific kind of shot. I explained that, in fact, I had two of them, and thought they were okay, but that he was missing the point. I was plenty drunk already.
  
• The "I'm not too drunk as long as I can still hang on to the floor!" theory: He explained to me that I was not yet drunk enough because I still had fairly good motor skills. My response was that I enjoy motor skills.
  
• The "Okay, sure, that's a factor, but..." fallacy: He explained that we had the same physical build (true), so we should be able to hold about the same amount of alcohol (false). I just laughed and said "that's not true at all, and you know it," and he moved on.
  
• The "Cultural exchange" guilt trip: He explained that I was not having a proper Danish student experience because I was still on my feet. He went on to say that, as a Dane, he was disappointed and hurt that I wouldn't share a drink with him (my response: nobody else seems to mind, and they're mostly Danish). He also said that he's been in the Kollegium for a few years now and the exchange students often fly under the radar, they stick together, don't come to the bar, and then he and the other folks never get to meet us, and we miss out on meeting them. I promised not to fly under the radar, and we ended up both deciding that there should be a "meet the international students" party sometime in October, which actually sounds like a great opportunity to me.
  
• The "Man up!" approach: He told me that I was *so close* to being a cool American. As previously mentioned, we often go to sleep at around 1:00, and the other American guy in the building had set the current record (a record this guy made up on the spot) by staying up drinking with them until around 3:00. This was an easy one to pick apart, because he was flat-out lying to my face to get me to drink. I told him that 1) I had stayed up until 4:30AM two weeks ago, and 2) that it was now 5:30AM, and I was still up, and had my last drink around 5:00, so I was not about to break the record, but had rather broken that particular record over two hours ago.
• The "It's the weekend!" ideology: Blah blah, it's Friday night, you can get wasted, it's not like you have to do anything tomorrow, etc. etc. This one was sort of true, but not really a good enough reason to drink unhealthily. That's often my logic for staying up all night playing board games, but not over-drinking.

Of all those things, it was the "cultural exchange" issue that bothered me the most. I promised myself before I came that I would be open and try Danish things. So, that actually made me stop and think for a few seconds longer than anything else he said. Yet, there's nothing really uniquely Danish about getting wasted. Sure, they do it a little differently here than in the States... but not significantly. And me having ten fewer drinks than the Danish guy isn't "flying under the radar." Most of the guys there know my name now. I was there for six hours. I'm very much on the radar. It's not like sober people are invisible (as hilarious as that would be).

Besides, if I can't remember what happened the night before, what did I really experience? I've asked people what they did on their study abroad trips, and had a couple people say "eh, got wasted a lot." I'm all about people doing what they want to do, but for me, that seems like a waste of a semester. I'm determined to come home with stories that I'm proud I was part of. For some people, learning to hold your liquor may be a source of pride, but it doesn't feel that way to me. I'm proud of the work I do; none of the guys at the bar are going to the Climate Change Flashmob this Monday. So, I feel like I'm good person, and rather than be annoyed at the guy, I'm just proud of my situational awareness and my ability to stick to my guns. Go me!

Culture, Art, and Souvenirs (Jutland part 4 of 4)

(View of the main courtyard of Koldinghus. The water in the fountain is flowing from a cornucopia)

The bus left for Koldinghus Castle in the town of Kolding. It was a nice little suburban cultural area, with plenty of shops and bars in the town center. The castle dated back to the 13th century, if I remember correctly, when it used to mark the southern border of Denmark. Now, the building is preserved as a cultural landmark, and some of the space is also used for museum exhibits. The one that stuck out to me most was a silversmithing exhibit which included a lot of modern silverware (including not just flatware, but also spiceboxes, bowls, candlesticks, and a variety of other things). A lot of great art, albeit needlessly expensive and fancy.

One of the wings had a fire in the 1800's, and they preserved that wing of the castle by building a new wing around the ruins. It's pretty cool; reminds me of a lot of the ancient landmarks I saw in Israel years back, although these are admittedly 1500-1800 years newer.


(a room built around the ruins of one of the old sections of the castle, burnt down in a fire in the 1800's)

At the top of the main tower of the castle, the view of the town was great. When the tower was originally built, there were statues of Greek/Roman figures on the four corners (Hercules, Scipio, Hector, Hannibal). Only Hercules is still there, and he's propped up on a tripod-type thing. I rarely picture Hercules as needing help standing up straight.


(Hercules The Frail, surveying the town)

At the gift shop, I bought my first gift for someone back home. I'm keeping it a secret, because s/he may guess that it's for her/him based on the item. I decided (and forewarned my friends) that I am not going to return to the states with a pile of keychains, refrigerator magnets and t-shirts, but only buy gifts for people if I happen to find something that makes me think "this is a thing that they will like." Or, of course, if they make a request for a type of gift (even a keychain). So, I was happy that found something that felt right; hopefully I'll find other things like that for other people close to me.

We went and hung out in town for lunch. After walking around a number of expensive restaurants, we settled on a highly Americanized pizza-and-burger joint owned by a very friendly Muslim family who clearly spoke three languages better than some people speak one. The son looked to be about 14, and had no trouble asking for my order in Danish, realizing I wasn't Danish and switching to English, then relaying the order back to his mother in his native language (which may have been Arabic, but I don't have the linguistic skill to guess). My friends all got pepperoni pizza, I went with the pita salad. I don't know if that makes me any more cultured than them, but it was certainly tasty. We sat outside for lunch, and an Irish band started playing at the English pub across the street (The Troubles don't exist here, apparently). The place was called "The You'll Never Walk Alone Pub." Adorable. After a few songs, it was time for us to head back.


(Many of the buildings in Kolding looked a lot like this. Very old-timey)

Our other stop for the day was the Trapholt Art Museum, about 20 minutes away from Kolding. About half the museum was abstract art, specifically concrete art. Apparently concrete is a subset of abstract when you're talking about art. Even though in English language classes, they are opposites. The other half of the museum was a furniture design exhibit. A lot of it, as a classmate of mine said, was "pointlessly Scandinavian." Things that were just curvy for the sake of being curvy and (according to some) pretty. But not... comfortable. At all. Which would be my first priority, to be honest. There were a few things that had a clear intentionality to them that were functional as furniture AND in terms of the artistic makeup of a room, and I liked those.


(To answer your question: yes, this is theoretically supposed to be furniture).

We also saw these cool customizable houses that were made out of roughly 3m cubes that could be built together, and when you had some money, adding an extra room-cube would be cheap and easy. They never caught on because the concept really only works in an undeveloped countryside where there aren't existing buildings in the way, but it actually seems like a really cool way to create affordable housing.


(The Cube-Flex house, as it is officially known)

So, we finished at the museum and rode the bus for three hours back to København. The whole study tour rocked, the group was positive, and even though I have some strong opinions about huge modern art exhibits, I enjoyed my time at every single place we went. The other DIS folks in my class are great, and I met a lot of cool Danes. It was a great three days. Quite possibly the best three-day stretch of my life, actually. No exaggeration. It was awesome; even just Kaospilots would have made the trip worthwhile, but it was much more than that. Looking forward to what the next thing brings.

-Eli

I can lift CARS (Jutland part 3 of 4)

We spent most of day 2 (Friday) on an island in the Southern part of Denmark. This island is sometimes colloquially referred to as Danfoss Country, after the HVAC company of the same name that has its HQ in that area. Many people on the island and in the surrounding area work for the company, either in manufacturing or more behind-the-scenes work. Literally thousands of employees live in this area. Think "Roger and Me," but before the factory closed. This is a one-horse island, in some ways.

However, there is a university in the area, where the Danfoss Foundation research center is. There's 10 or so researchers doing positive psychology work, and we went for a visit. We listened to a short lecture about learning styles, then split up into groups to address a pedagogical issue and explain how we would structure a research project on that issue. I learned that some of my classmates had done research on various topics for previous classes, and chatted with some of them afterwards. Apparently research had been done showing that many seemingly minor improvements in schools (i.e. slightly more comfortable chairs) cause significant increases in student attentiveness. I'd be interested in seeing the details of these studies. I did a project back in high school about sleep deprivation in teenagers, and I shared that with some classmates too. It was a good chance to talk about what we already know, and what else we want to learn.

The university building containing Danfoss Foundation is almost pointlessly large and open. Just take a look:



(left: a shot exemplifying the open-air-ness of this space)




(below: our meeting room)



In the afternoon, we went to Danfoss Universe, a huge science park in the middle of nowhere. Not only does the place see little traffic due to poor location, but it was also a weekday. As such, we were more or less the only people in this park that day. We spent the afternoon running around like little kids, pressing the buttons on everything that had buttons. There was a Segway exhibit, which I didn't waste my time on (I'd seen them before, and we only had two hours in the park). There was a multiple intelligences building with all sorts of puzzles and games to test different things out. A few classics ("make these shapes into a cube" puzzle, the make-15 puzzle, as well as many others) and a bunch of wacky new things I'd never seen before. The "spatial awareness" puzzle was basically a Mission Impossible scene: Get through the passage as quickly as possible without touching any of the ropes stretched across the path.

There was also an interesting alternative energy exhibit and a few random, non-educational things (like a trampoline). Out in the front of the park there was a car attached to one end of a scale, and ropes attached to the other, and we lifted the car. They were trying to make a point about lever arms (the last rope was three times as far from the fulcrum as the car) but they also used pulleys to make it even easier, so the point was somewhat lost. Didn't matter to any of us, though; mostly we just had fun lifting the car, then someone would hang onto the rope and everyone else would let go, causing that person to slowly rise 10 feet up in the air. Good times. There was a lot of positivity, and everyone seemed to enjoy running around the place.


(lifting a car)

(waterworks)

I realized partway through the afternoon that the emptiness of the park helped me enjoy it. I like being able to be a little kid at times, but when there are actual kids present, it feels deeply wrong and invasive. I have strong memories as a kid of being 8 and hanging out at a playground, then teenagers would show up and I would feel nervous and uncomfortable. Our rowdiness and size would have probably been disconcerting for many small children, but I'm glad we had the chance to run free and goof off for the afternoon we were there.

That evening we dropped our things off at a hostel in Haderslev (see map above) then went out to dinner.


(the hostel cabins. Despite the skies, it did not rain)

We ate at a semi-fancy BBQ joint. The restaurant was medium-sized, and we took up the entire place, save two tables (there were over 50 of us). The food was good, albeit very American (hamburger patty, baked potato, fries, ice cream for dessert). The restroom signs were cute. Of course, had I actually entered the one that looked most like me, I would have entered the wrong one. Thanks, societal gender constructs! Sure, I'm not the first person to make that point, but I did almost enter the women's room); I think I was looking for "not wearing a dress," and when I saw that, I assumed male.


(AWWWWWWWWWWW)

My friend Katia* and I were chosen to lead the group on the walk to and from the restaurant, due to our high scores in social intelligence and spatial awareness (because we're friendly and can read maps). Half the group got caught at a crosswalk, and I stayed behind with that group while the other leader went on ahead. Apparently that was a selfless and noble thing to do, because the professor thanked me for hanging back and one of the other chaperones bought me a Black Bird (beer) later, on account of my "being a great leader." I liked the beer better than other beers I've had, but I'm not really a beer drinking kind of guy, so that's not saying much. One positive note was that it was a local beer. We could actually see the brewery across the bay from our hostel.

We returned to the hostel to a bonfire, where we made snobrød, which are basically doughboys, for those of you who camped as a kid. You take a ball of dough, put it on a stick, and roast it. Simple as that. We hung out for about an hour, but we had been asked in advance to quiet down or head to our cabins at 11:00PM. We went down to the water briefly, then I headed to my cabin with the friends I had chosen to room with. It was the same crew who went on the late-night walk on the bike path the previous night. The cabin had two bunk bed rooms and a loft, and all six of us wanted the loft to one degree or another, so we decided to just stick all the mattresses up there and get cozy (which it was. Hyggeligt, even). We stayed up and talked while lying in bed, just like a teenage sleepover party. I joked a bit about the incredibly awkward conversation I'd been part of the previous night in the boys' room (the contents of which will not be repeated in this family-friendly blog). One of my new friends countered with a story about suddenly finding herself in the middle of a conversation about sex that she found a bit too explicit, especially for strangers. I think we bonded.

The following morning I took a shower and did some Tai Chi out by the water. I hadn't consistently done Tai Chi since finishing Peace Practice, but the place just seemed right for it, surrounded by a beautiful bay and nice plants. I watched a lone duck as I did the movements. She quacked at me when I started leaning into my Ward Off Left. She told me to stop leaning into the movements, and keep my nose lined up with my navel, like Ailish taught me. Well, at least that's what I think it was saying. Maybe it was saying "Who the heck are you?" Or maybe it was just saying "Quack."

-Eli


(the view from roughly where I was doing Tai Chi)

*I stole all the photographs in these four posts from Katia, and am forever grateful to her for the awesome photography.

Kaospilots: They actually *fly entropy* (Jutland part 2 of 4)

We went into a large meeting room where two recent alumnae gave us a short presentation about who the Kaospilots are. It's a leadership development program for young people aged 18-30, although most do it after going to college then seeing the world for a bit, putting them in the 24-28 range. It's a 3-year program with about 30 students per class, so there are about 100 people enrolled at any given time. The first year, everyone works on a hypothetical project. The second year, the 30-person group does some sort of social action project together, and the third year everyone does an individual project as sort of a thesis.

The central theme of the Kaospilot philosophy is the idea that people with a strong vision, understanding of their own strengths, and capacity for leadership will end up doing solid work for the world. They went over a few projects that Kaospilots alums have worked on. One started a bike donation program, one started a psychological well-being program for kids who recently immigrated to help them adjust. We were introduced to a lot of projects, terminology and definitions, not all of which I had time to write down. However, my favorite slide was one that showed four kinds of leadership:

1. Top-down leadership. I'd call this "classical" leadership. This is the leader running a group (a CEO, a general, a manager, etc.)
2. Lateral leadership. Leading a group that you are also a part of. For example, showing leadership during a group project.
3. Outward leadership. Influencing the larger world through your example.
4. Internal leadership. Literally "leading" your life. Being in control of your actions, choosing what you want to do and where you want to be at any given time.
   

By the end of the initial presentation, I was already starting to think that Kaospilots was something I'd like to do after college. This feeling only became stronger as the afternoon continued.

After a short break, our 50-person group split in half and we did a short workshop to get a sense of what an afternoon of discovering our purpose in life might feel like (spoiler: it feels pretty damn good). The room we were in was clearly the third-year HQ. There were 30 large sheets of paper on the wall around the room, each with a name on it. On them were written things such as "interests" and "possible contacts" with text below. It was clear that several people had written on each one. Everyone does their own project, but I get the feeling that people pretty heavily support and advise each other. My favorite wall chart looked like this:

It wasn't filled in yet, but it was large enough to fill half the wall of the room, so I suspect there would be plenty of time in the next four months to work on it.

The workshop started with each of us sharing our favorite experience in Denmark so far, then we went on a "dream journey," which was more or less a guided meditation. Here's where I realized Kaospilots was the thing for me. I've tried meditation a few times, but never really been able to focus or get much out of it. I find it relaxing, but I've never had any powerful realizations or spiritual moments while meditating.

I preface this excessively only to drive home the following point: the woman told us all to open our third eye, and my third eye opened. And those italics aren't strong enough. I can't really explain it any other way. I felt a physical sensation in my lower forehead/eyebrow region where the third eye is said to be. I've never had my third eye even sort of open the previous times I've tried meditation. Then this time, it was really freakin' open. I had an incredibly clear sense of where I wanted to be in four months at the end of DIS, and where I wanted to be a couple years from now, which is at Kaospilots. That spiritual experience, coupled with the fact that I enjoyed the afternoon and agree with the pedagogy of the organization... I don't think there's a heck of a lot of question. Then again, who knows what the next two years will bring. However, Kaospilots tops my list until proven otherwise.

We spent the rest of the workshop making lists and sharing them. Things we dislike about the current state of the world, things we are good at, things we are passionate about, things that block us from doing what we really want to do. At the end, we all went around and said what we'd take with us and what we'd leave behind due to the workshop. I took with me a renewed understanding of why I'm in Peace Studies, as well as a renewed desire to meet people. I'm leaving behind my cynicism and insecurity, at least for the time being.

We drove south to Vejle (see map in previous post) to a hostel where we spent the night. We had some delicious food, then did an art project. We all painted our idea of happiness on a small canvas. Due to the size of the canvas and my own logical deduction skills, I knew what would become of these; the next day we laid them all out in a mural formation. I anticipated this, and said to the people around me that my idea of happiness is community, and asked if anyone would like to create two halves of an image and put them next to each other. My friend Caitlin jumped at the opportunity.


(Can you spot Eli and Caitlin's collaboration? Eli's is the left half)

After dessert, six of us went out to play on a playground just outside the hostel. Then we took a long walk down a bike path leading away from the hostel. I got to know some of my American cohorts a little better. I'm trying not to spend all my time with them so I can experience being in a new culture a little more, but making friends has been great. I spent the night with the four other guys in our group of 25 (sounds like Goucher, right?) Got a decent 5-6 hours of sleep, ate some pancakes, then got on the bus to head south.

HATB and the art of the low bridge (Jutland, part 1 of 4)

Yesterday evening, I returned from the first of our two study tours. In under a month, I will be going to Scotland for a week, which I am, of course, thrilled about. However, the past three days have been spent in Western Denmark, which was amazing beyond belief. So many things happened in those three days that I couldn't possibly compress it into one post. So, consider this part 1 of a 4 part series.

Note: many people took awesome photos of the trip, and there was a plan to create a group photo album somewhere on the web. The plan hasn't materialized yet, but I'm going to bring it up in class tomorrow and get people to post their pictures ASAP. Once they do, I'll edit this post to include beautiful pictures that perfectly counterpoint my brilliant prose.

------

Thursday, September 10th

We drove four hours across the country from Copenhagen to the region of Jutland. Jutland is the half of Denmark that is actually attached to mainland Europe; most of Denmark consists of islands. Our first stop was the second-largest city in Denmark, Århus, which contains about 300,000 people. The four hours and the 300,000 people gives you some idea of how big Denmark is (i.e. not very big).

Along the highway (E20) we passed by mostly farmland, especially sheep and horses. The scenery was beautiful, and the two main bodies of water we crossed provided an incredible view.

We arrived at Århus (rhymes with door-loose) around 12:30PM, but had some trouble getting to the headquarters of Kaospilots, our first stop. See, Århus is not a very large city, and we were in a Huge-Ass Tour Bus (HATB for short). Our bus driver, a very friendly and very adept Swede, kept having to find alternate routes as our HATB was repeatedly stopped by low bridges. At one point, he actually had to back into a four-way intersection to turn around due to one such bridge. After quite bit of maneuvering, he got us to the headquarters, where there was much fanfare.

I don't know if it's a Scandinavian thing or it's just our group, but we invited the two bus drivers along to just about everything during the study tour, except a couple of the academic workshops. DIS treated them to meals when we went out as a group, and they came with us to all the museums and cultural sites that we visited. The two drivers spent most of the time chatting with each other, but we got to talk with them a bit as well. They both seemed to love life. Our driver was more amused than annoyed by the low bridges, and laughed along with the professor and a few of the students every time we had to turn around.

So, we finally arrived at the Kaospilots HQ. The first thing that stands out about Kaospilots' HQ is the fact that all the buildings are covered in graffiti. Not "I wrote fuck on the bathroom wall 'cause I thought it was funny" graffiti, but serious art. Most of it was made by Kaospilots students, with the blessing of the organization. It was good stuff. More on them in the next post.

-Eli

(credit to my friend Katia for the following picture. There are several buildings with more, equally awesome stuff on them, but this one sums it up).

The Conclusions To Which We Have Jumped

I want to take a post to address a few more things that were in our welcome handbook, phrased in the form of a "Danes are like this" statement. It turns out that a lot of generalizations we were given about the mythical Average Young Dane are either untrue or irrelevant. For example:

There's a bar in the basement of the Kollegium, open Friday and Saturday nights (admittedly, that's a little different than a US dorm). I've hung out there twice, and between what Danes say and what our welcome handbook says, I've heard the following things about Danish drinking:

1) Danes can hold a lot more liquor than Americans, in part because most of them have been drinking since a younger age (like... 13). Don't try to keep up with them, they'll drink you under the table.
2) As a result of the younger start, they also are, for the most part, just interested in getting a bit tipsy and having a good time, not getting wasted. The thing that American college kids do where we show up freshman year and go "WOOOO PARTY TIME LET'S GET EFF'D UP!" is something that the Danes all did when they were 16, so the older college kids are over it.

Statement 1 is true, on average. But they're not magic. It's not like they're downing a dozen drinks without feeling a thing. They can hold their liquor about as well as my friends back home who drink regularly in large quantity. Sure, they could drink me under the table, but I don't drink much, so where's the pride in that?

Statement 2 is just patently false. They get wasted. Many people in my Kollegium, at least. I saw a group do the asshole frat-boy thing where a guy passes out, and rather than help him out, they decide that the 60-degree-and-somewhat-wet outdoor courtyard would be a good place for him to sleep it off. I also saw a girl not be able to lift her drink to her mouth of her own power (this is #2 after "passed out" on the list of signs you've had enough). So, naturally, a "friend" offered to "help" her by more or less pouring it down her throat (oh, don't worry, she was appreciative).

I'm not saying they're doing anything beyond what goes on every weekend at a US state school. It's pretty much the same stuff, and it does feel like there's less of it here, at least slightly. And yet, I'd be lying if I said that the 30 people in the bar last night went down to have four or five drinks and get lightly buzzed. One of my DIS friends and I were berated several times for not currently having a drink in hand (because they can't drink until they've clinked cups with everyone).

Hvidovre Hospital Kollegium

My home for the next three and a half months is a "Kollegium" (koh-lee-gi-um. Hard "g"). It's sort of a shared student housing building. Most universities do not have their own dorms, for a number of reasons. Many Danes continue to live with their parents through college, and many live in their own apartments with friends. However, some people want a dorm-type setup, so they come to live in one of many Kollegiums.

They're more or less dormitories, but they don't belong to a particular school. The only requirement is that you have to be a student somewhere in the area. It's sort of like if there was a big dorm somewhere in Baltimore where Loyola, Goucher, Towson, Hopkins, MICA, and other students all lived. Sounds like a crazy idea, huh? Well, there's a couple reason why I think it works here, (and why it wouldn't work quite as well in the US).

The big one is that people get a little too wrapped up in the notion of "school spirit" in the States. Goucher kids spend so much time ragging on the other schools in the area that it would take a lot for many of us to live with Hopkins kids. What with preconceived notions and all. I spent the summer in Boston, and it's the same there. I think it's not until a couple years after college that many people come to the startling conclusion that people who go to other schools are still decent human beings. I'm exaggerating only slightly. It's certainly not true of everyone, though, and I think there are many people who would enjoy living in such a setup.

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Onto the dorm itself (I've got pictures, albeit taken awkwardly with my laptop camera) The dorm is divided into 8 halls, each with two floors. The halls are set up off a main hallway (think of it as a spine, with four ribs on each side). This leaves space between the halls for six small, enclosed courtyards, each of which has a picnic table and a tree or two. This is my hall, and some of me:

You'll notice the hall has these red circles on the tile floor (just trust me on the "red" part). When the sun is beyond the end of the hall, as it is in this picture, those dots are completely invisible until you get close. The dots continue down the hall, but you can't see beyond the first two. They just blend into the glare.

On the first day, as I walked down to the end of the hall, I noticed that dots were appearing as I approached them. It reminded me of something from a sci-fi movie, or maybe a Miyazaki film.


My room has its own bathroom, complete with sink, toilet, and shower. No shared bathrooms here. Coming from Goucher dorms, a private bathroom seems kind of unnecessary (that's a lot of extra infrastructure to build), but I don't mind having it.

You might be looking at this picture and thinking "but Eli, where's the shower?"

Well...

It's behind the door. It's a little hard to wrap your head around it if you're used to the standard setup, but the whole bathroom is the shower. Everything is made to be able to get wet, (sink, toilet, etc) so the curtain isn't strictly necessary for anything.

No, scratch that. It protects the roll of toilet paper. That's literally the only thing in the bathroom that can't get soaked.

Anyway, I've been told some Kollegiums are like that, but most standard homes have the setup we're all used to.

That's one challenge I've faced here: I'm open to the idea that things are different in Denmark, but I'm somewhat indiscriminately open to it. I saw my bathroom and thought "Oh, that's how they do it in Denmark." Or, I'll be at the supermarket and be unable to find beans, and I'll think "Oh, I guess they don't eat beans here." Neither of those things are true; I started generalizing the moment I saw anything different.

They actually told us during orientation (without any prompting) "Yes, peanut butter is sold in Denmark, you'll just have to look around, it's not at every store." It's as though they know we're going to jump to conclusions after one store.

Anyway... my room. It's a bit of a mess. I haven't found any blu-tack equivalent yet, so I've got a pile of posters laying in the middle of my room. The room came with a bed, some bedding, a small desk/table, a desk chair, a comfy floor chair, a lamp, a shelf, and three bottles of toilet cleaning solution (two are on top of the shelf, one is out-of-frame in my closet). I'm going to take the high road here; insert your own joke as you see fit.

The door in the right half of the picture leads out to the courtyard. Sometimes I go play guitar out there.

That's pretty much all I can think to say about the captain's quarters. I don't know which things in my room were from the Kollegium, which things were from DIS, and which things were left by a previous tenant. I might find that out sometime, so I know what the expected situation is for an average Danish student living here. DIS coddles us a bit in terms of making us deal with the "real world," although not as much as the average college student (I am cooking for myself, after all). And I wouldn't want it otherwise; I'd like to know how to be a "real person" before graduating, if at all possible.

-Eli