Before I begin this post, I’m just going to apologize. I haven’t been posting nearly as much as I intend to, and I’ve got about a month’s worth of backlogged posts to write for you guys. So I’ll be making posts about some things that happened quite a long time ago. I hope you will be understanding!
In October, I went to go spend some time with another exchange student living in Denmark whom I met when I sat next to her on the plane that took us from New York to Copenhagen. It’s been about a full month since that happened, but better late than never.
First, to introduce my foreign exchange friend Laura, originally from Canada. She is living in a town to the north of Copenhagen, called Hillerød. We became pretty good friends during the time we spent together at orientation in Copenhagen, so naturally we wanted to see each other again before she leaves. So, we arranged that I would come up for the weekend. On Friday after school, I took the bus to the Odense main station, then got on a train headed to Copenhagen with my host parents sending me off. I was on an express train, so it took a little over an hour to get there.
When I got off, Laura and her host father were waiting for me on the platform. After the 45-minute drive back to Hillerød (and by this time it was evening), Laura’s family ordered some pizza for us, and we spent the night talking about anything and everything. Living in Denmark is really cool and great and nice, and Danes speak English fantastically, but it was so indescribably comforting to talk to someone who speaks my first language as their own, who comes from an extremely similar culture, and who is going through nearly the same experience as my own. We didn’t have any problems finding things to talk about with each other.
On Saturday, Laura and I were basically free to just roam around Hillerød and do whatever. One of the first placed we walked to was the castle in Hillerød, Frederiksborg Slot. It was extremely beautiful. When I was in Copenhagen in August, I saw Amalienborg, which is technically a castle, but I think it lacked that magical characteristic that, in my mind, would change it from a royal residence to a castle. The castle I saw that day, and it definitely was a castle, really had that mysterious, unidentifiable characteristic. And don’t worry, photos from my Hillerød trip will all be in the next post, with captions!
Okay, technically we didn’t go TO the castle first, we went to the gardens that accompanied the castle, from which you could clearly see it. The gardens were really beautiful as well, and immaculately cared for. The gardens there are known as the slotshave (castle gardens) or barokhave (baroque gardens). The main feature of these gardens were the spectacular monogrammed hedges, which looked a bit like strange swirling patterns when you were on their level, but transformed into intricate, beautiful monograms as you climbed higher away from them to the next levels of the garden. Walking through the garden was really beautiful, and you’ll see a number of pictures from that in my next post.
After visited Frederiksborg Slot, we went to downtown Hillerød, to the popular “gågade,” or walking streets. Nearly every town has one of these. They are long, winding streets lined with shops and restaurants where you can enjoy a nice, cozy walk with friends or family away from the noise of main roads. These walking streets are exclusively for passersby on foot and on bike. Laura and I made our way down the street and went into the local shopping mall to get some lunch. We went to a restaurant called the Burger Garage, where we ordered not-burgers, and enjoyed the warmth inside.
After lunch, we went next door in the mall to the mighty Bilka. To give you a perspective of what exactly Bilka is, it’s as close as Denmark gets to Walmart. Basically, it’s a mega grocery store that also has some clothes, toys, cleaning products, and things like that. We wandered around inside for a while, discussing Danish foods and which we had tried, which we had liked, which we hadn’t, and things like that. We eventually found ourselves in the candy section and decided to buy some Ritter Sport chocolates, some in some distinctly non-american flavors, like Marzipan, strawberry yogurt, and white chocolate with corn chips. We also came upon the American food section of the store, which had marshmallows, barbeque sauce, canned cranberry sauce, pancake mix, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and more.
After Bilka we walked around the mall and walking street a bit more before going down to the international market that was stopping in town. It had a lot of food and clothes, and other craftsman-type goods from all around Europe. One thing that surprised me there, but shouldn’t have, was that all the vendors and customers were speaking English to each other. I was a bit startled at first to be hearing English, but then I realized that this was, in fact, an international market, and all the vendors were from places that weren’t Denmark. Sometimes I forget how English is actually being used as a universal language.
We made a quick stop at Laura’s gymnasium, basically high school, and walked through a forest to go back to Laura’s home for dinner. Her host family had some company that night, and we had some quite good burgers for dinner. After that, Laura and I mostly just chilled, played some Mario Kart, had some of the chocolate we bought earlier, and then went to bed.
The next morning, everyone woke up early to go to Fredensborg Slot, the historical and current residence of the Danish queen in the summer months. This castle was also very beautiful, and the gardens as well. We also saw the boats and boathouse used by the royal family. Since this is an actively used residency of the Danish royals, there were palace guards on-duty, the same as those on patrol at Amalienborg. We walked around the grounds for a while with Laura’s host family, and even got a (usually impossible) peek into the church in the castle compound, where a special seat for the queen herself is included at the back of the small, beautiful chapel.
Soon after, it was time for me to board the train back to Odense, and say goodbye to Laura. It was a really fun weekend, and it was really nice to see and talk to another student going through the same things as me. I’m sure you have many ideas as to what different things I have mentioned look like, but don’t worry, pictures from this visit are in the next post, with captions for each picture! (To see the caption, all you have to do is click on the photo!)
