I have officially been in Copenhagen for a week, and I can honestly say I get happier and more comfortable here every day. I actually helped a Danish women with the metro yesterday! She didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Danish, but somehow I told her which metro goes to Norreport :)
This was also my first full weekend in Copenhagen, so Gabi and I decided we would sign up for one of the many trips DIS was offering. We really wanted to go to Elsinore castle (aka Shakespeare’s Hamlet’s castle), but that trip filled up very quick. We signed up for Vikings and Kings instead, which was a trip to Roskilde Cathedral and the Viking Ship museum on Sunday afternoon. Roskilde Cathedral has been the main burial site for Danish monarchs since the 15th century, and it has been added on several times since then.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, so I was pretty tired during the trip. Even more unfortunate is that the cathedral closed last minute, so we weren’t able to go inside. It is apparently really beautiful. Here is a picture from wikipedia:
However, we did get to walk around the outside while the tour guide explained the history. I was extremely cold though, and we were outside for way too long. Therefore, I didn’t really pay attention to anything that was said… oops! I did get some pictures though.
Then we went to the Viking Ship museum, which was kind of cool. I thought it would be bigger, and the tour guide went off on a lot of tangents that made no sense to me.
These are some recreations of the Viking ships that are all around outside of the museum. The tour guide said they are better to look at in the summer when it’s nice outside. I agree.
One of the coolest things I think we saw are five ships that were recovered from Roskilde Fjord. They were put in the water as a system of barrages to prevent against naval attacks in the 11th century. We also saw a short film of a project called “Thoroughbred of the Sea,” which is a project done by some Danes in 2007-2008. They constructed their own Viking ship, and 65 crew members sailed it from Denmark to Dublin and back. It was extremely impressive. I definitely could not have handled it! They also had a bunch of the notes from life aboard the ship, and most days at least 1 person was seasick… yuck!
Just a pretty swan outside of the museum.
Overall, the trip wasn’t what I expected, but it is obviously not DIS’s fault that we couldn’t go inside the cathedral. Maybe I can go see it another day.
In today’s news, I had another day of classes. I did sign up for a visiting family though, so I am extremely excited to have a home-cooked meal again and get to know a Danish family. I requested one with a dog! I miss mine a lot, and my roommate’s cats just aren’t cutting it.
Homework time!
Emily
No comments:
Post a Comment