DAY 59, TUESDAY, MARCH 12TH
Before I get into the day, this is officially the two month mark of being in Copenhagen! It's absolutely crazy to think that I'm half way done with study abroad :O
Anyways, today I woke up bright and early to get to my 8:30 class and Hannah came with! She was able to sit in on my Danish class which was pretty interesting as our professor often brings in relevant and recent cases to help discuss Danish culture! After that class Hannah headed to the national museum while I went to my other class of the day. After I finished class I met up with Hannah and we headed to Torvehallerne for lunch! It’s a really neat food hall with fresh food to buy and eat! I had Bao sandwiches from a Vietnamese street food stall while Hannah tried the traditional smorrebrod!
Once we finished eating we headed to the train station to head to Sweden! Hannah wanted to visit Sweden since it’s so easy and accessible from Copenhagen! I’ve already been to Malmö (the biggest city in Sweden that’s closest to Copenhagen) and didn’t feel the need to go back so we decided to go to Lund which is just about 10-15 min further than Malmö! Me and Hannah both know a friend from home who is studying abroad there too so we hung out with her and she showed us around. Though we were not welcomed by great weather, Lund was a super cute town! The university there is the life of the town so there definitely is a college town vibe but in the coolest little city! We walked around a bit and our friend showed us some of the school buildings and then we stopped in the Lund cathedral which was originally constructed in the 12th century. It started to rain a bit so then we decided to get some coffee and hang out in a cafe a bit! It was a great mix of fika (the Swedish tradition of taking a break to get coffee and cake) and hygge since it was so dark and rainy outside and very hcosy inside. After eating, drinking, and catching up we walked around a little more and did a bit of shopping before deciding to head home. There aren’t a lot of tourist to-do’s there so wasn’t too much we “had” to get done, we just enjoyed walking around and chatting.
Once we got back from Sweden (still is weird to say stuff like that lol) Hannah and I stopped at a really popular ramen joint for dinner! It was super delicious!
Then we met up with some of my friends for a drink- it was fun hanging out with my friend from forever and some of my new friends from here!!
DAY 60, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13TH
Today was another early day with me needing to meet up with criminology class in the city at 6:45 for our field study! Hannah stayed at the house and slept a little longer before heading into the city to visit Rosenborg castle and see the changing of the guards at the Amalienborg castle. Meanwhile, my criminology class’s study tour was to an open prison called Jyderup. It was about an 1.5 hour bus ride there and once we arrived we were met by a prison officer who works in the prison along with a resocialization consultant who has years of experience working in prisons. After getting a quick introduction to the prison we were met by 3 inmates to help guide as around. The majority of the tour consisted of touring an open prison for men, an open prison meaning there are no major walls/gates/guards actively preventing prisoners form leaving. If I had to compare the feel of that experience it would be more like a summer camp or college dorm. Prisoners are allowed to wear their own clothes, work within the prison or outside of it, get an education, shop for groceries, visit with families often, and cook their own food. They are also allowed to decorate their rooms and make their rooms a home. While there we also toured a closed women’s ward. You could definitely feel the difference with more locks, gates, and guards. But the prisoners still get their own room, wear their own clothes, and cook. Here we met with a women Roma who is serving 16 years for murder but is being extradited back to a country she’s never been to after 8. It was very interesting to hear her story and feel so much sympathy for her whereas if we just would’ve seen a headline of her crimes in the newspaper we probably wouldn’t feel any sort of sympathy towards her. We also visited the youth ward for children ages 15-17 (children 14 and under aren’t convicted/imprisoned) briefly. Overall, our two hour tour was very interesting and provided context and real life examples around what we are learning in class. One take away I learned (other than the stark difference between US and Denmark prison systems) is that even though the Danish open prisons are nice and extremely human, the prisoners lack of freedom is still a punishment, and the most important punishment. After the tour we took the bus back into the city where I met up with Hannah. We grabbed sandwiches from Smagsløget which is highly related sandwich restaurant in Copenhagen- it definitely lived up to the hype with yummy, large sandwiches. Then we headed to Skt. Peders Bageri to get the onsdagssnegle (“Wednesday snails”=cinnamon rolls they only serve on Wednesdays). After finishing eating up we headed to Christiania to walk through it!! "Freetown Christiania" is an intentional community or commune which has an interesting history but is most well-known for it's legalization of marijuana; no pictures are supposed to be taken within the grounds of Christiania!
Then we stopped at the grocery store to get groceries for the fajitas that we are cooking for my host family tonight! Once we got our groceries and got back we relaxed for a little bit before getting to cooking!! Me and Hannah, with the help of my host brother and host dad cooked up some fajitas with all the fixings- onions, peppers, chicken, rice, cheese, guacamole, salsa, etc! It all went fairly successfully and we enjoyed a good dinner! After dinner my host mom took me and Hannah to the Louisiana art museum to check it out! The museum had some new exhibits since the last time I visited that we really enjoyed!
After we got back from the museum we had some coffee/tea and pineapple before heading to bed!
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