The Easiest Job In the World

Being a weatherman in Copenhagen.

Dear Denmark: You Have Too Many Castles Give Me One

I haven't travelled much through Europe yet, but Denmark seems to have more than it's fair share of Castles. Today we visited two more of them, first Frederiksborg Slot in Hillerød and then Kronborg Slot in Helsingør. We got up early and took a bus to Hillerød which is about 40 minutes north of where I am staying.

Frederiksborg was my favorite of the two castles, although part of that was that it was the first one we visited. Most of the current castle was built in the early 1600's although like everything else it had a big fire in 1859 that burned much of the interior. The castle was rebuilt, and the Museum of National History was also established. Several floors of the castle hold collections of paintings and other art. The rest of the place is full of rooms that are crazy ornate, often gaudy but always something to behold. This is one of those places where even the doors are impressive. The most famous room in the palace is the Riddersalen, or great hall, which is indeed pretty great (pictured left here). My personal favorite was a series of paintings by an artist whose name I can't remember, but they were a series of paintings of Copenhagen including several ones of Dutch and Danish warships.

Kronborg is very impressive from the outside, with some seriously intense fortification going on. Kronborg is older than Frederiksborg (1420s) and from the outside looks more like a fortress than a royal palace. It was originally built in order to maintain control of the Øresund, which the king collected high tolls (the Øresundstolden, or Sound Dues) from any ship wanting to pass into or out of the Baltic. In 1585, Frederik II rebuilt Kronborg into the castle you see today, although much of it burned down in 1629. The castle was rebuilt, and while the exterior was fully restored the interior was not brought back to its previous splendor. The interior of the castle does not look nearly as ornate as Frederiksborg.

Still, Kronborg has its charms. Although we did not see Hamlet's ghost, we did wander around the tunnels beneath Kronborg. There is a statue of Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane), namesake of one of our dorms, down there though. Above ground, there is a very ornate chapel, one of the few parts of the original castle to survive the fire. The royal apartments were a little bare and lacked the crazy ornateness of Frederiksborg. It really doesn't help that there are a lot of strange modern art and large toy swords and stuff hanging from the ceiling that kind of detract from the romanticism of the building. Personally I found the defensive fortifications more interesting than the Hamlet-related stuff going on inside. Sweden is only 4 km across the straight, and you can see it quite clearly with the naked eye. After an extra line of defense called the Crownwork was completed in 1690, Kronborg was considered the strongest fortification in Europe.

Afterwards we wandered around Helsingør and got dumped on. Most of the time it rains around here it's pretty light and goes away quickly, but today's rain stuck around for a while. It didn't really rain that hard but it was very windy and cold. Once the rain stopped, we walked around some more. Helsingør itself is a neat little town, although at this point most of the shops were closed. Then we hopped on the S-Train back to Copenhagen. Apparently we got into the "quiet car," and for a minute we though a fight might break out but trouble was averted and we got home without incident.

Tivoli, A Fairy Tale For the Whole Family

Well, last night (Friday) was our trip to Tivoli. I was a little stir-crazy from doing homework all day so I was glad to get out. In one of my classes, my group partners are a brother and sister and their father has fallen quite ill, so there is a lot of confusion at the moment but we decided that I would do most of the work on the first project while they figure things out. Anyway I went to Tivoli with some other grad student, Yaron and Telma (from Tel Aviv) and Melanie another student from my program.

For my taste Tivoli was just about the right fit. It doesn't have any giant roller coasters like Six Flags or anything, and the two big rides they have are pretty short. I went on some mine-esque ride that was obviously made for kids, and ended up going on the wooden roller coaster thing three times. The bigger rides had a number of flips and parts where you were upside down so when people I was with wanted to go I stuck to good old terra firma. Actually the strangest ride I went on was a Hans Christian Andersen ride which was almost kind of creepy (kind of It's A Small World-ish).

My impression about Tivoli was that the rides were not really the main attraction anyway. It's kind of hard to make a lot of huge rides when you are located in the downtown area of a major city. There are a lot of shooter games where you spray water or shoot arrows at targets, we took our hand and throwing some balls at hanging plates that moved up and down (one out of three ain't bad). There are a lot of small shops in Tivoli, mostly souvenirs and kitsch but there was one really nice store with a lot of high concept Danish kitchen and housewares. There are also gardens, and a theater, and an aquarium (and of course a Build-a-Bear store).

Mostly though, Tivoli seems to be about eating and drinking. There are in fact more restaurants in Tivoli (39) than rides (25), and I don't think that includes all the small little ice cream and hot dog booths. Beside some pop corn, I had some french fries at the Asian Station which for some reason served hamburgers, hot dogs, and panini sandwiches as well - you know, traditional Asian food. We also ate at the apparently world famous Wagamama restaurant, a Japanese/Asian food chain I had never heard of but is apparently all over Europe.

The night ended with a concert by the Danish band One Two. We got the plænen (the open-air stadium) after the show started so it was really crowded. The music turned out to be in English but turned out to be some combination of europop and covers of older American songs. We were getting a little tired at that point so after wandering around for a little while and riding the Rutsjebanen one last time we called it a night.

Folk Dancing and Stundenterhue, Oh My

Well, this week was rounded off nicely with some crazy folk dancing and a trip to Tivoli, Copenhagen's little amusement park in the middle of the city. The folk dancing consisted of eight dancers who I swear must have mugged the Rice Krispies elves and stolen their hats. All were over the age of sixty (probably not a good sign for the future of Danish folk dancing) and there was a Danish emcee that nobody could really understand. After a couple short numbers, the students got down on the dance floor and tried their own hands at it. The dances were not terribly hard, but when your trying to get two hundred people or so to dance in a way the haven't done before well, you know it's not going to be pretty. All said though, only a few people wiped out completely. The second half involved more spinning around, which was not so great for yours truly.

Afterwards there was a gang of people who went downtown to a place called the L.A. Bar which turned out to be a smoky little dive bar (and no, not in the good way). Although the guidebooks say that Americans shouldn't mention the fact that Danes smoke in public but sorry - Danish bars stink!! Anyone who doesn't like the smoking ban in Minneapolis should spend a weekend going out to Danish bars and then reconsider. Anyway, it turned out that nobody was there anyway so we wandered around for a while before heading home on the Metro. One of the problems with hanging around undergrad students is that they constantly complain about how expensive things are, and seem to have already given up on going out to bars to drink.

One phenomenon in Copenhagen that we've seen is that when people graduate from high school they wear little caps called studenterhue, which look like sailor's caps with little flags of different countries around the rim. Apparently they have these in other European countries as well. Anyway we've been spotting them around town all week, and now you can see decorated vehicles driving around town carrying about twenty or so of graduates all wearing these caps, shouting and cheering. Normally I wouldn't stand for this kind of rabblerousing, but for whatever reason it is hard not to find these kids pretty endearing.

UPDATE 7-2 Daga managed to get a picture of said studenterhue-wearing hoologans riding around in a truck:

A Mid-Week Update From Copenhagen

Well, it's Thursday now and I'm done with classes for the week, although I have a bunch of work to do for next week. Yesterday it rained pretty much all day, and pretty hard. I don't think it's rained yet today which would be the first dry day so far. Oh well, good for sleeping and homework.

The events we have lined up for the remainder of the week all look pretty good. Tonight we get to experience some traditional Danish Folk Dancing with the professional dance group Amagerlands Folkedansere (roughly "Amager-land Folk-dancers," Amager being the smaller of the islands on which Copenhagen is situated), which according to ISUP is one of the highest rated events every semester.

Tomorrow it's off to Tivoli, an amusement park that first opened in 1853. There are a number of attractions to see and do, including 38 different restaurants, shooting galleries, flower gardens, open-air shows, fireworks (at 11:45 on Saturdays), bumper cars, an acquarium, and a cabaret theatre among other things. The night we are going there will be an 80's Danish band called "One Two" playing at 10 o'clock (in Danish). The best known attractions of Tivoli are:

- Rutsjebanen, a wooden roller coaster which was built in 1913.

- The Demon, a roller coaster that I think I will be avoiding, thank you very much (motion sickness).

- Himmelskibet ("The Sky Flyer"), the world's tallest carousel (80m), which opened last year.

- Commedia dell'Arte, an open-air pantomime theatre.

- Koncertsal, a large concert hall where international symphony orchestras and ballet troupes sometimes perform.

Saturday we are off to North Zealand to visit so kick-ass castles. As some of you know, I kind of have a castle fetish so this trip is going to be pretty cool. I'll blog more about that trip on Sunday.

The Amazing Race

Tonight we had a ISUP event dubbed 'The Amazing Race' where groups of students went on something like a scavenger hunt around downtown Copenhagen, trying to find various landmarks and answering trivia questions about them. This task was a little harder than it sounds since the streets in Copenhagen are marked differently than at least the U.S. and more sparsely. A lot of the stops were places we had visited yesterday. Our first stop, which we hadn't seen before, was the Rundetårn ("The Round Tower") which is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe. Instead of stairs it has seven-and-a-half stories of a helical corridor leading to the observatory.

Other stops included Marmokirken, Amaliensborg Plads, Nyhavn, Christiansborg, and Vor Frue Kirke ("Church of Our Lady"). Our last stop was at a bar called the Dubliner, which was really crowded. After staying there for a while, I went back home on the Metro I can back home to finish up some blog posts and get some cleaning done.

First Day of Classes

The first day of classes was a bit hectic. I couldn't sleep at all during the night, so I almost ended up being late to my first class but I made it fine. Dalgas Have is a bit of a strange building, but once you get it down then everything is pretty obvious.

My class this morning was International Investments which looks pretty good, although a lot of work. The only real problem so far is that I couldn't get the textbook until after class started, and we were apparently told in the syllabus we didn't have that we were supposed to read the first 3 chapters. There are a number of group projects and we track an imaginary portfolio throughout the course, and then finish up with a final exam. We have two instructors for the course, both of them from the Netherlands. The partners in my group are a Danish brother and sister.

My afternoon class is International Management, which looks roughly as easy and International Investments looks hard so I think they will be a good mix. The professor is originally from Texas, and normally teaches at Benedictine College. Like my other class, this one is mostly made up of Danish and international students with only a couple of Americans. This class has one group project and a take home final, and my guess is that one would have to do reeeeally bad to not pass this class. We formed groups here too, although there doesn't appear to be that much group work here. My group here is made up of three Danes, one of which is actually coming to Minneapolis in the fall to study at my school.

Coursework seems to really depend on your instructor and the courses you are taking. Other students have reported a wide variety of course loads, so for anyone looking to go on this program I would check around to make sure you don't get two classes with huge workloads as this might take away from some of your experience here in Copenhagen.

A Long Day's Journey

Today is Sunday, a day in which almost everything in Copenhagen is closed except the zoo. So instead of sitting around on our butts all day, a bunch of us took a hike around the city. Since I am prone to do such things, I plotted our trip on Google Maps when we got back. You can check it out here (click on "My Maps" and then select "Day Two Trip").

We started out walking towards the city, and checked out whatever shops were on the way. The only grocery store that seems to be open was Fakta, although a lot of the shops and small restaurants that appear to be run by immigrants were open as well as a number of pastry shops with fancy window displays. I also came to the conclusion that there must be some kind of law that dictates the height of buildings since almost every building seems to have five stories. We made it to the Rådhuspladsen (pladsen seems to translate as something like 'plaza'), which is not surprisingly located in front of the Rådhus, the City Hall. This area is often considered to be the center of Copenhagen.

From there we proceeded to walk up the Strøget which is a long pedestrian street known for its shopping and restaurants, something like Nicollet Mall but a hundred times cooler. We stopped at a coffee and pastry shop, and did a fair amount of window shopping before passing through some plazas with many fountains and statues before coming out near Slotsholmen, an island which has several castles and important government buildings on it, including the Christiansborg Palace (home of the Danish parliament), the Danish Royal Library, and the Børsen (the stock exchange), among others. Slotsholmen also has the ruins of two older castles which you can tour. Around this point we picked up one of our dorm mates Sergiy, who was walking around by himself.

At this point we had reached the large canal known as Kobenhavns Havn, which sounds really funny if you say it quickly. We followed the harbor to the northeast until we hit Nyhavn, which is usually considered one of Copenhagen's top tourist spots and for good reason. It really is a photographer's dream, complete with a beautiful canal, gorgeous multicolored buildings, boats, outdoor restaurants, pretty much everything you could want including a gigantic anchor located at near Kongens Nytorv.

We then headed off northeast, passing a number of embassies before we came to Amalienborg Slot, which is a series of four palaces which all face towards the center of an octagonal plaza. In the middle of the plaza lies a big statue of Frederik V. Although not as famous as the guards at Buckingham Palace, you can see the Royal Guard stand guard when the royal family is at home, although we did not catch the changing of the guard. In one castle Queen Margrethe and her Prince Consort Henrik live, and another is home to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.

From there we headed north again towards the Kastellet, a old fortification located on an octagonal island. We passed by the Frihedsmuseet (the Museum of the Danish Resistance, a WWII memorial) and the Gefionspringvandet, a large fountain depicting the Norse goddess Gefyon. We first walked along the Langelinie Pavillonen before coming across the infamous Little Mermaid statue, which I have confirmed is an embarrassment to most Danes. We then did something of a U-Turn and came back down through Kastellet itself, and past through what appeared to be a series of old barracks that have been converted to new uses.

We came out and started to head back to the Norreport Metro station, and passed through streets that brought us past the Marmokirken and the world famous smørrebrød shop Ida Davidsen. Finally we passed through Rosenborg Have and Rosenborg Slot (seriously guys, why don't you build another castle?) before hopping on the metro to go home for some grub and a well earned rest from our seven hour journey.

The First Full Day & Observations about Copenhagen

The first full day here in Copenhagen ended with several hours of adventures. After an orientation at Porcelænshaven, we came back a couple hours later for a barbecue for all of the international students. Apparently the Danish have a different idea of what a barbecue is, since there were no grills and no barbecue, but it was a good meal nonetheless. These kinds of events are nice because you can meet up with other people in the program that don't live in your building.

Later that night, we trekked over to Frederiksberg Have (garden) to witness the annual Midsummer's Night Eve bonfire in front of Frederiksberg Slot (castle), Frederiksberg being the municipality in which most of us are staying and where the campus is. The bonfire was pretty much just a regular bonfire, but you know with a castle in the background.

It rained off and on all day. You realize pretty quick in Copenhagen that it rains all the time and have to make the decision whether to drag an umbrella and rain jacket everywhere you go or reconcile yourself to getting wet. It generally doesn't rain too hard or too long, so it's not that bad. Layering is also pretty important since the temperature goes up and down fairly quickly as well.

Finally, we ended up going to a night club called Park Café which CBS had reserved for students in the summer program. A lot of students complained about the 35 kroner beers (about $7) but living in downtown Minneapolis that price is not exactly a shocker (plus I am not an undergraduate student). The DJ played some strange mixes, starting off with rap music, then switching to a series of techno remixes of early to mid 90's dance music, and then shifted to what appeared to be some kind of Euro pop. Getting home was kind of pain in the ass, since we really didn't have any directions and the club was located in Østerbro, which from home is located at least an hour away by foot. After unsuccessfully trying to flag down a cab, we gave up and got on a bus.

Here are some things I've learned about Copenhagen and Denmark so far:

- It does not appear that there is much air conditioning in Denmark. Generally air conditioning involves opening a window. This is normally fine, although it's pretty humid here sometimes (at least that's what people who are not from the Midwest tell us) so if you pack a large group of people into a confined space it can get pretty hot (so again, layering is important).

- People smoke everywhere here, including in bars and clubs, although in general it is not that big a deal unless you are asthmatic.

- There is dog poop everywhere, so you need to watch where you are walking. I don't think it's that people are particularly lazy, but since Copenhagen is much denser than other cities there are probably a much higher density of dogs as well.

- Nothing in Danish is pronounced how you would expect it to be. I think my success ratio for pronouncing Danish words correctly the first time is less than 10%. The main secret appears to be letting the second half of each syllable trail off and failing that just mumble and you are probably more likely to be right than if you had actually tried.

Signs in Denmark

This is the first sign I have seen that is pretty hilarious. I believe it is an exit sign, but to me it looks like somebody fleeing a burglery.

First Morning In Copenhagen

Well, it's about 9 in the morning local time. I woke up around 7:30 this morning (by sunlight more than choice) and went for a run around the city. Nobody else was really up, as I think most of the young 'uns were trying to find a bar last night. At first things got a bit turned around but I had a pretty good sense for a couple of the major streets. After about a mile I kind of felt like throwing up from the jet lag so I walked around for about a mile before running the last mile and a half or so.

The streets here are not marked as well as they are in Minneapolis, but it doesn't seem like it will be hard to get around once you figure things out. Very few streets are pronounced the way you expect them to be, but I'm starting to find a pattern. I took a path that took me close to most of the CBS buildings, although there isn't really a campus of any kind - more like a series of buildings within a couple of blocks of each other. I went through some indeterminate streets but found my way to Roskildevej, up Pile Allé, back through Smallegade which turns into Peter Bangs Vej (a lot of streets change names after a couple blocks, sometimes several times). Vej appears to be the most common name for street, and seems to be pronounced similar to "way"). The route took me by several large parks which I will explore later, the big ones being Frederiksberg Havn and Søndermarken.

It's 10 o'clock now, time to finish up my post. Made another quick run to Farsk with some of my neighbors for supplies and got caught in the rain on the way back. I'm getting the impression that it rains a lot here. Good thing I brought my umbrella.

The Flying Danish Has Landed

Well, I've managed to make it to Copenhagen alive and in one piece. The flights over went fine and were without any real delays, although we did have quite a landing in Copenhagen. One of the MBA students from Carlson was on both my flights. I have to say though that Icelandair only gets slightly higher marks than Northwest for service and comfort, and despite what Mindy says the stewardesses do not look like Britney Spears from the video for Toxic.

We were herded into the Hilton Hotel next to the airport, and got to meet a number of the other students on the trip. Most were Americans, but there were also people from France, Canada, Australia, Iceland, and Israel. After getting a few documents and sitting around for a while we took a bus to our various dorms. My dorm is Kathrine Kollegiet, and so far almost all of my neighbors are undergraduate students. Despite what the CBS website says, it does not appear that one floor was reserved for grad students. The good news is that the ethernet connection in the room is pretty good, and there was a cable already in the room.

Of course, one of the most important first steps is to find a nearby grocery store and to figure out how to identify foodstuffs. It's harder than it looks. Two blocks up the street from our place is a Fakta grocery store, which along with Netto are two pretty common small grocery stores. The selection is not totally different from an American grocery, but there are some pretty obvious differences. There is very little poultry, and a wide variety of what appears to be ham, sausages, and other pork products. I got some bread called mørkt rugbrød (rye bread) which I had heard of before when investigating smørrebrød. I am not sure whether it is this particular type or whether this is rugbrød in general but it was really gross.

My Google Map of Copenhagen et al

I have created a map on Google Maps showing the various locations I hope to visit, the school campus, etc. It will continue to be a work of progress.

Check it out here.

Copenhagen: So Much To Do, So Much To See, Part I

THE EATS

Generally most people in Denmark do not eat out a lot, as it is extremely expensive. When they do, it tends to be a fairly lengthy affair. Most students have their own little kitchenette plus a larger "dorm kitchen" for cooking. One little grocery store that gets mentioned a lot is Nørre but I can't seem to find any locations on the web so you'll have to wing it for now.

Here are Copenhagen's top five restaurants, as selected by Lonely Planet:

Ida Davidson's
Where: Nyhavn
What: generally considered to be the top smørrebrød purveyor in all of Denmark
Cost: 50 to 150 kr ($9 to $27)

Kommandanten
Where: Strøget & The Latin Quarter
What: French-Danish, this restaurant gets two Michelin stars, which means it's very French, very good, and very expensive; make reservations several days in advance
Cost: 340 - 360 kr ($58 - $61)
http://www.kommandanten.dk/

Langelinie Pavillonen
Where: Nyhavn
What: French-Danish, an "upmarket 2nd-floor restaurant with some great flourishes"
Cost: 70 to 200 kr ($13 - $36)
http://www.langelinie.dk/

The Paul
Where: Rådhuspladsen & Tivoli
What: Modern Danish, an über expensive Michelin starred restaurent
Chances of me actually eating here: 0%
Cost: 600 kr ($109)
http://www.thepaul.dk/

Peder Oxe
Where: Strøget & The Latin Quarter
What: Danish, "country grub" with many fish and organic options
Cost: 79 to 199 kr ($14 - $36)

Great Danes: Niels Bohr

Neils Bohr was one of the most important physicists of the 20th century. Born in Copenhagen in 1885, Bohr received his undergraduate degree at Cambridge and his doctorate from Copenhagen University. Later, he studied under Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester.

He published his model of atomic structure in 1913 (the Bohr Model), and many of his theories became the basis on quantum thoery. In 1922, Niels Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. During the German occupation of Denmark, Bohr fled to Sweden and ended up in Los Alamos working on the Manhatten Project, mainly as a consultant.

Neils Bohr is on the 500 Danish Kroner banknote, and the Institute of Physics at the University of Copenhagen is named after him. The element bohrium was named after him as well.

"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet."

Greenland & The Faroe Islands

Some people might not know, but both Greenland and the Faroe Islands are part of Denmark. For the most part, both have self rule for the most part.

Greenland was home to several groups of people, including the Dorset and later the Inuit. Erik the Red, a Norwegian exile settled there around 984 C.E. Those settlements lasted about 450 years before disappearing (if you want to read more about the early Viking settlements on Greenland try reading Collapse which has around 5,000 pages on it). Denmark-Norway reasserted its claim to the island in 1721, and in 1814 Greenland was officially ceded to Demark from Norway as part of the Treaty of Kiel. In 1979, Greenland was granted self-rule.

Greenland is the world's second largest island behind only Australia, with a total area of 836,109 square miles - over 80% of which is covered by the Greenland ice sheet. The population of Greenland is 56,361 which are entirely located on small coastal towns. Although traditionally most income from Greenland came from mining, currently its most important industry is fishing, shrimp in particular. Inuits in Greenland have faced many of the same issues that indigenous populations have experienced in the Americas and Australia.

The Faroe Islands are a small group of islands about 200 miles north of the Scottish mainland. The name comes from the Faroese world for "sheep islands." The islands started out as the home of Irish hermits who settled there in the sixth century, although they were later replace by Vikings settlers. Currently the Faroe Islands has a population of 50,000. The Norwegians maintained control of the islands until 1380 when control gradually fell into the hands of Denmark. The economy of the Faroe Islands is mostly based on fishing, as well as farming and wool. Every once and a while, the islanders attempt to secede from Denmark.

Coursework

Not everything in Denmark will involve traveling around, experiencing culture, and flirting with gorgeous European women. There will in fact be some schoolwork involved. My classes meet Monday and Wednesday, in the morning and the afternoon, for five weeks. The sixth week is exam week. Unlike most of my classes here, most of the courses at CBS are generally are graded almost entirely on the exam.

Here are the two courses I'm taking:

INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT:
This class goes over concepts associated with international management, such as planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling. It goes into the environments that multinational corporations operate in, cultural issues, communication, and other topics.

INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENTS:
This course is designed to cover the issues that come with investing internationally. Topics include foreign exchange rates, international diversification, evaluating performance globally, among others. Part of the course is managing a fiction investment portfolio that will help students apply the course concepts.

Copenhagen: A Brief History

You know, after almost 20 posts I realized I hadn't talked much about Copenhagen itself yet. So, I bring to you loyal reader a series of juicy vignettes about my host city Copenhagen. First a brief history lesson on the city. Copenhagen is Denmark's capital and largest city, holding 1.7 million of Denmark's 5.4 million people. The Danish call their capital København, which comes from the original designation Kjøbmandehavn which meant "merchants' harbor."

From the time of Vikings, there was a fishing village called Havn ("harbor"... original, I know) located at the site of modern Copenhagen. It came into the possession of Bishop Absalon who fortified it in 1167 which is generally regarded as the foundation of Copenhagen. In 1254 it received its charter as a city under Bishop Jakob Erlandson. Copenhagen is located at the most important entrance to the Baltic Sea and the rich towns of the Hanseatic League, which had the unfortunate effect of causing it be to attacked frequently. In 1416, Eric of Pomerania took control of the city and it henceforth belonged to the Danish crown.

Despite the attacks, Copenhagen continued to grow, and in 1479 the University of Copenhagen was founded.In 1596, Christian IV decided he wanted to make Copenhagen the economic, military, religious, and cultural center of the Nordic region. He made many mercantilist reforms and added two new districts to the city, Nyboder and Christianshavn, the latter being modeled after Amsterdam. He also increased the fortification of the city.

The next several centuries saw a series of assaults, fires, and plagues, followed by rebuilding and growth. The population grew rapidly starting around 1800. During World War II, Copenhagen was occupied by German troops along with the rest of the country. For the first several years, Denmark was allowed a relative degree of autonomy. Over time, tensions grew and in August 1943 the Germans dissolved the Danish government and declared martial law. The Nazis tried to eliminate all Jews from Denmark, but almost all of them were smuggled out of Denmark to Sweden. Finally in May 1945 Copenhagen and most of Denmark was liberated from German rule by Bernard Montgomery.

Since the war, Copenhagen has grown significantly. The Oresund Bridge connecting Copenhagen and Malmö was completed in 2000, and the Copenhagen Metro was opened for traffic in 2002. In June 2007, I will visit Copenhagen, ushering in a new era of prosperity and cultural flourishing.

Book Review: Smilla's Sense of Snow

Well, I've finished my first piece of Danish literature not related to Hans Christian Andersen, namely Smilla's Sense of Snow. It's by author Peter Høeg, who unless you've read Smilla's Sense of Snow you've probably never heard of. I remember almost getting the book a couple of years ago when it was on the "staff favorites" section at Border's. It turns out that the guy who's favorite it was still worked there, and got really excited when he saw me buying the book (turns out he studied abroad in Denmark a while back). Anyway, about the book...

The plot of the book is basically that of a murder mystery, although I would say the more interesting parts are about the narrator Smilla (who is half Danish, half Greenlander Inuit) trying to figure out her place in European Denmark. Please there is a lot of stuff about snow. The general plot is that her buddy, a six-year-old kid in her apartment building that she befriended, is found having fallen to his death off of the building. The police decide it was an accident but Smilla knows otherwise. She launches an investigation into things and discovers evidence of a larger plot, which ends up taking her around Copenhagen and then off to Greenland. Overall I thought it was pretty well written, although at one point Smilla gets hit with something about every other page until you're pretty much waiting for her to get run over by a Zamboni. Besides the murder plot, the book mainly focuses on how the Inuit are adjusting to life under Danish rule (spoiler: not very well), with some science thrown in for good measure. A lot about snow. And ice. I was a little disappointed it didn't have more about Denmark and Copenhagen, but that's not a knock on the book.

Pete's Rating: 3 out of 4 stars

Great Danes: Hans Christian Andersen

Perhaps the most widely recognized Dane is the author and poet Hans Christian Andersen (or H.C. Andersen or the Danish apparently prefer). Born in Odense (one of the cities we're visiting) in 1805, he wrote a number of very famous fairy tales such as The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Mermaid, and The Princess and the Pea. Besides his fairy tales, he is also known for his novels and for an unfortunate resemblance to Tiny Tim.

H.C. Andersen's legacy lives on in Denmark and around the world. 2005 was the bicentenary of Andersen's birth and was marked by celebrations, and his birthday is celebrated as International Children's Book Day. In Copenhagen, there is the world famous Little Mermaid statue and of course one of the main roads is H.C. Andersens Boulevard. My guess is that most cities in Denmark probably have some version of the that. I observed a similar phenomena in India, where it appeared that the main street in every city was an M.G. Road (M.G. as in Mahatma Gandhi).

Danish History: The Early Years

Obviously Danish history is too long and complex to cover in detail on this blog so I am taking the time line approach. I'm also breaking it up into a couple posts to prevent developing mega-post paralysis. I'll cover some of the stuff in more detail later if you're lucky. Also, most European literature uses C.E. (Common Era) instead of A.D. (Anno Domini), and B.C.E. (Before Common Era) instead of B.C. (Before Christ), so in order to prepare myself for heathen Europe I will confirm to these standards.

Around 100,000 B.C.E. - First signs of inhabitation in Denmark show up over 100,000 years ago. At some point, people probably had to abandon Denmark due to the ice cap covering the area because let's face it, ice caps are kind of a deal breaker.

12,000 B.C.E. - Denmark has been continually inhabited since this time.

4004 B.C.E. - The Earth was created.

3,000 B.C.E. - Agriculture, yadda yadda.

1,800 B.C.E. - Roughly the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age. There are a large number of burial mounds that date back to this period, as well as religious artifacts, musical instruments, and evidence of the world's first rave party.

500 B.C.E. - Denmark starts to enter the Iron Age and begin to extract iron ore from peat bogs. There is evidence of a strong Celtic influence in the area, as well as trade routes with the Roman Empire. People also discover that peat bogs are great places to dump bodies if you want to leave them well preserved for archaeologists several millennium later.

800 C.E. - Beowulf is written around this time, give or take a century. Although in Old English, it describes events in Denmark during the 5th and 6th century, albeit in mythical terms.

800 C.E. - The Viking Age starts around this time. Danish assaults on the British Isles are followed by Danish settlers, and the Danelaw is established in 878 C.E. by Danish chieftain Guthrum and Alfred, the King of Wessex, under the terms of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum. Seriously, that's what they called it.

980 B.C. - Harold Bluetooth creates a unified Danish kingdom. Seriously, when did we stop giving people awesome names like that? Anyway, soon after he converted to Christianity. In many ways marks the beginning of Denmark as we know it today. Harold's father King Gorm the Old raised the first Jelling stone, and Harold raised the second.

T Minus 11 and Counting

Well, we are down to eleven days before the KDM Flying Danish takes off for a half-summer of excitement in Copenhagen. I've started a packing list and pulled out the old suitcase and starting filling it with a few things. I've ordered one of my textbooks and started to read Smilla's Sense of Snow. My new cell phone has arrived and international roaming has been activated. I've started to clean and organize and get ready to shut things down for a month and a half. At work, I'm prepping stuff for my absence and will soon be handing off excess work to my appreciative coworkers.

Alright, back to my to-do list.

Bringing Your Cell Phone to Denmark

First all, I should note that all of this is based on my experience with T-Mobile and may not entirely apply to you.

Depending on your carrier, you will want to have at least a dual band phone (900/1900 MHz), preferably a quad band phone (850/900/1800/1900 MHz). My current-until-last-night phone was a dual band, and at least according to T-Mobile the frequency of the carriers I would be using in Denmark and most of Europe would be are on a frequency of 900/1800 so coverage might be a little spotty. Hence the purchase of a new phone (be quiet, it is only $30 after the annoying mail-in rebate).

In general, Europe has far superior coverage and I assume that Copenhagen will be no exception.

Also, you probably have to activate international roaming. For T-Mobile this is called WorldClass International Service. It is free, but may take a couple days to activate and you may have to try a couple of times to get it to work.

Also as you probably guessed phone calls on your phone will be pretty expensive, although you probably won't be making many calls. At least with T-Mobile, any call is a $1 a minute, including checking voicemail and including incoming calls even if you don't answer them - if your phone is on (hence, if you're not expecting a phone call I would keep the phone turned off). Text messages are cheaper at 35 cents. I'm not sure if this is cheaper than renting a phone there, but I figured this would be less work once I get over there and I wanted a new phone anyway.

Time in Denmark

Most of the year, Denmark is seven hours ahead of Minneapolis.

Although it won't affect our trip, Europe starts and ends Daylight Savings Time at different times than we do (it's called European Summer Time over there). Their DST starts on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October, while ours (starting in 2007) starts on Second Sunday in March and end the First Sunday of November.

The clock pictured here is the Jen's Olsen World Clock. It was designed by the astromer Jens Olsen (shocker) and displays the local time, the solar time, sidereal time, sunrises, sunsets, firmament and celestial pole migrations, planet revolutions, the Gregorian calendar including moing holidays. If you want to check it out, it is in a side room of the Rådhuset (city hall) which is one block southeast of the Rådhuspladsen near Tivoli.

The Danish Economy

Traditionally Denmark’s economy was largely based on fishing, trading, and taxing the crap out of people who passed through the Øresund (see: the Sound Dues). Today, Denmark has a service based economy similar to the United States, which makes up 74% of GDP, while industry makes up 24.6% and agriculture only 1.4%. Not surprisingly its main trading partners are Germany and Sweden, followed by the UK and the United States. It is self-reliant in terms of energy through oil, natural gas, wind and bio-energy. Large Danish industries include fish, meat, and dairy products, textiles, mining, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, construction, furniture and wood products, shipbuilding, electronics, medical equipment, and of course windmills and Christmas trees (and unfortunately mink and fox fur as well).

The Danish workforce is highly unionized, with 75% of workers belonging to a union. Most of the trade unions are part of an umbrella system. The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (Danish: Landsorganisationen i Danmark, or LO) is the biggest one with 1.34 million members (Denmark has a population of 5.45 million). However, union membership has been slowly declining over time. I'm pretty interested to learn more about how European unions work, because unlike America's crappy unions I hear they aren't too bad.

With over 100,000 employees worldwide and 2005 revenues of $34.8 billion, the biggest company in Denmark is the A.P. Moller-Maersk Gruppen. It is a consortium primarily engaged in shipping and transportation, and is the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the world. It is also engaged in petroleum and natural gas exploration and production, shipbuilding and ship repair, supermarkets, and owns 20% of Dansk Bank, Denmark’s largest bank.

Dansk Bank A/S itself is the second largest company in Denmark. Although it primarily operates in Denmark, it also purchased the banking interests of Sampo which operates in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and also banks in Sweden (various banks), Norway (Fokus Bank), Ireland (National Irish Bank), and Northern Ireland (Northern Bank).

The LEGO Group is around the 46th largest Danish company.

One of the Danish companies you are likely to have heard of is Bang & Olufson, who designs and manufactures high-end stereos and audio equipment, televisions, and telephones. They have a store here in the twin cities at the Galleria. Even if you haven’t heard of them or don’t have the cabbage to shop at B & O, you may be using their products and not even know it – B & O makes the popular A8 earbuds that come with most iPods.

In case you're wondering about some of the acronyms after the names of Danish companies, here is what a few of them mean:

A/S (Aktieselskab) A stock based company

ApS (Anpartsselskab) Limited liability corporation

AB (Aktiebolag) Swedish word for corporation (there are a lot of joint Swedish-Danish companies)

Here is a good summary.

The Social Program

The CBS International Summer University Program (or ISUP for short) offers a pretty extensive list of activities for people to do. They just came out with the list of activities for 2007, and here they are:

Week 1
June 23 (Sat) - Welcome BBQ and celebration of Midsummer Night's Eve: an opportunity to meet your fellow students and eat. Sankt Hans Aften, or Midsummer Night (more properly translated as St. John's Eve) is a celebration of the summer solstice.

June 23 (Sat) - Welcome Party: apparently held at one of "Copenhagen's ritziest clubs," which apparently for security reasons cannot be named.

June 25 (Mon) - Amazing Race: no, we are not auditioning for the TV show. Participants will be broken up into groups and will romp around downtown Copenhagen in order to get to know the place better.

June 28 (Thur) - Folk Dancing: the CBS website says this is the event that gets the best feedback. Sounds like a great opportunity to show off my dancing chops.

June 29 (Fri) - Tivoli: a very famous 19th century amusement park.

Week 2
June 30 (Sat) - DAYTRIP 1 - NORTH ZEALAND: Zealand is the large island that Copenhagen is located on. This trip will visit Frederiksborg Castle and Kronborg Castle, the latter being the setting of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

July 3 (Tues) - Canal Tour: a one hour tour through Copenhagen's canals. It takes off from Nyhavn, travels through Chistianshavn's Canal, passes by Amalienborg Palace, and arives at the statue of The Little Mermaid, Mindy's favorite.

July 6 - 8 (Fri - Sun) - BERLIN WEEKEND: a weekend trip to the capital of Germany. Yeah!

Week 3
July 10 (Tues) - Copenhagen Jazz Festival: Copenhagen hosts a very famous jazz festival.

July 12 (Thur) - Scary Party: apparently a celebration of Friday the 13th eve, we get to dress up in scary costumes and have a party at the Happy Pig.

July 14 (Sat) - Beach Day: a trip to Amager Strandpark, one of Copenhagen's "newest and nicest beaches" will give me an opportunity to blind an entirely new group of people.

July 15 (Sun) - DAY TRIP 2 - MALMÖ, SWEDEN: this year the program includes a day trip to the aforementioned Malmö.

Week 4
July 16 (Mon) - Christiania: also known as Freetown Christiania, this partially self-governing community has had it's infamous moments.

July 20 (Fri) - World Cup Soccer: basically a free-for-all soccer tournament made up of CBS students.

July 21 (Sat) - DAY TRIP 3 - ODENSE: the birthpace of Hans Christian Andersen.

Week 5
July 27 (Fri) - International Dinner: students bring food from their own country to share. Hmm, what on earth should I bring?

July 28 (Sat) - Movie Night: the Zulu Sommerbio (summer cinema) are open air film showings that take place across Copenhagen.

Week 6
August 3 (Fri) - Goodbye Party: a farewell party at the club Luux.

The Little Mermaid

One of the tourist attractions you will inevitably hear about in Copenhagen is a statue called The Little Mermaid, as in the Hans Christian Andersen story (and later the Disney adaptation). The Little Mermaid has sometimes been compared to to monuments such as the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, comparisons that no doubt even the Danish find embarrassing. Still, the Mermaid apparently gets about a million visitors a year and is plastered all over tour guides and various memorabilia.

The Little Mermaid was built in 1913, and is located at Langelinie quay in Copenhagen. According to Mindy, it is a pretty stupid statue but I will probably visit it as part of a tour anyway so I might as well embrace Little Mermaid mania. Although some people might not find them funny, the most entertaining stories about the statue involve people cutting its head off or some other form of vandalism. Here is a recap of vandalism over the past couple of decades:

- 1961: The hair of the Little Mermaid was painted red and she was dressed in a bra.

- 1963: The Little Mermaid was covered in red paint.

- 1964: The statue was decapitated for the first time.

- 1976: The Little Mermaid was covered in paint again.

- 1984: The statue's right arm was taken off.

- 1990: There was an unsuccessful attempt to remove the statue's head again.

- 1998: The statue was decapitated again.

- 2003: The statue was knocked down from its stone.