Just as the leaves begin to fall and the weather turns sour in Denmark (my luck has finally run out and it has been gray and rainy all week), our travel break begins and I will be heading south in search of warmer weather.  Midterms are finally over, and I have a two week break from classes, so I will be taking full advantage of this opportunity to travel.  I will spend the first week in Portugal on an excursion organized by DIS; we will spend four days in the costal town of Ericeira taking surfing lessons and then we will travel to Lisbon.  I will be in Lisbon for just about twenty-four hours before I fly to Rome for the weekend with some of my friends.  From Rome we will take a train to Florence and spend two days in Tuscany.  My last stop will be to Alcalá de Henares, Spain, just outside of Madrid, to visit Jocelyn.

I can’t wait to tell you all about my adventures when I return to Copenhagen!

Before modern times, Danish children used to have a week off from school each fall so that they could help their parents with the autumn harvest.  Although most Danes no longer grow their own potatoes, Week 42 remains a school holiday and has transformed into a work holiday for many adult Danes as well.  My host family is spending the week at my host mom’s parent’s summer house on an island near Jutland.  Though I was invited to join them, I do not have the week off from school and decided that, because I have two group presentations, a midterm, and a paper due next week, I would have to stay behind.  I have been home alone since Sunday afternoon.

The first night was lonely, and it felt strange to cook and eat dinner alone.  But as the week progressed I came to appreciate the silence.  I’ve discovered that cooking dinner for myself can actually be relaxing after a long day in Copenhagen.  I haven’t spent much time at home alone because I’ve spent most of each day in the city either going to class or trying to finish my assignments.  It’s been easier to get my work done when I don’t have to worry about making it home in time for dinner or being disrupted by noises in the house.  Still, I’m looking forward to tomorrow evening when my host family returns home.  After a few days to myself I miss the dinner table conversation and relaxing on the family room couch together with a fire burning in the fireplace.

This week has been my first time food shopping in Denmark.  I’ve been to the supermarket to pick up little things a few times, but I had yet to buy food for a meal.  I could not believe the prices!  I am used to paying outrageous prices here (about $8 for a beer and $12 for a cocktail at the bars), but I still had a bit of sticker shock at the supermarket.  Once I purchased my food for the week I had to get it home, which was no easy feat.  Somehow I managed to bike home with my backpack and two bags from the supermarket.  Then I had to cook the food.  My host family’s oven is pretty high-tech, and, though I often help out in the kitchen cutting potatoes, setting the table, or doing the dishes, I realized that I had never turned on their oven before.  After some trial and error (and a little bit of help from Google Translate) I was able to turn on the oven and cook dinner.

Today has been one of those days where you just want to climb back into bed and stay there until it’s tomorrow.  I had three meetings this afternoon into this evening.  I left the house at 12:45pm so that I would make it into the city by 2pm for my first meeting.  On the train, about 4 stops from home, I realized that I hadn’t brought my train pass with me.  I had brought my purse instead of my backpack and forgot to grab my train pass.  I don’t get my ticket checked every time that I ride the train, but it does happen frequently and the fine for riding the train without a ticket is 750 kroner (about $150).  So, I got off at the next station, nervously took another train back to Køge, rode my bike back to my house to get my train pass, and started my commute all over again.  I finally arrived in the city at 3pm, 15 minutes late for my second meeting.  I’m glad that I went back though, because I got my ticket checked on the way into the city and again on the way home, which means that I would have had to pay a whopping $300 in fines if I hadn’t gone back for my ticket!  Also, between my second and third meeting I lost my cell phone.  Luckily, someone who found it was nice enough to use it to call my friend and I was able to get it back.  After a tiring day in the city, I finally returned home at 9:30pm, chilled to the bone from riding my bike home from the train station in the rain.  Now I am snuggled up in my pajamas and fuzzy socks, drinking tea and typing away on my host family’s new iMac.

Germany

Friday night I returned to Copenhagen after a six day trip to Germany with my European Business Strategy class.  Our trip began last Sunday morning when we boarded a bus to Hamburg.  It took nearly six hours (including a 45 minute ferry ride) to reach our destination.  After checking into our hotel, we visited Hamburger Kunsthalle, an art museum in the city center featuring an exhibit of contemporary art. 

contemporary art exhibit at Hamburger Kunsthalle

On Monday morning we had our first academic visit to Airbus, one of the world’s leading aircraft manufacturers.  Security was strict at their facilities; we had our passports checked before we could enter and we were forbidden to take photos inside the facility.  Our tour of the manufacturing facilities was guided by a retired aerodynamicist, so I learned more about aeronautical engineering than international business, but it was still exciting to tour the facilities.  In the afternoon we had a guided tour of Hamburg.  Our tour guide showed us a variety of shopping options and not much else, but we did get to have lunch inside City Hall.

On Tuesday morning we had our second academic visit to Hamburg Port Authority.  The Port of Hamburg is the third largest port in Europe and covers 72 km².  We took a guided boat tour through the port and discussed the Port Authority’s strategic advantages and challenges.  At the end of our tour we ate lunch in Hamburg before beginning our trip to Berlin.  Just outside of Hamburg we stopped to visit the Neuengamme Concentration Camp.  The labor camp now includes a memorial exhibit, but some of the original buildings still stand.  The exhibit included a host of information about the camp and the lives of its inhabitants, and it was emotionally draining to hear what happened to these people and how the Nazis “justified” their actions. 

After leaving the concentration camp we continued our drive to Berlin, arriving just in time for girl’s night out at a restaurant and then a club near our hotel.

girl's night out!

On Wednesday morning we did a bike tour of Berlin.  This was my favorite part of the entire trip and was definitely the best way to see the city.  Our guide led us all over the city, through both the former East and former West Berlin, and we made a number of stops at famous buildings and historically significant sites.  Some of the sites that we visited were City Hall, the TV Tower, Bebelplatz (the site of the Nazi book burnings), Gendarmenmarkt, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, the land above Hitler’s Bunker, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, The Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, and the Berlin Cathedral.  It was incredible how much we got to see in four hours! 

me on the bike tour

the Berlin Wall

At Brandenburg Gate I had my first encounter with a gypsy.  While we were looking around, a disheveled woman approached me and held out a card with something written in German.  I stared at her in confusion for a moment before she suddenly ran away.  Instantly, my one hand flew to my purse and my other hand to my camera in my pocket.  I sighed in relief – both were still there.  Our tour guide, trying to hide his amusement at the look of horror on my face, told me that she was a gypsy and that she had run away when she saw a police officer coming towards us.  He said that during the day the gypsies will beg and steal and that at night they are picked up in Mercedes-Benzes by the Russian mafia.  Although I pitied the women, I never gave them anything.

On Wednesday afternoon we visited the Pergamon Museum, where we saw the Altar of Pergamon and the Market Gate of Miletus.  After the museum, we had some time on our own to shop and have dinner in the city.

On Thursday we had two academic visits; we visited Bayer Healthcare in the morning and Deutsche Bahn, a German railway company, in the afternoon.  Both companies have experienced large mergers, and we discussed their strategic developments and competitive strategies.



visiting Deutsche Bahn

Thursday evening we had dinner at the Unsicht Bar in Berlin.  At the restaurant diners eat their meal in total darkness (you cannot even see your hand in front of your face!).  When you enter the restaurant, you first meet your server in the dimly lit foyer.  All of the servers are visually impaired; they are accustomed to using other senses to find their way, making them more capable of serving meals in an unlit restaurant than someone who is used to finding their way with their eyes.  In the foyer, you order your meal from a menu.  However, the menu lists tastes, not food items.  My meal was promised to taste of “Asian joy” and “Italian lust”, but I had no idea as to the form in which these flavors would be presented to me.  Once you have ordered and turned off your cell phone and given your watch to the hostess (there can be no items that may produce light in the dark room), your party stands in a line holding the shoulder of the person in front of them and enters the dark room led by the server.  I’ll admit that I was instantly terrified.  Normally, when we think that we are in the dark there is still moon light, or a candle, or the light from a cell phone.  This was completely dark.  I kept bumping into chairs and the person in front of me on our way to the table, and once I sat down I felt claustrophobic and trapped.  I developed a headache as my eyes strained to see.  But, as the minutes passed, my eyes stopped straining to see and I grew more comfortable in the dark.  I found that I could crawl my fingers across the table to find my drink without spilling anything.  When the food was served, I cut the lumps on my plate with my fork and knife.  Sometimes the pieces were very big, sometimes very small, and sometimes there was nothing on my fork at all.  The meal (Asian-marinated tofu, potatoes, and vegetables for dinner and Italian sorbet, fruit compote, and mocha mousse for dessert) was extremely flavorful and delicious.  The restaurant claims that when you can’t see, your other senses go into overdrive, making the flavors of your food more intense.  The conversation at the table was very personal and honest, perhaps because we couldn’t see our friend’s faces or their body language.  This was by far the most interesting dining experience that I have ever had.  Probably not a good pick for a blind date, but an excellent place to dine with a person or group of people that you are comfortable with and want to get to know better.

 After dinner we went to a nearby wine bar with an interesting business model.  (No, this was not an academic visit.)  Guests pay 2 Euro to rent a glass and then you drink as much wine as you like.  When you leave, you drop some money in a jar at the bar according to what you think was the value of what you drank.  Unlike many other wine bars, the design was not at all modern; the bar was very cozy and was arranged with old wooden tables and a variety of chairs that didn’t match.  We ended up staying for a few hours.  Though I could imagine this being a problem, before we left we paid for our drinks fairly based on what we’d paid for glasses of wine at other restaurants in Berlin.

at the wine bar

After the wine bar a few of my friends and I took the U-Bahn (metro) to a night club in another section of Berlin.  We had a great time dancing, and by the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 5am.  I got 2 hours of sleep before my alarm went off.  Friday morning we had to pack and check out of the hotel before our trip to the Reichstag at 8am.  I managed to wake up and check out on time, and we got to the Reichstag early enough that we avoided outrageous waiting times.  At the Reichstag we could see Parliament in session and we got to climb to the top of the dome.  After our trip to the Reichstag we visited the Jewish Museum.  Besides the Museum’s famous architecture (from above it looks like a broken Star of David), the exhibit explores Jewish religion in Germany by focusing on the religion’s role in society (from thousands of years ago to the present day) and on important individual’s contributions to Jewish society rather than merely focusing on the Holocaust.  After our trip to the Museum we had lunch at the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz and then began our eight hour journey back to Copenhagen.

Though I didn’t get to spend enough time in either city, Berlin was incredible.  I hope that I will get a chance to visit the city again someday, but for not I am just happy to be home in Denmark catching up on sleep.

Note:  Our trip to Hamburg and Berlin coincided with a Travel Alert from the US State Department warning Americans traveling in Europe of the possibility of terrorist attacks.  Also, some news outlets claim that jihadists in Hamburg are responsible for the development of the plot to attack European cities.  Though I was not afraid to travel to Hamburg or Berlin, I was sure to always be aware of my surroundings and tried not to draw attention to myself or the fact that I am American.