It began unfavorably early on Thursday; the bus was motoring out of Frue Plads before the klokken struck 8. Fortunately, we had a decently long drive to our first stop, Lolland Kommune, where we learned about governing a shrinking, rural-ish municipality in Denmark and how such a thing relates to the EU (because it does). More napping preceded a short but pleasant ferry ride from the southern bit of Sjælland to northern Germany, which was made marginally more exciting than it might've been because the ferry route will be replaced by a bridge someday quasi-soon.
We ended up in Lübeck, a large town in northern Germany that among other things is home to an inimitable tour guide named Manfred. He knew his stuff, for sure, but his English alone was mildly entertaining ("literation" instead of "litearture," for instance-- I seriously thought he was bragging about historical figures' ability to repeat consonant sounds for a while). And he had some dramatic rhetoric, coupled with a strange lack of respect for the girls' personal space. Cases in point: poking about five of us in the bellies to make a point about the Devil lacking a navel; getting right in the face of Sara to inform her that women like Mrs. Putin (who apparently came to Lübeck desperate for some of its famous marzipan) will do what they will--"Have you ever heard the story of the serpent and the apple?" Ridiculous, but memorable. I think someone started a Facebook group called "WWMD -- What Would Manfred Do?" It's one of those odd things that gets the 23-person group (including two chaperones) to bond quite immediately.
Thursday's dinner was provided by DIS, at a Marine lodge complete with wooden model ships hanging from the ceiling, dark murals, and long tables that dated back to something like the sixteenth century. Amazing hot chocolate and ice cream bookended an actual (and actually good) vegetarian meal-- for once I didn't just get the main dish sans flesh!
After dinner we drove to the Jugendherberge Kiel, our hostel for the night in Kiel, Germany, which was absolutely freezing but otherwise fine for one night. The town itself was fairly quiet; I ended up exploring a bit in the cold with a couple of my roommates, Kate and Alissa, but we gave up and played Go Fish over a can of Pringles.
Friday brought a guided tour of the Kiel Maritime Museum, which everyone including our tour leaders agreed was utterly dull, except for the life-size model of a 1930s German submarine that was made with two leather arm-mittens on the front so that someone could chuck dynamite at an enemy ship. How one might do that underwater, in mittens, and get away fast enough on a pedal-powered craft apparently never occurred to the designer.
After lunch (more good vegetarian dining and dessert), we went to the Kieler Landtag, the regional parliament for the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany. The chairwoman of the Danish minority's political party spoke for a bit, and kindly answered my many questions afterwards. The SSW sounds an awful lot like an ethnic party (including its specially lowered threshold of representation in the Landtag), but Anke Spoorendonk did her best to explain to me why this wasn't the case. I'm still debating what I think of her response, but I think I'm writing a paper on the subject for Friday, so that should be resolved soon.
Later on, we crossed back into Denmark without any more fanfare than a "Velkommen til Danmark" sign (the Schengen Agreement nixed the need for passports between EU states) and met with the editor-in-chief of Denmark's German-language newspaper, Der Nordschleswiger, which was much less interesting than it sounds, unfortunately. The evening got much better, though-- we checked into the Danhostel of Sønderborg City and spent the rest of the evening by the waterfront, having dinner and then checking out the nightlife.
I ended up spending most of the night at a too-smoky bar called Penny Lane, enjoying Hoegaarden and about half a dozen of my classmates in a room that looked like someone's old-fashioned library. We took an appropriately dignified picture or two, sang along to a techno cover of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al," and turned in significantly earlier than the rest of the group, which was just fine with me.
Saturday began with a tour of Dybbøl Bank, the location of a key battle between Denmark and Germany in 1864 that was repeatedly referred to as the "Danish Gettysburg," which some people took offense to. Not one of the more interesting stops on the trip, I'm afraid, but the all-you-can-eat Italian pizza buffet afterwards made up for the cold!
We took another ferry from Jylland (mainland Denmark) to Fyn, the big island in between Jylland and Sjælland, where Copenhagen is. We stopped in Odense, Denmark's third-largest city, to tour the Brandts Kunstmuseum, which has a fantastic modern art collection. Particularly notable were two series of rooms: they were totally separate exhibitions, but similar in that the pieces were a series of connected environments. One involved children's play and included a slanted room decorated like a ship's belly with a video porthole-- I actually had to leave it to convince myself we weren't moving. There was also a round black room with spinning dotted lights and big silver balls to roll around, which I especially loved.
The second piece was called "From someone who nearly died, but survived." It began with a room of stuffed ravens with creepy glowing eyes that followed you through several rooms of strange space-related technology reminiscent of The Matrix and 2001: A Space Odyssey, among other things (apparently what the artist intended), followed by a room filled with foam spikes, and lastly, a pegasus (I believe it was a taxidermied horse with wings attached) behind glass that was clouded in such a way that a viewer has to kneel before the display to see what's inside. Crazy and bizarre, but that's part of why I love modern art.
We hit Copenhagen around dinnertime, but not before the bus's Denmark trivia contest, in which I scored fourth place (did you know Denmark has one peninsula and 406 islands?) and thus some gummies.
Overall, I had a great time. The people were pretty fun, and our tour leaders were particularly great. One of them, Jakob, teaches my Migrants, Minorities, and Multiculturalism class, so I was happy to get to know him outside of the classroom; the other, Tyler, is the European Politics program assistant, who, besides being generally great, was on DIS two years ago with my friend Desha. Small world!
Of course, all the fun meant I spent most of today getting work done, but at least I've mostly caught up on sleep, too. This week should be a busy one with work, but I get to head to Cambridge at the end of it! Plus, Jackie and Dara and I had a lovely dinner at Café Katz and decided we should maybe make Sunday suppers a weekly thing so as to hit up all the cafés on our communal to-do list.
Actually, speaking of which, skål to goat cheese as well!
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