Survived one week! (My umbrella did not..)

Hey there!  As of today, I have officially survived my first week in Denmark, yay!  & what a great week its been.

Classes started on Thursday, and all of mine seem really interesting so far.  I was pretty nervous and not sure what to expect, but the professors all seem great and really enthusiastic.  This semester I'm taking War Crimes and Human Rights, Gang Crime in Scandinavia, The Cultural History of Travel, The Scandinavian Detective Novel, and VERY basic Danish.  My War Crimes class has a one week trip to Kosovo included as part of a long "study tour," so I'm very excited abut that- it's definitely somewhere I wouldn't have visited otherwise.  My other classes also have Wednesday "field studies" where we do things around the city.  DIS doesn't have classes scheduled on Wednesdays to allow for these, so it's pretty cool.  Gang Crime is taking a trip to a closed prison, which I am SO PUMPED about, clearly.  (But seriously, Tara-the-Crim-Major is loving this.)

So like I said, even though I survived one week, there was one casualty- my umbrella.  Actually, to be technical it was my roommate Kathleen's beige Eddie Bauer umbrella that she leant me freshman year and I never gave back.  Anyway, I've had it ever since then.  It seemed to be a pretty trusty umbrella (even though I haven't used it in forever) so I packed it to take to Europe with me.  Convenient, right?

Wrong.

Today Amy and I went on a tour of the Kronborg Castle (best known for being featured in Shakespeare's Hamlet.)  The weather seemed pretty questionable, but armed with my (Kathleen's) umbrella, I figured I was all set.  Unfortunately, almost as soon as we got off the bus, it started pouring.  I grabbed the umbrella, only to realize that the button to open it was defective.  I was able to manually open it, but even then it didn't stay open, so I just looked crazy and was still getting hit with rain.  After a pit-stop for coffee and pastry in a bakery we found, I went in search of a replacement.  I was lucky enough to find a brand new, $6 plastic bubble umbrella.  It's the coolest thing ever, and it saved me from getting drenched.

The castle!

Amy & me!

Aside from the umbrella issues and the rain, it was a fun trip.  Of course, my favorite part was seeing the dungeon of the castle.  Typical. 

Dungeon!

Currently, it's still raining, so I'm having a "hyggelit" night snuggled in my room.

ps: Stonehillers, you might want to pick up a few of those candles from what I hear..  Purple and white, even in the hurricane (and from hundreds of miles away).  ;)