What I’ve Been Up To
Hi:) I went to Oslo during the session break. It’s very easy to travel in Europe and decently cheap as well. A lot of travel options (flight, train, bus) have youth tickets that are ages 18-25 and are cheaper than adults travel. I went with 7 of my roommates and we got an Airbnb for three days. It only cost me $250 for the flights and housing. The food was great and we visited a lot of historic sites, museums, thrift shops, and restaurants. I would highly recommend the sauna boats in Oslo!
I also started a new class this week called Food, Taste, and Waste. It’s about the food culture of Denmark and the food waste tactics that Denmark and Europe are using. There’s a 5-day study tour to Barcelona that’s happening next week (I’m very excited) and a lot of interesting field studies. An example of one of the field studies we have done this week is going to a mussel farm and making mussel soup.
A Day in the Life
My class is usually split up into 2 parts, the morning part is 10:00 -11:30am and the afternoon part is 12:30-2pm. During the morning session, there was a lecture for about an hour and then we were split into groups to do an activity about income versus education and where specific items and activities landed on the graph.
The afternoon session of my class was a mixture of a beer tour and historical tour of Copenhagen. It started in the meatpacking district that now houses a lot of restaurants and breweries and then headed into Vesterbro (the hipster part of Copenhagen) to visit several different breweries and hear about the history of this part of town. It was really interesting to hear more about the development of Vesterbro and the meatpacking district.
The tour ended at 2pm and I decided to walk around Vesterbro more. I had seen some really interesting places during the tour that I wanted to explore. I went to Røde Kors, which is a red cross thrift shop. It is definitely much cheaper than the vintage second hand stores around Copenhagen where the average price of pretty much anything is around 250 DKK ($36.72 USD) which is more expensive than most typical clothing stores. The highest price I saw at this thrift store was 140 DKK ($20.56 USD), but mostly the prices were closer to 90 DKK ($13.22 USD) which is much more reasonable.
Food Recommendations
Other than the food listed in Friday’s adventures, I have found many more great things to eat. One thing I have learned is that 7-11 in Europe is much better than 7-11 in the US. They have vegan cookies and they are actually great! Depending on the location, they might have vegan croissants, cookies, or banana bread. They have a wide selection of other bakery items as well.
The seafood in Copenhagen is excellent as well, almost everyone I have met here has mentioned how great the seafood is. Pork products in Copenhagen are great too, which makes sense because of how big the pork industry is here. I’ve had Banh Mi here with pork in it several times and can attest to the tastiness and quality of the pork. I’ve also had Durum and Shawarma several times these past few weeks, and it’s pretty good. I would recommend Kong Pizzeria near the DIS classrooms. Despite it not having Shawarma in the name, it’s the best I’ve had so far and it’s actually spicy. I enjoy spicy food a lot and what the Danes consider spicy is usually not spicy at all. I went to Brød in Vesterbro (literally translates to Bread) and got a small bread loaf, and it was fantastic. My current professor had told me that it’s the best bread in Copenhagen, and she was right.
Copenhagen also has a few farmers’ markets that I have enjoyed. Near the Nørreport metro station, there is a place called TorvehallerneKBH and they have several fruit and vegetable stands. TorvehallerneKBH also hosts a bunch of different food stands indoors with the farmers’ market outside. I would definitely recommend buying locally-grown strawberries from the outdoor stand. I have also visited the Grønt Market, which runs on Sundays in different locations throughout Copenhagen. They have an interesting selection of vendors from vegetables to goat cheese to meat products.
There’s a great app in Copenhagen called ToGoodToGo and it’s in a lot of cities in Europe and some in the US. The idea behind the app is to lessen food waste by selling leftover items at the end of the day for very cheap. You can get surprise bags from a bunch of different participating restaurants, supermarkets, and bakeries for very cheap. ToGoodToGo offers pastries, bread, sandwiches, vegetables, fruits, leftovers from specific restaurants (like curry!), and more. I once got about 15 pastries from 7-11 for the equivalent of $5 USD.
That’s all for this week, but I’m looking forward to sharing my Study Tour experience in Spain with you next week!