Welcome back to edition 2 of “Denmark First, Tomorrow the World”. I’m your host Mira Hayre, giving you (all 6 of my Masi’s) the scoop of my exchange. It’s been a week since I posted my last edition, and let me tell you, y’all did not #PrayforMira because I was still sick until yesterday.
Tuesday: I was bedridden the day I wrote my last blog post. I skipped my supply chain risk management class in the morning. Slept until 11 AM. I don’t think anything else about this day was highly notable other than being extremely sick.
Wednesday
Nothing says “I’m sick and need to get better” like hopping on a train to another country, right? Because that is exactly what I did. My friend Liam and I decided to leave for Malmö, Sweden early in the morning at 9:26 AM (to be precise). Malmö is a short 35-minute train ride away from Copenhagen, often actually used by commuters who are from Sweden working in Denmark. The bridge that connects the two countries is a relatively new piece of art. Here’s the down low:
“The Øresund Bridge is a combined railway and motorway bridge across the Øresund strait between Sweden and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island Peberholm in the middle of the strait. The crossing is completed by the 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) Drogden Tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager. The Øresund Bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe”- Source
Yeah that’s right, they made an artificial island for this project. Here I am, unable to cook pasta, and there is people building artificial islands. Liam and I were pretty excited to start out first leg of “travel” of the trip. Our day itinerary was to stop first at Emporia, Scandanavia’s largest shopping centre, and take advantage of the lower sales tax in Sweden. Then, we’d visit IKEA because surely, IKEA in Sweden would be different. Finally, we’d visit a castle in Malmo to round out all the shopping on our trip.
If I am being honest, Malmo was a highly underwhelming experience. I’m not sure what we expected of the mall, but something about “Scandanavia’s largest shopping centre” made us think it was going to be magical. Maybe this is because we come from Canada, where our largest mall (West Edmonton Mall) has an amusement park, water park and ice rink in it. Clearly consumerism is bigger in North America, because this mall was just kind of like Guildford Town Centre or Metro Town. A really average mall.
Next, we decided to head to Ikea. Ikea is Sweden. The founding country, it was going to be different, it was going to be different. Then I’d be able to go back to Canada and say in our Richmond IKEA and say:
“Ahh, I’ve been to Ikea in Sweden. It’s the same but just different you know.”
Or order ice cream and say this:
“Ahh yes. I’ll have “glass”, oh sorry I meant ice cream. Still getting used to being in Ikea in Canada after being in the one in Sweden, you know?”
The Ikea is the exact same as the one in Richmond. Lay out, menu, everything. Identical. I’m saying you could blind fold me and take me to the one in Sweden and the only differentiating factor is the difference in English versus Swedish explanations of products. Was slightly disappointed.
Ikea food never fails to impress however. I had to try the famous IKEA meatballs, hoping they’d be better than the half-frozen ones I ate at the Coquitlam IKEA at home. I am happy to say my $7 meal of coffee, a plate of meatballs and mashed potatoes, and a cinnamon bun, was delicious. I was not let down. Plus, that is probably the cheapest meal I will get on this exchange.
Finally, we went to the castle. Let me rephrase, we walked up to the castle, which happened to be the most underwhelming point of the trip. Walked around the park a couple times to make the train ride into that part of town worth it, and headed home.
It was cool to be in Sweden, but I’d say that Malmo is a good day trip but does not merit a weekend trip. If my readers plan on going, go into the cute cobble stone part of town (I think it’s called “The Square”) and skip out on the castle. It was a very quaint and cute place to be, and if you want to shop, you can take advantage of a large shopping center and lower taxes! Plus, you now get to say you’ve been to Sweden.
Thursday:
I also had this day off class. But this day meant business, I got up at 6:30 AM to head and get my residency permit with Kamil, a friend who is also an EU resident. The office didn’t open till 8:30 and we arrived at 7:30. We thought we had ample time, but when we arrived there was at least 200 people in front of us. Uh oh. “Student Express Hours” only took place until 10:00 AM. At 9:55 AM we were almost in the front, both hopeful and scared. Would they let us in? Would we have to return earlier tomorrow? Did we just waste 3 hours? They let us in, and that process took a large portion of my day. If I have any readers who are going on exchange to CBS in the future with an EU Passport, my advice is to get to the office very early. Like think early, then challenge yourself to be an hour earlier than that time.
Then we had the “Back to School Party”. This party actually starts at 1:00 PM and people are usually highly intoxicated no later than 3:00 PM. The Danes go hard. Outside are huge beer and cider gardens and from 7:00 PM a gigantic rave/party happens inside the business school. This party has multiple stages and DJ’s, and a capacity of 5000 people. The thing is there is probably an additional 5000 people outside drunk in the beer gardens. The whole thing is like Project X but as an organized school function and it kind of blew my mind. They even had outside urinals in the open. No, not porta potties, just open outdoor urinals. It was very different than a normal UBC POITS that is for sure. I headed later than my friends as I had some work to do. Sadly, I got there when there was 44-person capacity left, and didn’t get in. I then sat in the line waiting for capacity to open up and me to be let in. In this time, I made friends with a nice grad student from the states. I was also told by a Norwegian man telling the girl beside her eyes were beautiful that my eyes were “very okay”. Nice. I finally managed to get in, and inside was a ton of fun! We danced the night away and ended up very classically at McDonalds where I treated myself to a Mcflurry. McDonald’s is not cheap in Denmark, and my dinky little ice cream was $5 CAD. Also, they don’t crush the Mcflurry ingredients in Denmark. Talk about culture shock.
Friday:
Going out for a long night when you’re still recovering from sickness was also definitely not my best move, but as Zac Efron’s shoulder tattoo once said, “YOLO”. This day was not that notable, I had two classes (one that started at 8:00 AM) and a 4-hour group project meeting, made dinner and went to bed. I’m not even sure why I’m writing about it, but my intro line was funny.
Saturday:
Free from school constraints (besides all the readings I still had to catch up on), it was time to explore. Liam, Parker and I wanted to visit Church of Our Savior. It is a beautiful church with a huge tower over top that overlooks all of Denmark. We also invited friends from our cohort Spencer and Chiara who joined us. We arrived at the church only to find it was closed for a wedding. All day. Nice.
We decided to go back to Freetown Christiania to explore, given our first time Liam and I were very taken off guard. We walked around, picked up some cheap coffee, and soaked in what is the odd but charming free town of Christiania. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, flip back to my last blog post for a small explanation. If you’re not much of a reader, or not into the effort it takes to tab out and look at my other blog post, see the photo’s to get a sense of where I was.
Parker then showed us a cute bakery that had the best baked goods. The baked goods in Denmark are to die for. The Sauder Café’s chocolate croissants will never be the same after eating baked goods here. Spencer and I both have sweet tooth’s and ordered this chocolate cake looking concoction. It was love from first bite. We then walked around the Canal and the surrounding area. We had an exploration itch and wanted to continue our adventure packed day so Parker, Liam and I decided to go to Christianborg Palace. The Palace was just about closing so we walked around the exteriors and vowed to return the upcoming Thursday for a tour.
If you know me, you know I have a sweet tooth. In Denmark the bulk candy is cheaper on weekends and Chiara, Spencer and I decided to go to the super market to take advantage of this deal. Our bike over there was my first bike accident here. My friends all exited the bike lane via the small ramp to the side walk. I however, missed that there was a ramp at all, and decided to go up the ledge. Boom. Straight face plant onto the side walk. A shout out to my hands who the most of the fall.
After this long day of not letting my body properly rest from sickness, I had a huge International Student Party for all international students in Copenhagen from all schools. We started out pre with friends from our cohort going to a different party. We used the fun app “Picolo” to break the ice and start the night off right. Then, we headed to a different pre with exchange students in our building. This group was mainly Australian and Dutch. It was a really fun time. To be completely honest, probably more fun than the night to follow. When we finally arrived at the club (at 1:00 AM) we were all just tired. But we paid $20 CAD for these tickets so we made a vow to dance for at least one hour. Which is exactly what we did and we left precisely at 1:58 AM. The club was warmer than anything you can imagine. Warmth + Late Night = Sleepy Mira. But of course, a true night out is not done without a bag of Sour Cream chips. I went to 711 and ate the whole bag on the way home. I am truly living my best life here.
Sunday:
I woke up so sick. Oh so sick. The karma of not letting myself rest had kicked me right in the butt. I stayed inside until 2:00 PM and then decided I should probably do something with my day. Liam and I made our way to Torvehallerne, a cute Granville Island-esque market in Copenhagen. It was super nice. We shared pizza, coffee and pastries, all of which were phenomenal. The sun was peaking through the clouds, we sat and talked and just enjoyed the afternoon. Maybe this is the Danish hygge that people keep talking about?
When we returned to Porcelaenshaven we attended our friend Kamil’s birthday gathering. A lot of us came from our cohort and just spent time together, sharing stories and enjoying each other companies. My cohort really started to feel like a family and I love it. They’re a great bunch of people.
Monday:
This day was class and catching up on readings that I had neglected earlier. Not much to note other than a high stress level really.
Tuesday:
My sister booked a last minute flight here, so that happened. Today was really great. First, I finished all the readings I needed to do to be caught up. So that’s a huge win. If Mom and Dad are reading, I hope you are proud! Then I met up with my sister who showed up in a red jacket, yellow top and over alls. Denmark is all about all black and grey outfits, minimalism, and effortless and chique style. So let me repeat, this woman showed up in a red jacket, yellow top and over alls. Then she ran through a bike lane to see me. Clearly a Danish newbie, violating all 2 of the basic Danish requirements.
Danish requirement #1- All Danes wear business casual 24/7 but call it “casual”. This clothing must all be nude, black, or grey and effortlessly stylish.
Danish requirement #2 – Do not mess with the bike lanes. Period.
Indra tried to visit the famous Church of Our Savior mentioned on my Saturday write up, but once again it was closed due to “weather”. C’mon Denmark, you let a little rain stop you? I’m not mad, just disappointed. I toured her through Christiania, the Danish pastry bakery, the canal walk (all the same as my Saturday day) and then we walked through Frederiksberg Park. Frederiksberg Park is gigantic and we got very lost, but the park is absolutely beautiful. There is fountains, little palaces, statues and fit danes running everywhere. We came home, I cooked a dinner of burnt rice (yes, I burned the rice), canned butter chicken and chicken breast. My Dhadi (grandma on my dad’s side) would be truly disgraced.
That is all, thanks for tuning in for this especially long episode of “Denmark First, Tomorrow the World”. It’s your host, Mira Hayre, signing out from my cute little dorm. Until next time. Don’t forget to leae your
Suky
September 11, 2018 — 9:42 pm
Omg – u r living the dream girl – keep it up – makes me feel tired just reading about your escapades – now i know I’m getting close to 60 for sure – i love ur blog – ????????badi masi (suky)