classwork, breweries and the beast

Before I talk about the last week or so, I have been thinking about some of the things that I have noticed about Denmark that are different than anywhere else I have lived. Here is a quick list:

• Everyone rides a bike. The city is completely flat and if you go to any public place (train station, school, bar, restaurant, etc.) you will always see numerous bikes all over the place
• Bathrooms are unisex. Yep. You walk into a bathroom (sans urinal) and there are usually 3 or 4 doors to stalls and it could be Bill or Lisa that walks out. No telling.
• Exits are not marked very well. I have apparantly gotten very used to large green exit signs (with a little guy running on them) and the lack of the obvious markers has thrown me for numerous loops. I have, while trying to leave a room, accidentally gone into bathrooms, closets, classrooms and one time a cinema. I miss the green signs. (current time is about 2 minutes after I just wrote this part, and I told my friend Shell how I think that exits are poorly marked, and she told me that they are marked extremely well, they are just in Danish. The word is Udgang. I am simple)
• When bar tenders poor a beer, they leave about 2 inches free at the top (a little for foam and just a little space so they don't spill I guess).

There are probably more, but none come to mind right now.

So last week I had off from school and one of my pals from Edinburgh, Evan Green, came to visit Copenhagen for a few days. He flew into town Tuesday and Shell and I met him out at the train station for a "welcome" beer at a sports bar called O' Leary's. Shell had to bid us farewell for the evening, so Evan and I ended up going to a very strange Mexican restaurant. We ordered some nachos as an appetizer and then a main meal. When the nachos came, there actually were 2 plates of nachos. When we asked the waiter about this, he said that he thought we looked hungry and that one nacho would not be enough for us. We thought that it was awfully nice of him to give us a free nacho, until we found out that we had to pay for it. After we found this out, Evan jumped up, tipped the table over and spilled everything on the couple sitting next to us as he yelled at the waiter. Actually, that last part did not happen, but I think it would have been funny. We ended up not paying for the extra nachos.

On Wednesday Evan and I went around the town and first off saw a huge demonstration that was focused on the government and how they were making education more expensive for students and how pensions would be decreased. Or something like this. We walked along the water and saw the new Opera house, Hans Christen Anderson's Little Mermaid statue, and a few other parts of town. The night was capped off by Shell making an authentic Chinese meal (hong shao rou = pork, rice, potato, cool spice). It was quite tasty.

Thursday was the day Evan, Shell and I toured the Carlsberg brewery. It was raining, and it is a brewery, so we thought why not? The brewery was pretty impressive, and the Danish have a long history in the suds. They also had some free samples at the end, and I will say, one of the coffe/chocolate flavored beers was quite good.

A seperate paragraph is needed for this part of Evan's visit. The subject: hot dogs. I have not put down how cool hot dogs are in Denmark, but let me try to paint a picture. Think of a pig in a blanket, make it about 3 times larger, and then instead of having the pig in the blanket, put it in a sleeping bag. A small, toasted sleeping bag of goodness. To make matters much, much better, there are hot dog vendors all over the place in the city. It did not take me long to figure out how great this was, and Evan was on board with hot dogs from the start. Lunch....hot dogs. A mid-day snack, how about a dog? After going to the bar, why not cap the night off with some processed meat in a bun? We could not get enough of them. To recap, I enjoy hot dogs. And so does Evan.

Thursday night was spent at a bar (located in the business school) called Nexus, then off to a bar called Out of Juice (where you get to roll dice on thursdays and if it comes up 6, your drinks are free) and then off to a club late. It was quite a good time. Evan was off on Friday early and I slept and then caught a matinee of The Da Vinci Code. Not my favorite all time movie, but it was entertaining in a lot of parts. It has been fairly well documented, but it is nonetheless true that Tom Hanks' hair was a distraction. Odd.

This week has seen me in my last 2 classes in Copenhagen (M & A and Business in Asia). Both have been really interesting, especially the M & A class. They have structured this class where different professionals will come in and talk about each process of a merger or acquisition, usually the process in which they are an expert.

Next up, tests and papers for these classes, more work on internships, figuring out my next few months, a bit of travel probably on the way and who knows. Pictures above.

pictures update

in front of a cathedral in lundt, sweden



















shell in a large park in copenhagen














beautiful spring day in copenhagen















sunset in the park















shell at the open air musem in lundt, sweden














FCK (white on the right) and Brøndby (dark on the left) at a Sunday football match















at the open air museum














me feeding danish ducks















snapping pictures in sweden


















at an outdoor cafe by the park, looking like i am trying to whistle

more of copenhagen

The last few weeks have been filled with group work, and lots of it. The second one-week class that I have been taking is Managing Communication and Political Processes. I do not know what that title means, but what the class talked about was how a company tells everyone (customers, investors, government, etc.) what they are all about. What methods they use, what mediums, etc. It also has to do with Corporate and Social Responsibility and how this aspect of business is now becoming important. It was a fairly interesting class, as I had very little prior knowledge on the subject. And speaking of no prior knowledge, my next two classes (starting on May 22nd) will be 1) Doing business in China and Japan and 2) Mergers and Acquisitions. They will be in the same, intensive format. I am particularly interested in the business in Asia class as that seems like it will be fairly relevant for the better part of my life.

So groupwork. In both classes I have had small groups (3 in one class, 5 in the other) and our grade is solely determined on group projects. That said, everyone is fairly keen on doing whatever they can to get a good grade. As I wrote in a prior email to my friend Beth, it seems to me that when otherwise normal people get put into small groups and are told to do a project, they all go completely crazy (me included). Discussing and laboring on about fairly small points, that will have no real impact on our grade, seems to be our particular specialty. If this were a club, sometimes I feel as if I would be the president. At times it is fairly comical, especially when there is a miscommunication. That said, everyone in my small groups are nice people and are bright and articulate, there is just something about small groups with people who have strong opinions that bring on situations that will be nothing if not memorable.

As a side note (and not a super relevant one at that), there is a phrase that I think about almost every day when we are meeting in our groups and have no intention of using, but can not help but think someone in some group somewhere should use.

In my little daydream scenario, after furiously driving home a point that is not liked by the other members of the group, but is obviously so good and profound that it must be used, the person simply breaks the following news to them while making intense eye contact:

"That's why it's not called showfriends, group,........... that is why it is called showbusiness."

Perhaps it is lapses in paying attention, just like this, that cause some of the miscommunications stated above.

On with more stuff I actually have been doing.

The weather has been really great the past 2 weeks and I have tried to take advantage of it and get out and see some of the city. I went to the National Museum in Copenhagen with my friend Shell and 3 of her friends to see some Danish artwork. Also, there was an exhibit by Rembrandt there which was cool only for the fact that he is an artist that I have heard of.

I also visited 2 museums on modern art (one in Louisiana, Denmark and one in Lundt, Sweden) and they were really very cool. I did not know what to expect from modern art as the only galleries I had ever been up to that point had fairly old paintings, sculptures, exhibits, etc. In them. I really found I liked them and had a good time in both. Denmark is known for its design, and this really was on display in almost everything in these museums (including the actual museum itself).

I also went to a local football match between two teams, FC København and Brøndby, that have a long history. I went to the stadium and bought a ticket outside and had a good time listening to the fans sing constantly for the entire time I was at the stadium. They were cheering and chanting and supporting their side, and I had no idea what they were talking about because it was all iDanishsh.

I have also spent a lot of time looking for internships, researching dissertation topics, planning a few trips and watching movies. I do not have a TV so movies have been a big source of my entertainment.

This next week sees one of my friends from Edinburgh, Evan, come into town for a few days and I will be getting ready for my upcoming classes. Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks. My computer is not working right now so I do not have access to a lot of the museum pics, but I will try to put up a couple of interesting ones when I get back up and going.

I also have a beard again.