Travel Break!

At the crack of dawn on Saturday, I am off to Barcelona.  And thus begins my two week travel break.  I am spending the first week in Barcelona and Rome and the second week with my mom in Paris and Copenhagen.  I have never been to any of the cities I am visiting, except for Copenhagen obviously because I live here, so this will be an all around new adventure for me.  New food, new language, new culture....can't wait!  I will probably have limited to no Internet access while on my trip, so this will be the last blog post for a while.  Expect pictures and a long post upon my return!

I think its nap time...

Hello to all my readers out there, sorry if I have let you down this last week with my posts.  Truth be told, I haven't been doing much.  I was in New York last weekend for my cousin's wedding and I spent this week being jet lag and catching up on work.  I did have the pleasure of having a home cooked Danish meal last night in the countryside.  But besides that I have been studying, reading, writing, and sleeping.  Hopefully, I will be able to enjoy this weekend in Copenhagen because next weekend I begin my 2 week Europe travel extravaganza.  I will report again at the end of the weekend, but until then I am going to relax and nap and enjoy some down time. 

Occupy Wall Street

I wasn't assigned to write a blog post on this topic, nor does it have anything to do with living in Copenhagen, but Occupy Wall Street is a powerful new movement that I want to spread awareness about.  Occupy Wall Street was recently started, when a Vancouver company encouraged people to occupy Wall Street and protest the economic inequalities in the United States.  Since mid-September, the Occupy Wall Street movement, now referred to as Occupy, as spread to over seventy cities across the nation.  People are gathering to show that they disagree with the governments economic actions, giving tax breaks to the wealthy and bailing out the banking industry, to name a couple.

Occupy has sparked interest in me because it is the first time I can remember in my lifetime seeing the American people come together to peacefully show that we are done with inequality and are ready to see some change.  I have been thinking a lot about the way the Arab Spring has impacted recent social movements, and I believe that we are only beginning to see the ways that social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) can be used to organize change.  These tools are crucial in connecting people that care about similar political initiatives and actually want to do something about them.

I am living in Copenhagen, thousands of miles away from where the streets are being occupied.  I don't know where that leaves me in the realm of this movement, but for now I will continue to read articles, follow blogs, engage in discussions, and hope to see some positive change.

Back in Copenhagen

Just got back from London yesterday, it was an incredible and exhausting trip filled with academic visits, cultural excursions, and riding the Tube.  I probably spent on average 1.5 hours on the tube per day.  The Tube is the best and worst transportation system of all time. I don't know why anybody thought it would be a good idea to create an underground train half the width of the NYC Subway, but on the bright side it takes you just about anywhere you need to go.  Here is a day by day on my trip to London:

Day 1: Arrive in London in the evening, spend 3 hours at Border Control, and enjoy the national food of the country: Indian food (that's right its not fish and chips!)

Day 2: Danish Chamber of Commerce, explore and eat lunch at Harrod's (an amazing British department store!), guided tour and high tea at the British museum

 Harrod's

The British Museum

Day 3: Bike Tour of London (saw some highlights of the city: Buckingham Palace, Kensington Gardens, Big Ben), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the London Eye

 Buckingham Palace

The London Eye

Day 4: HSBC, Museum of the Docklands, Royal Observatory, The British Music Experience, Rihanna Concert

Me at the Prime Meridian

Rihanna Concert

Day 5: Wimbledon, Pre-Theater dinner, The Lion King

 Center Court

Wimbledon

Day 6: Westminster Abbey, National Portrait Gallery, and Back to Copenhagen

Westminster Abbey

The verdict: London is a great city.  It has a lot going for it, thriving business, beautiful churches and palaces, and surprisingly good food.  There is a lot to see and I hope to travel back to the city sometime soon.  For now, I am happy to be in Copenhagen, it is a much smaller and more manageable city.  And, its cozy.

Off to London...

I guess I have officially earned the title of worst blogger ever, being mia for over a week.  This past week I was pretty busy, had tons of assignments due, so I was sitting inside doing lots of work, boring.  Saturday, however, we had uncharacteristically beautiful weather for an October day in Copenhagen.  It was the perfect temperature outside, I was able to wear a summer dress!  I went with a few friends to Israel Plads, an indoor market (very similar to Chelsea Market for you New Yorkers reading my blog), where we walked through and took advantage of all the free samples.  Afterwards, we headed over to a park and sat on the hillside overlooking a lake.  We just enjoyed what will probably be our final warm and sunny day in Copenhagen.

Tomorrow I head to London with my European Business Strategy class.  I will be sure to post pictures and details of my trip when I get back!

FM Belfast Concert and Weekend in Odense

I apologize for having taken almost an entire week to publish a new post.  I doubt that anyone missed me that much, but I am trying to keep my posts as regular as possible.  This past weekend was one of the busiest I have had so far in Denmark.  First, lets back track a bit to last Thursday night.  On Thursday night, I went with my Creative Industries class to see the band FM Belfast.  Creative Industries is a business class all about the different business sectors that make up the experience economy, for example music, movies, and fashion.  Before seeing the concert, we met with a manager at VEGA nightclub in Copenhagen.  He spoke to us about the process of finding and booking musicians, the business model of VEGA, and how business has changed since the economic crisis.  As much as I found the talk interesting, the concert was definitely the highlight of the night.  FM Belfast was a surprisingly good band.  The lead singer knew how to get the crowd excited and involved in the music, which made for an incredibly enjoyable concert.

FM Belfast at VEGA

Also, check out this FM Belfast music video.  This is one of the songs they played at the concert!

Saturday morning I left bright and early for a trip to Odense.  The goal of the trip was to explore Hans Christian Andersen's Funen and enjoy a weekend in another part of Denmark.  Our first two stops were Vlademars Slot and Egeskov Slot and Gardens.  Both of these manor houses have beautifully decorated rooms and are surrounded by picturesque scenery and gardens.

Here I am at Egeskov Slot and Gardens:

We arrived in Odense in the evening and did a short walking tour to see HC Andersen's house and monuments that had been created of the famous author.

Look at me chillin' with Hans

On Sunday, the last day of the trip, we went to the HC Andersen Museum.  The museum features an extensive timeline of HC Andersen's life as well as a massive collection of his stories in most languages.  Our last stop was the Funen Village, an open air museum that depicts what life was like in 19th Century Denmark.

Funen Village

Denmark Parliamentary Election 2011

On another note in current events, tomorrow (Sept 15th), is the parliamentary election in Denmark.  Since I have only been here for three weeks, I am not very familiar with the political system.  This article from the Herald Tribune: Denmark's election at a glance, gives a very brief overview of the three main candidates and the key issues of this election.  I am curious to see what the result of the election will be tomorrow, I will keep you all posted!