Tag Archives: Denmark

Hygge of My Semester

A major part that made studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark such an enriching experience was my host family. Their home is in Dyssegård, a suburb of Copenhagen and a twenty-minute train ride from the city center. The opportunity to explore beyond the city center, and have a purposeful journey as well as excellent people-watching time was an important part of each day and helped me delve into the everyday lives of a diverse array of people in Copenhagen.

While the two listed as my “family” were Jette and Hans-Erik, the others whom I interacted with because of them — including their kids and grandkids, their neighbor Peter, Hans-Erik’s mother, and other family friends — all added to my love for their home and helped me feel welcome in their environment.

Each evening, we (Jette, Hans-Erik and I) would cook together dancing between their blue SVEG fridge and front entryway to make simple, yet interesting dishes. As someone who mainly baked cakes, cookies, and other sweets growing up, my major cooking challenge prior to going abroad was usually trying not to burn grilled cheese. Under their roof, the importance of experimentation and trying something new both in the manner of tasting as well as overall dish creation was expressed.

The various ways they created dishes out of simple ingredients was new to me, and their manner of cooking fascinating. However, it wasn’t the food that made me never want to miss an evening at home, it was the atmosphere. Beyond just cooking, this time was a chance to discuss current events, try to pronounce Danish words, and often get advice about life in a variety of contexts.

One evening, Hans-Erik came home ecstatic with the deal he got on steaks, showing off the twelve packages he bought to freeze and use. I found this particular event hilarious because it also helped me see my own love of a good deal in Hans-Erik’s excitement over the steak. This event of excitement was not rare, in fact, it was pretty regular for Hans-Erik to come home with groceries bought from a supermarket deal, overjoyed at their total cost. Over the semester, I slowly began to understand the European culture of going to the grocery store multiple times a week, in contrast to the usual, once a week, giant grocery trip typically practiced in the United States.

Beyond the physical aspect of living in their home for four months, being taught Danish pronunciations and to distinguish different red wines, my entire experience was shaped by the love and friendliness of their everyday lives. This experience reaffirmed the importance of not only traveling to see the physical aspects of different cities but having real connections with those from such places, if possible. Those evening moments of bonding, from the quiet ones to the ones filled with thunderous laughter, are what I miss the most about my time in Denmark.

 

Bailey is a Minnesota native and a coffee addict. You can find her wearing spottie dotties (polka dots, as some call them) or talking numerous jumping pictures in her pink Doc Martens. She loves to explore either through traveling in the physical world or through moving picture films. As a senior at Smith, she is house president of Gardiner House and a gold key tour guide.

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SMØRREBRØD in Copenhagen

When I arrived in Copenhagen for my spring semester abroad, I did not even notice that I walked right past Amman’s airport restaurant, an outlet of downtown’s most famous place for Denmark’s most famous food. Smørrebrød is a broad category of traditional Nordic cuisine, which was rather mysterious to me. It is not pronounced “smore broad” but rather closer to “smoe boe”, and a direct translation from Danish is not very accurate at all; “butter bread” doesn’t describe these decorative dishes at all.

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Danish smørrebrød – beef tartare with egg.

“Decorative” might be an understatement here, as I would rather think of the underlying slice of rye bread as being the chef’s canvas, where he lays on a collage of ingredients that are as pleasing to the eye as tasty to the palate. The brown rye bread sets off the meat possibilities which come next, traditionally either a strong fish such as pickled herring or smoked lox, or else a mound of beef tartare with the bright yellow raw egg yolk shining on top. While I preferred the herring (shying away from red meat), I certainly enjoyed sampling some of the New Nordic innovations such as prawns, crab, tuna, and even carpaccio.

The vegetable ingredients are often the most attractive given the laciness of dill or the stodginess of avocado, or anything in season.  These vegetables generally divide into two classes. First there are the staples such as diced onions and capers, obligatory in perhaps 80 percent of recipes. But then come the charismatic ones such as the aforementioned dill, or chives, and perhaps a clever slice of cucumber or radish delicately carved and sculpted. These higher-class vegetables seem to always land on top with just the right angular attitudes, which I doubt come from being tossed at random.

I got my smørrebrød briefing one morning in January , and drew lots with my fellow classmates to determine my destination before setting off from school into the chaos of the Copenhagen lunch hour. The target of my research was the Slotskælderen Hos Gitte Kik restaurant, whose Michelin star and location across

from Parliament attract the sort of official clientele which appreciates the more traditional forms of these dishes rather than the Neo-Nordic.

It wasn’t always this way, these decorative meals for the power elites. Smørrebrød’s origins were more humble in the fog of earlier times: simple finger-food for field workers on limited budget, for whom rye bread and liver paste were the most affordable ingredients. But this all changed in 1883 when the Nimb restaurant, in the famous Tivoli Gardens, served it as equal to their fancier Nordic dishes.

But where can a girl go to find some less traditional smørrebrød? For fancy New Nordic, the famous Schønnemann restaurant would seem a likely candidate, but their high-quality ingredients seemed a bit lost in the concentrated saltiness of their sauces.

Fortunately, on my third outing, I finally connected with Amman’s, the parent restaurant of the very same airport outlet I had totally ignored on my first day in Denmark. It was marvelous.

I had great experiences testing all of these smørrebrød offerings;  now I enjoy  making my own seafood version.  I prefer it without any sauce or butter, and relish the opportunity to decorate it with a favorite fresh salad or fruit.

 

ratna_lusiaga_2016-09-26-author-imageRatnasari Lusaka is an Ada, Fall 2017, and food is one of the important parts of her future career, as her professional experience is mostly in event planning. Thus, she took the Anthropology of Food class in Copenhagen as my study abroad program. The New Nordic style of cuisine has given her new appreciation for thoughtfully including local ingredients, particularly seasonal produce.
Her tasting experiences with New Nordic smørrebrød were part of her explorations of a new genre of food where decoration and ingredient are intermingled in ways that leave plenty of opportunity to innovate for years to come.

 

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Selections from Global Encounters: Smith College’s Annual International Photo Exhibit

Have you ever wanted a peek into someone else’s study abroad experience? It’s hard to predict which aspects of a foreign country will be most memorable. Sometimes, an architectural masterpiece becomes emblematic of time spent  in a country. Or maybe it’s  a simple moment that sticks out, something experienced in passing: a crowded commute on the Tokyo subway or a woman and child seen every day on the  walk to school.  Whether it’s Prague, Tokyo, or anywhere in between that’s pulled at your heartstrings from afar, we invite you to live vicariously through Smith students who have captured some of these  exquisite moments from their time abroad s on camera, and been generous enough to share them with us.

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For Yuka Oiwa, class of 2016, it was the majestic beauty of Floating Gate, a Shinto shrine, that stayed with her after leaving Kyoto, Japan. “During a weekend trip, my study abroad group spent a night on the holy island of Miyajima,” Oiwa recalls. The day she visited, tshe tide was low and she was free to walk through the orange gates that were usually waist-deep in water. “As the sun started to set I took this shot looking out to the mountains and at the last ferry boat coming towards the island.”

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Anna Carroll, class of 2016,  was studying abroad in Denmark when she took this photograph in the Danish Royal family’s private stables. Carroll was mesmerized by the centuries-old, marble-adorned stables of Christiansborg Palace. A self-described equestrian with a passion for horses, she treasured this grand stable, which she could stop by on her way to class. Rich in history, it’s the last remnant of an entire castle that was burned to the ground. In all the grandeur surrounding her, what struck her was the contrast of seeing this little boy and horse communing with one another. “Inside the stables’ chilly and impressive walls, I spotted this simple moment between an equally curious young Danish boy and a royal steed,” Carroll remembers fondly.

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Tziona Breitbart, class of 2016, spent a semester in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. In this photo, she captured Cesky Krumlov, “a medieval town in the Czech Republic that survived multiple wars and communism.” The peaceful appearance of the town that is expressed in this photo doesn’t hint at  its tumultuous  history. “It represents where the identity of the country comes from, as it was one of the only cities that had Jews living in peace with Czechs during the 13th century.”

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Sometimes it is the simple, human moments that linger with us.  Elana Brooks, class of 2016, took this photo  while studying abroad in India. “I frequently passed this family while leaving my host family’s home for school. The blue and orange colored walls, with the embellishments of gold chains on the child and woman, complimented with the touch of the woman’s hand on the child, was an emblematic tableau of daily life.

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Chloe Beckman, class of 2017, shared with us a similar snapshot of one of the more quotidian parts of life: her commute from the Saitama prefecture on her way to school in Tokyo, Japan. Most memorable was the intimacy of spending so much of her day in such close quarters.  “Taken on the train into Tokyo on my daily commute, this photo reminds me of the feeling you get when the train is so packed that you don’t need to hold onto anything but your bag. But more than that, it reminds me of that moment when you finally push out of the crowd and onto the platform, knowing all the while that at the end of the day, the ritual will repeat.” The journey especially made her reflect on time.

Travelling means something different to every individual. For some, it will be the intimacy of a subway ride that will linger on in our memories and for others, it will be the satisfaction of witnessing a historical monument up close. Regardless of how going abroad affects you, the most important aspect is how it expands your mind and your perception of the world . Seeing a woman and child on your walk to school every day, even if you never speak to them, or walking beneath the colorful gates of a shrine, offer insights into a culture that only being there in the country can expose you to. Whether you have had the good fortune to spend much time abroad, we hope that in reading this issue, you can get a glimpse of the vastness and complexity of the world through photos, and through essays about those photos.

 

fitzpatrick_2016-02-14-author-imageIsabelle Fitzpatrick is a sophomore currently majoring in Mathematics and Statistics as well as French Studies. A lifelong world traveller and binational of France and the United States, she spends her summers and winter breaks visiting her parents and younger brother in Shanghai, China. She aspires to combine her love of languages and travel with her studies in math to eventually work for an international organization as a statistician.

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On Maglebjerg

For a very long time, I have been an indoor person. Like one of those indoor cats, that has been so tamed and domesticated. When every other cat will rush an open door to become the feral being that it was always meant to be, I sit at the window, preferring to look longingly outside than actually venture into nature.  From that vantage point, I would rather reminisce on the good old days when I was the king of kittens, hunting lightening bugs and rolling in the grass with innocent fragility.  At some point in my young life, I decided I would be a grown up and do grown up things.  And for some reason, playing outside didn’t feel adult.  So I lingered inside, staring at computers and watching movies.  I forgot the softness of grass or the excitement of looking at the curious body of a bug.

When I arrived in Denmark, it took me a while to notice that something was different.  I spent my first week with my head down in a map, just trying not to get lost, and really hoping that I hadn’t misread the bus schedule.  But as I became more confident in my ability to navigate this new country, I started to truly take it in.  Somehow, in the first weeks of jetlag and confusion, an inkling began to nudge at the back of my brain; I started to feel a long forgotten energy beckon to me.

HOOT.M.IMG_5267I began sitting on the porch, wrapped in blankets in freezing weather just to feel the early morning wind on my face or watch the sun drop below the roof of the house.  Sometimes, I would work on homework, or read a book, but more often than not, I just sat and breathed, almost meditation, almost communion.

Through the deepest part of winter, I simply just sat, but slowly, the ever-present snow began to decline and the trails through the wood behind my house cleared.  Finally, the feeling that had nagged at me for weeks began to clarify, but I still couldn’t comprehend it.  I felt so restless, that in the space of a moment, I became that feral cat again, and sprang for the door, called to nature and into the woods.  Though I didn’t know where I was going, I just walked.  I approached a divide and quickly decided to take an uphill path.

My host mom later told me that what I had climbed was called Maglebjerg, and it was famous because it was the highest point in northern Sealand.  In a country that is primarily flat, that didn’t mean much: Maglebjerg is just 91 meters above sea level.  At the time, though, the only thing that mattered was that I had reached the top of this, what can most accurately be described as, hill.  The small plateau was bare except for a few young trees and a waist-high stone marker.  I promptly did an awkward double hop to hoist myself onto the marker.  Sitting there, my mind started to settle.  I simply looked around, thinking about the trees and snow and dirt, feeling on top of the world yet inseparably part of it.  I don’t know how long I was up there, but eventually the sun began to set.  It was achingly fast, but brilliant and colorful in the bare trees.  I walked back down the hill in the fading evening glow.  

I returned to that spot again and again as the months turned and the trees thrust tender leaves into the still too cold air.  Sometimes I wrote during these intermissions, occasionally I sang silly nonsense songs or drew pictures in the dirt with a stick, though usually I simply sat and observed the world around me.  The forest called my soul, reawakening the girl who would let bugs crawls on her hands just to watch them move.  I was that feral cat, running to claim her stone throne, perched and waiting to catch the sunset and the taste in the air that is indefinably Denmark.

 

unnamed (3)Maggie Hoot, an Art History major and Museum Studies Concentrator in the Class of 2016, had never truly immersed herself in a foreign culture before she studied in Denmark. During her time abroad, she not only fell in love with Denmark, but also developed a deep appreciation for new ways of life and thought. She hopes to return to Denmark, and also travel to new places in order to better understand the world and her place in it.

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Hygge: The Danish Weapon for Winter

Danish Winter.

It was certainly not my expectation to find myself fighting against the wind to take two steps forward walking down the streets of Copenhagen. The image I had of myself in Europe consisted of me in a fashionable winter coat, a sweater scarf stylishly wrapped around my neck and boots for cat-walking down the narrowly built streets and quaint buildings. The reality was quite the contrary. Every morning on the way to class, wrapped in layers and layers of sweaters, a scarf and one magnificent down jacket, two pairs of pants, solid L.L Beans, leather gloves and a fur aviator hat, I still found myself shivering. I say morning because I don’t know what else to call it but in all honesty, it looked like midnight. The first few weeks in Copenhagen, Denmark were the most challenging. Originally coming from Ethiopia where the sun is guaranteed to come out every day and the temperature is most likely just as warm as the day before, I did not look forward to waking up to the half-slushy snow-covered grounds, cloudy skies and people dressed in dark colors going hurriedly about their own daily business. How, I wondered, did the Danes manage to be the happiest people on this planet when living in such horrid weather? I was truly puzzled.

One afternoon as I was walking down the street, I glanced through the glass walls of restaurants and cafes and noticed the pattern of dim lights and candles. As if the darkness outside is not enough…I wondered to myself, but people seemed perfectly content and even happy. I was jealous. The following day I asked my Danish roommate the significance of candles in the age of electricity and the source of this enigmatic contentment of Danes, despite the daily dreary weather. His answer was simply, “Well, we just spend time with family and friends, it’s called Hygge,” accompanied by an attitude filled with pride. It seemed too simple of an answer. I guess living in an economically, intellectually and technologically leading country in the world, I must have expected something like “we all have beach houses in Spain we escape to” to be his answer. However, the answer was something the rest of the world overlooked, something as simple as just spending a bit more time with people around us. In Danish culture, this concept of togetherness and closeness is so ingrained in the people’s mentality and everyday life that it has a name — Hygge.

In the following week, in my Danish language and culture class, I learned about the word Hygge and its significance. The most striking part of this concept is the fact that no Danish person can articulate it into comprehensible terms.  Rather I was told, it could generally be translated to mean a feeling of coziness and warmth, though even that definition doesn’t do it justice. Essentially, enjoying the good things in life with good people around, good food, good beer and having long conversations while creating a feeling of intimacy and closeness is Hygge. Our Danish professor Alette summed it up as “the best weapon to fight off the depressing winters”. As for the candles, Danes like to light up many candles around every room in the house to enjoy the warm glow that defies the long dark hours and they light up their own internal candles by being together.

While Eskimos have hundreds of ways to say Ice, the Danes have a single word that  conjures up a feeling, action and social atmosphere that exist in our daily lives all around the world. “All languages find a way to say what they need to say,” says Matthew Strum, a linguist.  Danes have evolved the language that suits their needs and explains the most crucial cultural practice to them. Out of the 4 months of my stay in Denmark, I spent 3 months shopping for candles along with my groceries and enjoying the company of my friends over long, multi-course dinners and drinks. The weather outside could not matter less and I finally understood why Danes could be the happiest people in the world.

Photo © Metasebia Aberra. All rights reserved.

Aberra Bio PhotoMetasebia Aberra, ’15,  is an international student from Ethiopia. She is interested in health issues around the world and particularly in African countries. During the spring of 2014, she enrolled in a biology medicine program in Copenhagen, Denmark that explored drug discovery and development in pharmaceutical industries. After completing her education at Smith College, she intends to pursue a PhD in Pharmacology.

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