On Friday, we all had our Danish written exams, and I'd like to say that I thought mine went really well. Learning Danish has really made living in Copenhagen much less daunting, and in the three weeks of the course I've learnt to do basic things like order coffee in cafes, cinnamon rolls in bakeries and vegetarian meatballs at IKEA. I can tell people when I don't really understand what they're saying and can politely excuse my way through a crowd. Although it is a painstakingly difficult language to speak and pronounce, it's not very difficult to understand. Hopefully I'll get the chance to learn more Danish later on in the semester.
FRIDAY
In the afternoon after the exam, a group of us headed to Kongens Have (King's Garden) in view of Rosenborg Castle and had a picnic. Wine, gorgonzola, bread, raspberries and carrot sticks, amongst many other foods, were shared and laughed over. Some girls came back to our college and I made Mexican burritos for dinner, with rice and onion as well as fried capsicum with kidney beans (it was a meal based off whatever people had in the kitchens).
SATURDAY
The following day was slower. I spent a very long time at IKEA trying to figure out how I could create my privacy in my now 'shared' apartment, which is really only meant for one person. It's tight. As a result, my bed now looks like that of a hospital ward, with curtains sectioning it off from the rest of the room. I feel much better. Chiara and I (Californian girl from my college) rode down the Islands Brygge, a sort of riverside beach area, to meet up with some other friends and soak up the sun. The weekend has been incredibly warm, and we've really tried to embrace it as much as we can before the cold front hits.
SUNDAY
Sunday called for a little over-the-border day trip. Shalini and I decided to, impulsively, go to Sweden for the day. This is super easy in Copenhagen, as Malmö is just over the Øresund, the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe. It's a short 40 minute train ride for which we can just use our Danish travel cards.
I was almost taken aback by how similar Malmö was to Copenhagen. It was much easier to understand the Swedish signs in cafes etc. with our now Danish vocabulary. We started our day with some nice oat milk cappuccinos (because they don't literally cost an arm and a leg there unlike Copenhagen) and a cinnamon muffin at the cutest cafe.
After, we had a little wonder around the Old Town.
As the clock started ticking over to midday, we went to a local supermarket near the beach, bought some food and had a little picnic, followed my sunbaking and reading our books.
Turns out, as expected, Malmö is pretty small, so in the afternoon we just biked around the gardens a bit and then went home.
All in all, Malmö was a gorgeous little town. As we went on a Sunday, it was nice a quiet and we had the opportunity to just relax. However, I wouldn't really recommend it for more than a day trip as I feel you'd get bored pretty quickly. Tomorrow I have my Danish oral exam, which I'll be studying for for the rest of today. We're looking at potentially heading out to more regional Denmark and then Norway this coming weekend as a celebratory trip for finishing our course, but no concrete plans have been established. Guess we'll see?
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