By jadoerge
I’m back! After a 2-month semester break here in Germany, I am back in Munich on a (mostly) permanent basis for the rest of the German school year. I’ve done a ton of travelling over the last few months and wanted to share some of those experiences on this blog before returning again to discussing my life here in Germany. My next few posts will be me recounting all of the hijinks and shenanigans that my girlfriend Morgan and I got into while gallivanting around Europe. First stop: Denmark!
Morgan and I took off on our first mini-trip north to the lovely land of Denmark. A 13 hour journey by train, we made the best of our journey with some excellent french fries (with curry ketchup!) aboard the ferry taking us into Scandinavia. Once we reached our destination of Copenhagen, the real adventure began.
After finding a nice restaurant right along the cliché Nahavn waterfront, we feasted on traditional Danish food. My platter of different tastes included curried herring, a purée of cauliflower and carrots, a crab salad, onions and capers, roast beef with dried horseradish, local proscuitto, and a cheese platter with olives and grapes. In short, I ordered Denmark on a plate and everything was phenomenal.
Though Denmark borders Germany, in some ways it is very clear that one has entered a different country aside from the obvious examples such as currency. Because Danish is only principally spoken in Denmark, most Danes are very aware that any tourist will not be speaking their language and, thus, most exchanges with foreigners of any decent are in English. Because of this discrepancy, the Danish people speak incredibly fluent English and the few people who we encountered to give us directions could have easily lived comfortably in a country where English is the dominant language. On this note, the Danes also seemed to be a people who, more than any others whom I have seen here in Europe, realize how important tourism is to the economy and show little annoyance or impatience with foreigners and Morgan and I encountered only friendliness with the locals despite our helplessness in regards to speaking Danish. (I mean come on, when "Gade" means street and it's a fairly Germanic language, who would guess that it's pronounced like "gale.")
In short, Denmark was a wonderful experience, but our next journeys east and south proved exceedingly more exotic and provided a stark contrast to the “Western” view of Europe that most Americans share. Until next week! Tschüss!