Just a Normal Wednesday...

Usually my schedule for Wednesdays includes: sleeping in until about noon-ish, running, watching TV in bed while eating cereal, napping, and maybe doing homework. AKA, Wednesdays are my "Do Nothing of Any Importance or Have Any Excitement" days. However, this Wednesday was a little different.

Today I had a Field Study with my Danish class to the Danish WWII Resistance Museum. We were supposed to meet at 8:15am...totally throwing a wrench in Step #1 of my regular Wednesdays. Not having a choice in the matter, I forced myself awake around 6:30am and layered up as much as I could to brace the bitter morning cold to bike to the train station. Obviously not being in the best mood, I turned up the volume on my iPod and tuned out everyone at the station...but then I looked up at the sky.

And I immediately lost all sense of grumpiness and smiled. Maybe I should get up early on Wednesdays more often?

On the train, I again blasted my iPod, avoiding making eye contact with anyone on the train. Silence and introversion are key personality features when using Danish public transportation. Plus, I just downloaded the new Ellie Goulding, Macklemore, and Mumford & Sons albums, so obviously my priorities rested in absorbing music rather than failing to create small-talk with the Danes around me. Here are my top favorite songs so far on the three albums:

Below My Feet- Mumford & Sons

Atlantis- Ellie Goulding

Same Love- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Also, I found an online Sudoku website that sucked me even further out of reality than I already was... When I finally seemed to break out of the audio/mental mind-warp entrancement I was under, I realized that I had missed my stop...by four stations...

I was only a few minutes late to my field study, where breakfast and a movie were waiting for me.

**IMPORTANT NOTICE** 

Apparently pastries are significantly discounted on Wednesdays... reason #2 to get up early? Our professor, Nina (all of my professors have us call them by their first names, it's awesome), had created quite the spread of fresh bread and jam, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a variety of wienerbrød, INCLUDING the most amazing thing I've ever tasted, and possible known to man: The Snegle

This picture doesn't even come close to capturing the true beauty of the Snegle ("Snail" in English). Basically imagine the best cinnamon roll ever, covered in chocolate...yeah. Jealous?

After our fantastic breakfast, we watched the movie: Hvidsten Gruppen. 

The film is about a family from Jutland the helped with the Danish Resistance movement. It's a real tear-jerker, but it provided the perfect prelude for our museum visit. I had already been to the Danish Resistance Museum once before, but we went on a guided tour that kind of sucked. This time Nina showed us around and we got to explore the museum on our own, which was a lot better.

Reason #3 to get out of the house on Wednesdays: most museums are FREE on Wednesdays

When our field study was over, I headed back to DIS to meet up with the girls going with me the Prague-Budapest-Vienna-Ljubljana in a week!! We booked our hostels and all of our transit arrangements...so now it's official. Eastern Europe better be prepared. Around 5pm I had another meeting for a presentation in my Human Rights class, and by now I was exhausted and in severe need of food. The sugar high from the snegle only lasted so long...

By the time I got on the train, I was so hungry that I could've eaten 50,000 snegles...but when my hunger pains temporarily wore off, another painful realization set in... I didn't change my transportation pass. Since I live with a host family, DIS gave me a transportation pass that allows me to use any form of public transportation within my 5 zones. The pass has two parts: one for August-October 9th and the other for October 10th-December. During my Wednesday morning haze, I forgot to notice the date today... If a train-pass checker person (I'm sure that's her official name) came by and asked to see my pass, I would be fined like $200 for not having the right one. Initialize freakout mode.

Of course, with my luck, the train-pass checker lady would just happen to come by and check in my train car, 2 stops away from my destination. I was on the brink of hyperventilation when she walked by and started checking everyone's passes. I had three options:

1. Pretend like everything was normal and that my dates were correct...and pray

2. Start crying hysterically and play the "Dumb/Ignorant/Confused American Student"

3. Get caught and kicked off the train

What happened next was a sheer act of God. I must have been wearing an invisibility cloak or something because the train lady DIDN'T EVEN SEE ME. I was getting out my pass while she went around to everyone else in the car...but she just walked right past me. Halle-freaking-lujah. I made eye contact with the Dane across the aisle from me, he also noticing she didn't check my pass and probably sensing my fear, and we shared a slight head-nod-laugh. Successful interaction in the Danish public transportation wildlife = Check.

I got home around 7:30pm and my host family had already eaten dinner... starvation mode quickly set back in. However, instead of stuffing my face with the first piece of leftover sausage I could find in the fridge, I decided to create a meal and have a Mini-Foodie Wednesday.

The Entree for the Evening: Prosciutto and Parmesan Tortellini, with spinach, mini potatoes, onion, garlic, and tomatoes; sauteed in a red wine and balsamic vinaigrette reduction; tossed together with oregano and pepper...and a little more parmesan cheese 

Step 1- The veggies

Step 2- The pasta

Step 3- The "Mezcla"

Step 4- The Final Product

Isn't it amazing how a day can turn around? Who knew Wednesdays could ever be so awesome? Now the challenge is to make every day like this Wednesday...

Knowing me that won't last long, but I'd rather have random days of spontaneity and surprises than hundreds of days expecting the same things.

Here's a link to this cool website about Danish food that has everything you would ever want to know about traditional Danish food culture...and what my host family had been feeding me for the past two months: 

Danish Cuisine

There are still a lot of things on here I haven't even tried yet...guess I have more cooking to do...and more snegles to eat...

Hej hej,

Emily