Paige, Caroline and I in Western Denmark about to go into a manor filled with old things and dead animals...

Me being a real live camera woman! We did a mock broadcast on our study tour that was really cool, it will be online so I will post the link when I find it
The horse I fell in love with at Funen village, a recreated 19th century farming village

I have had a wonderful long weekend!  On Thursday we woke up bright and early, and my communication and mass media program headed to Western Denmark for a 3 day study tour.  I will not lie, my expectations were a little low since this was, after all, going to be an academic trip.  But we had a lot of fun as well, and I actually LEARNED things!  We did a mock newscast, as you can see from my camerawoman picture above, which was really neat.  Then we went to the TV2 station, the biggest TV station in Denmark, and took a brief tour and then a cameraman who had gone with the Danish troops to the front lines in Afghanistan talked to us for a while. It was really crazy to see his footage, and when it aired it was a huge deal because the Danes really had no idea what was going on there (and I had no idea that Danish troops were even in the Middle East.. come on, they are supposed to be peaceful!)

The next day we went to Funen village, as I wrote under my picture with the horse.  It was awesome to see how Danes used to live and learn a bit of history, and we had a 'rustic lunch' that really wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  It was really cold that day, the coldest day so far, and I was unprepared in my leggings and cardigan so I spend a lot of time inside watching a 15 minute film at least 4 times waiting for the bus to come.  But it was a fun day nonetheless!  Next we went to a Friday bar at a high school... yes, everyone drinks after they get out of school on Friday at 3 o'clock... a very weird thing to think about, especially since the bar is in the school!  It was fun because the Danes were very excited to meet us and were super friendly. 

 We left Saturday, and then on Sunday my friends and I went to the European Beer Tasting Festival.  I absolutely hate beer, but it was fun just to be there, it was a pretty big deal and actually a pretty classy event.  They had beers from all over Europe and apparently they were amazing (again, I would not know).  So that was a bit of European culture for us and a very fun time.  I was exhausted from the weekend--those of you who know me well know how I get after three days in a row without naps--so I went to bed really early last night and slept through my alarm!  Not a good thing... but we did not do anything in that class apparently.

I am working on planning a cruise to Norway this weekend with some friends, I am VERY excited and I have heard that people who did my program had more fun on this cruise than anything else during their entire time in Europe!  You sleep on the boat so we won't have to pay for a hotel, which is awesome.  Oh, and great news!  The conversion rate is getting better at better, it was 4.7 Danish Kroner to US dollar when we got here,  and now it is 5.2!  Yay for the Danish economy going into recession... is that selfish of me?