hygge and hip

one week in copenhagen has already come and gone! at this point i have sat through at least one class for each of my five courses and have strayed from pasta dinners for every meal. 

my courses include complexity of cancer, danish design, history of european ballet, danish language and culture, and human health and disease: a clinical approach. my human health and disease class is considered "my core course." every dis student takes one class that is their core course, which is related to their major and will travel as a class to various countries around europe. mine, for example, will take me to stockholm, sweden and tallinn, estonia later in the semester. this course is also being taught by two physicians working at the bispebjerg hospital, located about 20 minutes outside the city, where we have class. each course also includes small field studies throughout the semester. my danish language and culture class, for instance, already took its first field study trip in the form of a café night. after walking as with our professor to cristianshavn, we had a lovely dinner as a class.

after we all applied for our danish residence permit and cpr number (a social security number of sorts) a bunch of us from the floor stopped by the little café next door to our apartment for a saturday brunch. the delicious food, warm coffee and candles definitely created an atmosphere exuding hygge (the it-word for danes that translates to the mood and feeling of coziness).

 while these pictures were taken during random walks i took around the city, i have invested in a bike! hopefully these little excursions will be a little more bearable once i get the hang of riding in the city like the hundreds of other danes do.

images from the strøget, a 1.1km long pedestrian street, two blocks from our apartment

a full view from the back of christiansborg palace

the børsen - the oldest stock exchange in denmark located nearby christiansborg palace only in use until 1974

the colorful houses surrounding gråbrødretorv square that i mentioned previously. the two red houses on each end are amongst the first structures painted in the dutch-inspired red color after the great fire of copenhagen had destroyed them.

on an evening walk i visited the royal danish playhouse. a performance had just ended and i was lucky enough to sneak in and see the amazing interior.

inspired by smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches), i decided to take a stab at my own version for dinner. i think i was pretty successful in my humble opinion!