I am currently writing this to you in a restaurant called Chili Mili’s. There is a bowl of ‘potato soup’ to my right and a regular coke in a bottle that cost me 5 dollars. Oh and another thing, I’m sick. I think I have one of the worst colds I’ve ever gotten here. I got the regular coke because it reminds me of home when my mom used to give me coke to make me feel better. I have potato soup because I need something warm. Too bad my mouth is raw from sucking on cough drops, because I can’t taste anything well and warm soup feels like a million degrees to me right now.

I’m positive I got sick from being at one of the hostels on our study tour. Which was great, one of the best trips ever, but I still brought back crap. Oh well, at least I think it’s just a cold. Nasty cold.

I won’t lie when I say that it was a CHALLENGE for me to get into Copenhagen today. I skipped my first class but had to come in for a test and a presentation. WORST SICKNESS TIMING EVER. I constantly feel like I’m gonna pass out… and you know that really annoying person coughing all the time and disrupting everything? Yeah. That’s me. Hey everyone. I think my professors would have been nice ad understanding here, but I am too damn stubborn to stay at home all day and skip a test and presentation. Good thing one of my classes is at the hospital, at least if I die I’m covered on the bringing me back to life part. SO, if I can just make it for a few more hours I’ll be ok and hopefully Claus can pick up my body at the Hillerød train station.

Speaking of sick, Amelia is too. Yesterday we had a dandy time at home. Tried to go into town on the bus, failed at that. We ended up watching Mean Girls instead. Which was pretty great. Claus is also injured, I think he has a piece of metal or something in his eye (he works on cars). So last night he couldn’t take it anymore and went to the hospital. 3 out of 6 in the fam fam, BROKEN.

Despite my inability to hear anything, class didn’t go too bad today. My Renewable Energy Systems teacher looked saddened by my coughing… he’s a nice guy. He also gave us apples today because we had a test. And the soup tastes like butter, which actually is pretty good. I think it might taste a little more like potatoes, but my taste buds are currently messed upppp.

I want to try and find a pharmacy today to get cough medicine so both my family and I can get some rest. I’m sure my hacking is heard throughout the house. Nyquil has been working at night, really well. But I can’t take that in the daytime so I’ve been suffering through it.

However, I won’t let this cold defeat me! Tomorrow Helle, Claus, Bo, Zack and I are going to a concert and EATING OUT (FOR REALLLL!!!). I WILL HAVE A GOOD TIME AND ENJOY IT. Tonight I’ll just pass out and hopefully wake up feeling a lot better.

Yeah this was a fun rambling blog. Hope you enjoyed my bitching. Let’s call the WAHHHHmbulence.

I’ll be fine I promise, now, to the pharmacy!!

The Danish Diet

To be honest, when I chose Denmark for study abroad, I didn’t choose it for the food. In fact, I had little to no idea what they ate expect for the obvious ‘Danishes’ and ‘Danish Bleu cheese’. I have had neither of those while here. Instead, my host mother has made a series of very interesting and tasty meals that I would have never even thought was a normal Danish meal. I’ve also tried some other typical Danish food here and there. Here are some of my favorite things I have tried in Denmark!

1. Smørrbrød- The literal translation for this is butter and bread. This is a Danish staple food that is often served for lunch. Basically, it is an open face sandwich with rye (which is much different and better here) bread that is buttered. Now, the toppings can get a little crazy, but they put a lot of different things on it! It can range from potatoes to ham to lox. They also put things like onions, some greens, and other sauces on top. Simply delicious! These tasty treats are usually pretty inexpensive to buy (if you know where to go), are great for lunch time.

2. Frikadeller- Now, I would tell you that these are meatballs, but apparently my host family says they are not meatballs, they are Frikadeller. So, Frikadeller are somewhat of the meatball quality, and are very tasty. They have cooked onions in them with ground meat, sautéed until crispy and then finished in the oven. These little scrumptious delights were served with potatoes and gravy at dinner with the family. I’d say that I ate at least 10 of them. My host family was surprised at how much I liked them. But hey, they were pretty tasty!

3. Nuddler in Kødsauce- This is somewhat an Italian-esk meal. I am not really sure how my host mom prepared it, as that was the day I was lost in the woods and came late for dinner. However, it’s basically a tomato meat sauce served with noodles. Both my host brother (Oscar) and I ate about three plates of this stuff. It seemed pretty simple but the spices were fantastic. I will definitely have to get the recipe to make it at home.

4. Turnip/potato/carrot mash stuff with bacon and little hotdogs- As my name for it illustrates, one night I came home to find what my host mom called “soup”. However, the plate was a mound of what looked like to be mashed potatoes with bacon and little hotdog things on top. The mashed stuff turned out to be a mix of potatoes, turnips, carrots, and other spices, which was delicious in itself. Mix in the little hot dogs and the bacon, and there was a party in my mouth. I ate the whole plate and was about as full as I normally would be on Thanksgiving. That’s the “Oh my goodness I ate way tooo much and now I’m going to hibernate for three days” kind of full I’m talking about.

5. Bread and chocolate- Now this isn’t really a typical Danish meal, but my family seems to love it, especially the kids. The name of the game is to take a piece of bread, butter it (as always) and put a little piece of thin chocolate on the inside. It’s a nice little snack that isn’t too good for you, but oh it tastes soooo good.

Now I’m pretty sure I left out a lot of the tasty things that I have been eating here, but all of the dishes above were what I would say is distinctly Danish. They are nothing anything like I’ve ever tasted. After eating many nights at the table with my host family, I have come to realize that Danish food is actually pretty dang good. So. If you come to Denmark, give the food a try!