"Untitled"

Saturday will go down as one of my absolute favorite days in Denmark. Allllll semester, the Hellesens have said that we would do this activity and go on that outing when the weather got nicer. It's been a lonnnnng winter, but finally spring has arrived (and the weather is certainly a lot nicer)! The time for family exploration/adventures has come!

So last week while at dinner, Helle proposed a family outing to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the Kronborg Slot (castle) which are both located north of Copenhagen on/near the Danish coastline. It's one of the ritzy-est areas of Denmark (which I thought could be fun to see), I've heard amazing things about the museum, and I love spending time with my family, so I said that it sounded like a great plan. It was settled: Saturday would be a family day!

I awoke that morning earlier than I usually would on a weekend, got dressed and we were out the door before 9am. We went to one of the family's closest friend's house for a delicious Danish brunch including pastries and (of course) bacon and mini sausages. No better way to start the day.

While eating we had a series of hilarious conversations, and I was having a great time laughing along. It was about 10 minutes into the meal that I realized something amazing: the other people at the table were speaking in Danish and I was actually understanding what was going on! While I didn't know how to respond in Danish, I understood and then contributed in English. To me, it's a sign of major progress: when I first arrived in Denmark I simply tuned out the conversations around me. Now not only am I tuned in, but I am capable of figuring out a lot! Yipee!

Driving along (I have to take the middle seat separating
Mira and Kasper)

After our meal, Mira, Kasper, Helle, Lars and I loaded back into the car and headed out towards to Danish coastline. Kasper complained loudly the whole way there (in Danish, though it didn't take too much language skill to figure it out) about not wanting to go to an art museum... an understandable perspective for a 14 year old boy. Even with his moaning, the drive was certainly was beautiful. The sun was shining and the water was a deep blue. Interestingly (though honestly not surprisingly) even thought the houses were some of the biggest and most expensive in the country, by American standards they were really rather small. Bravo to Denmark! Their "big" houses are still probably about 100x more energy efficient/reasonably sized than ours in the US.

We match!

We arrived at our first stop: The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art! The museum sits right along the water, with beautiful views and cool architecture and sculptures. Every DIS student who has visited (even those who usually hate art museums) have given in rave reviews. And I have to say, even Kasper enjoyed himself as we made our way through the museum!

Currently, in addition to the permanent installations, there is an exhibit of Pop Art, featuring a bunch of Andy Warhol's works. 

The green thing that looks like the top of a toothbrush was labeled as "lounge chair"... hmmmm 

Mira and I were SUPER excited about the colors and patterns

Lights and mirrors were some of the most important parts of the installations (that's me on the right)

My favorite part of the museum was this one room that required waiting in a line to enter. The space, probably the size of 3 walk-in closets (which I know is a weird way to describe it, but I can't think of a comparable size), was covered with mirrors: the walls, floor, and ceiling were all 100% mirrors. Hanging from the ceiling were 100 little lights, which changed colors every 15 seconds or so.  Only two people are allowed in the room at a time, so the line outside can get pretty backed up. We arrived at just the right time and Kasper and I went in together... SO COOL!

You feel like you are in a world of infinite lights!

You are also in a world of infinite you's!
("It's like a world with a million me's. That's a pretty cool world," Kasper said)

We also had a really good time interpreting of some of the other modern art. 

What do you see? Helle said it looked like a wale with a person's body coming out of the spout.
(Not a bad interpretation I think!)

Walking through one of the corridors

I stumbled upon my host family in this position... I was a bit confused. 

Turns out that they were staring through this weird interactive piece that you could whisper through and be heard loudly on the other side...

Mira and I had fun peering through and talking. (That's her eye!)

There was also an exhibit in which the artist made large pieces out of ordinary objects; there were HUGE cubes made out of toothpicks, pins, and bottle caps. There was a guard watching and looking on disapprovingly as someone else took out a camera so I inferred that we were not supposed to take pictures. Naturally I wanted to show you what they looked like, but didn't want to get in trouble or be told I wasn't allowed. So Lars watched for when the guard was preoccupied with something else (because he had MUCH bigger issues to deal with: a small child pulled a handful of pins off the cube) and I snapped this photo. I'm not planning to distribute it for commercial purposes, so I think it's okay! ;-)

Cube made of toothpicks

After we finished going through the main exhibits, we went out to the back of the museum into the sculpture garden that overlooks the water. Lars and I came out a minute behind the rest of the family (because I was taking my sneaky photo) and I emerged to find them sunning themselves on the lawn. "Untitled!" Helle was saying, referring to a painting that was a canvas painted completely black with a single dark purple square in the center. "Of course it was untitled!" [note: this is where the title of this post comes from]. As I happily collapsed next to them, Lars got out their family camera to take a picture. Of course, I gave him mine too and asked him to take a couple of shots. The resulting photos may be my favorite from my time abroad thus far; I think they really capture my relationship with my host family:

Our eyes felt like they were burning out of our skulls! We had to do a countdown to open them when he took the picture, but mostly we were just laughing hysterically. 

Trying to compose ourselves for a "Hellesen family girls" photo...

We were only semi-successful at keeping our eyes open, but looking at this now still makes me smile

We left the museum and went on our merry way to the next stop. Along the ride, we pulled off at a sea-side lookout where I offered to buy the family ice cream as my contribution for the day. 

View from where we ate our treats

Yum! 

That's Sweden over there! 

Back in the car and to the castle!

A very condensed history: Kronborg, also called Hamlet's Castle (because it is where Shakespeare set his famous story of Hamlet, [fictional] Prince of Denmark), dates back to the Middle Ages. Like most of Denmark, it burned down at some point in time, and had to be completely rebuilt. Because it is right on the water, the King was able to regulate which ships could sail in the waters and charged a tax. At one point in time, during one of the many Danish wars, all of the furniture was taken out of it and it was used as a military hospital/base, and today the chapel is still used for weddings.

me and the sibs :-) 

beautiful colors

Mira and I went down a corridor and ended up on the other side of the castle. The sun was SO dramatic 

Inside, Kasper and Mira partook in an activity in which they answered questions meant to engage children in each room of the Castle. I love this idea, which is very common at museums in Europe (it may be common by this point in the States too, but certainly wasn't around when I was little!).

Helle and Mira are trying to estimate the size of something in the room

This little guy was just hanging out on the floor by himself. He wasn't wearing a snowsuit, but he was still adorable!

At the end of the tour, there was a special room (in the actual castle) turned into a space for children. SUPER cool!

View out the window 

My favorite part of our expedition was when we went down beneath the castle to the Casements (which is basically like a basement). It was very cold and damp, and served as soldiers' quarters during times of war, apparently holding up to 1000 men for up to 6 weeks (though probably not comfortably). We had the space completely to ourselves and it was almost spooky (but very fun). 

We also got to see Holger the Dane, a Danish "hero" in statue form. I don't mean that he was a hero who they made a statue to honor... I mean that he is a statue and is a hero. The story says that he sits dormant, waiting for the moment that Denmark is invaded or taken under siege, at which point he will wake from his slumber and jump into action to save the day!

That's good old Holger! 

The funniest thing to me about the above photo is the arrow on the wall above Kasper's head (that looks photoshopped) that is pointing to Holger, as if trying to say, "Look over there! He is why we are saying 'shhhhh'".

We took the long way back to the car so that we could walk by the water.

so pretty!

Even though it was only 4pm, we went to find dinner. Since we were so close to the water, we went to one of the Hellesen's favorite places to eat seafood right along the shore.

It must have been some official's birthday because all of the Danish flags were up

The view from dinner

DINNER!

In Copenhagen it is very common for restaurants to keep outdoor seating open, even during the cold months. They simply provide little fleece blankets to use as you eat! Since we wanted to be able to look at the water, we took advantage of this system.

Under blankets, we enjoyed the sun from outside 

I fell soundly asleep on my way home, so grateful to have a host family that has truly become an extension of my real family. Somehow, over the course of the semester, I've gone from a student studying abroad in a foreign country, to a student living abroad in her second home. :-)