theprincessmaryeffect

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Drunkenness, Disorder and Debauchery: "Pirates of the Caribbean" Law Camp

Once upon a time, 90 international law students and 6 danish tutors boarded 2 buses one Friday afternoon in Kobenhavn and drove an hour or so into the danish wildnerness to spend a weekend away at a scout hall in a place with a really danish name that I can't pronounce or recall...This would come to be known as the "Pirates of the Caribbean" Law Camp in the years to come.

Yes. Law Camp. Admittedly I was slightly apprenhensive about signing up for law camp and giving up one precious weekend in Copenhagen. Sure, it would be a great way to meet other international students but at the age of 23, a weekend surrounded by drunknness and debauchary is somehow not as appealing as it was at the age of 18 (think first year law camp). Nevertheless, the exchange spirit inside of me shone through and somehow convinced me to hand over 300 kroners to be placed in the safe hands and legal love of the trusty tutors. The first night we were greeted with a lovely dinner of homemade meatballs, chicken wings, salads and pancakes! all complete in a hall decorated patriotically with small danish flags and even red and white straws to suit the theme.
Theresa, Lisa from Germany, Wendy from Melbourne, Helena from Sweden

Early saturday morning aerobics in garish 80s style was enforced by the tutors

The first morning activity was a treasure hunt which turned out more to be trivia where we had to answer questions such as "When was Hans Christian Anderson born?" and "What is the name of the Danish Constitution?" as well as tricky challenges such as building a house with a stack of cards and having to arrange ourselves in height order wearing blindfolds and without talking. Silence and (in)appropriate touching does wonders for team bonding apparently. Yeah go Team 3! We so totally should've won..

Law camp is synonymous with awkwardly enforced "get to know you" ice-breaker type organised group activities but there was nothing of that sort this time. Instead we were given the afternoon to while away at the beach, sit around and play cards or partake in optional physical activity. With such glorious weather (and lack of anything else to do) it was perfect just to wander on the beach and take photos (what else!).

We were just lying and sun baking on the rocks..

...when Sashi from Perth, Sam from England, Barbara from Czech Rep and Elyssa from Paris wandered up to say hello..

Some others were more caught up in playing French card games..

As night fell, we were ordered to change into our Pirate costumes for the highly anticipated pirate party. Sarah, being the intellectual high level thinking one, went as a dvd pirate by hanging dvds from her belt and won the prize for most original costume!

Here we are posing in our little scout cabin. The bunks were so dodgy that there were no stairs to climb to the top bunk (not good at 3am in the morning when its pitch black and everyone else is sleeping), and Lisa even managed to somersault off the top bunk and land on the floor (ok so she had about 5 glasses of wine before the incident but I still blame the dodgy bunk). Not to mention waking up on Saturday to find 2 spiders on the ceiling above my head!

2 matching danish pirates: tutors Kristian and Simon

As you can see everyone was psyched and really into the theme..apparently pirates also wore tea towels on their head..honestly most of us exchange students don't even have enough warm clothes with us let alone remembering to stuff those fancy dress costumes in our suitcase before leaving home! Thats when creativity comes in..

Sarah entertains the drunkards, Matt and Bryan on the piano with her beautiful renditions of Radiohead and other sea chanteys

The party grew a bit blah, not to mention dangerous after a lamp fell and shattered on Penny's head (sue! sue! sue!) so we decided to walk in the freezing cold and pitch black darkness down to the beach (after stealing a big parcel of chips from the party of course). Unfortunately there was no moonlight to guide or way or bonfire down at the beach so we just sat there shivering and star gazing..

Sneaking back into the kitchen to steal some "aebleskivers", which is a traditional danish dessert usually eaten at Christmas time..yum!

The party soon moved into the dining hall as the owners repeatedly complained about the loud music and we had to shut off the music. I guess they were more used to 10 year old scouts toasting marshmallows and telling camp fire stories than us loud internationals wanting to party it up.

Sergie the Spanish terrorist, Claire the Kiwi and Brian from Perth.

Kristian and his supercool sunnies..they obviously have magical powers....and with Marky Mark from Scotland on the bus home.

...and thus ends the story of Law Camp 2006. Overall it was a nice relaxing weekend away where everyone had fun and we all lived happily ever after.

This is the motherland of fairytales after all =)

The End.

My 24th: a peaceful take over of a Thai restaurant in Norrebro, followed by blues in a pharmacy

I thought it would be a bit of fun to spend my birthday in Copenhagen this year. Here were the results:

Wednesday I come home to a lovely package from mum, dad and the girls containing, amongst other things, highlighters, tim tams, The Eraser (from the girls - great choice Elle), and fancy woollen socks. I fail to notice the price tags on the socks - thankfully mum mentions that they cost a lot over the phone. Bless you, mum!

Wednesday evening I go to handball practice, and on the way home I fall off my bicyle by the lake. Cynthia comes to rescue me out of pity and I decide to sleep on my bung arm.

Thursday morning ("the day") Cynthia presents me with a bottle of divine jasmine perfume and we catch two buses down two streets to emergency at Frederiksberg Hospital. The place is completely empty! A doctor arrives, shakes Cynthia's hand a little too vigorously, and speaks only in danish for a few minutes while contorting my arm. A bit of a Patch Adams. Seems "ouch" doesn't translate.

Cynth buys me a Mork Chockolade Kage from Fotex and we go home to have tea and cake and plan the afternoon, and I read lovely emails from lovely family and friends.

We decide to head to Bang and Jensen, a funky little bar-cum-cafe on Istedgade in Vesterbro for coffee. Nevermind is playing, and it's so hot on the pavement that we move inside. Stor laffe for Cynth and Is kaffe for me, and then Claire and Jemma arrive, who come bearing lovely gifts: a pot plant, danish lollies and more chocolate cake, which comes with a side of honeydew melon.

Thursday night is Danish Folkdancing night. I decide to sleep on my arm a bit more after some fantastic long conversations with dear friends and family members. (See Cynth's post on that night).

Friday I go to a free screening of The Queen at 9.30am as part of the Copenhagen International Film Festival. I do some shopping on Stroget as a birthday treat and buy a winter jacket from Zara.

Friday night a few of the girls and I head to a Thai restuarant in Norrebro for some Pad Thai and Chicken Green Curry that we had been dreaming of for weeks. Claudia and Daniela have their first ever Thai experience. We nearly staged a peaceful insurrection when Daniela's meatless green curry was the same price as our chicken one, and considered suspending the menu, etc. but decided against it upon realising our three bowls of rice were for free. Lovely, plant-filled place and only 85 kr p.p. I receive some organic strawberry jam, an italian phrasebook, and some beautiful hairclips from the girls.

After dinner we stroll to tiny, old Café Blågårds Apotek in Norrebro to see the Prahl Grønholm Blues Quartet, some cats in their early 20s. The bar has great buzz, kaffe and service and an unpretensious local crowd, but sadly for me, no Frangelico. Contreu will do.

And so I am one year older! Thanks everyone for a super fint Danish Fodselsdag.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Canal Tour of Kobenhavn

KU very kindly took us on a canal tour during our first week.

Daniela, Rosa and Claudia

The Operahuset

Christianhavn

The international students took to the canals of Copenhagen and waved their digital cameras in the air!!!

There was the submarine sent to Iraq in 2002, the peach upholstered Royal Yacht which had perhaps seen better days, and, of course, the sassy little mermaid.

See the submarine on the far right

The Little Mermaid

The Royal Yatch

My faves were the new Operhuset, closely followed by the Black Diamond (public library) above.

Nyvhavn

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Welcome to theprincessmaryeffect

Welcome to theprincessmaryeffect, the blog that follows the adventures of two Austrayaan girls, princess_party and princess_dogme, two law students from Sydney on exchange in the beautiful city of Copenhagen, Denmark. We have decided to call our page theprincessmaryeffect as a tribute to all the Australian exchange students here who on a daily basis have to contend with a barage of almost contemptuous statements such as, "Why are there so many Australians here?!?!" and "Not another Australian!". One explanation for this influx of us from DownUnder has been dubbed "the princess mary effect" by the Danes.

Did we come here because of Princess Mary? Did we come here to "find our Frederik"? Hrmm well yes perhaps a Danish boy, but it could also be an euphanism for the search of our inner selves and the meaning of life & human existence during this exchange experience. Deep huh? Hrmm well no, not really, since in reality most of our daily searches are those for the cheapest yet consumable food and alcohol (answer is Netto and 7-11), our contemplations are over whether to jump on public transport without buying a ticket to save 11Dkk and risk getting a 600Dkk fine and our constant internal battles are of whether to skip class today since there is no compulsory class attendance.

Following the travel theme of "its a small world after all" it would of course turn out that we have been placed as roomates here, but back home we live only three streets away from each other in the exciting suburb of West Penno! A longer introduction to the authors and our insights into the people, culture and the way of life here will be coming soon but for the moment here are some pictures of our adventures so far..

Tivoli Gardens

"Welcome to Denmark, the land of fairytales",
is a common line we have heard since arriving and there is no place better that encompases this and everything else Danish than at Tivoli, a quaint amusement park in the heart of the city. Open since 1843, the park is today the number 1 attraction in Copenhagen, complete with the obligatory roller-coasters, rides, carousels and games arcades in addition to the beautiful lush gardens, swing/big-band concerts and unique entertainment revolving around Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales.

Girls day out: Sashi, Sarah, Daniela, Claire, Theresa and Claudia

Cynthia and Theresa, another Sydney sider!

Sashi, Claire and Daniela indulging in some "good" Chinese food. In Copenhagen you have to take what you can get when it comes to "exotic" foods (ie chicken korma, sweet and sour pork)

Scenery like this is only too common here in Copehagen (hence the frequent "omg its like we're in a fairytale!" exclamations)

Taking us back to childhood days..Who remembers the stories of the Pied Piper and the Emperor's New Clothes?!

A gorgeous, humourous pantomime of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales

The girls were inspired by the beautiful ballet and dancing on stage and started to put on their own side-show...

but ballet is too difficult..so why not try the can-can!

No day out at Tivoli would be complete without ice-cream..

Princess dogme with the guts of steel..

..whilst those of us more faint hearted, ie princess party, opted for the kiddies ride in a "flying trunk" which took a tour of the different HC Andersen fairytales. You can see the scenes depicting "The Princess and the Pea" and "The Emperors New Clothes", very adorable!

L: A larger than life replica of HC Andersen´s hand written manuscripts. R: Fun and games at the arcade

The night finished off perfectly with a dance/lights/giant-puppet/fireworks show of HC Andersen's fairytales. The piece de resistance The Ugly Duckling and the stars of the show, Hansel and Gretel.

Paper..scissors..rock! (Everyone say awwww!)

The famous Tivoli buildlings up in lights =)

Lots more pictures and stories on the way so stay tuned! xxx