theprincessmaryeffect: 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.