2007-09-25

[danskhed07] entering Denmark

I've spent few days with my friend David from Halmstad. He came with a car to Gothenburg. We explored some sights along the way to Kobenhavn. The best thing was visiting museum Lousiana near Helsinborg.


My accommodation in Kobenhavn was in "sleep-in-heaven". Nice hostel near the famous cemetery where Nils Bohr, H.C.Andersen and other famous Danes are buried. At the hostel I met first participant of the project: Elena from Moscow, later known as "Elena the 1st". She just came from 2 environment projects on Iceland.

Next day at noon we meet with other participants at the central station. On the way I had a nice chat with Elena the 1st. Video from the meeting spot:

Soon more of the participants joined.

We went to a ferry to Europhosjkolen


Europahojskolen (training days)

We had an excellent food here. It was ecological food, full of taste. Students at the school grow the food by themselves. They accept many international students.

At Europhojskolen we spent 3 days of training. We learned some brief info about Denmark, taking photos & writing articles. Pictures from my photo session:


We went for a swimming:

For Laurence (Zambia) it was the first time to enter the sea. He had some learning sessions. I think he had a great experience in total. For him, this trip was actually the first time to go abroad. Not only that, it was his first time to visit the capital city of his homeland. Very soon I made friends with him.



Of course, there was some team building, as well. We all got mobiles so we could stay in touch with the camp leader. Last day we were divided in 2 groups of 10 people. My group went to the south:

Camp leaders were Simone&Helle. They were really great, gave us good motivation on the way. Communication was very good.

Aarhus

So we started to hitchhike. All the time we had to carry tents as well, since we didn't know will we be able to sleep. In the end, we didn't use them. The main reason for that was organisation Servas. They are a peaceful organisation. Their idea is that if you have friend around the world, you won't fight any wars. To accomplish that, you accept travelers to your home, people from Servas, but strangers, since you haven't met them before. It's similar to hospitality club and CouchSurfing.

First city to visit was Aarhus. It is 2nd largest city in Denmark. There is a big university, so young people can expect to have fun there as well. My hitchhiking partner was Silvia from Barcelona. We were really good partners, when I was hitchhiking with her, I always had great success. :) While riding, our driver gave me idea to explore, for the articles: private vs. public schools.
In Aarhus we visited city hall.

On the pedestrian street we talked to the people to fulfill our mission: find what the Danish mentality is. It wasn't easy since there were many people who wanted to talk to pedestrians, usually to sell them something, so it wasn't easy for us to reach people, they thought we wanted to sell something as well. But of course we managed! To talk, not to sell.
I had a nice chat with some girl from Greenland. She came to study in Aarhus. I learned few stuff about Grenland. There are many people who still live as hunters. Many people smoke a lot of cigarettes. Salad is quite expensive. And some (bad) stuff which colonialist (Danes) did to people of Greenland, but I don't feel like explaining them. The girl looked nice so I took picture as well:


Silvia and me came to our hosts. We had excellent dinner, which was quite usual on the trip. Lunch was usually some bread and jam or salami. Our hosts adopted some children from Nepal. Adopting someone from Nepal is also a nice opportunity to go and see the country as well (that's what they said, although I understand this was a minor priority).
In the morning while we ate breakfast, my host gave me the newspapers:

I was famous already. We had an excellent media coverage through the whole event. This picture was taken on the main pedestrian street in Aarhus. This event could be my 5 minutes of being famous, as Andy Warhol said, we all get our 5 minutes. Before this picture, the first day of the event, my name appeared in the newspapers. Siv, girl from Kobenhavn whom I met in Kastel Kambelovac, read my name in newspapers and contacted me through e-mail. So we met in Kobenhavn on a festival.

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