Fastelavn/The National Museum

Last night was one of the first times I've experienced the Danish "hygge" (pronounced Who-ga). Taken from my Danish guide book, "hygge" roughly translated means 'cozy and snug' and is how Danes approach most aspects of their personal lives, from designing their homes to their fondness for small cafes and pubs. Jonas (blue shirt), who lives in the same building as me, and his girlfriend Anna invited Hilary and me to a dinner party where we enjoyed delicious food (like open face ham, cheese, tomato, and pepperoni sandwiches and a Danish version of meatballs), talked about politics and listened to both Danish and English pop music. --Believe it or not, they really like American pop music here and I had to keep myself from chuckling too much when the cell phone of a grown man rang out to Timbaland's "Apologize." And it isn't a weird occurrence to hear Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" blasting from a teenager's ipod.-- Below are Matias, Jonas, and Anna.


And today, Hilary, Rick (a new resident from Holland) and I went to the Danish National Museum which is actually my second time there--one of my classes went on Friday for a quick field trip. On Friday we looked at mummies and ancient Roman and Greek artifacts (for my Ancient Art and Archeaology class, go figure) and today we checked out 3 hours worth of other exhibits...the place is HUGE! I would guess there is about a good week's worth of time needed to look at everything and that's if you only looked at exhibits, ate, and slept. Below is a Persian mummy. The would bury the bodies in sand and then wrap them up in a squating position and put a feather coat on them.


This is one of my favorites and we couldn't stop laughing at this for a good five minutes...in the Native American exhibit I'm standing next to the Chief's Chair...notice how it isn't any bigger than my torso! Hahaha, you'd think the Chief would receive a chair he could fit more than one cheek on!


And here are some cute little coffee cups in metal mounts. They'd fit into the palm of my hand...I wish I could remember which area of the world these were from.


A large statue of Shiva, the Hindu King of Dance.



Also, this past weekend celebrated the Danish tradition of Fastelavn, kind of a mix between Halloween and Mardi Gras maybe? Little kids (and sometimes adults) dress up in costumes and sing to adults for candy or money. Also part of the tradition, a barrel full of candy is hit with a bat until broken. Basically like a pinata, but no blindfolds are used. Back when the tradition began, people used to put a live cat in the barrel before sealing and stringing it up, but now a simple paper or plastic cat is used. There was a big celebration going on at the National Museum while we were there including all the kids standing in line to hit barrels and this band of kids who played no other than "Oye Como Va" (hopefully I spelled that right).


I took a video of this so hopefully it works for you!