Meghan's Copenhagen Adventure: Danish theatre, "that's a lot of castle.." and spring has arrived!

Hey all!

This past weekend was a lot of fun, plus it was beautiful outside which was a definite plus. Spring in Copenhagen brings two things: first sunshine, and second rain (..it's raining now). When the sun is shining it seems as though the city comes alive in a way that I hadn't experienced until recently. More Danes are out and people seem generally happier. That being said, the Danish people definitely don't liven up their colour palates in terms of fashion for Spring. I've never seen more people wearing black/brown/dark green, on such beautiful days and I thought my wardrobe lacked colour!

Saturday my mentor, Fahiya, invited me to go enjoy some Danish theatre with her and a couple of her friends. We found the theatre or so we thought...though it turned out we were very wrong and had a bit of a detour, but hey, it was an adventure. We eventually found the right place which was located adjacent to the Opera house here in Copenhagen. The theatre was the picture of Danish minimalism and the stage was small, intimate and had clean lines. My Danish isn't great (okay, if I'm being honest, I can order if I have to in Danish and I can utter the words "I'm sorry, I don't speak Danish"...otherwise I'm pretty useless) and these plays happened to be in Danish so that was interesting.

Fahiya and I

As someone who's spent a fair amount of time on stage it wasn't difficult to understand what was happening on stage. The plays (2 shorts with an intermission in between) both commented on the idea of immigration in Denmark and how immigrants are treated. The first presented the story of an Egyptian family living in Denmark and true to any play with a family, they had their fair share of problems. What struck me wasn't the story itself, but how acutely aware I became of things like character development, mannerisms and directors choices (blocking, set, clothing, etc). I found myself focusing on the actions and the feelings more than the words, even though Fahiya was helping me along every so often by whispering important lines that I needed to know. It was my first experience seeing theatre in a language I wasn't fully fluent in, and it made me appreciate how theater can truly transcend the barriers of language and culture.

The second play was much more lighthearted and difficult to understand. Danish slang is not something I have ever been able to pick up on, but there was a musical element and the Danish actor playing the main character was also a well known Rapper in Denmark (Zaki Youssef). Him and the other 2 he was acting with were very chill guys. I spoke with them after the performance and they asked how I liked the show even though I didn't speak Danish and wished me a good stay here. I also took some pictures with them because Fahiya insisted that she tell them I was from Canada and needed a photo haha.

Danish actors/rappers

Sunday proved to be another beautiful day and I had a field trip with my Danish culture class to Frederiksberg Slot (Castle). We hoped on the bus (all 5 of them...the class essentially has every exchange student in it), and drove about an hour to the Castle. We got a tour and our guide was super animated and entertaining. There was some amazing rooms so ornate it just made you think "how much did this cost?" The Castle was a reconstruction (build in the 1800 I believe...don't quote me on that) because the original burnt down. The best part was definitely the gardens though. It is a public garden and on a such a beautiful sunny day it was nice to walk around it and enjoy the view. The Castle was one who could have spent 4/5 hours in...we spent about 2.5 and didn't even see it all, but we opted to see the gardens with the rest of our time before the buses left.