Week 4

Personal Development

I have had another great week here in Denmark. We have been quite busy with university, but have made time for a lot of other adventures. I have been thinking over the past few days at how content I am here. Four weeks has been the longest time I have ever spent away from home, so to get this far is quite an achievement! Even though I am missing home comforts, I am in no way homesick and feel very comfortable here. The experience of living in a different country is certainly invaluable.

So, now I will get into some stories! On Saturday, Claire celebrated her 21st Birthday, so Nicole and I decided to bake a cake. When I say bake a cake, I mean adding water to a powdered mixture and placing it in a cake tin in the oven for 30 minutes. I realise Delia Smith may not approve, but the outcome was very tasty. Claire’s sister and brother-in-law were visiting for the weekend, so we went to The Hard Rock Café with them. After the meal, we went to the Copenhagen Ice Bar – what an experience! Everything was made of ice. I know this is perhaps a hard concept to comprehend - before I went I was unsure of how ‘icy’ the bar would be, but my imaginings did come true when everything was actually made from ice. The walls, tables, chairs, the bar, menus and even the glasses were made of ice! We had to wear quite unattractive looking coats whilst in the bar due to its minus 5 temperature, but definitely worth it.

This Tuesday was another exciting day: an adventure to IKEA. Being someone who personally loves everything about IKEA, from the mini pencils to the stylish showrooms and everything in between, I was very happy to visit one in a Scandinavian country. Once inside, I instantly felt at home, not just because everything in my room is from the store, but because the layout is exactly the same as the Belfast one. One of the highlights of the day was being able to locate the store, situated on the other side of the city, without any problems. We are finally getting the train system here which is helping me feel more like a resident than a tourist!

Cultural Development

On Saturday afternoon, Nicole and I went on a walking tour of the city. Apart from the freezing cold, the trip was great way to get our bearings. We visited the free town – Christiania, a few old and beautiful churches, the Parliament buildings and the National Library, known as the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond is one of my favourite places I have visited. The new part of the building is architecturally amazing, and the old part for the library is very beautiful. I hope to go back soon, as the place is very peaceful amongst the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the city.

We were fortunate enough to accompany our Erasmus group to a famous café in Copenhagen – Kanal Café on Thursday afternoon. The café sells Smørrebrød – a traditional Danish open sandwich which consists of a buttered piece of Rugbrød (rye bread) and a cold meat or salad topping. Even though the dish was quite expensive, it was nice to spend time with our classmates and chat outside of class. Looking back on my blogs, I realise I have talked a lot about food in my cultural experience, but I think this is interesting rather than worrying. A lot of cultural traditions will be based on a meal or special kind of food - whether it is how they prepare the food or what they eat - food brings people together for common values and fellowship.

Professional Development

Classes for our module ‘The Multicultural Classroom’ started on Monday, and it was a great start to the week. We had been given the task of bringing in five items that were meaningful to us so that we could place them in a bag and explain our items to various members of the class. The task had many advantages, as it got all of us talking and sharing stories. Even though we have been together for four weeks now, we learnt a lot about each other’s home life and hobbies and realised that we are not that different from each other. The objectives behind this class were to acknowledge cultural identities in society and ways in which we adapt because of them, especially in the classroom. We could easily recreate the activity in our own lessons at home, and I think the benefits would be great, especially in the Revised Curriculum. This module is very useful for my personal development as well as the benefits of being able to take something different back home with me to the classroom.

Another example of this would be the WIKI page and podcast that we had to produce this week for Visual Culture. Our task was to comment on differences and similarities between Blaagaard/KDAS and place our findings on the created webpage. I really enjoyed working with four other girls from different countries, and found out a lot about various education degrees. It made me more aware of the education I have been brought up with, and why we practise, rather than just how we practise. Completing the task was fun and certainly a project I could try in schools. The task could be altered for any topic as well as benefitting cross-curricular activities.