Week 16

Personal Development

After last week’s distress about the bad weather, this week the sun has finally arrived! With temperatures reaching 20°C and blue sky (most of the time), I am very excited about the fact that I am able to enjoy the good weather for the last couple of weeks - it makes such a welcomed change. So, with only one more blog to write after this one, I am hoping to spend lots of time in the beautiful parks around the city, and not much time indoors!

This week has again gone really quickly, and the realisation of leaving Copenhagen and coming back home really hit me on Wednesday, when it was time for Nicole to go home. We decided to go out for a meal on Monday night to spend time with the last few remaining students. The meal was great, and it was nice to spend time together for one of the last times. By the time Nicole left on Wednesday afternoon, it was sad to think that our journey is coming to an end, but we have had a great time together and it is exciting to be going home soon! The house looks so much emptier now, and seeing it took Nicole a few days to gradually pack her suitcase, I am not looking forward to sorting out all my clothes and things that I have collected. Fitting everything into my case might be a task…

It was one of the Austrian girls’ birthday yesterday - Christina turned 21, so Julia had organised a really great day for her. We went out for some lunch before heading to the beach - Amager Strand. Amager Strand is very close to the city centre, on the metro line, but apart from the industrial estate in the far distance and an aeroplane landing every 5 minutes, it was surprisingly peaceful. The weather was really warm and sunny yesterday which was perfect for lying on the beach and sleeping off my lunch. We decided to go for a little paddle in the sea, which was FREEZING cold, however the Austrian girls, used to diving into rivers and lakes, decided to go for a swim - I’m not going to lie - I thought they were crazy. At least Christina won’t forget her birthday in a hurry. After allowing Julia and Christina ample time to dry off and warm up, we went round to their house for some cake. The landlady the girls are living with had left out some traditional Danish decorations, so Julia and I had fun decorating the table. I made some raisin and oat cookies (not very typically Northern Irish), and Julia had made a traditional Austrian birthday cake: Bananenschnitte. The cake was so good, and I was so glad that the cookies turned out well. And no, I did not burn them.

Cultural Development

On Wednesday, Julia, Christina and I took the opportunity to visit another Royal palace outside of the city - Frederiksborg Castle. It took a 50 minute train journey to get to Hillerød, a small town in the North of the island. I have wanted to visit this palace for a long time, because I had heard the gardens are really spectacular, but wanted to wait until the weather was better, and I’m glad I did! The palace was beautiful, situated on its own island in the middle of Castle Lake. Christian IV built the castle in the 1660s, but has since been reconstructed after a fire in 1859. We took a walk around some of the Landscape garden, which has free-growing woodland, and other lakes.

We then arrived back in the Baroque garden. The Baroque garden was designed by Johan Cornelius Krieger during Frederik IV’s reign in the 1720s and recreated between 1993 and 1996. It is split up into four terraces, and in many places the paths of the garden have been narrowed to give the optical illusion that the gardens are bigger than they really are! My camera does not do the surroundings justice, but I have added a few pictures as a sample of how beautiful the gardens were.

On Tuesday night, Kirsten bought down some Æbleskiver - a Danish dessert. The word translates to fritters, but they are also known in English as Danish Pancake Balls. Æbleskiver are a favourite Danish dessert, and also very popular in the US, with Danish-American citizens. Still warm, the pastries were really good with some sugar or jam. I did not like to think about the amount of fat content in them as they were so good, and I must have eaten about four!

Professional Development

I had my final meeting with my tutor for my individual assignment on Tuesday. We spent time going through what I had done so I could fix up any points before handing it in. It also gave my tutor the opportunity to draw on some scenarios in Northern Ireland that he wanted to ask me about. We got to discuss both the education systems and initial teacher education in Denmark and Northern Ireland. I was very interested to hear some of the differences and similarities in reference to the degrees in education. I was able to tell my tutor about some of the aspects of my degree course, and it was great reflecting on my own study, and how useful I find it, as I never really get the chance to do that. I gained some final valuable insights into the Danish education system, and how things are practised, which are really useful - not just for my assignment.

The prospect of being able to complete my assignment and hand it in was enough motivation to finalise my thoughts for my conclusion. After the meeting with my tutor, I felt very encouraged. He hopes that my paper will assist in some of my research for my dissertation, and I now feel, since I have completed my project, confident that it has been of benefit to me. Even the thought of completing a very independent piece of work is not as difficult as I first thought.