Hej there. 


I hope that you had a great start to your week and that your Monday was not quite as manic in nature as the Mondays described by the Bangles (I have included the music video to which I am alluding with this statement for your viewing pleasure).

I had quite the blog-worthy weekend and am very much regretting the fact that I did not post sooner. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20. In this post, I will cover the highs (and a few unfortunate lows) of the past few days of my life in an effort to provide you, my readers, with the high quality entertainment you most certainly deserve. 


To begin, Saturday morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn, energized and ready for a day of Larping. For those of you who are not familiar with this term, it is actually an acronym for Live Action Role Play. I have included yet another fine film clip (YouTube vid) as an accompaniment to my definition of this unusual practice. 

Seeing as I am in Scandinavia, the focus of my Larp (NOTE: I am not 100% certain that Larp is the correct noun form of Lapring, so please use this term with caution) was not a Middle Ages battle, but rather the life of the Vikings, who according to a peer-reviewed scholarly journal article on Wikipedia.com, were "Scandinavian explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored, and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century." Much to mine and my fellow Larpers dismay, there was no warrior-ing, pirating, or raiding to be had on this little adventure but rather our role play was more closely aligned with the life of the domestic Viking. Meaning that while there was no sword fighting, there was more than enough archery, blacksmithing, and cooking of Viking stew to make up for this lack of warfare. Our trip took place at the Land of Legends outside of the Danish town Lejre. Our bus arrived at the Land of Legends about an hour earlier than expected, but because our driver was en route to Sweden (undoubtedly on the quest for the same Fjall Raven backpack that lead me to visit Malmo last Friday), we had to evacuate the bus and fend for ourselves in the wilderness. Said fending included but was not limited to walking up a large hill, unexpectedly coming in contact with a herd of horses, and, coincidentally, "seeing a man about a horse in the woods" ... woods of which our group leader later informed us are tick-infested. Good to know. 

Once we met our Viking guide, we were split into teams, "jousting" for our dignity, honor, and pride in the form of Ravens, or coins given at the end of each task in accordance with success at said task. For example, my group failed to churn our cream into butter and were therefore only provided two Ravens out of five possible for that activity. Needless to say, the competition became quite heated and unfortunately, group 3 lost the battle and left the Land of Legends with only our heavy hearts and a bowl of unchurned butter (NOTE: We did not actually get to keep or 'butter'). 

At this time, I would like to take the opportunity to dispel a large myth about these Scandinavian warriors. Our Viking guru informed us that the notion that his people perpetually donned large, horn-bearing hats is, like many a things, an American myth that has been perpetually reinforced in the commercial world (i.e., Party City continues to sell horrid looking hats made of plastic bones and metal, and Halloween after Halloween, parents inevitably purchase them for their adorable children). So to the many Minnesota Vikings fans who are undoubtedly reading this post, you may consider encouraging your team to change their logo should they wish to preserve historical accuracy. 

vs. 

After my day in the Land of Legends, I had the incredible privilege of meeting my Danish visiting family at their home for dinner. Because we live with all American students at my place of residence, DIS encourages us to participate in at least two cultural emersion activities throughout the semester so as to better acclimate to our new surroundings - Being matched with a local family is a great way to do this. My family lives about 30 minutes north of the city along the coast which, unfortunately, was a bit of struggle reaching. Yes, I got on the wrong train. Yes, my Danish cell phone has been broken for about two weeks to date. And yes, I was mildly terrified. But needless to say, I arrived at the correct train station in (mostly) one piece (In an unfortunate twist of fate, I was followed home by a Centaur from the Land of Legends who, disgruntled by the fact that I refused his marriage proposal, became mildly to moderately violent. But that is another story entirely). 

My family has three daughters, ages 6, 9, and 12 who are all absolutely beautiful. The eldest speaks English incredibly well. Almost as well as I speak Danish, actually (My "ord af dagens" have done much for my language acquisition). They were such wonderfully  nice people and made me feel right at home. So at home, in fact, that I let loose a bit and accepted the girls' challenge to Wii Just Dance. But in all seriousness, it felt great to be welcomed into a familial situation and I cannot wait to see them again. 

Post-dinner, I came home to virtually attend my cousin Harrison's Bar Mitzvah in Los Angeles. Naturally, there were a few technical difficulties, but all in all I would say the event was a definite success as well as a milestone for the Jewish people as we continue to forge forward into the 21st century. A couple of screen shots of the B.M. are included below. 

Sunday was relatively uneventful. I was put to shame at the gym by some unrealistically fit Danes, many of whom were not wearing shoes (NOTE TO SELF: Conduct cost/benefit analysis of doing the ellptical machine barefooted. Costs to include but not to be limited to athlete's foot, toenail fungus, and any and all other fungal infections that are out there). I also went to Israel Plads were the the new market is and purchased some beautiful beets, halibut, and bell peppers. So that was that. 


Today in my Virtual Worlds and Social Media class, we had a guest lecturer by the name of Alex Tholstrup, the new personal adviser to the Danish Minister of Economics. Alex is an active member of the Danish Conservative Party, which he explained to us merely means that he does not think that any Danes should have to pay greater than 50% of their income in taxes. Other than that, most of the differences between being "red" and "blue" (which are actually opposite than the American ideas of these color associations) are merely nuances, as socially, they all possess similar values. He also explained to us that Danish candidates are not allowed to create media advertisements and that negative campaigning is quite different  in Denmark than in America. In fact, Alex showed us a YouTube video that his party created about the leaders of the Socialist and Social Democrat parties (which I have included below) and explained that the Socialist leader actually linked the video to his Facebook page, laughing it off as being all in good fun, a situation  quite unique from the negative campaigning that goes on during our Presidential elections. 

NOTE: I am not nearly  informed enough to either agree or disagree with the ideas represented in this video but am simply including it as an example of Danish campaign practices. 

Alex also discussed with us his participation into the Obama campaign in 2008 and shared some predictions about the role social media will play in our future, a few of which I have included in this post as well for those of you who are as enthralled by the practice of social media as I. 



1. There will be a move from broad, inclusive SM services to more exclusive spaces. 
2. People will grow tired of the speed of SM sites like Twitter and will soon desire more depth in their social interactions than they are getting from such services. 
3. Politicians will learn more and more how to make SM users their ambassadors. 
4. People will realize that SM can be overly hyped and a waste of time [Insert gasp of shock here]. 


So, that is all for now. Certainly more to come as the week progresses. After all, "It's just another manic Monday." 


Farvel!


ord af dagen: "gryderet" = "stew" (As in, "My Viking friends and I prepared some delectable Viking gryderet this weekend.")