Last week all of the photo students from the Danish School of Media and Journal travelled to Copenhagen from Aarhus by bus to watch the award ceremony for the Danish Pictures of the Year. The bus ride was paid for by the school, so since we were in Copenhagen we thought we might as well have a mini vacation!
It was a jam-packed weekend full of really great friends and fun activities. Once we arrived in Copenhagen, we immediately rushed into the building where the ceremony was being held. Sure, it was all in Danish, but we got to look at some amazing pictures and clap a lot. Afterwards, we looked at the pictures in an exhibit, got some free wine and talked to some of the Danish students about the significance of some of the photographs.
After that, the Danes went to a gin party and to dinner, but we hadn't dropped any of our luggage yet. So, the internationals headed to a very nice hostel downtown called the Danhostel Copenhagen Downtown and it was in the most perfect location. It was quite expensive, apparently (it was my first hostel experience), but I think that might be more of a "Danish" thing than this particular hostel.
It was a wonderful first hostel experience, though. The place was very clean and very well decorated. Which, you know, is incredibly important. Once we got settled in we set out to find dinner — half price sandwiches and salads at Chili Milli!
After that, we found this great jazz bar called La Fontaine about two blocks from our hostel. The atmosphere was great and I had a few Irish coffees to get a bit more awake — and tipsy. Apparently the Danes make their Irish coffees with Jameson whiskey, not Bailey's! Which was fine by me. There was some live music later on which we thoroughly enjoyed, and then it was off to the after party!
The party featured pretty much every photojournalist in Denmark. We had a great time talking with the other photo classmates and, of course, doing shots with our professor Mads Greve. The Danish way! Also, don't ever ask a room full of journalists to take a picture of you and your friends — chaos ensues.
After our photo-filled day, Saturday and Sunday were filled with Copenhagen exploration! We slept in just a bit in the morning and then set off to Christiana. Christiana is known as "free town," and features a lot of hippie-type folk. It's not a photojournalist's paradise, though — they sell hash in the streets, so photography is strictly forbidden. As in, they'll smash your camera if you bring it out. So we were pretty careful about the pictures we snapped, though I snuck a few in.
It was also Fastelavn over the weekend, a sort of Danish Halloween. Kids were dressed up in the streets, but also drunk adults in the nighttime. We had a fun time snapping pictures of individuals and looking at their costumes.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. The sun was out, we had a great time with everyone and had a much-needed weekend outside of the walls of Skjoldhøj. I also wrote a blog post for the Missouri Abroad Project, a blog a few students at my school put together, about "the Danish way" with some of the pictures from this trip.