Study Tour - Odense

So this past weekend in my core class we had our much anticipated study tour.  I had said before that I would be headed to Århus, but I was mistaken.  My group actually went to Odense, the third largest city in Denmark.  Sorry, my bad!  The trip is a way to allow the core courses to bond, visit some educational and cultural sites, and have some fun!  Throughout the trip, I had a strange felling of déjà vu.  The core course program here in DIS is very similar to the FYP at St. Lawrence.  I actually caught myself a few times, as I slipped and called the class my FYP.  Students from other schools were pretty confused!

On the first day of our trip, Thursday, half of the class went to a media museum and production studio called Brandts.  It is a really cool place!  We spent all day creating a 15-minute news broadcast.  Each student had certain roles in the production and then it was recorded live.  I was in charge of writing a foreign news story.  Foreign in this respect meant that the new could not be from the United States or Denmark.  I wrote what I thought was an interesting story about Pakistan.  During the recording, I was also responsible for stage lighting and the color on the monitors.  I was really impressed with the whole production.  We formed a pretty solid 15-minute segment including local news, foreign news, sports, a “strange story”, weather forecast and an investigative report where we interviewed people from the town of Odense about the American election.  I think we all kind of approached the day as a “lame educational field trip.”  After leaving Brandts, I am sure everyone’s ideas were much different.  It was an absolute blast!

Right after Brandts, we kept moving.  We went to the TV-2 headquarters in Odense.  TV-2 is Dennmark's largest television studio.  The company owns several different channels in Denmark aimed at different audiences.  They have a 24-hour news channel, ZULU for young adult entertainment, Charlie for educational entertainment and more.  Here at TV-2 we were able to see the studio and talk with one of their major channel executives and a traveling journalist/cameraman.  It was a huge privilege to be able to do this; my host family said they were jealous that I got this opportunity.  I even got to sit in the anchor chair, where the TV-2 anchors sit for primetime news. SWEET!

At night, we went to dinner at a great restaurant called “The Ugly Duckling.”  The tales of the famous Danish fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen inspired it.  Odense is actually where he was born, so there is a lot of H.C. Andersen history throughout the whole town.  We were spoiled in a very nice traditional Danish buffet dinner.

The next morning we went to the Funen Village in Odense.  It is an “open-air museum” which is essentially a small preserved town.  It is recreated from original materials and functions much like a village would have during the time of Andersen.  We got a guided tour and were able to explore for pretty much the entire day.  It was beautiful, but slightly chilly.  I wish I had planned for the weather better as I was only wearing a t-shirt.  I returned home from the trip with the lovely souvenir of a cold.  I have been recuperating from that throughout this week.

Again, it is hard for me to keep these posts concise.  There is so much going on and I honestly cannot praise the DIS program and SLU abroad program enough.  I feel super lucky to have this opportunity.  This only just skims the surface of our trip.  We also went to a Danish High School Friday Bar (a strange and amazing concept), Valdemars Slot (a Danish castle), and boating in the Baltic Sea.  It is a hard life, let me tell you! I have included some fun pictures from the trip.  I think my core program bonded so much it makes class discussions and the classroom environment so much better.  I cannot wait until our weeklong trip to London in October!