I went to Prison

Denmark has an open-prison policy; there are 69 prisons in the whole country and most of them are open ones. This basically means that there are little to no bars-- it looks more like a rehab center than a prison. The inmates don't have to wear any uniforms or anything. They get their own rooms with tvs and beds (it looks just like college dorms), and they have to cook their own food with access to these huge knives that just hang on the walls. Most of them are in for drug abuse or trafficking, but there are also some murderers in there who got out of closed prisons for good behavior. I went with my class to an open prison called Jyderup Open Prison this Wednesday. We were given the tour by two guards and two inmates, and walked in on a routine drug dog-test. The inmates- after having served at least 1/6 of their term can get permission to leave the grounds and go home to their families for the weekend. The goal of the open prison is not so much to punish, but to rehabilitate. For this country, it seems to work. I like it.

I've been having wine with my meals recently. It was madd weird at first- I've never had wine with my food before. White wine with fish soup and red wine with pizza. It's pretty good.

I take Danish every day of classes (MTTHF) and it's my favorite one. There are around 11 girls in it. No guys. Just like Bryn Mawr. ha.

Look how ridiculously red I am. The other Korean girl came over so we can take an asian flush picture together. It's so embarassing that I can laugh at it. Laugh with me.

So I kind of joined this church -- the people are amazingly nice and are from all over: France, Germany, Holland, Romania, Slovakia, Lithuania, Czech Republic. So far I haven't met any Danes in the group. But the oldies took us for yet another tour around the city today and I finally took some pictures. We crashed two weddings, and the bride of the first one surprised me. She definitely looked like she was getting married since she was wearing a white dress, but her hair looked like she was going on for a modeling shoot or something. It was a huge wave on the top of her head and her hair just flowed down. She looked good though. We made our way around the city and ended up in Cafe Zeleste, where they have pure Belgian chocolate varm chokolade.

There are babies everywhere. Danes love their kids-- and they love to incorporate their kids with nature. This place and culture is just so small and trusting that they leave their babies to nap outside coffee shops and bakeries and banks. You see strollers outside store doors with a baby Dane inside- and you have no clue where the mother is. My host parents left their kids at a fountain in Las Vegas before and went to try some of the slots. They were used to leaving and trusting that strangers won't bother their kids, so they were madd surprised when a cop came dragging their son and daughter. haha. It's kind of sad- what does that say about America? hmm. It seems like babies are also fashion statements here-- there are all these fancy strollers, and puffy snowsuits are popular for the little kids to wear in this crazy weather.

Me and Jessica my room/house mate at the top of the Round Tower, where you can see all of lille Kobenhavn. Yea-- the wind was a little strong.








The Queen's Garden.



Cafe Zeleste's 100% Belgian varm chokolade.














Thinking about Danish philosophy. Kierkegaard was a lot better looking than I imagined.