Zealand Institute of Business and Technology, Denmark

The second half of my semester has started, but it is never boring. Last Friday, we had a fire alarm in our residence. The problem is that only few students stay here over the weekend. Most students and all of the staff go home. We left the building to see what had happened. The display of the alarm system showed us the affected room. When we went into the room, we could not find any fire or smoke. Because we were on our own and did not know how to turn off the fire alarm, we called the emergency service (not helpful at all: “why are you calling me?”) and then the fire brigade. However, because there was no actual fire, they were not able to help us either. It was a bit annoying. After 2 hours, we finally found someone who was able to turn off the fire alarm.

The day after this rather sleepless night, Emma and I started our trip to Aarhus. This Danish city is only 3 hours away by train. We booked a hotel in Aarhus for Saturday and Sunday, to have enough time for sightseeing. If you want to travel a lot in Denmark, you should really get yourself a “Rejsekort“, otherwise it will get very expensive.

Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark and has a historic center with small alleys and beautiful houses as well as the modern city center. It is a wild mix, but it is worth seeing! 

Because our hotel was located in the city center and because Aarhus is not too big, we were able to visit everything by foot. Of course, a car would have been nice sometimes, but we saw everything we had put on our sightseeing “list”J.

I wanted to see the “Infinity Bridge“. The way itself takes about 40 minutes and is really worth seeing. You walk right along the coast. We walked through the city several times and tried a couple of restaurants (we successfully managed to read the Danish menuJ). Because it was such a sunny day, we rested a while to enjoy every single ray of sunshine (in winter, we will only have a couple of hours of sunlight per day). Actually, we also wanted to visit the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus’ art museum), but we did not buy tickets in advance and the queue was just too long!

The next day, we visited the Botanical Gardens, which are located inside a park. The park also holds the open-air museum “Den Gamle By”, in English “The Old Town”, where you can see how people lived during the late 19^th century (clothes, etiquette, etc.). Because most shops in Denmark are open on Sundays as well, we wanted to take another stroll through the city. Alas, Aarhus is an exception, not like Copenhagen where you can go shopping as usual. Therefore, we just enjoyed the view a little more. Then it was time to go back to Roskilde.

Back in Roskilde, we went to a “Halloween Expat Dinner”, to which we had been invited during our first days at university by our librarian Susan. It is a nice way to meet people from around here. Everyone brings something to eat and you can try it all. That is how you can get an insight into the “Danish cuisine”, but there were many other dishes, too. The library was decorated nicely and many people came in costumes. It definitely was a new experience for me. It is a great opportunity to meet new people when you are still new in town and in search of friends.