Exploring the New and the Old in Denmark
Our first event in this unfamiliar country was to partake in a tour of a local marketplace. It was a large indoor/outdoor combination of locally owned shops. On our tour, we learned about the history of the city and how the process of food production has changed over the centuries.
Our guide spoke about past conflicts with neighboring countries and how food used to be smuggled into the city from a country that they were not allowed to trade with. She also spoke about the tradition of women preparing long, arduous meals transitioning into that of pre-cooked and packaged meals due to the unrest of the women who longed to spend their days in more fulfilling ways. This type of cultural change lead to a loss of knowledge of growing one’s own crops and cooking healthy meals. From a sustainability standpoint, that shift started a negative trend on the overall health of the local society and the environment. Within the last decade, however, the local chefs of Copenhagen got together and decided to start a movement of using locally grown and organic food. Now the majority of the food consumed in Copenhagen is organic and places like this market exist to sell only local produce.
Every week we are allotted one free day to do whatever we want. My friends and I chose to take the train and explore a castle that was originally built back in the 1500’s. There are several castles in Europe. This one was called the Kronborg castle and it was amazing.
There were a few sections that were roped off but there was still so much for us to explore. It had everything an old castle should have. It had giant towers, a moat, a huge ballroom, numerous bedrooms, numerous entertaining rooms and it even had underground tunnels that were used for the storage of food and drinks. It also happens that this castle was the set for the famous play Hamlet. Inside the castle, there are actors who wander around and stay in character the whole time. In the great room, the actors played out the death scene from Hamlet and it was pretty cool. Week one has been educational and fun.