Hello again,

I came back home on Saturday from our exciting study trip to Northern Germany and Western Denmark. I was very exhausted after the tour; it took me two days to refresh myself.

Thursday early in the morning, the whole class had to get together to go on our study tour; our buses were waiting for us at 7am in the morning at Frue Plads street in the center of Copenhagen. There was a bus strike for public buses so many students had to get up early and walk, to make it to the bus on time. I felt very lucky in that matter because I am literally 15 minutes walk from that street and a 7-minute bus ride. Our buses left at 7:30am and went to Bojden, which is a located in Southern Denmark. From there we took a 50-minute ferry ride Fynshav and then went straight to Duborg skolen in Flensburg, Northern Germany. (It was surprising to see that there were no check points between the two countries, even though we had out passports with us, nobody really checked them).

We went to a Danish minority high school in Germany where most of the students had a German-Danish (mix) background. We were received by the principle of the school and later we spoke with high school students and their professors over hot coffee and delicious pastries. It was quiet fascinating to hear high school students talk about their cultural heritage and their social standings as a minority in Germany. The students were very confident and well aware of the local politics.

After the school visit, we had some time to wander around Flensburg with our professor who pointed out the important buildings and their role in the German history. We also had some time to walk around the tourist street of Flensburg on our own. After having our currency exchanged from Kroners to Euros, we went on in search of good cafes and stores.

Around 5’ clock in the evening; we departed for Sonderburg, western Denmark. We checked in a nice hostel there and ate dinner at a local restaurant. Our program had arranged for us to go a nice concert after that, the band name was Big Fat Snake and they were playing American music, which was actually really good.

On Friday, we went to Dybbol, which was the key battlefield of second war of Schleswig. The war occurred on the morning of April 18, 1864. The Danes lost the war and ended up losing Schleswig-Holstein region to Germany. We also visited the Froslev camp, which is the Europe’s best-preserved camp of the 2^nd world war. The camp housed German prisoners of Security police in Denmark as well as deportations of prisoners to camps in Germany.

Around 1’ clock we had lunch in Knivsbjerg, the area was German territory till 1920’s but then later became of part of Denmark. Our next stop was Ribe, which is the oldest city in Denmark. Shortly after arriving in Ribe, the whole class went to a fancy hotel with the professors to have dinner, which was followed by free bears provided by the hotel’s management.

The next half of the day was spent walking around Ribe city, we saw Viking museum of Ribe and many other nice places. Our tour was guided by a wonderful old couple who had many stories to share, we had fun listening to them. The last stop was Koldinghus, which is an important royal castle of Denmark. It was built in the middle of 13^th century. In 1808, there was a fire that left the castle in ruins but today the castle has been restored and houses a museum, which is a center for cultural activities. Around 4’ clock, we headed back to our buses to get back to Copenhagen and thus out nice little tour of Danish history ended. I enjoyed learning more about Danish minority in Germany and getting to know the important places in Denmark. The trip was perfect, our class bonded together. Everybody made new friends and had a fun time.