Day 5: Tuesday, June 9

Our plane touched down in Copenhagen Airport at 11:30 pm Monday. Everybody was tired but happy and looking forward to the start of the core program Tuesday morning. After retrieving their luggage, the Danish fellows went home to sleep. However, for the American and Bosnian fellows, the night was not completely over for they were not going to meet their host families or see their dormitory until Tuesday afternoon. For the night they stayed at Danhostel in the center of Copenhagen.

Tuesday morning we all met at DSCISM which is an umbrella organization for the Danish Institute of International Studies and the Center for Human Rights. This is going to be our base for the next month, this is were we are going to spend most of our time. The chairman Jørgen Bøjer welcomed us with a speech about the role of the organization in the Danish society. He also introduced us to many of the issues regarding human rights in the Danish society we are going to look into during the next month.

Having heard a little about the dilemmas and questions that can be posed when dealing with human rights in Denmark from Jørgen Bøjer, everybody felt quite excited to begin the core program. The amount of questions and the fact that we did not have time for all of them shows how eager we all are to learn more.

The next speaker, Tøger Seidenfaden, chief editor of the Danish newspaper Politiken, rose an intense debate about Denmark in a global context regarding immigrants, the media and the notorious cartoon crisis.

Speaking of integration, the American and Bosnian fellows are already fully integrated in the Danish society, even though they have only been here for one day. When lunch came, everyone wanted to eat the notorious Danish 'rugbrød'. Rasmus and Shayne, who had been shopping for the lunch, were certain the American fellows would definitely want to eat white bread and not rough black 'rugbrød'. They stand corrected.

The American, Bosnian and Danish fellows are starting to get to know each other a little better. It is a privilege to be around so many culturally different individuals at the same time. Although our backgrounds may vary, our interest in human rights seems to remind us that we might not be so different after all.

-Maribel and Rune