pictures!

so these uploaded in reverse order and i'm too lazy to undo it, so just know that the top one is most recent, and they go from there. this first one is marissa and me standing in front of the canal we walk down every morning to get to the danish institute for human rights, where our program is centered.
this one is of a protest we attended against the deportation of 283 iraqi asylum seekers. many of them were deported yesterday, though iraq has been deemed unsafe for return. denmark has incredibly strict laws concerning immigration and asylum, which we've been learning a lot about in the past week. we visited center sandholm (which you can read about in my entry to the hia blog, which can be found if you click on my profile) a terribly depressing refugee center just outside the city. with the shift towards a much more conservative government in 2001 denmark went from being a model for europe in terms of liberal policy to one of the most conservative in terms of offering any sort of help or refuge to outsiders.
this was taken at a basketball game arranged for us with some "local youth." this was the crowd who, like me, decided to opt out of actually playing.
some of the b-ball players stretching before the game. danes are all so fit.





last sunday rune, one of the danish fellows, had us all over to his dorm's "garden" for tea and a game of kings, a viking stick game.



these last photos are all from our "welcoming program" in paris. they were actually all taken during a walking tour of the goutte d'or, a very african neighborhood near montmartre.