August 21, 2011


First off, let me give my thanks to the Internet gods for affording me the opportunity to write this posting, seeing as I have spent the last 15 minutes attempting to translate the website from Danish into English. Perhaps I should have signed up for that introductory Danish class. 


Well, day 1 in Copenhagen is complete. We arrived around 1pm, or 13:00 as we Danes say, and took a bus to our respective residences. Amanda and I are living in a DIS shared residential housing location called Ravensbroggade (definite spelling and pronunciation unknown). We live on the 1st floor and have a lovely view of some sort of red and white trailer that reads, "act!vista"(note to self: goolge this) across the back and is covered in several black and white sketched images of angry-looking individuals who seem to be fist-pumping -- "We want pickled fish," they are undoubtedly screaming. 


In addition to having a utopian view, our room is very spacious (pictures to come). I will admit that my expectations for our living conditions were quite low, but I am pleasantly surprised. There is a kitchen on the third floor where Amanda and I have already begun to stock one of the many refrigerators for Ravensbroggade residents. Yes, in the short time we have been here, we have already made it to the grocery store. Get this though ... all of the labels are in Danish. What is that about? Fortunately, we had a lovely DIS assistant named Catherine, a 19 year old Danish girl, accompany us. As if my Lulu Lemon pants didn't scream "AMERICAN" on their own, Amanda and I definitely made our presence known as we got into a heated debate over which can read "tuna in water" vs. "tuna in oil." Again, thank goodness for Catherine. 


We had a group dinner in the courtyard of our building, which was very nice. Our RA was a DIS student three years ago and will be working here until February. Amanda and I have already met some really nice people, in addition to the lovely type 1 diabetic girl I happened to be sitting next to on the plane. 


I didn't do much exploring around our neighborhood this afternoon, as Catherine informed us that Sunday is "hangover day" in Copenhagen and very few businesses are open. Good to know. I did, however, fight against my natural instinct to turn our room into a complete pig sty and organized everything in accordance with the Danish laws of contemporary home furnishing, i.e., my ethernet cord is gracefully draped across my bed, adding an unexpected dash of blue to the otherwise very white room. 


Amanda and I are going to go on a walk in a little while so as to better acclimate to our new surroundings (Yes, Mom, it is safe for us to walk around by ourselves after 8pm). Unfortunately, there are still traces of e coli in the water, in our neighborhood in particular. Note to self: do not breath whilst taking a shower. Other than that minor detail, I really love what I have seen so far. Copenhagen seems to have a good mix of what we all think of as "old and European" and uber modern. We have our first orientation meeting tomorrow morning and I am really looking forward to meeting more DIS friends. I'm really excited to explore the city more, as well. And to get a bike, although I wonder if they make bikes for 5'0" tall girls ... there aren't many of us frolicking about Scandinavia. 


Well, I suppose that is all for now. I promise more meaty material tomorrow after I have had a full day to explore. Classes don't start until Thursday, so I have until then to provide y'all with some more first-week material that will be, in a word, gripping. 


Farvel!




ord af dagen: "hej" = "hi" 
(not to be confused with the misspelling of "hey")