End of Week One

I'd like to start this post off by explaining a couple things about this blog. First, Det forstar jeg ikke means I don't understand in Danish. You can find more phrases and listen to them here: www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/danish.php

Also, for whatever reason, no one seems to be able to remember where I am or where I was going before I left. Therefore, I chose "trip to brussels" as the link name to keep continue the ongoing hilarity of people asking me when I get to Amsterdam or if I have my ticket to Prague yet.

A couple observations before I tell you what I've been up to. First, my host sister reminds me of a Danish version of Shannon from school. She's outgoing, but very down to earth and definitely someone who stands for what they believe in. She also has very blond hair (like everyone here) like Shannon. Next, my host dad took me to the supermarket. Besides the Land Crusher they also have a French car. When you turn it on it has to warm up a bit, and the car lifts. He was trying to explain this to me but couldn't find the word. After struggling for a little bit, I finally said hydraulics...which was right. So they drive cars with hydraulics--just not like in rap videos.

One night for dinner the parents had a friend over who is a nurse. She was telling us about how a three year old Pakistani boy had come in with vomiting and diarrhea. They followed normal procedure, not knowing the boy had a very serious staff infection. He was very hard to treat because they couldn't ask him what hurt and where. The nurse/friend said that the mom was not helping by translating for the boy and within a few hours, even after he had stopped vomiting, he passed away. So now, the mom is trying to get the doctor to loose some accreditation (they don't sue hospitals, the hospitals just give compensation). It's interesting how despite having free health care that they seem to have some similar problems. I'm going to learn a lot more about this in my class. But, this is also related to the fact that especially within my host family, there is the same feeling toward immigrants that many American's hold. Often immigrants don't learn to speak Danish and evade the tax laws. For whatever reason, my host family seems to have the most distain (not sure if that is the perfect word) for people from Turkey.

Everyone here has really stylish glasses. Reading glasses.

So after a long week of orientation, the weekend finally came. After classes on Friday I went to Amager, which is an island off of Copenhagen to the east where Alex and Kristina live. We made dinner in the dorm kitchen. The kitchens are on each floor and shared with the Danish students in the building. We walked in to them dancing around to "I'm too sexy" which turned out to be on a CD of 90's hits. They played Spice Girls and Hanson too... After dinner, Alex and I took a walk to the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous. We could see the windmills from where we were. Check out my pictures on snapfish (see previous post) for when I upload those. After our beach walk, we got ready and went out to the DIS student party. It was at a swanky club called Luux. We got two free drinks and free admission with our tickets, which was very nice. Tons of DIS kids were there, but no Danes (8-11 is much to early to go out). We met some new people and danced to all American music.

We wandered out of Luux to find something else to do and ended up at a Bar that as far as I know is called Bar. Here we ordered ten Fisherman's shots for 100 dkk and danced to Summer of 69 and other classic American songs. Fisherman's shots taste like cough medicine. Yum. Downstairs was a live band and upstairs was dance songs. We must have looked like total Americans because Danes dance in pairs and don't take group pictures on the dance floor.

We left Bar and I went back to Kristina and Alex's dorm where the Danes from dinner were partying. We talked to one guy who goes to the business school in Copenhagen. Part of his studies is American studies, but he speaks English with a British accent because he likes them better. Something to chew on: In America we have fifty states and every state has their own laws because they are made up of different kinds of people who want different things. In a country of 5.4 million, this concept is hard for Danes to swallow.

I slept over there in Alex's room, and we got up at 10ish to get ready to go on a biking tour of Copenhagen. What a way to feel like a Dane! Or a complete tourist... It was such a cool experience, and I really wish I had a need for a bike in Denmark. We biked all around the center of the city as well as going up to the Opera house and a very interesting place called Christiania. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania.

After the bike tour, Alex and Kristina came back to my host family house. We planned to buy some food for dinner, but all the grocery stores close at 5 here on Saturdays. So we ate my host family's food. And I melted a plastic bowl in the oven because who honestly stores plastic in the oven? It came out yummy anyway.

We got ready to go into town. We attempted to go to Trivoli (the theme park that gave Walt Disney his idea) but you had to pay just to walk around, so we opted to explore and find good places to go out later. I took the train back to my host house a little later, and talked to Dave on skype for the first time! Yay headset that works with my computer! It was kind of expensive, but I think that I will continue to use skype to stay in touch with family if that works for everyone.

Then today, we went to Kronberg castle in Helingser, which is the castle that Shakespeare imaged Hamlet to have taken place in. Not that much to talk about, just look at the pictures because eastern Denmark is so beautiful.

Busy week coming up, so stay tuned for more fun updates!