Lovely Danish Weather

That's a little Danish humor for you...saying one thing and meaning entirely the opposite. It has actually been somewhat warm and even sunny yesterday and this morning. But now it is chilly and rainy.

This week has been mainly orientation type things. We've had survival Danish and a session on living with out host families. In survival Danish, we learned that "My name is Kate" is spelled "Jeg hedder Kate" and said "Yiy helllluull Kate." The two d's are soft d's therefore you leave your tongue in your mouth and make sound. "What is your name" is "Hvad hedder du" or "Va hellluull du" because they don't say any h's before v's and they randomly drop letters because they don't feel like saying them. Another example is Albertslund, a stop after mine on the train, which they say, "Albrspor." Basically, its really hard to learn to read and write for Danish kids.

But learning to bike is a breeze! The bikers are everywhere as most people know. I feel like we needed lessons on living in a biking town because they are a little aggressive and will run you off the road. So you have to be super cautious when crossing the street and make sure you don't step into a bike lane without looking.

Anyway, during Danish class we took a tour of the immediate area around school and to a grocery store. We also learned have to order a Danish pastry. "Jeg vil garner have en weinerbrod." On our tour of the area we went to the church that houses the first sculptures of Jesus with long hair and a beard. Danish guy invented that...thought that was interesting.

I started to put up pictures here:
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=239409670/a=98208756/t_=98208756

It takes a long time to upload, so forgive me if they aren't current.

Today was the first day of real classes. I had my communications class in the morning called New Media and Transition. We talked about generally how media is changing and why. One of the professors works for a PR company in Denmark. He calls it strategic communications or "spin doctoring" as a less kind term. It seems like it will be a really interesting class and the people were all very smart. I like it because the people in it are from all different communications (and not) backgrounds like journalism, advertising, TV and one kid is a chem major at home. After that class I had a very long break where I hung out with some new friends and walked around Copenhagen with Alex. I took lots of pictures, so look forward to those when I get them up. In the afternoon, I had two more classes. I am dropping one class I am in to hopefully take a different one. The one I was in includes creating a political campaign for one of Denmark's 10 different parties. Not what I thought it would be. So I am trying to switch into Lost in Translation...which is somewhat a philosophical class on what you think its about. And my last class of the day was Creative Industries. We learn about industries like music and movies from a business perspective. Next week, unless it gets changed, we are going to a club to hear an Australian band. Our prof works for the club in some regard.

I really like all the classes so far. I'm undecided if I should change my Danish class from Tuesday/Friday to Monday/Thursday because then I could travel easier on the weekends (only one class in the morning on Friday) and I would be in a class with more people I've become friendly with. Or if I should keep it because then I have three classes on Monday and Thursday instead of four.

I had my first Danish shopping experience yesterday. I am in the market for a headset because of course my internal microphone on my computer doesn't work. I can't find much information about it on the Mac Help application either. I bought a headset that has a jack for the microphone like a headphone jack, but I think I need to get one with a USB connection. Unfortunately that is more expensive, but it is also much nicer to talk to people than to type all the time. I think when I travel, I will most likely not be in touch other than using internet cafes because the Danish cell phones are crazy expensive when I leave the country. One option is I can buy a SIM card for each country, but honestly that is too confusing and not worth it since I will only be in one place for a week at a time.

Things are going well and when I was homesick last night my host family was extremely nice. They seem to really embrace this whole experience. I just wish I knew more so that I could be a better hosted student. It's just really hard when every single thing around me, except for what I brought, is unfamiliar. But hopefully soon I will get used to this beautiful old city and start to consider it familiar.

Tomorrow night all the DIS kids are going to a big party at Luux, which apparently is a night club that we will never go back to because its soo expensive. Yay for DIS hosting us there! I will probably stay over at a kollegium (dorm) with Alex and Kristina because we will be biking on Saturday morning through the streets of Kobehavn.