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I have been finding that I am making many more Danish friends than friends in the DIS program. This seems ironic, as the orientation sessions suggested that the Danes were very hard to meet (they are not) and we had to go out of our way to meet people other than DIS students. I have definately not found that to be the case, nor have I really felt the "euphoric honeymoon" feeling that they have been talking about during orientation.
I finally managed to get in touch with customer service for my cell phone, and it may now be usable. However, whether or not I am able to sucessfully make a call from it remains to be seen.
There is actually sunshine today, and blue skies. And I went out of my way to walk 10 blocks to find a cheap umbrella. Figures.
It rains here constantly. As in, I am talking sheets of rain here. If it is not raining, there is probably a light drizzle. I saw blue sky once, right when I got here, and in the 20 minute ride to Albertslund from the airport, that small patch of blue sky was gone. I hate rain. I wish someone had told me that no, it only snows for a month here. The rest of the time it just rains.
Everyone who lives here looks like a model. I think it is shameful that any one group of people have this kind of gene pool. This is why they are so fashionable - they are the only people skinny and tall enough to actually wear any of it.
I am happy to say that I have officially survived my first 24 hours in Denmark.
I spent over 14 hours in airports and on planes. After running into a couple of other DIS students, I almost missed my plane to Heathrow. Once on said plane, I found that I was seated next to an 8-year-old boy traveling to London by himself, and it was his first time flying. Besides having to listen to the constant beeping of his gameboy, I was woken continuously on the hour when flight attendants came to check on him. This continued until around two, when he finally fell asleep on the floor, curled up around my leg. I believe this to be too heavy a price for a single, solitary hour of sleep.
Heathrow was disasterous. We had somehow mangaged to get there a half an hour earlier than expected, but due to the insane security back-ups to transfer flights within Heathrow, I quite literally ended up walking off the first flight to walk directly onto the bus that took me to the second. If that first flight hadn't made it there early, I am quite sure that I would have been standing in security missing my flight to Copenhagen.
As it was, we ended up leaving a little bit late, and consequently, got in to Copenhagen late as well. I spent over an hour watching luggage circle, due to the luggage from three different flights from Heathrow being directed to the same conveyor belt. While this did limit confusion as to which flight was at which belt, I was more than a little put out that I had to wait so long for my suitcases.
After more confusion concerning telephones, kroners, and calling cards I managed to get out of the airport and into a taxi. Upon my arrival at my kollegium (rough equivalent: a dorm), I was given a key and the instructions for the telephone in my room.
After a mere half an hour of unpacking, DIS took all the DIS students in our kollegium out to dinner together. While eating our free food, we got to talking about how badly we wanted to see the Copenhagen outside of the airport. Thus, instead of going back to our rooms and unpacking/sleeping/showering (which none of us had done in well over 24 hours), we found ourselves attempting to navigate the train system, something none of us had a clue about. So we guessed, correctly as it turned out.
Being a Sunday night in Denmark, and after 10 pm, we found that there were not many non-7-11's open. Eventually we did find a self-proclaimed "Scottish Pub," showing ''The Crow III' and playing Ricky Martin music. It even had a singing moose. After consuming approximately one beer each and watching the locals and the singing moose, we caught the last bus back to Albertslund, walked home in the rain, and promptly fell asleep.
My kollegium is only about 20 minutes away from the city proper, and the train station is a five minute walk, next to a grocery store, conveinence store, and a Danish blockbuster. Most of the kollegiums are not near so many things, nor are they so close to a train station which is so close to the city (on average, most kollegiums are about 40 minutes away, but sometimes you end up with a commute that's over an hour long). Conclusion: I am lucky to live at DIK.
These are some other street performers. They play some crazy Yiddish music.
