Interesting things I have learned about Copenhagen, Denmark and the Danes

Well, I have been living here in Copenhagen for just over a week now and in my time here I have learned some very interesting things.

One thing I am beginning to learn is the language. Danish is incredibly difficult to learn. 

There are 3 additional vowels in their alphabet (æ, ø, and å). 

NOTHING is pronounced the way it is spelled, and i really mean NOTHING!

Goodbye = hej hej (hi hi)

What is your name? = Hvad hedder du? (vel hulla du?)

My name is... = Jeg hedder... (Yai hulla...)

Can I help you? = Kan jeg hjælpe? (Can jai halpe?)

and the interesting pronunciations go on and on.  

Almost everyone in Copenhagen rides a bike. Most roads have a bike lane between the sidewalk and the actual road. These bike lanes have their own traffic lights and everything. Bike riders always use hand signals saying if they are stopping or turning. If you are riding a bike at night without a light you will get a very big fine.

Currently, the sun doesn't fully rise until about 8:30 am and it begins to set around 4:00 pm (just over 8 hours of daylight).

However, when I leave in May there will over 16 hours of daylight each day.

In Denmark, everyone uses military time. This is difficult to get used to but it actually makes life a lot easier. There is very little confusion about when to meet someone and it is almost impossible to set your alarm wrong (for example setting it for 7 pm instead of 7 am).

Hamlet's Castle

On Saturday my friend Kari and I signed up to visit Kronborg castle, known all around the world as Hamlet's Castle. We first spent about 2 hours exploring the town Helsingør (Elsinor). It was such a cute little town with colorful buildings and winding streets. One of the shops we went into was the most amazing cheese shop I have ever seen. The had every kind of cheese imaginable and we tasted a few. After walking around for a while we stopped for lunch. This was the first truly danish meal I had had since arriving in Denmark. I ordered the warm meatballs and cold potato salad. It was served with 2 pieces of dense rye bread and i ate it sort of like an open faced sandwich. It was so delicious! I could eat that for lunch every day.

                                                                The Cheese Shop

                                                                  My amazing lunch!

 

After lunch we rejoined the group, reboarded the buses and drove 5 minutes to the castle. There we were split into small groups and taken on guided tours of the castle. The interesting thing about this castle was that the rooms were fairly small but the fire places were extremely big. This was because the weather was so cold. Our tour guide told us that when she was a young girl the baltic sea, which the castle overlooks, actually froze completely over and you could walk to Sweden on the ice. Unfortunately, it doesn't freeze anymore. Another interesting thing about this castle was that it was used at the royal residence at the time when Denmark also controlled Sweden and Norway. However, when Denmark lost those territories no king would live here because they didn't want to look at their lost lands.

Along with touring the typical rooms of the castle we also toured the doungeons/ military barracks which were located below the castle. They were really cool. The ceilings were very low and it was very dark. Our tour guide told us that being in the military was not a popular job and was filled mostly by people who could not afford a house or convicts using the military as a way to escape their sentence. This is also most likely the reason that Denmark lost most of their land battles, the military was not very motivated. 

Classes

Thursday was our first day of class. With DIS classes either run Monday/Thursday or Tuesday/Friday. Everyone has Wednesday off which is really nice. It breaks up the week and is a day for DIS to plan some of the field studies and additional trips. On Thursday I had my first class at 8:30 am. That meant that I had to leave around 7:45 am. It was very difficult to get moving because the sun doesn't fully rise here until about 8:30 or 9 am. It also starts getting dark around 4pm (or 16:00 as they use military time here).

Thursday I had my core course, European Business Strategy, and Creative Industries. They are going to be very interesting. In European Business Strategies we will be primarily focusing on the pharmaceutical and green industries and throughout the semester we will be visiting some major companies in Denmark that focus on those fields.

My other class, Creative Industries is going to be fantastic! It is about the business of industries such as music, fashion, art, advertising etc. The two field studies for this class are to Tivoli (the world's oldest amusement part and the inspiration for Disneyland) and to Vega (the largest concert hall/ night club in Scandinavia).

On Friday I had the Biology of Marine Mammals and the History of European Ballet which both also sound like great classes. I have my first ballet field study next friday, we are going to the Royal Theatre to see a performance of Romeo and Juliet. I will also have Danish on Tuesdays and Fridays but I was canceled the first day. It is not uncommon here in Denmark for classes to be canceled or rescheduled because teachers do not teach as their main profession. Instead they have full time jobs and are experts in a field and teach a course in that field. This is a really great resource because they really know first hand what they are teaching and have an interesting perspective to offer the class.

Orientation

Once we were all settled in we had 3 days of orientation. On Monday there was an opening ceremony of speeches, a classical wind quintet and reflections by former DIS students who are now DIS interns. This ceremony was held at the Glyptotek, a museum of Greek art that is supported by the Carlsberg brewery. 

After the ceremony we were divided into groups for various informational meetings. First i went to an information session on living in Europe. We learned about some of the traditions and customs here in Denmark which I will get into later. Then there was an info session on traveling Europe with DIS where they did an over view of all of the available study tours.

The commute on Monday was interesting. In the morning, the contact people in my dorm took us on the s-train to the Glyptotek which is in the center of Copenhagen. But, the did not tell us how to get home. At first we were all annoyed by this but it turned out to be the best thing they could have done. In groups we all used our maps and information to find the train station and get home. Now that we've done it by ourselves we have alot more confidence traveling around the city.

On Tuesday I began the day with a survival Danish class to attempt to learn some of this incredibly difficult language. We focused on the basics like My name is...  What's your name? and so on. I was really excited to find that I had this class with Caroline, one of the girls in my hallway who I've bonded with. We get along so well and had a lot of fun laughing at our sad attempts at Danish. After a few hours though I was actually starting to pick some of it up. I'm actually taking Danish as one of my classes here so I hope that by the end of the semester I will be able to hold a simple conversation.

After Danish class we had a lunch break. I has a hot dog because there are hot dog carts everywhere! They aren't like American hot dogs though. The bun is not sliced in half. Instead it had a hole that runs the length of the bun that they fill with mayonnaise and then put the hot dog into. You hold this hot dog vertically to eat it. It was really really good!

Then Caroline and I rejoined our group for the Discover Copenhagen scavenger hunt. Now this was really fun. It wasn't a race or a lame competition. We were given a list of places of interest around the city and had to plan a route to get to them all. Once were arrived at each location we met a DIS representative who told us about that particular place and we answered a few questions about it. This was a really great way to see some of the city and begin to learn how to navigate our new home. Some of the locations we visited were The Round Tower (a famous church), The Royal Theatre, the Palace of Frederick II, a large department store, Parliament and the current Royal Palace. The Royal Palace was so interesting to me because there seemed to be very little security aside from 2 armed guards on post outside the entrance. There was not even a fence around the palace. It actually consists of 4 buildings situated around a square and there is a public road that runs through the palace complex. That was just so surprising to me because I live so close to the White House and you can't get anywhere near that building there is so much security. The other really cool thing was that the Queen was home. The Danish flag with her royal crest was raised over her part of the palace. Hopefully While I am here this semester I will have a chance to see her. Apparently on her birthday, which is in April, she makes some sort of a public appearance.

After the scavenger hunt DIS hosted an immerse yourself fair advertising many different ways to get involved in activities within DIS and out in the city. Linda and I are planning on joining the CBS international choir. It is a choir for both Danish and international students that meets once a week. It sounds  like a lot of fun and will be a great way to meet Danes. It starts in 2 weeks and I am so excited. At 6:00 pm we all took our seats throughout the fair room to watch the inauguration. DIS set up a large screen for us so we could easily watch it live. It was amazing. Part of me wished I was in DC for this moment in history and I can't believe that I live there most of the year and wasn't there. But at the same time it was really exciting to be in Europe. The Danes love Obama so they have been constantly asking us what we think of him and congratulating us on our new president. It is a really nice change in attitude and I hope this positive attitude about Americans, our government, and our ability to initiate change remains.

Wednesday was our last day of orientation before classes start. We began the day with part two of survival Danish. We learned the alphabet, numbers, the days of the week and some more helpful phrases. After this we went to information sessions about our specific academic program. Here we were given some basic information about the business program and our study tours. I also me my professor for my core course and she seems really nice and really interesting. 

After all of the meetings we all went back to our rooms to relax. We had had several busy days and most of us already had reading assignments for the first day of class. Linda and I made some dinner, did our reading, and chatted about our classes the following day.

Arrival

Hey everyone! 

If you hadn't heard, I am spending this semester in Copenhagen, Denmark.

I have been here for 5 amazing days and finally had time to set up my blog. So, this post will be long because I want to fill you in on everything I've been doing for the past few days.

My trip began this past Saturday at Newark Airport. At first I was just sitting by myself at the gate for my flight reading a book. But then I began to notice several other students around me, some looking apprehensive or nervous and all looking excited. I figured they must be DIS students as well. After a few minutes we all began asking who was with DIS and formed a large group of about 20 or so. It was really nice to know that I was on a flight with so many people from my program. I have traveled alot in the past and am no stranger to traveling without my parents or friends. However, this trip is unique and it was nice to know I wasn't alone. It was also great to meet some people before I arrived. It is really comforting to see a familiar face in a group of 500 DIS students.

The flight was fine and took about 7 hours. I watched a movie, listened to my Ipod, read a book, and ate dinner and breakfast. I did not sleep very much though. Because we took off around 5:45 pm and landed at 1:00 am US time (7:00 am Danish time) I was not very tired for most of the flight and could not fall asleep no matter how hard I tried.

When we arrived in Copenhagen there were DIS representatives at several different points checking us in and giving us directions on what to do and where to go next. At about 8:30 am we boarded buses that took us to Copenhagen University where we were given some breakfast and all of our orientation materials. While I was there I signed up for a Piccell cell phone to use while I am in Europe. My incoming calls are free so if you feel a strong desire to call me I would love it! Just let me know and I will send you my number. It is actually really great that DIS had this booth because most people here got the cell phone and we are able to text each other and make plans with each other.

After some preliminary meetings about the program and our chosen housing we were brought to our new homes for the semester. I am living in DIS shared housing which is basically a dorm. My dorm is called Tåsingegade (but it is pronounced more like tolsinggald). There are about 70 DIS students living here on 2 floors. There are also Danes living in our building. I am living in a double room and my roommate's name is Linda. She is great. She is from Connecticut and she goes to school at Elon. We are really getting along well and seem to have alot in common. Our room is basic but really nice. We have a little kitchenette (2 burners, a sink, a microwave, and a minifridge) so we will be trying to cook as much as possible because it is cheaper. We also have our own bathroom which is great. The shower is a little odd because it is the bathroom. There is a shower curtain to contain some of the water but there is nothing to contain the water on the floor and the drain is on the exact opposite side of the room from the shower head so the entire floor gets wet and only one person can be in there at a time. The wet floor is a little inconvenient but it won't really be a problem. We also have a common room on our floor for us to congregate in which will be a great way to meet new people.

After we all unpacked and settled into out rooms we went to dinner as a group. However, instead of having something traditionally Danish for dinner, we had chinese food! As funny as it was to have that on my first night in Copenhagen it was delicious. With dinner I also had my first Carlsberg beer which is made in Denmark. I really liked it! but I'm not sure that it really went well with chinese food... Anyway, after dinner Linda and I went back to our room because we were so tried from traveling and ready for our first nights sleep in a new city.