Biking with Danes

Thursday was the first day of classes. Surprisingly, it was really fun. I had Positive Psychology and an orientation to a different class called Positive Psychology Practicum (I get to go observe and help out in the equivalent of an elementary school once a week). We didn't do much in either class but I think they'll both be really interesting.

I had my other two classes on Friday. My professor for International Marketing in a European Context is really bubbly so it was fun to listen to her. And Danish was hard. I'm in a special Danish class for students who will be working in schools. Basically we learn extra phrases and words that will be helpful to know for the school setting. Danish grammar seems really easy but it's the pronunciation that's beyond difficult.

On Saturday Isabel and I put on brave faces and brought our bikes into the city. You kind of have to see the city and the bikers to know how terrifying this is. The biking here is intense. All the major roads in the city have special bike lanes and stoplights just for the bikers. But it's really confusing because some of the side streets don't have lanes so crossing the street on a bike and figuring out where you can bike is very challenging for us newcomers. I'm sure Izabel and I looked like complete idiots the first day because we really didn't know what we were doing. We just waited until there were other people around so that we could follow them and pretend like we knew what we were doing.  I think it worked. The only other tricky part was starting and stopping. When you come to a red light you have to stop and put a foot down on the ground to stabilize yourself. This part isn't bad. What's really hard is starting again.You have to go rather slow because there are often a few bikers in front of you but this makes it harder to keep your balance and then you just end up wobbling around across the street. The Danes make it look easy but I think it's going to take a few weeks of looking utterly stupid before I can master it. We also learned another very important lesson about the trains. Copenhagen Survival Lesson Two: There are special bike racks on the trains and when getting on the train with your bike, put the bike in backwards! If you put the front wheel in (like you do everywhere else) your bike with sway around like crazy as the train starts and stops. Then end result will be you standing there awkwardly trying to prevent your bike from hitting other bikes and passengers. Don't do it. Not good.

For the majority of the day Izabel and I biked around the city and went to a few markets. There was a food festival going on this weekend so there were free samples at a lot of the booths. Denmark has some of the best bread and olive oil. I can't wait to start cooking bread at home with Britta.

 

Back side of the parliament building. I think it looks really impressive.

 

Yummy handmade ice cream!  Ice cream seems to be really popular here. There are ice creams shops and stands everywhere!

Later in the day I applied for my Danish residency permit. DIS bussed a large group of students to a random building in Copenhagen but made everyone walk back to the center of the city. Thankfully, the application process didn't take long and the building they took us to wasn't actually that far from the center. Yay!

Today Izabel and I went to the Little Mermaid Statue. It was packed with Tourists and there was a walk-a-thon going on in the area so it was a little challenging to actually get to the statue.

 

When Izabel and I posed like this, everyone around us seemed to think it was the best idea ever. We didn't realize how brilliant the idea was. 

After that, Izabel and I went to another market. This one was both indoors and outdoors. We both really like going to places like this so we'll probably go back there a lot in the next four months.

 

Indoor market!

 

Really scary fish that you can buy and eat

Even though a week has gone by, I'm still exhausted every night. I'm sure a little bit is jet lag though I think a lot of it is also that I'm doing a lot of stuff everyday and I'm walking around a lot (even though it doesn't feel like it). Izabel and I also cook dinner twice a week. Well, it's mostly her cooking and me trying to help. I enjoy cooking and can do it well but Izabel is kind of a pro at it. So I just let her take control and I do whatever I can to help...which usually means a lot of washing dishes.

In the beginning of our stay in Copenhagen I was told that 1) Danes wear black all the time and hate bright colors and 2) they never j-walk. Both of these things are lies...well, kind of. While it's true that the Danes do seem to wear a lot of black, there is definitely a fair bit of color in their wardrobe. Also, though for the most part they don't j-walk, they do it enough for it to be noticeable. Another surprising thing to me is the amount of PDA I've seen. I wasn't really expecting to see much of it but there are quite a few people who really don't seem to care if everyone else is watching them make-out. For example, there was a couple on the train the other day who sat down across from each other and just started going at it. They really didn't seem to care that they were sitting next to total strangers... Though most people were polite and pretended that they didn't notice. However, I think they might have been a bit of a strange couple. The girl was dressed almost entirely in zebra print and was carrying around a large, rubber zebra head. And while there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this even in Copenhagen, it isn't exactly normal.

I've also decided that while I'm here, I need to work extra hard to be really outgoing and meet lots of people and do lots of things. Therefore my new go-to phrase in most any situation is WWDD: What Would Dad Do? See, my dad is really good at talking to people (even strangers) and he always learns really cool things about these people. He's also just good at everything. So, if I start trying to think like him, hopefully I'll meet a lot of really awesome people and maybe I'll become really good at everything I do...you never know.