First 2 Days!

After many long flights and little sleep, I finally arrived in Denmark!!! Here's what has happened since I arrived. 

Here's the sunrise on the fog over Oslo. Once we passed through the clouds, Oslo was very dark and covered in snow! We saw a lot of lights from plows clearing off the runway, but it was too foggy to actually see the plows!

Sunday: 

I arrived around 12:15 after an hour delay in Oslo. I signed in with DIS (Danish Institute for Study Abroad, where I'm going to school) and met Maibritt, my host mom, and Cecilie, a 10 year old girl that she often watches. Cecilie doesn't speak much English, but she was very excited to meet me. :)  We took the train home since I'll have to take it to school every day. They're much nicer and much much quieter than the Metros in the US! Maibritt lives in a lovely townhouse in a suburb of Copenhagen, and both floors have wood floors (you would love the floors, Mom!). 

Cecilie baked a little cake (I'm not sure what the proper Danish name is) in the shape of a girl in celebration for me coming and for her birthday coming up on Wednesday. She's a very good baker! Before it got dark, Maibritt showed me how to get to the train station for the morning and drove to show me a couple of stores. A Taylor Swift song came on the radio, and Cecilie hummed along. Apparently Justin Timberlake is also really popular here. She lives very close to the beach, so she also took Cecilie and me there. I thought it was cold already, but the wind on the beach makes it even colder! I stopped feeling my face and toes after the first minute. The beach has a beautiful view (it was getting dark so I couldn't get a good picture), but it is almost covered in brown seaweed on the shore. Maibritt told me that she jogs on the beach on the weekend and then jumps in the water. I might put a finger in the water if I get brave enough to take a glove off, but I won't be joining her to swim!

Cecilie made dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce while I unpacked, which was also delicious. The noodles were like short, hollow spirals and not the usual spaghetti noodles. I skyped with my family for a bit, so they got to meet Maibritt and Cecilie. I started falling asleep around 8 (3 hours of sleep will do that to you!), so I was in bed around 9 after getting directions for the morning commute.

Monday:

I woke up early at 7 to leave the house before 8, and I walked through the snow in the dark to the train station. Thankfully I didn't get lost, but I did make my first American blunder at the station! DIS gave me a train ticket that's good until March (I have another one for March through May), and I had seen Maibritt scan hers before we got on the train the day before. The trains here are a bit more on the honor code than in the US. You don't have to go through the turnstiles to get to the train, and there's just one or two scanners that mark your ticket to say that you've paid. I tried to scan mine, but it was too big for the slot. I started getting really worried because Maibritt had told that they randomly check for tickets on the train and you get fined 700 kroner (about $132) if you didn't scan your ticket. I asked a lady where I could scan my ticket, and she gave me a funny look at told me that I don't need to scan mine. Since it's for 2 months, I just need to have it with me in case they do a random check. I definitely felt like a stupid American then! They actually did do a ticket check when I was on the train (thankfully the right train!). A lady came on and said something in Danish. I have no idea what she said, but everyone pulled out their tickets, so I just followed suit.

The first activity for the day was in the Royal Music Academy Concert Hall where a string group played a couple of songs for us, and we were introduced to DIS and Copenhagen. The next adventure was finding the school from there. I met a girl named Sophie, and we didn't really know where we were going, so we just followed a large group. There aren't any street signs, and the street names are written on the sides of the buildings...sometimes. My map wasn't much help without knowing the street names. We walked around for about half an hour, and then the group stopped at a restaurant and went in. It turned out that they wanted to eat before the next session. So Sophie and I had no idea where we were or where to go! Thankfully, we found another group heading towards the school and got there on time. 

My day was pretty long. It was pretty much a session about our host families and living on a budget. Before lunch, we were split into groups to go around the area and find prices of lunch items. Most of the things we found were really expensive! McDonald's included! You even have to pay extra for ketchup at McDonald's! Here are some pictures that I got while walking around:

I found that there are a TON of 7-11's! I think those are the slurpee options in the picture above of the 7-11 menu, but I don't read Danish so I'm not sure. It's a bit cold for slurpees right now, but I will definitely get some when it warms up!

When we got back, we still had the session about host families and whatnot until after 4. Sophie and I tried to find our way to the train station from the school with another girl named Sidney, but we ended up going the completely wrong direction. I got to see the front of Tivoli though! We also saw a thermometer on a building that read -3 degrees Celcius or 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Add cold wind and no sunlight to that, and it's freezing! We finally found the right way and saw some beautiful churches (it was too dark to take pictures). I took the train with Sidney and another girl named Simone. I almost took a wrong turn walking back to the house, but I finally got back! We had chicken and rice for dinner (for those who have eaten with me, I did bring my Cajun seasoning!). After dinner, we took Cecilie to her horseback riding lessons and watched (thankfully inside because it was freezing!). She's a very good horseback rider! She rode without stirrups and sidesaddle sometimes. It had snowed a lot while we were there, so the car was covered in snow when we went out. It's still snowing now, so I'm sure I'll be walking through a lot of snow tomorrow! 

Things I've noticed about Denmark so far:

-The cars are all small, and they're all stick-shift. I asked Maibritt if the automatic cars are more expensive or something, and she said that stickshift is just a thing in Denmark

-Many animals have American names. Maibritt's cat is named Misty, and some of the horses we saw tonight are named Joey, Buggie, Monopoly, and Montana. 

-Most of the Danes speak English fluently, but they ALL communicate with each other in Danish. I have absolutely no idea what anyone is saying around me! All of the signs are in Danish, too.

-Some Danes don't apparently don't feel the cold. Today I saw a girl with a skirt and fishnet tights and a guy with short sleeves. Maybe they were too numb to feel it!

-Danes can't say the word "refrigerator." Miller told me that a while ago, and I asked Maibritt about it and she calls it the fridge because it's hard for them to say that combination of letters.