So I decided that because Anant is making a blog, I would do so as well.
I haven't ever done one of these before, so here goes nothing.
This is my first time ever being in Europe, so needless to say there has been a decent amount of culture shock. Luckily, I have had Anant here to help ease the transition. The first thing that you will notice about Denmark, and Copenhagen in particular, is the amount of people who bike and jog everywhere. People are constantly exercising and being active. Watch out for bikes though. I almost learned that lesson the hard way but thankfully I wasn't hit. In the two weeks that I have been here I have yet to see an obese person walking around the streets or in any of the places I have visited. People here would rather just walk or take a bike if where they are going is relatively close. I really think they have that aspect of life correct here. I think if people were as active in the US the majority of our health problems would subside. They are also both men and women routinely walking around with small children and family appears to be a very important part of the Danish culture. I think this is great.
I haven't had too many embarrassing moments yet, but I'm sure there are more to come. The first day that we arrived, we just had unpacked the majority of our things and decided that we would go explore the city and find somewhere to buy groceries. This was a good idea until we were in the stairwell and realized we didn't know the code back into our hallway. An hour and a half later we made it back to our rooms, and we had the codes memorized within minutes. On the positive side, we met many of the students staying in our dorm ha. Another time where we looked like idiots was when we did eventually make it to a grocery store. Not only were all the items there in Danish, the stores don't provide any bags for you to bring your groceries home in. You can buy bags, but we had already checked-out and there was a long line. We then had to make the four or five block journey back to the residence hall with all of our groceries in our hands. Luckily, a Danish women was nice enough to give me a bag on the way home to make the trip more manageable. I won't ever make that mistake again.
The rest of the trip has been pretty smooth so far. I have met people from all across the world and I love hearing the difference perspectives they all have. My only regret so far is that I don't speak another language because essentially everyone here speaks at least two languages. Some of my Spanish friends are trying to teach me a little Spanish, but it's not very easy. We started out the first week with the Danish Crash Course, in an attempt to grasp some of the language here. I failed pretty miserably. I am thankful that everyone here speaks English.
On Friday, we took a trip to Malmo, Sweden for a music festival for the afternoon. It only takes 30-35mins by train to get to Sweden and the train ride is actually really cool. You are surrounded by water on each side for some of the trip and there were windmills out in the middle of the sea. The festival was alright. The music was classical-ish and I wouldn't say it was my favorite. There were so many people there that my favorite part other than the train ride was simply watching other people interact. I would, however, not recommend Malmo. Hopefully, we can go to Stockholm eventually.
I wish that I could remember more, but now that I have this blog I will try and document more of what I am doing. I can't believe how fast the trip is going. It feels like we just got off the plane yesterday. I'm really looking forward to traveling more and experiencing how classes will be in the upcoming weeks.
