Greetings from Danish Land!

WELL HELLO :)

So, by tomorrow morning at approximately 7 am (that's 1 am eastern time, and 10 pm pacific time) I will have completed my first 48 hours in Copenhagen! And what an ups and downs kind of 48 hours it has been! Upon our arrival in the Copenhagen (København, if you feel like being Danish!) airport we were herded through customs and baggage claim, BOTH of which were easier than I expected, and made our way towards the buses waiting to take us to our designated housing!

It turns out I got SUPER lucky with housing; I live in a lovely recently refurbished apartment on Gasværksvej (pronounced Gas-varks-vay, it’s Gas Works Way in English). It’s located right in the city! We live in what used to be the red light district and there's certainly some proof of that along the bigger streets (pictures soon to come!), but now it's a very trendy district full of fun bars, cafes, restaurants, and shops. There are fruit stands every few blocks, and the central square and canal are beautiful! I'm certainly still at the touristy stage where I have to have my gigantic map of the whole city open whenever I walk one block, but I'm slowly but surely making progress :)

As nice as the area and all my fellow students seem thus far, our arrival in Copenhagen left me feeling...a bit out of sorts! I was surprised at how homesick and uninspired I felt as I got used to the idea of living here for the next four months. Of course it takes some time to acclimate to any new situation and there are many reasons for emotional ups and downs when studying abroad, but I never expected to feel so homesick. It may have been because we didn't have much planned for our first day, and I had a little too much time to think. The first full day (a full day after ZERO hours of sleep on the flight over) was spent moving in, getting to know my apartment roommates, and exploring some of the city.

This morning I woke up, got my new fancy Danish cell phone, found a coffee bar and a fruit stand for breakfast with my roommate Kathleen, and headed over to the opening ceremony at the Copenhagen City Hall! There were many impressive speakers, including the mayor of Copenhagen and the DIS program director. There was also a lovely quartet who played Mozart between speakers! After the ceremony, I met up with my Wooster friends (FINALLY! I MISSED THEM SO MUCH!) and we explored more of downtown Copenhagen! It was so nice to see familiar faces and have some free time to play in the city.

Later tonight, Emily and I attempted to use the metro ourselves, and, of course, got off on the wrong stop. I had to buy a ticket to cover the extra stop, which wasn’t expensive but was SO damn difficult. The entire machine was in Danish, it made you move fast, and it only took cards or coins. Thank goodness for the wonderful Danish lady who both explained the machine AND paid for part of the ticket when we realized we didn’t have enough coins! We finished the night by walking around the city a bit more at night and poking our heads into bars to listen to live music.

Well, there’s the update so far! Thanks for reading! Pictures to come, I promise! Miss you all; email me or facebook me if you want to chat sometime or if you want a postcard :)