(<--Poor pig)
Going on week 4… I have to admit I set a couple personal goals before I came to Denmark this semester. Some of these goals include punctuality and getting to bed on time. I am sad to say I have FAILED so far. I have been getting better at the punctuality aspect of my life; especially considering that it is very rude in Denmark to be even a minute late (I guess you could argue the same in the states depending on who your are dealing with). 
With the ‘going to bed on time’ goal, I must give myself credit for enjoying authentic Danish culture long into the night, especially for the first couple of weeks when we are all getting accustomed to the culture here. For instance if I decide to stay home one night, I end up talking to my host family until about 2am+ in the morning and then expect myself to get up at 6:45 to make the train. Hmmmm sounds like a similar situation back at Elon. But in all honesty I enjoy the conversation and I learn a lot more about the culture and language. This past Saturday when I returned home from Sweden around midnight, my host family and I drank a few more beers and then I tried to speak Danish. Wow did that work! Haha.
(Getting slaughtered by a viking sword. A manly death!)
A side note on the language: yes I already told you it is difficult, and the saying goes Danish sounds like a throat disease and if you can only speak it properly with a potato in your mouth. Well I will be the first to say the potato theory is TRUE. I was joking around with my family the other night about the potato theory, and what do you know we were eating potatoes. So I put one in my mouth and said the statement that all Danes love to hear foreigners attempt ‘rød grød meh fluth’. It kind of sounds like ‘hraolw-t, koal-dth mey flu-thea’ with a hulking noise for the first two words. It means something similar to strawberry with crème… something like that. I am determined to master it.
Today my indoor soccer shoes arrived, which is great considering that last week when I played I developed huge blisters and bleeding feet due to the fact that I bought the wrong size shoes and still tried to make them work. My host sister Lynn has a boyfriend named Lasse who is on the local Ishøj team and invited me to join. It was really a lot of fun and took me back to the times I used to play club indoor at home. We are not that great, but it is still a lot of fun and I get my running in. One of the most hilarious moments for me was when most of guys pulled out a Carlsberg beer and smoked a cigarette during the break as opposed to drinking water and munching on oranges, haha. I could have sworn that alcohol DEHYDRATES the body, but maybe it’s different here.
By the way these pictures are of my first study tour with my nordic mythology class. We visited a Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, an ancient burial ground (<-- seen left), an old church with an authentic Rune stone placed near the entrance. My favorite place was the viking ship museum because the process in which the located these sunken ships, retieved them and preserved them was just amazing. You'll have to visit if you want the details.
With the ‘going to bed on time’ goal, I must give myself credit for enjoying authentic Danish culture long into the night, especially for the first couple of weeks when we are all getting accustomed to the culture here. For instance if I decide to stay home one night, I end up talking to my host family until about 2am+ in the morning and then expect myself to get up at 6:45 to make the train. Hmmmm sounds like a similar situation back at Elon. But in all honesty I enjoy the conversation and I learn a lot more about the culture and language. This past Saturday when I returned home from Sweden around midnight, my host family and I drank a few more beers and then I tried to speak Danish. Wow did that work! Haha.
(Getting slaughtered by a viking sword. A manly death!)
A side note on the language: yes I already told you it is difficult, and the saying goes Danish sounds like a throat disease and if you can only speak it properly with a potato in your mouth. Well I will be the first to say the potato theory is TRUE. I was joking around with my family the other night about the potato theory, and what do you know we were eating potatoes. So I put one in my mouth and said the statement that all Danes love to hear foreigners attempt ‘rød grød meh fluth’. It kind of sounds like ‘hraolw-t, koal-dth mey flu-thea’ with a hulking noise for the first two words. It means something similar to strawberry with crème… something like that. I am determined to master it.
Today my indoor soccer shoes arrived, which is great considering that last week when I played I developed huge blisters and bleeding feet due to the fact that I bought the wrong size shoes and still tried to make them work. My host sister Lynn has a boyfriend named Lasse who is on the local Ishøj team and invited me to join. It was really a lot of fun and took me back to the times I used to play club indoor at home. We are not that great, but it is still a lot of fun and I get my running in. One of the most hilarious moments for me was when most of guys pulled out a Carlsberg beer and smoked a cigarette during the break as opposed to drinking water and munching on oranges, haha. I could have sworn that alcohol DEHYDRATES the body, but maybe it’s different here.
By the way these pictures are of my first study tour with my nordic mythology class. We visited a Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, an ancient burial ground (<-- seen left), an old church with an authentic Rune stone placed near the entrance. My favorite place was the viking ship museum because the process in which the located these sunken ships, retieved them and preserved them was just amazing. You'll have to visit if you want the details.
I almost forgot to mention something that made me laugh the other day at Fredriksborg Palace. After the tour some of the students and I walked through part of the town to check out some of the shops that were open. I saw this one place that sold authentic Scandinavian sweaters with a distinct design. Companies like Dalegarn and Dale of Norway were popular in this one particular store. Of course I saw one that I liked and naturally checked the price. The sweater was 2650 Kroner!!! That is over $500!!! Can we say E-Bay? (Well I checked and it came down to the fact that their expensive and used…lose, lose situation). It doesn’t get any better… my host dad paid 7000 kroner for his eye glasses, which is roughly $1,250!!!! The average Dane pays between $700+ for eye glasses… where is the free health care kick back or subsidy? Good question huh?
Real quick and off topic kind of but interesting… I was talking to my host family last night about travelling in Europe and they told me that they used to hitch hike around Europe and at times be able to use rental cars nearly free. How you ask? They would ask rental companies whether or not they had any vehicles that needed to be sent back to where they were travelling. If there was a car they did not charge them, they just had to pay for gas because the vehicle was going to the area anyway (maybe I did not explain that well, but if you do understand that is an amazing deal). They also told me that people in specific countries would not serve them or ignore them because they thought they were German and at that time many people were still resentful of Germany for the destruction they caused in the World War II. Interestingly when travelling through Germany my host parents said that the Germans were extremely hospitable and at times would perform random acts of kindness such as give them money because they felt they needed to do something in repayment for their country’s atrocities. WOW!
Anyways enough procrastination, I have to catch up on about 120 pgs of reading. I am off to København Business School so I can feel important when I am doing my work.
Your thoughts are provoking. Enlighten me.
1 comment:
can't wait to read about your short study tour!
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