You mean you don't ride your bike in your prom dress??
The city is amazingly clean, even in the busiest sections, simply because it's the social norm not to litter and there are few cars. EVERYONE here rides a bike. I've never seen so many bikes in my life. You honestly have to be more careful not to get hit by a bike than a car (every street has a bike lane, and if you accidently walk in it, you may very well get run over). What's so funny is that Danes are extremely fashionable, and they dont let their bikes or the weather deter them. Each morning you see men in full suits biking away to work with their suitcase sitting in the front basket, girls in heals and dresses jump on bikes without thinking twice, mothers and fathers with 1 or even sometimes 2 children sitting in baby-seats on the bike. And what happens when it rains?? They all just throw on their raincoats, pop up their umbrellas, and ride along one-handed. It's the craziest/coolest thing I've ever seen.
A typical Copenhagen city square. There are even bike-only parking lots. I have yet to see a single car parking garage, simply because there's not enough cars to need one.
People riding along on their way to work. Notice the guy in the suit? It don't bother him none."The Situation" with Language
Anyway, today was my first day of classes! This semester I'm taking Medical Practice and Policy (taught in a hospital in Copenhagen), Biology of Marine Mammals, Holocaust and Genocide, Danish Language and Culture, and Photojournalism, then a 1-credit class called Renaissance and Rome, that I'm taking because there's a week-long trip in Rome as part of the class :)
I went to Danish class today, and the language is SO HARD. I already knew it would be just looking a the spelling of everything in the city (its not like French or Spanish where you can somewhat guess what words mean. NOTHING remotely resembles english with the exception of a handful of words). It took me all class to attempt to say: "my name is Kelsey," which is spelled like this: "Jeh hadder Kelsey," but is pronouced like this: "Ya hilt-ya Kelsey." to pronounce things correctly you have to sound like you're ganging and make crazy vibrating sounds from the depths of your throat. I fail at it. Royally fail at it. I'm excited to take the class though. It'll be challenging, but I'm glad I'll be able to quasi-speak the language.
Luckily, all the Danes speak perfect English, and are even up-to-date on all American pop-culture (at least all young and middle-aged Danes). I've never seen anything like it. I was talking to a guy in my hall named Magnus today and he spoke using American slang-words, idiomatic expressions, and was even making jokes about the Situation on Jersey Shore!! (For the elders, Jersey Shore is a trashy MTV reality show about guitoes from NJ and "The Situation" is a character who named his abs/calls himself the Situation).
It's a little depressing that I can't even pronounce "thank you" in Danish and I only just found out the queen's name (Margrethe), but they know everything about America/English.
Beer is served at school functions now?
On Tuesday night, me and 4 friends went out to a bar called "The Happy Pig" (in Danish: "Den Glade Gris"). It's a really cheap/fun young person bar. Pretty fun for our first attempt to navigate the city at night. On weekend nights, there's apparently a really fun dance floor on the upper level. We'll have to go back.
I'm really excited for tomorrow night though!! My school rented out a club from 8-11pm, and it's free admission plus and open bar. After 11, the bar opens up to the public, and it just-so-happens to be the bar's 50th anniversary, so it's supposed to be a pretty great party. I can't wait. Pretty funny that my school offers beer at just about every function/gathering here. Danes are extremely social/casual with drinking. You can drink alcohol freely in any public place (like on the metro) and it's served with almost every meal in households.
Real food? I've forgotten what that is.
So I've found the best way to diet is to have to buy your own food in an expensive foreign country. Food here is not outrageously expensive, but for a cheap college student like myself, buying food at delis/restaurants is not fun. For the first 2 days, I hadn't gotten a chance to go food shopping/didn't know how to get to a grocery store, so I lived purely on rolls and bagels from bakeries (they're cheap and DELICIOUS). They cost from $2 to $4 each. To buy a deli sandwich, be prepared to spend about $10 American. Plus a drink and chips? $20. Painful. Finally, I made it to the grocery store where I bought a bag of frozen rolls, chicken, cereal, noodles, brie cheese, peaches/apples, and frozen veggies. So my meals everyday have been exactly the same: breakfast: cereal and milk; lunch: a roll with brie or jam + peach; dinner: chicken, noodles, veggies. I wonder how long I can keep this up before I can't eat another roll and jam without dying a little inside. However, I tell myself, "I ate PB&Js everyday for 37 days, and I still get excited to eat them," thus, I am convinced that I can continue my repetitive but cheap eating pattern for quite some time.
Contrary to logic, exercising for 6+ hours a day on a bike for 37 days = no weight loss. No exercise (but having to buy all my own food) = down about 3 pounds I'd guess (I don't actually own a scale).
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