pre-trip//getting my feet wet (or snowy)

So it has been one week since I arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark and I can honestly say I am happier here than I ever thought I would be. Leaving family, friends, and school back home was really difficult, but life here is so new and exciting and even though I still miss home so much, I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Sunday night, Mom and Dad had a going away dinner for me and Nana, Aunt Lorie, Uncle Keith, Jake and Aidan (and Caitlin) came over for dinner and to see me off. Perfect night, but really difficult to get through knowing I was leaving the next day. I spent the night in Mom and Dad's bed crying haha.. I was so excited to go, but so sad to leave:( I left the family on Monday morning and travelled to Aunt Maryanne's house in Queensbury where we spent the day/night cooking dinner together, talking, and spending time with Uncle Mark and the kids (including having Freddie's Bearded Dragon on my face!). 

Fred's bearded dragon!

The next day, I took the bus the rest of the way from Albany to NYC where Obi picked me up and we spent the week together. On Wednesday, we went in to the city for the day and that night, we went out to dinner and to see "Nice Work If You Can Get It" with Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Broderick (how lucky am I?). I loved it and even Obi admitted that he did too:) And of course, we had to find the naked cowboy because what's a trip to the city without a photo opp like this?!

The next day, we went back into the city and walked around SOHO for the day before we went back home to spend the rest of the night watching Breaking Bad. On Friday, we (well, I) cooked dinner for his family... chicken parm, spaghetti, homemade garlic bread, and cinnamon rolls!
Saturday was a day full of mixed emotions.. I was so excited that I was finally going, but as soon as I woke up, I knew that was it. There was no turning back. I already said goodbye to so many of my closest friends and family members, some of the most important people in my life.. and I was about to say goodbye to someone else I love so much. It was too final. Leaving meant leaving everyone and everything I know and love and as soon as the plane took off, I knew there was no turning back. Thank God I had Julia sitting next to me or I would have been crying on some strangers shoulder haha. I slept a good 14 minutes out of the 9 hour flight, so that was fun. We flew into Oslo, Norway and after a 2 hour delay, went on to Copenhagen. At the airport, we were greeted by DIS members who brought us to our host families. FINALLY!

Oslo Airport

Coming into Copenhagen!

Susanne and Michael (her boyfriend of five years) picked me up and I knew instantly that things would be perfect with them. I guess I really knew that back in December when Susanne and I started emailing back and forth. I had no idea I would get this lucky. On our way home, they took me along the coast line where our house is, stopping at some of the little harbors and bakeries and then (get ready, Nana) they brought me to Helsingør where Krongborg (the castle from which Hamlet says, "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark"). It was freezing and the sun was setting, so we drove back home and started to get "Hygge", my favorite Danish word. Hygge is impossible to translate, but it is a verb, a noun, and an adjective encompassing many feelings/emotions.. more specifically, it is a feeling of comfort, warmth, coziness, etc. Check out the link if you want! Danish Art of Hygge
I love my host family more than anything. I already feel like I have a home away from home and having such a solid support system here makes missing home a little more bearable. But I will get back to them later:) So after we got home and lit some candles, I met Niklas, Susanne's oldest son (21) who lives in Copenhagen and we had soup and pasta and bread for dinner. It seems everyone eats a lot of bread and other carbs here, but considering pretty much everyone walks and/or bikes everywhere, everyday, I would say there's not much to worry about. My commute from home to classes in the morning is about 45 minutes or less. We live in Nivå, a small town about half an hour north of Copenhagen on the coast. Every morning, I walk about 7 minutes from my house to the train station, take a 30 minute train ride into the city, and then walk about 5-10 more minutes to class. DIS (Danish Institute of Study Abroad) is not technically a campus college. Basically, it's 5 different buildings on 2 different streets, and they are not obvious at all. That made it really fun to figure out the first day (not). For the first 4 days, all you saw were confused Americans walking around with maps, but at least we were all confused together. Anyway, the commute is fairly short and, now that I understand the transportation system here, pretty easy. Monday-Wednesday was basically just orientations for housing, transportation, student life, etc. The only really fun thing we did was on Tuesday, walk around the city in groups and go to various locations where we had the history of the building explained.

My bed

My desk.. Susanne hung up a picture of Mom, Margaret and me:)

Kitchen

Living room

View outside from living room

Backyard

Front yard

First sunset in Denmark

Next to Kronborg at sunset!

Krongborg

First day of exploring! In front of the Parliament Building

Studenterhuset (Student House)

Parliament again

And again

National Library aka the Black Diamond. On the harbor.. so huge

Window inside the Black Diamond looking onto harbor

Church of Our Savior

Organ in Church of our Savior - Christianshavn (Christiansound)

So incredible

On Thursday, we started classes. We dont have classes on Wednesdays here, so I have class from 11:40-2:35 on Monday/Thursday (Psychology of Human Sexuality and then Danish Language and Culture) and then from 10:05-4:30 on Tuesday/Friday (Neuroscience of Fear, History of European Ballet, and my core course, Human Health and Disease). I'm definitely most excited about my Psych and HHD classes in terms of genuine interest. Especially my HHD class because it is essentially the reason I chose this program. The program I am enrolled in is called Medical Practice and Policy and the core course is Human Health and Disease. It is taught in Bispebjerg (like "bispebyer") Hospital by two practicing physicians and a medical student as our TA. We commute to the hospital on Tuesdays and Fridays (about 15 minutes on the bus) where we will have a mixture of lectures, group discussions, and actual clinical case studies where we get to do real patient histories and perform limited/supervised medical techniques. I absolutely cannot wait to really get into this course. Other than that, my Danish professor, Jans Christien (JC) is very young, very Euro, and veryyyyy goodlooking, haha. The accent's not bad either;) But really, he seems like a great professor and, from what I've heard from former students he's the best you can get for Danish. My History of Ballet class hasn't met yet, but I have also heard great things about the professor, and we get to go to four ballets (including Romeo and Juliet) at the Royal Theatre!! My Neuroscience class is the only one I don't like and if all goes as planned, I will be switching from that to Criminology and Criminal Justice in Scandinavia. The professor was very intense and apparently expected us all to have taken an intro to neuroscience class at home, which we hadn't (by we I mean Julia and me.. we're taking all the same classes). Everyone loves the criminology class and it fits perfectly. Plus, I figure, how often am I studying in a beautiful city like this?! I'm in Europe, I don't want to spend my days inside studying like crazy for a class I don't really need or want to take when I can be exploring the world and taking class that I would never be able to take at home! So anyway, those are my classes.. very excited about them.
Right near our "campus" is a place called the "Studenterhuset" or, the Student House. It's an adorable cafe/study spot with a very kygge atmosphere (cool music, dim lighting, fun colors, comfy couches, etc.) and lots of DIS discounts (or DIScounts, as most bars, restaurants and clubs around here call them.. we get DIScounts at lots of places in copenhagen with our student cards). Also within a 10 block radius of DIS are 6 H&Ms haha.. apparently that's the "it" American store here. I bought a scarf on sale yesterday for 20 kroner ($4). $1 = 5.6 DK. The streets here aren't gridded like a normal city because it is so old, so that was really confusing to figure out. One of my classes is on Vestergade, but Vestergade is really a continuation of Gameltorv and about 3 other streets, the name changes when there is a slight bend in the road. And, there are no street signs, just signs on random buildings with the name (which are impossible to pronounce), but even then it's hard because they only put it on buildings that aren't historical so you never know where to look. Anyway, I pretty much get it now and I can almost say the names haha. But the buildings are so old and charming and every street has so much color and character. I could walk around all day and never get sick of it. Speaking of, there is a big street called Strøget (like "stroll" but don't really make the l sound) where no cars are allowed.. it's just a walking street with lots of (very expensive) shops and vendors. We stayed a little later after class on Thursday and walked around at night. Well, actually it was 4pm, but it was almost pitch black so it felt like night. Days are SO short here. It's dark when I walk to the train in the morning and it's dark when I'm coming home. But everyday it gets a little bit lighter for a little bit longer.
When I get home, Susanne is usually still at work and Sebastian, her younger son (16) who lives at home is usually still at school or at his dad's a few streets away. When Susanne comes home, we cook dinner together, or she just cooks if I have a lot going on. She is such a good cook, and that's big coming from the daughter of the best cooks in the world. She has been so happy to cater to me being vegetarian and we have found some really great new recipes that we make together and it is so much fun. She is an extraordinary person.. so nurturing and sweet and genuine and happy and I literally cannot say enough good things about her. I am so happy I am here with her and Michael. Michael is here most of the time, except if he has to work too late or if his two sons are with him. But the same goes for him; they are perfect and I am so happy and so grateful for such a wonderful host family. We eat dinner together and then sit and talk for a while after, then have family game night or watch the Handball game together. Handball is huge here and Michael plays very competitively himself. Watching him watch Denmark play is like watching Dad during a Michigan game, to put it into perspective. It makes me feel like I'm really at home haha:) Sebastian is a little bit more quiet, but very interesting. They all speak fluent (or almost fluent) English and if there is ever a translational issue, we seem to be able to work it out together between the three or four of us. It's amazing, really. I love their accents, and I they have been teaching me new words every day. I used to be so turned off by the language because it is so guttural and there are words that literally sound like you're throwing up haha, but now that I've mastered the 3 extra letters in the alphabet and trained my mouth to retain weird positions when pronouncing vowels (like combining the "oo" position and the "ee" position to pronounce the ø and y) I think I actually sort of like it! It's so different, but it's fun to learn. "Tak frommel" means thanks for the food and "Velbekommen" means you're welcome. Those are the easy ones.. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the hard ones haha. Danish Alphabet (with audio)

Last night (Friday night) was my first night out in the city. Me and my friend Christie from St. Lawrence met up with a few other girls we met and went to a random bar and just sat and talked for a while. I had a really awesome conversation with some 30 year old Dane who was sitting at the table next to us. I've found that the first two things people ask when I say I'm from the states have to do with Obama and the gun laws haha, but it's cool to hear the perspective of other people outside of the states. We talked for a while and then went to the meatpacking district, which is this totally hipster, up and coming bar/disco-tech scene. It was a ton of fun, we went with a huge group of people from DIS. Met a million Danes (and an Aussie who bought a round of shots for the girls, haha) and danced and talked until 4 in the morning. 

Christie and me

And again

Some of the girls!

So this guy on the left comes up to me and the kid on the right (who I had literally just met) and says he will give us french fries if we invite him to our wedding HAHAH but only if we invited his wife and two sons also. Crazy, drunk Danes. 

Tonight, I was too tired to go out, so after we got our residence permits situated, I came home and made dinner with Susanne and then we skyped with Mom, Dad, Margaret, and Cordelia!!! :):) 

YAYAYYYYY family<3

After we ate, we watch Grease in Danish haha and played a card game with Sebastian. Michael is home tonight with his sons, but tomorrow, they are having a welcome party for me... seriously, how sweet?! I will get to meet Susanne's sister and hopefully Michael's sons and some other family and friends! Speaking of, the neighbor, Mette, and her daughter Sarah have the cutest dog I get to play with whenever I want!:) I can't pronounce her name hahah but she's precious. They are also very sweet... the other day, they brought me orchids for my room! I really can't even explain how at home I feel here. Granted, I'm in bed writing this, homesick, right now haha, but as soon as I think about everything I have here, I am totally at ease. Tomorrow I will post a little bit more about the party and a list of things that I have been noticing here about the people, the culture, the food, everything haha. I've been keeping track of it all in my phone and will upload that along with some more pictures tomorrow evening.