My first few days before class...

I decided to start a blog to keep everyone posted on what I'm up to over in Denmark. I would like for people to post comments or keep in touch with what you are up to wherever you are :)

Overall the past few days I have been settling in, exploring Copenhagen, and trying to get on schedule in the different time zone.

The first day was very long, but not too bad as my two planes were on time and they fed me on both flights! It took about 15 hours total of travel time. Overall I was up from 5am on the 31st of July until 7pm on the 1st of August, with about 4 hours sleep and 9 hours taken away from the time difference. I was doing fine until the afternoon of the 2nd day when I started nodding of during dinner...

Klaus and Maureen, my uncle and aunt who live about 3 hours away from Copenhagen, picked me up from the airport in the morning. They had stayed with Klaus's parents, Ole and Anne Grethe, the night before as they have an apartment in downtown Copenhagen. They took me to Ole and Anne Grethes, fed me, and took care of some practical stuff before taking me to my apartment. My apartment is on Amager, which is a small island to the south of Copenhagen which the airport is also on. It is outside the city itself, but the city is only a 15 minute walk away, and shorter once I get a bike. There is also a metro (monorail train) nearby that I can use to get around the city and the rest of Denmark, as well as busses which I have not tried yet.

The apartment itself is very nice. I was very skeptical based on the outside of the building, but as Maureen said, many buildings don’t look so great from the outside but inside they are quite nice. This is definitely true of my apartment. It has a nice living room, bathroom, kitchen and two bedrooms. My roommate/landlord is writing her PHD at the university in psychology and has lived in the place for three years, but I am her first roommate here. She is from Albania but has lived in Denmark for 10 years now. She is very nice, not minding my inability to pay rent yet! She also speaks English very well.

I have been on many long walks around the city, which is actually very small when compared with something like downtown Seattle. I went on a bit of a tour with Ole who knows the city and its history very well which was quite helpful. We walked through all of the cities districts østerbro, nørrebro, and vesterbro, in about a five hour long walk. We also ate, for the second time, at Ole and Anne Grethes favorite Chinese restaurant--just one example of how expensive it can be in Denmark. The bill for the four of us (me Ole, Anne Grethe, and her assistant) was about $125 for lunch. The soup which they insisted I should order as an appetizer was around $8...

Today I went on about a 7 hour walk through Copenhagen taking pictures, enjoying the excellent weather of about 75 degrees and sun, and having a delicious Danish hotdog and ice cream for lunch. There were also a couple events around town such as a concert outside the art museum and a carnival-like event at the harbor on my island Amager.

I have been able to use my Danish a little bit so far, but not too much. I have had no problems using only Danish while going to the store, baker, or buying food. Asking for directions has also gone pretty well. Beyond that I spoke with my mentor and a little with my landlord and it went pretty well both times. My intensive course starts tomorrow so we will see how that goes.

Perhaps my most eventful day was yesterday when I went to attempt to go buy a bicycle... Like everything, bikes are pretty expensive here, so I wanted to get a used cheap one. After looking around the internet I decided that ones there were still not cheap enough (best I could find was $300), so I decided to try my luck at the police auction which I had heard from a few people might be a good option.

I was quite proud of myself for finding my way there across town, and didn't really know what to expect. There were probably 200 total people there for maybe 100 bikes or so. We were all crammed into a very small room where the sign clearly said maximum occupancy: 150, but that definitely wasn't followed. There were a lot of bikes in 5 different rows stacked two high. We were given a half hour to inspect them, but there were so many people and the bikes were packed so tight I had no idea whether they were actually good or not, so I just waited to check them out later.

I got the hang of the auction and tried bidding a few times as bikes that looked decent were being sold for around $100. It seemed the mountain bikes were going cheaper so I decided to go for one of those, one that preferably had tires full of air so I could ride it back. After about 1/2 hour or so I got one which I thought was decent. There were about 3 rows of bikes left, so I could have waited but I thought this was a decent deal for this bike (around $75).

While taking the bike out of the room I realized that it had a lock on the back spokes, so I could not walk it, but had to carry it. As soon as I got it out of the building there was a grungy looking man with a hack saw saying "4 dollars to take it off" referring to the lock. I looked at it, had no idea how to get it off without a key, and let him at it.

After I started walking it I realized that both tires were completely flat: great. I did not want to walk it back but had no choice, and the metro allows, and has plenty of room for you to take a bike on it. As I was walking it down the street the tires stopped rolling... I looked down and a rubber strap, the lining of the inside of the back wheel has completely come out of the wheel and has wrapped around the gears, getting stuck in them as I walked the bike along. 15 minutes later, sweating in the sun I am walking my bike again with the gears free and the lining completely gone wishing I had bought another bike.

After getting back to Amager and walking my bike to a shop (while jealously looking at every bicycle parked on the street and everyone that bikes by) I ask a repairman how bad it is. The first shop says it is too bad and it would be better to buy a new bike. The 2nd shop owner agrees, saying it could be repaired for around $120. I resign to the fact I made a horrible purchase and realize it would be better to buy a new one. The bike needed new tires, a new chain, and to have its breaks fixed... It is now parked out front for a little experiment I have of how long it will be there before someone takes it... Soon I will buy a used one from a shop to guarantee that it is actually a decent bike.

That’s it for now! I'm really excited for classes to start tomorrow. It has been nice getting to know the city but I haven't met any people yet so I am looking forward to that this coming week. Below is a slideshow of some pics.

Jeff