Tivoli, Coming Out to a Friend, and Trippy Jesus

The weather is getting colder and the amount of daylight is getting shorter, but that doesn't mean I haven't found plenty of things to do while here. The last has been pretty relaxed for the most part. I'm still not used to getting up at 6 for classes and probably never will quite honestly. Overall, the slower pace of school work here is a nice enough change from what I'm used to back home, but I don't know if I'm a fan of that quite yet. I've found myself to be stressed out when I don't have anything to do. Weird, I know.

Monday after my birthday dinner, I ended up going to Tivoli with some friends and my host family. The place is freaking beautiful, especially at night with all the lights on. It isn't like a theme park in the US where everything is focused on the rides, but instead the atmosphere and way everything is laid out is much more relaxing in a sense. There are gardens, restaurants everywhere, rides of course, carnival games, and a concert venue. My friends and I have dubbed Tivoli as Wonderland and The Happiest Place on Earth (sorry Disney) because it was that cool.

The rest of the week has been classes - pretty bland stuff quite honestly. Many of my business classes are still covering things I have already learned and are taught at a much less rigorous level than my home university. My Nordic Mythology class has also turned out to be rather boring, at least more than I expected it to be. The professor is cool, he's fun to listen to and would do great as a professor of a more interesting subject. Danish has been a little bit of a struggle still. Some of the sounds they make are actually impossible, I swear. I also have a bad problem of saying words with a German or French accent or actually using German words because that was the most recent language I took. The professor is very fun and laid back though so I'm not too worried.

Last night was one of the most fun nights since getting here. I went out with my friends Jackie and Kate first and ended up an Australian themed bar that was a combo pool hall, beer pong hall, and dance club. Cover was waived for us for whatever reason and the music they played was amazing. I stayed there and danced my ass off for hours. Afterwards, we walked around a bit and we stumbled upon what was the trippiest sight of my life. A church was holding a late Friday night "connect with Jesus" service where they lit up the place like a 70s disco and had a DJ playing weird mood techno music you'd expect to hear at some modern art exhibit. The statue of Jesus was all lit up and lights and patterns were projected on the ceiling. It kind of freaked me out honestly but it definitely was something I had never seen before anywhere.

Around 2, I ended up meeting with with some other friends at a different bar and we chilled there for a while before heading home. On the train back, we met a group of Danish guys who had studied abroad in the US during their high school years which I've noticed is becoming an increasingly common occurrence amoung Danes my age. One guy studied in Seattle for 10 months and only had good things to say about his experience. On the train ride back, I also ended up coming out to my close friend Amy who I met on my first day in Denmark. I think I had told her once in the past during a social for one of my classes but she thought I was kidding. It was actually kind of funny and we laughed about it afterwards. Continuing with the theme of all things gay, my friend Ben who also came back on the same train as us had a funny incident happen to him involving the LGBT group at the activities and club fair earlier in the semester. In Copenhagen there is a LGBT student group called BLUS which my friend thought was a Blues Music club. Well, he obviously didn't look very closely at the signs because when he got the email from HQ about upcoming LGBT themed events, he got the surprise of his life haha. He was a good sport about it though and laughed. I ended up coming home around 4:30 which is a record for me in terms of a night out.

Anyways, photo time:



Birthday Traditions - raising the Danish flag



Sunrise over my hometown - Roskilde



TIVOLI!!!



Restaurants



Chinese Pantomime Theatre



Pirate Ship! - It's a restaurant/bar

Trippy Jesus

My ipod is being a dick and not wanting to upload any photos I try to send off of it so pictures from the football game might be forever stuck on it unfortunately. I'll keep trying though since there were some pretty awesome shots on that thing.

All the best,

JP