EuroWasted

So the Dansk-Thanksgiving was a great success, with lots of food, good conversation, and lots of fun in general. My good friend and also fellow housemate Eric and his girlfriend are currently visiting Copenhagen at the same time as my mom and aunt so I also invited them to join us. Afterwards we went out to Copenhagen along with Jackie and Kate to show them more of Copenhagen nightlife. We ended up at a bar called Billy Booze (great name, eh?) which specializes in cheap drinks while also having a nice dance floor/club area. We stayed there for a while and danced, people watched, and tried and failed to understand Danish music, but otherwise, it was good, fun night.

Now on the way back, things started getting weird. First, my train was absolutely packed. Like, no seats left, no room to breathe packed. Weird thing #1 was a guy who boarded the train wearing a pink metallic wig shouting something about "swag" in Danish for a solid 5 minutes. Then a group of also really drunk guys, who looked exactly the same (balding, larger, wearing the same style NorthFace), started shouting loud as hell which started to annoy me and had me dreading the train ride home. If that wasn't enough, finally stumbled in a guy who, to put it lightly, looked like he was about 2 seconds away from hurling chunks over the entire train...and of course he had to stand right next to me. I was scared to hell that he was going to vomit all over my coat, jeans, and shoes. I ended up squeezing over to the "silent zone" of the train which is basically full of angry old people with little tolerance for fun. The sick guy was swaying everywhere and almost fell into the lap of some guy who was near the door of the silent section and that caused an entire scene of yelling for him to GTFO by a 70-something man. Eventually he did which was a relief, but still, tonight's scene, plus many previous nights witnessed, and experience in four other major European cities just have solidified in my mind that Europeans are just as loud, obnoxious, and rude as American are despite the reputation that American are bad.

We get the bad rap for being the unclassy douchebags of the world, but I've seen more than enough during my time here to say it's easily a two-way problem. Sure, maybe we are a louder and ruder while sober and being tourists, but I swear, get one drop of alcohol in a European, and you end up with an American x2. Honestly, I've seen better behavior late at night in most American cities than I have in Europe. Citizens of Copenhagen, get your acts together, jeez.

Just an observation I made.

JP

Velkommen til København

Heyo. I know it's been a long while but I promise my lack of posts is not because I don't love you guys; I've just been running around non stop all week and have just caught myself a bit of spare time - aka watching the ManU and Fulham game in the living room of my abode and beating my host dad in a soccer-match prediction bracket thing- to make a post.

I don't want for this to get too long and boring so I will try to condense things a bit and jump right into things.

I met my host family at the orientation and they brought me to my new home away from home. I currently live about 30 minutes by car outside of Copenhagen, or København in Danish (fun fact, it sounds nothing like how it's spelled). I take the train to get to my classes every morning except for Wednesday but then I plan to work at home or go to the city and work at one of the school buildings. My classes are in what is the old part of Copenhagen near city hall and Europe's longest pedestrian shopping street - the Strøget. It's pretty awesome when your classrooms are actually amidst all the action. I haven't seen all of my professors yet, but I have met most of them and they all seem really cool and casual - we refer to all of them on a first-name basis. My classes honestly all seem pretty easy so far too - they know all the students are here to have a good time and study some on the side, so I don't think the bar has been set too high.

The town I live in is near a Fjord and is almost the Danish equivalent to where I live in the US - except 20 times prettier, like most things in Denmark - the people, the landscape, the people, the school, the people, the cities, and did I mention the people? Yeah, all of them are effing hot. I wish I were exaggerating, but no, think as if all the H&M and Abercrombie models suddenly decided to only procreate with each other for about 200 years and put that population in a little Scandinavian country and you'll have Denmark. Trust me, you will be hearing plenty of stories of how beautiful the Danes are throughout my stay here.

Anyways, my first few days here were spent doing orientation programs like an amazing race to see various attractions in Copenhagen, and where to shop for decently priced food in the city (which is really difficult as everything is quite expensive). I met quite a lot of really cool people during this period who I became friends with so I'm thankfully won't be one of those people who only stick with people from their home school. There are about 30 of us by the way - by far the biggest group I've come across so far. Nevertheless, yesterday we did have a gathering last night in Copenhagen for a reunion type thing at a local bar. I ran into my almost-roommate from freshman year of college which is hilarious but everyone here is really pumped for the next semester. We did some bar hopping too last night and ended up bumping into a few of our professors at local bars which just goes to show how casual things will probably be here. It was a fun night though and I might go out again tonight if things pan out. It's so nice to just be able to buy drinks without being carded or anything. I'm going to miss that when I go back to the US for sure.

Well, if I'm going to be in a foreign land, I'd better be posting some pictures so here's a little of what I've seen so far:

Canal where me and some friend's had dinner one evening - rainbow!

 

Yeah, the harbour isn't just a postcard thing, it actually exists



Part of the Royal Palace complex. One of the Prince's houses

One of many squares in the city

The Strøget or main pedestrian shopping street. Touristy, but many bars

I have a few pictures of my house and the town where I will be living for the next few months which I will upload in due time.

I hope things are going well where you are and I'll be back with another post soonish I hope.

Hej Hej,

JP

Copenhagen Day 1: More French, Less Danish Please

Nine hours in the air and a hour long layover later, I'm finally in Denmark. On the way, I ran into about a dozen other early arrivers at Reykjavik and here in Copenhagen and we had a little early meet n' greet. One girl I ran into goes to my school and I knew beforehand and another guy I actually went to middle school with but hadn't seen since, so it was really cool seeing him again.

I'm currently at my Euro-style hotel room (read: TINY) and realizing I made the mistake of sleeping all day and now that it's past 11 at night here, I'm not sleepy at all. Whoops. Funny story: during check-in there was an Asian family ahead of me, and when they asked what's going on in Copenhagen, the clerk told them about Copenhagen Pride which is in full swing right now and they just stood there wide-eyed and speechless - I was crying with laughter on the inside.

Anyway, here's my room for the night, as I mentioned, it's freaking TINY.

It has everything I need for the night though. The bed is comfy enough too. The bathroom is weird though, there isn't a separate shower - just a random cutain separating a part of the floor with a drain. Something I'm not so happy about is that Netflix, Pandora, and IHeartRadio all don't work in Denmark because of silly licensing reasons. Skype, thankfully works just fine, and I talked to my mom for a bit soon after I got to my room.

Earlier tonight I went exploring at a mall that is near my hotel for some toiletries and for dinner; there I found what looked like the Danish version of a Target Superstore. What started innocently enough ended up being one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Everything, and I mean everything was in Danish. The only English words I picked out were "Bacon" and "Shampoo", and I only needed the latter. I was trying to find some other things but ended up getting lost somewhere in the home goods section (fun fact - straight, neat isles don't exist, at least not where I was). I found my way out eventually, bought my toiletries, and ended up getting Shwarma for dinner (surprisingly fitting since Denmark looks to have a largish Muslim population). Annoyingly, even mall food costs a fortune compared to the US - 80 kroner or about $14 for merely passable food. Speaking of - everything is pretty expensive here except for beer, which is cheaper than soda haha.

I had some spare time after dinner and fired up good 'ol Grindr to see what's going on nearby. It's definitely less dense than back in DC but something I found really funny was that one guy that popped up actually goes to my school back home and had a thing for me during freshman year. I found out he's been backpacking across Europe for the past few weeks and just happened to be in Copenhagen the same time I arrived. We talked for a bit and I convinced him to go out tonight since he's staying at a Hostel near the city center. It's definitely one of the funnier coincidences in my life.

Tomorrow I'm getting all my orientation materials, signing up for a cell phone, and finally meeting my host family. I might run into my friend Kate at the Airport since she's arriving a little before I'm set to be picked up so I'm looking forward to that. Expect more (and better) photos soonish of my actual room and where I'll be calling home for the next four months.

Alright guys, I'm going to attempt to get some sleep, whether I'm successful is another story.

Wish me luck.

JP