I'll be there soon!

I can't believe it's finally here, the moment I've been preparing for since I attended freshman orientation at UT. I'll begin my study abroad experience on Tuesday. Well, not the studying part...that doesn't start til February, but definitely the experience part! I'll leave Nashville at 5:59pm and arrive in Aarhus Wednesday at 4:15pm their time. I'll be seven hours ahead, so I'm hoping my family keeps that in mind while trying to Skype me.

So far I've read at least 5 books on Denmark, Europe, studying abroad, and basically anything remotely related. I think I'm pretty prepared. Although I know traveling over there alone, I'm still going to be very anxious. Airports seem to raise stress levels no matter what. Tic Tacs usually calm me down, so Mom bought me a whole case of them for my carryon.

I finished packing yesterday. I ended up not needing one suitcase, which is great because I can't imagine how hard it would be for me to lug around 4 big suitcases + a purse and backpack. As of now, I'll only be checking one bag, and carrying on a small suitcase and my backpack. I think I'll just stick my purse inside the backpack.

I really love the facebook group our mentors created for the international students. It has helped me not feel as nervous knowing that all of the other students are experiencing the same feelings, thoughts and questions as me. I've already made a couple travel buddies, shopping buddies, and workout buddies. They even want to join me for Zumba! I'm so glad they have Zumba there, I hated not having it at the Trecs this past semester.

The goodbye part has felt a lot like the first time I left for college. Saying bye to friends who left earlier than others, and then promising to stay in touch... sometimes you do and sometimes you find its hard to make time for everyone that you used to. Now my friends are making Skype date promises, which is nice to hear. I'm sure I'll need to hear from them from time to time to get through periods of homesickness. Catherine has promised to keep me in the loop with all the RA drama that goes down lol.

So much is about to happen for me, and I'm afraid it is all going to happen way too fast. Studying abroad this semester, interning over the summer, and then I'll just have my senior year to finish up before real life begins. It's pretty intimidating!

What I'm actually expecting

Considering the tempertature is expected to be around -10 degrees Celsius when I arrive, I think I should prepare myself and plan to picture Aarhus more like this...

Flight 6579, would you please let me exit the plane!!

Well, I did pretty well today about staying calm... It took about 23 tic tacs. I had a big crew drop me off in the airport. I said my goodbyes to Dad, Kim, Aly, Mom and Tommy and headed toward my first challenge. Security. I was actually pretty proud of getting through and to my gate so quickly. I guess I was just excited about it being the first thing I'd done on my own in this journey. Maria posted this on Facebook after I was texting her at the gate to Chicago.

She's a mess! I can't wait to be her roomie in the fall!

So the first flight from Nashville to Copenhagen was delayed from 5:59pm to 6:40pm. Well, 6:40pm rolls around and they announce that take off will be delayed further to 8:04pm. At this point, I remain fairly calm, because I know I'll have about 45 minutes once I land to catch my next flight. Then, I talked to the guy at the counter, and he explains that I will need to be running in order to make it. I was pretty worried, but what can you do really besides try to make the flight.

We arrived in Chicago at 9:15pm. However, the passengers were not able to exit the plane until 11:15pm. We seriously just sat in a parked plane for 2 hours!! Chicago was backed up due to planes icing over at the gates. There was also a shortage of gates available and when we arrived we were fourth in line.

Obviously, I didn't make my flight. Fortunately, as soon as I landed I found the first United Airlines agent I could, and he set me up with a complimentary hotel room, $15 meal voucher, and booked me my flights for tomorrow. See, there is only one flight from Chicago to Copenhagen per day, and it's always at 10:05pm.

So tomorrow I'll be in the windy city all day! It's actually really, really cold. Maybe even colder than Denmark will be. Oh! That was another thing. I'd dressed for Denmark. After four hours on a plane I was sweating like crazy!

Turning Skjoldhøj into my temporary home

Well, it took quite a bit of an adjustment, but I feel like I'm beginning to figure things out here in Aarhus. Today is the first day I've been able to blog because my 3 prong converter did not fit into a Danish plug (which look like smiley faces!).
My roommate Christina is from California. We arrived only an hour apart. So, it worked out very conveniently. We were able to go buy sheets, pillows, etc. to get all settled into our apartment. Afterward, Niklas and Mette, our mentors dropped us off in the city, showed us our bus stop and basically said good luck figuring everything out. I think they're quite busy getting all of the international students settled in. I believe there are 50 or so of us in all 4 courses. 18 in my TV course.
So first on our list of things to do was buy sim cards, 3 prong converters, and find a Danske Bank to exchange some money. It took us most of the afternoon to find this tiny shop called Telenor that set us up with phones. But getting lost in the city wasn't bad at all. We discovered all the cute shops and canals you see in Google images when you google Aarhus. We saw where there's an entire area cut out of the city center for ice skating. Oooh and I love all the little alleyways that are mostly cobblestone. Everything is just so charming to me right now. The people are wonderful. I try my best to say Tak as much as possible. It's definitely Christina and I's go to word. It means Thanks. We've learned not to say goodbye or Farvel when you leave a store. Niklas said if someone says farvel it means you won't be seeing them ever again. Instead you say Tak Hej Hej (Thanks Bye, Bye). Hej is pronounced as "hi" though, so it's kind of funny to hear.
Most people do speak English thankfully, especially, the young people. So when we do get lost and need to find a place, we look for the younger people. I've noticed that their language is much more short and soft here, whereas in America we really pronounce our words. It's hard for me to make my voice lighter so that I pronounce things better, but I'm getting better.
As far as food goes, we haven't ventured out too much yet. We did try their danishes and coffee and it was delicious. We may try the street food tomorrow.
Today, went much better than yesterday. We were able to find a plug adapter for my pc, a switcher box for the internet, and a really, really long ethernet cable that stretches from Christina's room to mine. So, it's been a successful day, and I also need to pay a special tak to my Aunt Karen and Uncle Steve who bought me these wonderful thermals! They've been wonderful in this freezing weather. It's not unbearable, but you definitely have to layer up your clothing here. I mean a tank, shirt, maybe another shirt, jacket, scarf, ear muffs, gloves, leggings, jeans, boots, and socks keeps me warm enough. It's kind of difficult to live in a cold environment, because you walk into stores and they are kept very warm. So you are constantly layering and unlayering throughout the day.
Oh yea, it's kind of funny that they put the two Americans together in the same room but also two tiny Americans. Christina is the same size as me! So, tomorrow we'll be searching for an Ikea to buy a stool so that we can see in the mirror in our bathroom :) We might also be buying our bikes! I have a feeling I'll be coming home in great shape. It's about a 20 min. bike ride to school, well so we've heard. I can't wait for the semester to begin and meet more people. We've already met so many, especially since our apartment is host to many international students. On our way home tonight we met a group from Madrid, Spain. We're planning on meeting up with them later tonight. It's just so cool to be around so many different cultures.
My first trip has been planned. Christina and I are meeting a couple other students in our program in Copenhagen. We'll probably leave Monday by train and return Wednesday or Thursday. We'll definitely come back in time to get prepared for school, which starts Jan. 31st!

A walk along the North Sea harbor

I included a few pictures of the apartment as well as the deer we fed near the harbor. Yes, our entire bathroom floor is also the shower floor. Thank goodness for flip flops!

Today we woke up and performed our new ritual of taking the bus into town for a danish and coffee. Both are quite delicious here. I tried a chocolate one today and it tasted like heaven! Then, we met our new Lithuanian friends who took us for a walk along the harbor. After half an hour or so they asked if we wanted to feed bambis. Of course! So, we met two other students in our program at the train station and walked to the beach. The deer seem much smaller here. It was very weird for them not to be skiddish. One of them backed his but into me kinda like Buddy, I guess he wanted it scratched. So, I obliged ha.

Partying Lithuanian style

Last night was very interesting. I just love how easy it is making friends here. Everytime we get off at our bus stop it seems we are making friends from all over the world. A group from Madrid arrived yesterday. They are attending the business school. So before we met left to meet Carolina, we stopped by their place because they live very close. At that point it was so cool because we could understand a little bit of their Spanish when they'd go back and forth between English and it. They were just moving in but we may be touring in the city with them soon. They also gave us some really helpful tips about where to visit when we travel to Spain. They said if we go to Barcelona, wait til it warms up, and if we go to Madrid, don't take the train. Little things like that are going to be very helpful. I think the one thing we really want to do now is make friends with a Dane. We need someone to tell us the rules of biking, tip or don't tip, and things like that.
Well we were supposed to meet our German friend Carolina at the bus stop yesterday and go to our first Danish bar in the city. I guess she left before we got there though. Then, we started to realize as we were walking around the kollegiet that there were quite a bit of parties. We actually ended up stumbling upon a birthday party. A guy holding a sword invited us after talking to us outside for a while. Turns out everyone was Lithuanian at this party. There was also a folk dancer... oh and a guy from Madrid who knew card tricks. Although he wasn't as good as my friend from home. It was about like any other college party though besides the different languages we were hearing.
We've also noticed everyone listens to American music. They say everything else sucks. After a couple of hours we left. Christina is african/african-american, and one of the cute Lithuanians all of the sudden started asking where she was from and announced himself as a racist. I wasn't even in the conversation, but I quickly turned around when I heard him say he hated asians, jews, africans, and muslims. However, he kept saying he didn't hate her because she was cute and nice. We were both shocked to experience something like that so early during this experience and in Denmark too. After he left we asked his friend if racism was common in Lithuania and he said unfortunately yes, but more so to Africans, not african-americans. Which is weird, I think that may be reversed in the states. He said not everyone feels that way, especially not him and his friend. It's terrible to hear that kind of hatred, but I guess as Kim said I guess you're going to meet a few assholes no matter where you travel to.
Today we are planning on meeting Eddie and Justin in the city. They are going to show us around since they have been studying here for about 2 or 3 years now. I think they're taking us to the harbor as well.

Dinner with Wendy

Last night, Christina and I had dinner with Wendy from the Netherlands. She prepared spaghetti for us in her dorm 135. We're 139; so we're very close! Dinner was amazing and her apartment looks much more homey than ours. Her parents drove her down here to help her move in, and she was able to pack quite a bit more. She had extra furniture, candles, lamps... we'll definitely be hanging over at her place more often than ours. Her roommate Marije (pronounced similar to Mariah) is from the Netherlands also. So when she moves in they'll probably have even more of a home.

Dinner was so interesting talking about religion, politics, cultures, and diversity with her. Even Christina and I differed in many of our views being from different parts of America. I also had to introduce them to a few southern words... including "piddlefartin' around" and "pole cat." If you think of other ones let me know. Those just came to me first for some odd reason. Christina says many Californians say "hella" instead of "a lot." Wendy on the other hand was teaching us their language which sounds a lot like your haucking up a phlegm ball. (sp? on hauck?)

After dinner Wendy brought out some Dutch snacks. Black liquorice is very popular there. Now, I don't like any kind of liquorice in the states, but I knew I should try it. Well, my face was probably very horrible.... I'm sorry but it was disgusting! In the form of a jelly cough drop, not even the twisted straw. Then, I chased it down with a Dutch stroopwafel. Now that was delicious! Here's a picture.

It had a cinnamon taste inside. It was very good. We will definitely be buying more of those at the grocery next time. So, then... she taught us a German card game, well we think it's German called Ligretto. It was a lot of fun once we figured it all out. Ligretto is very similar to Speed. Maybe I'll be able to order the game online once I come home.