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.

Wonderful Copenhagen!

Copenhagen was the perfect destination for our first little excursion. We left Wednesday morning by train, no plans at all for what we wanted to do or see, we just knew we wanted to go see something! The train ride was very neat. I think we may have went through a channel at one point underwater. It was about a three hour trip, and we got to see the Baltic sea!

When we arrived, our first mission was to check in at our hostel. Most of you who know me well, know that I do not handle smells very well. Smoke, bubblegum, berries, and B.O. can make me gag. Well, that is the one thing that I've got to get over if we keep staying in hostels. We stayed in 2 different ones this time because we wanted a room with all girls and neither hostel had both nights available for two. The first one was filled with 4 girls from Spain, who'd practically moved in....and apparently not showered. The second one goes along with a funny story. We loved this hostel minus the fact that it didn't offer a complimentary breakfast like the other. It was colorful and hip and very clean. However, when we checked in and went to our room, we were overcome with the smell of fart! Christina says really loudly, "It smells like a fart in here," just as a girl raises her head on one of the beds. Needless to say we thought the room was empty whoops! By the time we returned that night the fart smell had passed and so had nocturnal fart girl. Seriously, who sleeps at 2pm in a Copenhagen hostel! Anways our first experience with hostels has been basically you get what you pay for. It's a bed for the night and a shower/toilet. That's all you need for quick trips anyways. $56 for two nights!

The street food was very good! Danes put this special yellow sauce on everything (bread, hotdogs, smorebrodd, meat...). It's wonderful! They also put whole pickles on my hotdog, which now that I think about sounds not so weird compared to relish ha!

We spent the first day exploring, and then, we met up with Hugo and Rosalie. Hugo is from Montreal, Canada. He's studying abroad for the whole year. Last semester he studied stereotypes in the media. So, he was there visiting his peers from last semester that now have internships in Copenhagen. They were able to show us around Friday night to several bars in the city. Here's where my smell issue comes up again. I can't stand how smoky all the bars are here. You come out smelling like an ash tray, and it seeps in your hair, clothes, everything! We went into one place that made my throat burn. Still, the Danes are fun, and they taught us a cool drinking game called The Little Maya. It didn't make since til I played it a few times, but I think we'll have it mastered it soon.

Saturday, we were able to buy this pass that got us in to 6 different museums for only $12 total. It was a one time deal only offered in January. How convenient for us! We ended up visiting 4 including the Thorvaldsens Musuem dedicated to a danish man's art and sculptures, the Theatre Museum where we saw a rehearsal show, the Castle Ruins underneath Christiansborg Palace, and then finally, Christiansborg Palace. We also checked out the National Museum where we discovered Romboller in the cafe. I guess you can tell we are definitely doing the whole eat, pray, love thing. It was sooooo good, and very filling. I wrapped mine up to go and ate on that thing a few times before finishing it. I think it's a rum ball of some sort that is very popular here. Granted, that's not all we saw at the museum. We got to see a real viking braid. They'd chopped a vikings hair and tied it just like you see it in the movies. That was pretty neat to see upclose.

We finished Saturday with a trip far away from downtown to see the Little Mermaid! She's actually been in Asia for a while getting her head glued back on. It's still so weird to see the beach and it be frozen, or covered with snow. I keep asking myself why I didn't go to Austrailia or Chile or someplace warm. Then, I remember I'm going to be able to travel Europe for 4 months! Plus, the TV course is supposed to be ballin'. The interns we met had taken it before and said it improved their skills tremendously. How could it not going from 9-4pm everyday with no lectures. It's all hands on with projects around the city and other countries. I'm so excited for school!! Ok back to Copenhagen...

Sunday, we woke up very early to see the harbor before we left. You know the place where if you Google Image Copenhagen the canal pictures pop up. Well, now I've got my own! The water was frozen solid though. A chair was sticking half out of it!

Copenhagen treated us well, and I can't wait to go back again when it's warmer. Strolling along their main pedestrian street Stroget (I can't character map that special o with the line through into blogger so excuse the misspelled Danish words) would've been much more relaxing in some warmth. Instead we kinda powerwalked among it. We'll definitely be returning in March for a longer stroll. We have this theory that the cold makes people more productive. We got so much done in 2 days because of our pace. When it's freezing outside you see what you need to see and keep moving! Maybe it works both ways... does the hot sun not just make you thirsty, tired, and lazy. We also figured maybe this is why danes eat such a hearty lunch. Their dinner is smaller and lunch becomes the biggest meal of the day.

One three hour train ride later, and I'm glad to be back in my new Danish home! 3 days was the perfect amount of time for us to get our feet wet and ready to start traveling the rest of Europe. Our next trip will tentatively be a combo of the Netherlands and Germany.

The list begins

I'm a listmaker, so of course I've started making lists since I arrived in Aarhus. I've been keeping track now of what I miss from home, and then what I love about being here. Both are pretty short now, but here's what I got so far.

I love... Kvickly! As seen in the picture, it's a massive grocery chain here with the cheapest food we've found yet! Ok NOW to the list.

1. The bread and the golden pretzel sign that represents bakeries. Seriously, the bread here has to be the best I've ever tasted.

2. The people are very friendly and so helpful. All you have to do is ask. Most are very reserved, but as soon as you flash a smile and say Hej!, well it's like being in the south again :)

3. Stroopwafels, romboller, gross liquorice, street food, and basically the principle of being introduced to new foods. I appreciate all of them even if I don't like it, which has only happened twice. Once with the liquorice, and once with the first bottle of juice we bought. We had to pour 3/4 water in it to make it taste remotely like juice....very syrupy! Later we found a bottle that said mild.

4. The cobblestone roads. I love them; however, after a long walk it starts to feel like your feet are receiving a deep tissue massage. Once in a while a step can really hurt!

5. All the buildings have so much character.

6. Downtown. I've never really lived in a city before. Being downtown is exciting and always so full of life. I'm not sure if that's how most downtowns are or just this one in particular, but I really do love it at this point in my life.

7. The opportunity. I am so thankful for this experience. I'm learning new things and adapting so quickly each day. I'm feel myself becoming more independent everyday. Being an international student has allowed me a unique opportunity to explore cultures from Denmark, as well as many other countries around the world. For example, I love listening to the sounds of the Singapore girls in the unit above me. They play music all day and sing too really relaxing beats too.

Sure there are going to be luxuries of America that I miss also. So far, the lists seem to be pretty well balanced though.

I miss... not having to wear shower shoes!

1. My car! I love driving my car around town. Not being able to drive and taking the bus or biking everywhere could make for a pretty long, cold February.

2. Diet Sun drop/ Diet Dr. Pepper. I wasn't too surprised by no Diet Sun drop, but I was hoping they'd have the Diet Dr. Pepper. No such luck. It doesn't really matter though. Their cokes taste different anyways. Much sweeter. Diet coke is sweeter than Coke zero here.

3. Warm weather. Granted, it's actually about the same here as it has been at home.... around 32 degrees. But it's starting to warm up at home, and not here. Apparently, February is the coldest month.

4. I miss my friends and family. Keeping a blog, along with Skyping has helped so much though.

5. Not converting money, degrees, wattage, or voltage all the time.

And that's all for the list now. Tomorrow I have to show you my new bike! Took it home today, and I love it :)

Inspired on the 1st day

Today was the first day of school, and Christina and I were nothing short of ecstatic. It felt like the first day of Kindergarten. We met our friends at the bus stop at 9:05 and took a snapshot. Well I let the photojournalists do it. I'll post their pics as soon as they've posted them on Facebook. They are all so talented. The majority of our group living together are in the TV course or the photo one. It's a really good mix. People come from Canada, Germany, Egypt, Minnesota, California, Holland, Latvia, Slovakia Republic, Nepal, London, Sweden, Portugal, Australia and Missouri. That's only to name the ones I live next to. I believe there are over 25 countries represented here at the Danish School of Media and Journalism.

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But our small group has decided to do something very special to set ourselves apart. We will be producing our own side project during the semester aimed for prospective international students at DSMJ. There will be a short film as well as a website featuring anything a student could possibly want to know about what to expect from the program, the city, and the entire experience abroad. We've decided to meet every Wednesday to add onto our project. It's very exciting to dive into journalism and producing again. Having such a long break was making me crave school again... or at least some kind of project so as not to forget any of the skills I've learned over the past 3 years.

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Working with such talented people from all around the world will be such an amazing learning experience, and I cannot wait to get this project started.

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Today was a very short day, but definitely inspiring. The teachers introduced the programs, teaching methods and took us on a tour of the campus. This school is probably the size of Tullahoma High School...maybe smaller. For once, I'm not too worried about getting lost. When the teacher spoke, he reminded me so much of previous teachers like Dr. Sawyer and Bernardo who inspired me from the very beginning to become a journalist. While I'm studying here I want to reach my greatest potential. I want to learn different views and methods. I want to become well-rounded and frankly, I want to set myself miles apart from the other students in my graduating class looking for jobs out of college. I feel like I'm in the best place I can be to learn how to achieve that type of success. Being here has made me consider possibly working as an international journalist someday.

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It's so interesting that with every student I meet, we may come from opposite sides of the world and have entirely different opinions and beliefs, but we are the same. We chose to come to DSMJ, out from our comfort zones, to learn how to be better journalists. My semester has just begun, but today, I feel sure that I've made one of the best decisions of my life coming here. I could not be happier.

Wow these Danes sure do work hard/ PLAY HARD!

Today was so much fun. I worked on my first TV assignment with Kim from Toronto and Thorsten from Denmark. We worked really well together and had a lot of fun shooting with such new and light equipment. Our assignment was to shoot a 30 second segment in the TV technician room. Talk about a boring room. However we managed to spice it up a bit :) Check it out! www.vimeo.com/19560943

So afterward, we finished around one thirty. Ate lunch around noon. Friday bar, which is a bar in the basement of the school began at two pm. Oh goodness! People drank for 12 hours, no supper in between. We even threw a trip downtown in there somewhere. It was crazy how the Danes could throw a party. I mean that place was bumping at 3pm in the afternoon!!

It was so much fun though! I made a lot of new friends, and I can't wait to finish partying the rest of the weekend with them... and then get back to work and meet our teacher!!

Friday Bar!

My new international friends at Friday Bar.

From left to right: Rui(Portugal), Marieke(Belgium), Zach(Kenya),

Robert(Sweden), Nate(Minnesota), and Kristin(pronounced Christine, from Slovak Republic).

You can't see it very well, but there are portraits drawn all over the walls of prominent people that graduated from DSMJ.

Today is one of the few sunny days we've had in a while. I'm very excited to fix our bike settings and go for a ride.

TV Class is going well

I'm loving class. We have a lot of short breaks during the day. Christina and I have almost watched half of last night's The Bachelor.

Sunday, we made a trip to Ikea...I've never been before! It's set up like a maze, so that you have to view the whole entire store before you exit. They also have a restaurant in the very beginning to lure you in with their exceptionally cheap prices. Best thing is... we now have tupperware!! No more ziplock lunches :)

Tonight Christina and I ate with our bus friends, Maria and Bea from Madrid. I attempted to make Mom's poppyseed chicken; however, I was unable to find poppyseed, cream of chicken, or Ritz in the Danish grocery stores. So, I improvised. It tasted ok. I burnt the rice a tad, and I think the cream of mushroom I used was actually a soup that contained some type of Caesar dressing flavor. I did ok with the buttered cracker topping and the actual chicken though. I guess you're never going to get it perfect the first try. But they all seemed to like it. I guess since I was the only one who knew what it was supposed to taste like, I was the only disappointed one.

We have received our 1st TV assignment due the 16th. I'll be sure to post our final copy here. It must be a profile of someone. We have 2 ideas right now, and we will decide tomorrow once we get all the information on both sources. One is to do it on a local Zumba instructor. Another is to do it on a chef participating in a cake decorating competition. Either one will have great visuals. So, I'm excited to get my hands dirty. I want to get better at shooting, so I need lots of practice. I've been watching Man vs. Food episodes to get ideas for camera angles and shots. I think I'm developing a real knack for the producing side of things. I the planning and research of assignments. Constructing the idea, angle, fascination, making calls, networking, and basically producing the story. That's probably my favorite part, which makes me feel good that I'm starting to see those key skills in myself. Don't get me wrong, I want to learn how to be a better videographer, and be more advanced in Final Cut Pro. However, I don't see myself becoming a photographer or editor in the future. It's good to be well-rounded and have that skill set anyways. You never know when you'll need them.


A side note to Tommy, or whoever taught me the wrong pronounciation of this word... Everyone keeps making fun of me anytime I say the word "naked." Apparently, I'm saying "nekid." Sounds the same to me, but oh well. They're just going to have to deal with a little southern drawl.

Danes sure do LOVE Fridays

So I wanted to post a short video from our Pub Crawl. I documented the entire night, but the movie was too large to post, and the clip ending up taking an eternity to load also. I'll try to upload the Youtube link once it has loaded.

We went to 5 bars including Peter Gift, Pub 'ens, Hunter's, Drop Inn, and finished the night at Heidi's... a bar/club. It was a lot of fun, but you could tell they took us to the cheapest bars they could find. Our mentors Mette and Niklas led the crawl.
I think this Friday, Kristin from Slovak Republic wins the award for Most Entertaining.

Saturday was so beautiful and sunny outside, yet so very cold. Christina and I used the day for exercising. She went on a run, and I popped in an Insanity workout.

Later, we made a massive grocery shopping list and headed out around 6pm. We forgot everything closes early on the weekends here. Something to add to the "Things I Miss" list... stores that are open 24 hrs. So we get off the bus, realize we're too late, then hear a loud crash. We look over our heads and someone has chucked a grocery cart off of the bridge above us. Then, we hear four police cars rush by. It's not very well lit, and it doesn't take us long for us to realize we're not in the best part of town. On weekends, the bus only comes twice every hour. We decide to walk to the next bus stop. Along the way a chain of cars pull up honking a tune together, we pass several shady looking loners, and finally arrive at the first sign of a lit up restaurant. Pizza didn't sound bad, so we ordered the typical Danish pizza (Shwarma pizza) complete with Shwarma meat, salad dressing, and lettuce. Then, we notice the windows out of the restaurant have been broken. Three more ambulance and fire trucks drove by also.

So we passed the time eating and headed to the next bus stop. Man, was it far away! Definitely, the longest we've had to walk in between a bus stop. The bus arrived 10 minutes later and we finally made it home safe :)

Today, was a very productive day. Kim, Thorsten, and I worked used our access card to get in to school, just to have a head start on editing. For the next two days, we don't really have school. It's just time to work on our project. So we've agreed to sleep in an extra hour this week :). But we accomplished quite a bit today in just a few hours. We've now written our voice over and arranged the sound bites and produced a really good profile of Chef Kristensen. I think he'd be pleased. Tomorrow all we really have to do is just match the video to our sound, then spend Tuesday fine tuning everything to hopefully achieve one of the rare "A"s our teacher hands out. She believes nothing is perfect or worthy of an A. What a load of hog wash! Why make the letter A if you're not going to believe in them. I guess it really doesn't matter. My grades only transfer as pass fails, but I still like to be the best. That's what I'll be aiming for this semester.

It's hard to believe that I'll have been here a whole month this weekend. Speaking of this weekend!! I am so excited to travel to Berlin with Marieke & Kim. Hugo from Canada is making us a list of things to see and do. I've also been reading Samantha Brown's travel guides. Time is really flying here.

Virus scare

<--Kristin and I at one of the bars Friday.

So, last night was pretty awful! I could not sleep one bit. I was in the middle of watching a How I Met Your Mother rerun on my laptop, when all of the sudden, my computer started taunting me... LITERALLY. It said, "You have a virus, You have a virus." I unplugged it, and shut it down immediately. Worried about it all night long, and continued that in the morning. I did better than I usually would've I just kept reminding myself that I'd had a virus like it before and was able to fix it then, so I could surely fix it this time. I was very paranoid about making it worse though, so I waited until I got to school. I went to the IT department, but he said the school couldn't help and to try a store called Fona. Thankfully, Thorsten knew what to do when I brought it to class. Two hours later and the AntiVirus 2011 Virus was off my computer.

Then, time to get to work on our assignment. I was too stressed in the morning to think about it yet. We wrote and voiced our voice overs, and started matching video to audio today. It's kind of funny, while reading over our lines, we were trying out different accents. I've got the National Geographic hunting in the wild voice down pretty good! My British isn't so bad either. I always have the urge to use it over here. I'm slowly developing my Danish one also. It's a work in progress :)

Do snow days not exist here??

Woke up this morning feeling sick from all this cold weather. Yeps, definitely under the weather. **yeps** is common danish slang.

Last night was a new accomplishment for me. I was able to find the right bus by myself, and the connecting one to get to where I was going all by myself in the middle of a snow storm. Thank God for my eskimo jacket. Once I arrived, Kai, Bart & Anouk treated me to Dutch pancakes for supper. They made bacon, cheese, apple, and then regular ones. It looked pretty simple to me. Throw whatever you want in your pancake on the skillet, pour the batter over it. Then, flip. The bacon one was very good, I highly recommend you try it!

Then, off to the Studenthouse party where Kai and I were supposed to meet everyone. Apparently, they were scared off by the snow though. So we stayed for a while and then, off to my next challenge.... catching the new set of buses home. Luckily, I ran into my bus friend from Italy at the party. She told me what to do and pointed me in the right direction. So, we're back in the sideways snow, which is now half way up my shins. I make it off the first bus ok. Waiting at the next stop was brutal. It was a 15 min. wait that felt like an hour. I made a new friend while waiting though. Nick goes to Bloomington in Indiana and he's in Aarhus getting his masters in religous studies and theory. He was nice enough to take bus 14 with me and walk me home through the forest. 14 is closer than 15, but I never take it at night because I hate walking it alone. You have to walk through a dark tunnel also. In the snow... well that was a funny sight too. So, we get off the bus at Skjoldhoj and I start running home.... had to pee! I stopped in our grocery/bar area but the snow was so high I missed the door step up and did a sort of dance slide on my knees into the hallway. No one saw :P

Now, I wake up and the whole entire dorm complex is covered!! It comes up to my knees in some areas, but Danes aren't stopped by the snow like Tennesseans. The buses still run, cars still drive, and would you believe the bikers still bike!! They are hard core. I'm so glad I bought a bus pass for February. It really was fascinating to see so much activity and bustling around on such a snowy day. Usually, I think of hot chocolate, a warm blanket, and a fire place on snow days.... maybe the occasional snowman building or snowball fight. But it was like any other day for the Danes. I will have to keep getting adjusted to this Scandinavian weather.

Dankschen Berlin!

We skipped school Thursday afternoon and began our journey to Berlin! I think our teacher, Kate, wanted to come with us. She just told us to book a later train ticket next time... but this was the cheapest one!

So we made the 7 hour train ride to Hamburg then Berlin and found a hostel for the night. It ended up being a wonderful hostel too. Heart of Gold was its name. We got free linens, breakfast, and internet. Plus, the employees were able to help us with our restaurant and bar picking for the next few days.

Friday morning we checked in at the Holiday Inn Express which was pretty cozy for 3 people. We were able to push the twin beds together to make it work. We also had to be extra stealthy about sneaking in a third person into a two person reservation. They are pretty strict about that in Europe apparently. We did it though :) Once again, the breakfast was complimentary, so that was nice! We started packing lunches from the breakfast bar, so that we really only ended up paying for suppers while in Germany. Got to save where you can. The beer was good, of course. It was very cold there though!! We spent the entire Friday exploring the sites and walking everywhere.

Now, I'm not a big museum fan, but I went ahead and paid for the Museum Isle hopper just to be in the warmth for a couple hours. We saw so much! The Berlin Wall (or what's left of it), the Memorial of the Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery (a portion of the wall that you're allowed to write on... which I did!), Mitte, the TV tower, Checkpoint Charlie, Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Berliner Dom, Reichstag, Pergamon Museum, Museuminsel, Brandenburg Gate.... the list goes on forever! We saw pretty much everything we could fit into one weekend.

Saturday, we took a tour of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I was amazed at how being on the site gave me such a nearer perspective of what it must've been like. Here I was in 4 layers freezing cold. I couldn't even feel my fingers or toes. Then, the guide said prisoners would be out there in weather 20 degrees colder, starving, and some without shoes. We saw the gas chamber rooms, the operating rooms where they conducted human experiments, some of the torturing devices, as well as their rooms. I couldn't believe the kind of unsanitary living conditions they were in. Three would share one bed in a bunk 3 stories high. That's 9 people to a bunk bed. If they didn't fold their sheets at a right angle in the morning they'd be punished. They only had 45 minutes in the morning to use the bathroom. That's their only bathroom break all day. So if the person from the top messes up the right angle of the bed getting down, the person on the bottom gets punished. It was just so terrible to think about. I also didn't about the ranks of the prisoners. I just assumed they were all treated about the same I guess. But there were levels. Jews, homosexuals, and Eastern-Europeans fell to the bottom of the ranks. Professional criminals and Germans often received more bread rations, maybe didn't have to share a bunk, and received a wool jacket sometimes. Granted, these prisoners were subject to the beatings also. They just had a little bit better sanitary conditions to live in, I suppose. I also never thought about the guards, and how they are human too. How could they do that to people? But unless they wanted to be imprisoned too, they had to follow orders and constantly raised the cruelty levels in order to not be seen as weak or showing compassion. Heidi, our tour guide, told us often it was worse to be sent to a death camp than a labor camp. I never had thought about that either. It was really an eye opening day for me. Despite the unbearable cold I really enjoyed learning more about the Holocaust and seeing a more upclose view of what things must've been like.

Kim had a fun night on her own Saturday. She planned to go check out a local pub, while Marieke and I stayed in and tried to get better. (I was sick the whole trip, with a cold+fever). Well, Kim walks in the door, and all eyes are on her. She orders a beer, quickly followed by a free round of champagne for everyone. She's surprised when a guy asks her where she's from, because she's the only one he doesn't know there. Turns out Kim had walked in on a private 25th birthday party! They all got a kick out of it. She met the birthday boy and made it home safe and sound with one heck of a story! Not many people can say they've crashed a German party before!

Sunday, the sun came out, and I was so happy! Granted, it was still super cold, but the sun at least made it look warmer. We started the day in Mitte, a shopping area with lots of good food, jewelry, knick knacks, and fire hazards! Then Kim pulled another crazy stunt when she went to warm her hands by the bon fire. Marieke looked and said, "Kim your gloves are so tan." I then realized her gloves were on fire and yelled for her to clap it out lol. Now she has two toasted marshmellows for gloves, including some holes too! Ahh Kim haha.

We spent our last night in Berlin at a cozy bar called Alt Berliner WeiBbierstuben where I tried a traditional German meal. A Berliner Pilsner, currywurst, fries, and salad. It was pretty delicious I must say.

We got back to Denmark today after a 2 hour delayed train!! The good thing is we may be getting a refund for our train ticket. We're filing the paper work this week.

Assignment 1- René Kristensen

Get ready to be fascinated by food!!

Heavy Cake Table - René Kristensen from Lauren Smith on Vimeo.

A trip to the sperm bank

Yep, you read the title right. Last week, I was attending a massive cake festival, and this week I'm off to the world's largest sperm bank. I love journalism! I'm discovering something else about myself too. I love to learn. Who knew?! After enduring long, boring lectures of gen. ed. classes the first couple years of college, I never thought I'd say that I love to learn. But I think it is at the root of my love for journalism. It's fascinating. Last week, we profiled a chef. I learned all about this cool heavy cake table event that is actually an annual Danish tradition.

This week we are doing a story at the world's largest sperm bank, conveniently located here in Aarhus, Denmark. Today we went to Cryos sperm bank to set up a time for an interview. We originally planned on finding a donor to talk to and find out what motivates so many students to donate. They can get paid up to 500 kr ($100) each time they donate depending on the quantity and quality of their sperm. Students make up the largest portion of donors here. When we talked to the director, we decided to change our angle though. He started explaining how the laws are different from country to country, and how there is a big grey market for sperm donations across the world. Many rules only apply to doctors, so midwives or the mothers can bend the rules easily for single parents or lesbians. There's a lot of information here, and I can't wait to produce our story next week.

I'm really enjoying classes and finding stories that hook people's curiosities from the start just like they do mine. Once, the story hooks you, the tricky part is keeping people from grabbing the remote and flipping the channel. You have to keep their interest up for the entire package or show or whatever you're producing. It is a challenge I welcome for our next assignment.

Kate, our teacher, is AWESOME. Last night was our big class dinner at Kate's house where we all prepared a dish from our country. I made fried apricot pies because there are no peaches right now. I was really excited to visit a real Danish home. She has the cutest dog! I miss Fergie and Buddy. Juliet and I became buds last night though. We ate around 8pm, but didn't leave until after 11pm! There was wine, beer, dancing , an enormous amount of food and endless conversation. It was funny. Around 10pm, we started to leave... then, Kate turns up some music and insists we all stay and dance. How cool is that! It was good music too.
p.s. I made 22 pies. They must've been good, because there were no left overs at the end of the night :)

The weeks are flying by... only 95 days til I'm back home

We sure are having a good time over here. I love all of our weekly get togethers and parties! We have such a strong community not just in Skjoldhoj, but with our TV class too.

This week has flown by so quickly. I'm afraid they will all be speeding up very soon, because we just keep getting busier both with school and our social lives.

Thursday, my friend from Tennessee came to visit me! Brian is studying abroad in Germany this semester until July. But his housing doesn't start 'til March 1st. Fortunately, for him, Wendy lent us a massive air mattress. So he'll have a home in Aarhus 'til Tuesday. I went to meet him at the train station at 3pm. Then, he texts me that the Germans are striking, and he wouldn't be there 'til 9pm. He had quite a long day! Not long enough to stop us from going out to the Skjoldhoj Bar for Karaoke night though. I will have Vanessa Carlton's "Thousand Miles" stuck in my head for a little while now.

Yesterday was a very exciting day for Christina and I. Not only did we find the best store ever, Bilka... but Kim discovered Allrecipes.com for us. We've been putting "skillet" in the search ending and finding all sorts of new things to try in our mini (only 2 stove eyes to work with) kitchenette. Last night, we prepared Chicken Marsalla. It was restaurant worthy for sure :)

Not going to lie, when we discovered Bilka (a combination between the new Kroger Markets, Target, a liquor store, and Bed Bath & Beyond)... we were pretty frustrated with our mentors Niklas and Mette. They just dropped us in the middle of the city centre, said good luck, and pointed us to our bus stop. We ran around that center for 2 days finding everything. All that time, we could have just gone to one store and gotten everything we could possibly need for dirt cheap. Plus, it's only a 15 min. walk from where we live. I know one thing is for sure. If I have the opportunity to be a peer mentor for international students when I come back, I'll put in more effort than these guys. I guess 50 students can keep 2 people busy and all... but come on!

Last night, we went to Robert's house to enjoy drinks and snacks at Robert's apartment...which by the way is soooo much nicer than the unit we live in. All the Swedes decided to find their own housing instead of letting the university do it for them. That might have been a wise choice although I am glad we're kind of all here together. Robert's was really fun. I tried a new wine that comes from tree sap. I seriously felt like I'd licked the bark off a tree when I sipped it! It was very unique, and I still can't decide if I liked it or not.

The preparty was a big hit, but then it was off to school! See there was a Danish band playing in our cantina. It's still so weird to me to see people drinking and dancing inside of our school. It was like they'd turned our cafeteria into a club. Except not many people were dancing. For some reason they wrote "Tigermis" on our hands. Apparently, our phrase "I thought I saw a pussycat" They have one referring to a Tiger, hence the "Tigermis." I still don't understand why they wrote that on our hands, but this morning I woke up with it smeared across my face... grrreat.

Today, is another big interview. We have our case study today at 2pm with a lesbian couple that was inseminated and now have a child from an anonymous donor. Monday, we'll be all done with our shooting and on to editing and writing. Before you know it I'll be in Oslo working on our next assignment! We're hoping for polar bears... we'll see if we can make something happen.

P.S. Booked my tickets to Barcelona!! We will be enjoying the many tapas bars and sangria the first weekend of April. Can't wait to go somewhere warm!