so you’re probably curious what the big change is… but first, the rest of my week! Once again, I took forever to update, so this is going to be a LONG one!
Last Tuesday was nothing special… I just worked out and then relaxed at night because I had two field studies on Wednesday!
My first field study was Wednesday morning, and it was for the Muslims in the West class. I had to be at school by 9am so we could walk to the Muslim private school together, so I woke up early so I could get ready in time. When I was eating my breakfast, I got a text from Gabi, who lives about an hour from the city, telling me to let our teacher know that she was going to be late because her train wasn’t running. Apparently there was a snow storm going on, which I didn’t know because I hadn’t looked outside yet. Thankfully my apartment is close to school and I just take the bus, so I had no problem getting there on time.
Our walk to the Muslim school took about 20 minutes, and looked like this:
That is one of the artificial lakes in Copenhagen, and it was the first time I had actually seen snow covering the ground here!
Our visit to the Muslim school was pretty interesting. It began with a presentation by one of the English teachers who is a Dane that has converted to Islam. He told us that the school has about 400 students, and all of them are Muslim, although that is not a requirement to go there. About 40% of the teachers are Danes, and most of the Danish teachers do not practice Islam. The school teaches kids from the age of around 5 to 9th graders (if I remember correctly). The students are given the opportunity to pray during the day, but they don’t have to. The students learn English, French, and Arabic, and everything else is taught in Danish. Then we went to a classroom for the youngest children, they were probably around 5 or 6-years-old, and none of them speak English yet, so they just kind of stared at us all wide-eyed. Their teacher had them sing a kids song in Danish for us, and it was really cute.
My favorite part of the visit was when we visited a classroom of 9th graders. We got the chance to ask each other questions, and I was really surprised about how open and excited they were to talk to us. One of the goals of the school is to lessen extremists views, so they visit a lot of other schools in Denmark to teach tolerance, etc. The students told us that they day before they went to Jewish private school, and some of them said they really liked talking to the other students and it didn’t seem weird at all, but some of them said they could feel a tension with the Jewish students. They were also shocked that the Jewish school had cameras everywhere and metal detectors, and a lot of the American students in my class laughed because there are a lot of big schools in the US that have that too! One of the Muslim students asked us if we watch Jersey Shore, which is pretty embarrassing. I hope they don’t think most Americans actually act like that! A lot of the students said they liked going to a Muslim private school because they felt like a big family, and they all had their religion in common. They said it was more comfortable because people weren’t always asking them questions about why they were doing something, like wearing a head scarf or eating a certain food. Not all of the girls wore head scarves though; it is completely the choice of the family and not the school at all. They also said that they hang out with non-Muslim Danes in extra-curricular activities and that it is not weird to be around them at all.
Overall it was a very fun and informative visit, and our teacher asked us what we would do if we were Muslims in Denmark and had to send our children to school… would we send them to public school or to a Danish private school? We all had mixed answers, but I think I would put my child in a Danish public school because there is a huge perception in Denmark that Muslims do not want to integrate into Danish society. I think children are less aware of cultural differences, and by having them make friends when they are young, they would be more tolerant in the future. I will never be placed in that situation though, so it’s hard to say exactly what I’d do.
My next visit was to Rosenborg castle, and unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures :( I was sad because we saw some cool stuff! However, I did find some pictures on Google, and clicking on the picture takes you to the source.
Rosenborg Castle was built as the summer house of Christian IV, and it used to be located in the country before Copenhagen expanded into the larger city it is today. We got a tour of the Royal Collections by a great tour guide! The collections house many items from the Danish royal family, such as jewelry (some of which the Queen still wears!), swords, and crowns!
Below is the crown of Christian IV, which was only worn during coronation ceremonies. It is extremely intricate, and it was made in 1595 by a Dane in Odense, Denmark.
One of the weirdest things we saw was a pair of earrings that Christian VI had made for his wife, and the weird part is that they were made from metal pieces that punctured his eye during a war. He was kind of obsessed with preserving his legacy, so he made sure that a lot of his things were protected for the future.
Anyway, after our lovely visit to the castle, we went to a coffee shop with our teacher. I had a cappuccino and talked with a few girls from class for awhile about their living situations and things they have done in Copenhagen so far. It seems like everyone formed their group of friends pretty quickly at DIS, so it was nice to talk to other people because we don’t get a lot of time to do that in class. It’s also difficult to meet other DIS students now when everyone lives in different housing situations and all over the city/outlying areas. Also, a lot of people already knew other students from their home universities, so many of them hang out together at DIS, obviously. It was kind of weird being the only Iowa student coming here because it is such a huge university, and the schools that send a lot of their students are really small liberal arts colleges. Gabi comes from a really small college, so it’s funny hearing about how different it is than Iowa… it sounds more like my high school the way everyone knows everyone else, or at least recognizes everyone on campus.
Ok that was a little off topic… on Thursday, I had my first quiz in my Danish class. Thankfully it was only a written quiz, so I thought it was pretty easy. I picked up Spanish pretty well, but the one thing I struggle with in Danish is pronunciation! In Spanish, everything looks exactly how it sounds, but in Danish, it is impossible. I feel like they don’t pronounce half of the letters that are in the word, but I am slowly learning. On Thursday night I had a meeting for my Public Health in Northern Europe class. We talked about our long study tour to Finland and Estonia (which is on Sunday already!!!!), and we watched a documentary about Estonia while we ate free sandwiches :) The documentary was really informative, and it actually got me a lot more excited about our trip. I knew absolutely nothing about Estonia until I watched the documentary, but I was amazed how they fought for their freedom against the Soviet Union without violence. It was pretty inspiring! I was also surprised how recently they gained their independence… I was actually alive. I don’t want to tell everything we are doing yet on our trip, but I promise I will have exciting recaps!
On Friday, I had two classes, then I went shopping and worked out with Gabi. While we were walking in the city, we saw a bunch of people holding Danish flags and then we saw a bunch of military people walking down the street.
We were super confused. My guess was it was soldiers coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan, and I found out later my guess was right. I don’t think most people in Denmark are happy about the war, but since Denmark is a part of NATO, they are required to fight as well. It was neat how they had a whole parade through the city for them, though.
Friday night Gabi and I went dancing, and on Saturday I basically was very lazy and just caught up on sleep :) Saturday night was a lot of fun though. We went over to our friend’s kollegium, which is like a dorm in Denmark, for a party. The party we went to is a Danish tradition, but I can’t remember the name of it. Basically, each person on the floor makes a dish (if it’s a dinner party) or a drink (if it’s a drinking party) and the group travels from room to room together. There was a group of Danes who live there and a bunch of my American friends from DIS too, so it was a lot of fun. After that we went to a bar in the city and danced until 4:30am! I was so tired by that point, and I didn’t get to bed until 5:30am! The Danes really like to party late into the night… it will be weird going back to Iowa City and have to go home at 2am haha.
Then on Sunday… here is the big news… I met my new host family! But let me start from the beginning…
I had a really hard time trying to decide which housing option I would like best. I always think I know what I am like and what I would want, but honestly I usually think in terms of what I wish I was like. For example, I almost went to India for study abroad instead of Denmark because I am really interested in public health, and I thought it would be a great experience to live in an area that lacks healthcare in pretty much all aspects of the word. Then, after talking to people who know me very well, aka my parents, I realized that I am not the type of person who would be happy eating Indian food that will most likely make me sick at least once and have the chance of living with a host family that will not have running water. As much as I like to think I could handle it, I would be absolutely insanely miserable in that situation. So this is why ranking my housing options for DIS was just as difficult… most the time I feel like I don’t really know myself! In the end, I chose the Danish roommate option because I thought it would give me a great mix of independence and time spent with a Dane who would become my friend and hopefully introduce me to other Danes as well.
People who know me know that I am pretty independent most of the time, and I really have no problem being alone… but this is at home, in Iowa, where I know that I can see my friends and family if I really want to. However, I knew absolutely no one in Copenhagen when I arrived, and that honestly was a little scary the first week. Every new person I met I wondered if they would end up being my good friend while I was here haha. Weirdly enough I met Gabi at the very first DIS event and now were basically attached at the hip when were not at home, and I have ended up making a lot of friends at DIS. I have loved every minute of my study abroad experience, except for when it came time to go home to my apartment I shared with my Danish roommate. Being there was lonely and isolating. She really wasn’t home that often, and when she was, she was watching television or busy doing other things. It was pretty miserable being alone that much, and even worse was that I couldn’t just go over to a friends house or drive home to see my parents when I felt lonely. I basically felt like I was waiting for the next day to come so I could go to school and see my friends, who were all at their homestays eating dinner with their Danish families and spending time with their host siblings while I was sitting alone on my computer in my apartment.
The first week I was at DIS I went to talk to Anders about changing housing, but after thinking it over for a few days, I thought I might just be homesick so I decided to stay with my Danish roommate. Over the next month, I think half of my conversations with my friends were about how miserable I was at my apartment and how much I dreaded going home at night. At the same time, they were all telling me how much they love their host families and how cool they are. So I went back and forth in my mind about whether to switch housing or just stick it out over the semester. There were times I thought there is no way I would want to move, basically when I came home from the bars at 5am and just wanted to lay in bed all day long on Saturday. Of course that’s only like 5% of the time I am here though, and I don’t need to be sleeping in every Saturday anyway… so a couple Thursdays ago I wrote an email to Mia in housing about getting a host family.
We scheduled a meeting for one week later to talk about why I want to move and to discuss whether a host family is really what I want. They really want to make sure that students only move once if they have to move at all. I told her I definitely want a host family, and I think if most of my friends here didn’t have host families, my decision may have been different, but all of my friends just rave about their host families. Then I wrote up some things I am looking for in a host family and rewrote my introduction letter, and I had a meeting the next day with another person in the housing department. Mia picked out 6 families for me based on the preferences I gave her, and I got to rank my top 3 choices. Luckily, the first family I wanted said they would like to meet me, so I called them and we set up a time to meet this past Sunday at their house in Glostrup, which is about 30 minutes from the city center and my school.
So on Sunday (February 27th), I left my house around 1pm so I could be at their house by 2pm. I took the train by my house a few stops where I was supposed to connect to a bus to get to Glostrup station. However, I could not find the bus stop for about 10 minutes, and the only lady I could find to ask directions didn’t speak English (which is really uncommon!). I finally found the stop, but since it was Sunday, the bus was only running every half hour, and I had just missed the last bus. Therefore, I was going to be at least 20 minutes late… I felt really bad! I told the bus driver to tell me when we were at Glostrup station, and that worked smoothly… until I got off the bus and was completely turned around. They told me they lived about a 10 minute walk from Glostrup station, and I had their address and a little map that I drew myself from Google maps. I asked probably 5 different people if they had heard of the road or knew where it was, and no one had any idea. I knew it was north of the station, but people didn’t even know which direction was north! Fortunately, I met this amazingly awesome nice man who tried to help me. He asked a lot of people in Danish if they knew the street, took me into the station, and asked this old couple… they knew where the street was!!! YAY! Unfortunately, they only spoke Danish, so they had to tell the nice man who was helping me so he could translate it into English for me. So I left the station to try to figure out the directions, and the nice old man who only spoke Danish ran up to me and ended up walking me to my host family’s house! We could speak each other’s languages, but I knew enough Danish to tell him I am from the USA (Jeg kommer fra USA) and that my name is Emily (Jeg hedder Emily). I was so thankful he helped me because I probably would have never found it myself. I arrived to their house at 2:30, a half hour late, but they really didn’t care. One thing to note: Danes are ALWAYS on time. Obviously I am not Danish.
We had coffee, tea, and pastries, and we just sat and talked for a few hours. The entire family is pretty large because my host parents were previously married and each of them has 3 kids. My host parents names are Lasse and Karen, and only one son, Kasper, who is 19, lives at home. Lasse is a foot surgeon, Karen is an operating room nurse, and Kasper goes to Gymnasium (sort of the equivalent of American high school). They are extremely nice and welcoming, and they ended up asking me to stay for dinner. Of course I said yes! I got to try four foods that I had never had before in just one night! I had brussel sprouts, which I actually like, liverpostej (liver paste that they spread on sandwiches), fried pork skin, and mussels. YUM! We decided that night that I was going to move the next day, which was yesterday. I like living here so much better already, and I haven’t even lived here 24 hours yet!
I packed up all of my stuff on Monday afternoon when I was done with class, and Lasse picked me up around 6pm when he got off work. Jessica, my roommate, was gone all day Sunday, and she didn’t come home until right when Lasse called me on Monday. I felt bad having to tell her I was moving out literally 5 minutes before I left, but it was better than having to leave her a note if she hadn’t come home before then. It was actually pretty easy to move, and DIS was very helpful. I just had to go to the train station today to add more zones to my transportation pass since my new house is a little farther away than my old apartment. I also have to return my food stipend card and get a form to turn into the city office to notify them of my address change. Other than that, it was pretty simple!
Anyway, I am very happy I moved. Last night and tonight I had dinner with Lasse and Karen. We had pork tenderloin, potatoes, and veggies… much better than whatever I would have made myself in my apartment. I had two classes this morning, Health Economics and Muslims in the West. I have midterms in both of those classes on Friday, so I need to study tomorrow and Thursday because I don’t think they are going to be as easy as my Public Health exam. Thankfully I don’t have any field studies tomorrow, so I have all day to do whatever I want and sleep in for once! I do have to go into the city though to pick up an international SIM card for my cell phone here. Right now it only works in Denmark, and if I use it out of this country, I would have to pay extremely high roaming charges. I decided to just pay $30 so I can use my cell phone when I travel to other countries this semester instead of risking a super high phone bill.
I am going to leave you with some pictures of my new bedroom!
I have a pretty view of the park from my window :)
That’s all for now! Only 3 more days until my 21st birthday!!! On Friday night, a bunch of us are going out to celebrate my birthday and my friend Ryan’s birthday. His birthday is March 8, but since we are all leaving for our long study tours on Saturday and Sunday, we decided to party earlier… no big deal. For my birthday on Saturday, my host family and I are having brunch and then going to a movie!
Goodbye!
Emily
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