"Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells-- eventually puts you in the place you are now."
-Ann Patchett, What now?
I know have about 3 and 1/2 weeks left here in Copenhagen and everyone keeps asking me how I feel about that. Here is how I feel: I am super excited to go home. This semester I really only have three friends and one of them is from Wisconsin, so not as big of a deal as last semester when I had 20 friends who were leaving. Also as much as I have loved living in Copenhagen, once those three friends leave there really isn't anything left for me here. I have noticed in about the last week, that since I know that I am going home the little things are really starting to bug me. The things that I have just accepted for the past 10 months are no longer acceptable. So here is a list of the things that I will definitely not miss, when I leave Denmark.
- Wind: The average wind speed is 14 mph, add that I live in a wind tunnel that is on an island surrounded by the Baltic Sea, and you have a crazy windy place. Its no wonder that wind power makes up 18.9% of electricity produced.
-A shower that is not separated from the rest of the bathroom:
-Academic Quarter: Apparently in Denmark everything begins a quarter after the hour. Even when the start time is listed on the hour. So I was told my classes begin at 3:00 and 9:00, but apparently the professor and most students actually turn up around 3:15 and 9:15.
- holidays every weekend: In the past 3 weeks there has been four holidays: Prayer Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Whit Monday. These can honestly not be real holidays! And these are not just bank holidays, no, these are everything including grocery stores are closed, children even get off of school.
-A fridge bigger than a dorm fridge: I share a fridge with four other people that is not really any bigger than a dorm fridge. I am so looking forward to having a full sized fridge that I only need to share with two other people next semester.
- Grocery store set-ups that make sense: The grocery stores here make absolutely no sense in the way that they are laid out. Why is the cocoa next to the coffee? Or the paper products such as toilet paper and feminine products on the other side of the store from the beauty products? I cannot wait to go to a grocery store and know where I can find the things I need.
- Easy to use university website: Again I cannot wait until I have a university website where there is no way that I can accidentally un-enroll myself.
- 20 page paper finals: I never realized how much I love multiple choice, short answer, and short essay finals. I am currently writing my 20 page final on Danish Cinema.
- Character count: See above for my hatred of 20 page papers, then add the fact that in Denmark they do not actually count pages by the number of pages, they count pages by character count 2400 characters or letters equals 1 page.
- Construction workers working at 6:30 AM: I am pretty sure there are laws in the U.S. about noise restrictions in residential areas before 7:00 AM. If there isn't, there should be. The construction workers have once again been working on the park outside of my building starting at 6:30 AM. I don't know what they are using that could possibly make so much noise.
- The largest size of milk being a liter: I really do not understand how families here can survive on buying milk by the liter. At home my mother will buy two gallons at a time, that is roughly the equivalent of 7.5 liters.
- Metric and Celsius: I cannot wait for the day when I do not need to convert temperatures or recipes.
- Netflix not having English subtitles: I am currently working on my final paper for my Danish Cinema class, which means I actually need to watch Danish movies. Unfortunately English subtitles are not an option on the Danish Netflix, so I cannot watch Danish movies online. This is proving to be extremely annoying.
-Danes who look like gazelles: All of the Danes are super fit and they like to run and they all look beautiful when they are doing it. There is no sweating, or red faces, or heavy breathing. They sometimes even smile while running, it is disgusting.
- Gummies/gum that always have liquorice flavored things in them: It is impossible to buy any sort of gummy candy that does not have some sort of liquorice flavored something in it. Anytime you see some black in anything here, stay away, it is probably liquorice.
-Coffee/hot drinks served in glasses with straws: Why oh why would you serve a hot beverage in a glass, without a handle, with a straw? A mug is just so much more practical, and prevents burned fingers.
-Cobblestones/tiles: I used to love cobblestone, now I abhor(SAT vocab word, 10 points for me) them. I constantly trip and when it rains the stone is extremely slippery.
- European sizes: I am so tired of going into a store and having the largest size that they have being a size 12.
-H&M: I cannot describe how much I hate this store. It is the only store here that is slightly reasonable. This store is crazy with the sizes, there is no standard. Last week a friend and I went shopping, one dress I tried on that was a US size 12 was huge and then I tried on another dress that was a US size 16 and it was too small. This store is just depressing.
- Clothes made for sticks: Again see the two above comments. A couple of times I have been able to find pants in my size, but even though they are the correct size, they still do not fit. The clothes here are made for stick people; people without hips, thighs, boobs, butt or anything else that is not perfectly flat.
-Men peeing in public: I don't know how many times I have walked down the sidewalk past a man who is relieving himself. Apparently there are not public indecent exposure laws in Denmark.
-Weather forecast: I do not even know why they hire meteorologists here, because they are never right. There is no point to even check the weather in the morning because the chance of it being correct is about 5% and that is only when it involves rain, because there is about a 60% chance of rain every single day.
-Smoking: I completely forgot how horrible it was to be inside a place where people can smoke. The smoking ban in Wisconsin is quite possibly the best thing that ever happened.
This is by no means an exhausted list, believe me there are a lost more things that annoy me. The funny thing about this list is that I can imagine that when I get home I will have the opposite reaction, and these things will seem normal.
Now some random photos from this past week:
Ashley, Kate, and I had a dinner of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Can you tell we cannot wait for summer and to go home? Also the hot dog buns here just have a whole at the top to put the hot dog in.
This young man is Yoonho. I have been tutoring him since English since January. He has also been a pain in my butt since then. But his parents have basically bankrolled all of my trips this semester so I put up with him. You can just see his charming personality in these photos. This kid knows exactly how to push my buttons, and does so frequently. However he is a 13 year old boy so that is what they do right? As much I like to complain about him I will miss this kid. I took him to see Iron Man 3 on Friday as a good bye present.
So countdown:
25 Days
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