"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable."
-Clifton Fadiman
* I promise this whole thing is not about me being annoyed, but if you want to skip that part move to the pretty pictures at the bottom.
You know that period when something is new and everything about that new thing seems amazing and fun? Like nothing could possibly go wrong? I had that period here in Copenhagen. The first week everything seemed amazing. I was exploring a city, I was meeting new people, doing cool things. Well that period is now over and I have moved onto the period of annoyance. I once read that the stages that students study abroad go through are 1. honeymoon 2. negotiation (i.e. annoyance) 3. Adjustment and 4. mastery. Unfortunately this same article said you are supposed to be in the honeymoon phase for 3 months, mine lasted about a week. Now it seems like the differences between here and home are like great chasms instead of little cracks. One of the big things that seems to have helped make the switch from honeymoon to annoyance is the price of things. This is not only limiting me doing things it is also limiting my eating options. And by eating options I do not mean limiting the restaurants I can go to, because I have only eaten out once since I got here, but by limiting the things I can even afford in the grocery store. So far my diet has consisted of potatoes, eggs, and noodles. So this annoyance could also be caused by my starvation. Another great concern is that stores close at 5:00 PM, at the latest. I never really thought about how convenient the U.S. is until I came here. So if you just need to run to the grocery store because you are out of milk, well to bad because you are going to have to wait until 10:00 tomorrow morning because that is when the stores open again. These feelings of annoyance at the cultural differences are also probably exaggerated by my annoyance at practical things that I take for granted at home. For example, up until this afternoon I did not have a phone. So I was supposed to meet someone at a train station at a certain time, unfortunately that person ended up having to do something else but had no way to contact me so I was left waiting for 20 minutes before continuing on my own and this has happened multiple times. Also I haven't been able to get a bike yet. I have looked at this craiglist-esque site but of all the e-mails I have sent out no one has e-mailed me back. So currently I ride the metro at least four times a day and each time I ride the metro it costs $2.40. Add all this to the fact that I am trying to learn a foreign language for 3 hours everyday, that I haven't been sleeping well, and it basically has been cold and rainy since i got here and you get me just being really really annoyed. Hopefully the logistical/practical things will be sorted out soon which will release some of my anxiety/annoyance. Also according to the article in about 6 months I should be on to the adjustment/acceptance phase.
However that being said I am still glad I came. I am meeting amazing people that I hope to become good friends with. I am "learning" a new language, and yes those quotation marks are completely intentional, and I am in a beautiful city. Today all the international students went to the Kongens Have or the King's garden and just sat around talking, enjoying the two minutes of sunshine we had. Now Kongens Have is probably one of my favorite places that I have visited so far. This beautiful park has fairytale themed playgrounds for little kids, perfectly manicured formal gardens, and grassy fields full of sunbathers and teenagers playing soccer. This park is also the grounds of Rosenborg Slot, which is home to the Danish crown jewels. Also Rosenborg slot is a castle surrounded by a moat! How cool is that?
So these are some of the awesome people that I have met. The guy is Marcos, from Brazil, then Seonaide is in the middle and she is from New Zealand, and Krys is from Germany.
The group again this time Hannah from the Netherlands is in the middle and Niklaus from Germany is next to Krys and two random people that I don't know.
This picture is interesting not really because what it is of but because of the reactions of some of the other international students of seeing this. I don't know if you can tell but the picture is of a group of soldiers practicing their drills. When I see this I don't really think anything of it. This is perfectly normal for me. However for a couple of the other students that I was with this made them extremely uncomfortable. Seonaide who is from New Zealand just wanted to get away as quick as possible. She said that in New Zealand the police don't even carry guns! Now to me as an American that just seems absolutely foolish. This has actually been a big topic of conversation. Even my Danish roommate wanted me to explain to him why the U.S. needs so many guns. Its one of those topics that you never really think about until someone needs an explanation.
More cool facts you didn't know about Denmark:
-Lego was invented here (and there is the world's largest Legoland which I am totally going to go visit)
-the Faroe Islands used to belong to Norway until the King of Norway lost them in a drunken poker game to the King of Denmark.
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