Saturday 19 February 2011

Am i ready for this???

I only had one day to get myself settled into my new paartment and unwind from my trips on my own before a whole new batch of DIS students arrived fresh from the states.
those who know me can probably guess how I spent that day.... SLEEPING, wishing my N176 roommates had never left, unpacking and nesting in my bare new room, and uploading pictures.


I cannot believe the amount of pictures i took the weeks i was traveling!

way too soon i was waking up the morning of sunday january 16th to new students arriving.
the first to get here were Matt from new jersey and Erik from maryland. we had a few hours before others were due to arrive and the guys wanted to see teh city so we set out to explore a bit. I kept askign what they wanted to see and they kept saying EVERYTHING so we just kept walking.... all the way down past DIS, down Stroget, through Nyhavn and almost to Amelienborg (the queens palace). then teh boys hit the jet lag wall. HARD. i was actually a tiny bit worried about them making it back to the apartment. haha.
but we did and when we got there more people had showed up.
by the end of the day, the top floor (my floor) had 7 new people and the bottom floor had 4.

Upstairs:
Matt rooming with Micheal, from austin texas
Midori from connecticut rooming with Colleen from Philidelphia
Jenna (who goes to school at Vanderbilt with matt) rooming with Hang who is from Vietnam but studys in Pennsylvainia (***jenna moved out 3 days later because she was so homesick and had other friends studying here who were all living together in another part of the city, leaving Hang with a single room and matt stealing the extra bed to make his a giant king. the rest of us keep stealing the extra bed out of matts room to make the couch in the living room a giant picnic bed and he keeps taking it back)
and Alex from Bosten in my room with me.

Downstairs:
Erik rooming with Scott from Burlingame California (but he goes to school in Texas)
and Seth from New York and Richard from Toronto Canada who both go to American College

scott, mike, matt, seth and richard
(erik was already out with his danish buddy at this point) 

colleen, me, alex, midori and hang
(one night before we went out we had a song and dance party in the kitchen.... we got some PRICELESS videos but those have been confined to the g-unit vault and banned from being uploaded to the internet haha.)

that first night i helped our SRA Dane cook frickadeller (danish meatballs) and potatoes for everyone.
By the end of the first night the guys had dubbed us the G-UNIT.
yep not kidding. and the name has actually stuck.

as of now they've been here about a month and life has kind of found a loose pattern.
so heres some random bits about life in the G-unit
(things that stand out as different last semester):
one shower/bathroom for 7 people,
A clothes DRYER!! (woohoo!!)
5 of the 6 guys are frat boys, (i told colleen we were going to kind of be replacing the guys' frats and seh laughed and said so way.... later that day matt called the girls out for not living up to true G-unit frat style and wanting to stay in for the night. the timing was funny. who'd have thought i'd go around the world to get a giant dose of American College Greek Life?
their second night here we went through over two cases of beer just hanging at home,


my alcohol intake has probably tripled since last semester. most of the guys want to go out at least 4 times a week. so far i'm sticking to 2 or 3 and the other girls are pretty much the same. one night the guys had casino night and the girls went totally over the top with girls night= movies, wine, danich pancakes, candles everywhere, stole the extra bed, matt even got us chocolate before the guys all headed out. it was hilarious.


alex midori and i
haha, candid :P
when the boys came home they wanted to crash our party ( matt, colleen, alex, midori, scott and me) with all of us piled on the bed separated from the couch enough that matt and i both ended up hitting the floor. ( the boys were in great moods when tehy got back becasue they ended up winning about $400 and planned on getting an x-box with their winnings)

about half of us are reasonable cooks and we make group dinners EVERY night some of our meals have included: chicken parmasean, scampi, french onion soup and fresh baked bread, grilled cheese sandwhiches, mushroom spinach and cheese chicken, taco salad, danish pancakes, uncle hugos chicken with broccoliand cheese and fried onions and mashed potatoes, sausage onions and bell peppers, and homemade mac and cheese. WE ARE EATING SOO WELL!!!
Thank goodness a gym is across the street from our house and i finally got a membership (its funny watching  american shows like BONES or HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER while on the elliptical withteh cound off and only having Danish subtitles on the screen... i can usually still follow the stories but my danish is still FAR from fluent!)
football is back in my life since Scott brought a chord that connects mac computers to our TV
the boys have created this game called tagging the wild animal.... where they double team the girls on at a time and tickle attack us
Oh yeah, and the red light district is honestly RIGHT behind me. I walk past a bunch of sex shops and night clubs on my way to practicum to play with my 2, 3 and 4 year olds on Thursdays. 
an odd way to wake up and go to kindergarten :P

Classesà
Having new classes and so many new people at DIS is WEIRD!!!--> I miss Maja my old child development teacher! Now I have rita who is exterememly scatterbrained and all over the place. And since ive already learned half of what she is teaching in class its SOOOO hard to enjoy it. the other people in my class so far are great, and rita is enthusiastic but she is definitly more of a team teaching teacher than someone who can lead a class on her own. last semester was her first time teaching the class without a partner and things got really ugly with the students in the class. im still trying to keep an open mind, but i also realize that i'm gona have to work hard to make this class as interesting and worth while as my class with Maja. we'll see how it goes. 
 My Danish two teacher is a firecracker!! This class is way harder than Danish 1! IWe actaully write two pages essays in danish.... Since she moves so fast that’s actually a lot to write, the hard part is remembering everyting she speeds through! shes really good at teach to each of us as indiviuals but together as a group. She wants us to succeed but she also wants to really push us.
  European film is fun so far- I have to go watch a  movie every Monday and Thursday but they’ve been ok.
a couple have been really intersting. last week we watched teh new Susanne Beir film "In a Better World". she is a danish directer and the film just won a goldenglobe and is now nominated for an academy award. it was an intense movie. 
 photojournalism is more of an actually critical thinking class than id imagined it to be. Its sooooo interesting!! I had to meet and pick a random Danish person and go back to photograph them 6 different sessions this semester! My subject i found is an older man named Hairdresser Hans. He hardly speaks english and has owned one of the only three barber shops in Copenhagen for the past 40 years. He is ADORABLE! ive had two sessions with him so far and am so excited to continue getting to know him. aside from learning about photography im also really testing my danish while im with him :)  I’m excited but nervous! I wish I had a nicer camera!! My little tiny baby one is kind of hard to take seriously :P
Welcome partyà  Got home around 430am? A cute thing was that the 7 of us on this floor (me midori, colleen, haug, alex, matt and michael) all ended up walking home together that morning.
other noteworthy nightsà they all pretty much start in the downstairs apartment and then we venture out into the city later














at the scotish pub in radhuspladsen square, I cannot believe how many American were squeezed into the bar!! Seriously it was a takeover! It mad ee realize that i hadnt just hung out with a large number of Americans in months! WHAT AN ODD REVELATION!!! but it ended up still being fun. So many shots and beers and new people. It was a good night but I don’t knwo if i'd want to go do it again soon, I've come to love the way Danes are when they go out!
 Friday  jan 28th -> I went to camilla’s (one of my visiting sisters) boyfriends bans’ album release party in norrebro! IT WAS ALL DANISH PEOPLE! And me and Sophie (for those who dont know, Sophie is also from Nevada City and is studying architecture at DIS this semester). Hahaha there were three bands that performed and the last two were total head banger bands. Sophie and I got a spot up on the benches along the wall that let us look down over the mosh pit at the front of the stage. WOW!!! how do people not break their necks when they do stuff like that?? I’ve decided I really want to go to more live music things this semester!
Jan 29th-> a trip with Alex and Midori with DIS to Frederocksborg castle :)













(N176- this is even more of an Anastasia ballroom than the others we went to!!)



and that sunday...I officially became a bike owner in CPH!! I’ve only rode it a few times becasue its been raining or negative degree weather, but so far i love it!! I cant wait until the weather warms up and i can just ride through the city exploring on my lovely yellow bike!


The bike is actually John and Inge's but they have loaned it to me for the monthes i have left here in CPH.  :)sunday morning, i took the trian out to Birkerod to go for a walk with them and some of their friends. after the walk we went back to the house and had a lovely late lunch as i showed them all my pictures from my trips.






->my roomates and i went to jazz/rock concert at Studenterhuset. again there were mostly danish people there :) btw I LOVE HOW THE DANES DANCE!! all night long i dancing with guys and not once did anyone try to just get behind me to bumb and grind, they actaully DANCED! it was fabulous! funny moment, the lead singer called me up to dance onstage for a song :P lol another of the million firsts for my year abroad :)



->Weekend of giant dinners,


Saturday- sarah and amy came over for dinner and i ended up up cooking for 14 people :)


 then the next night 4 of matts friends who were visiting from out of town came over and he tackled the giant meal challenge


Valentines Day :) G-unit valentines was pretty cute haha, all the girls ended up getting roses left in our rooms (and matt mad ea special dinner for us) and the guys got chocolate, rose pletals on their beds and some of their favorite alcohol. We went over board on the candles and coverd the whole livingroom with them!
Sophie came for dinner too :) after we ate all the girls came into my and alex's room to wathchth 3movie "valentines day" (because honestly, what other day of teh year will you ever watch that movie) and the boys stayed in the living room and proceded to play a zombie nazi video game the rest of the evening. and both groups were perfectly happy haha.

Midori and i tried an experiment we found online for a chocolate crepe layer cake with nutella creme in between the stacked crepes and chocolate covering the top. we added orange zest to the top chocolate layer and crowned the whole thing with cutie slices.... BIG SUCCESS!

Those of you who know me well can image that with so many peoplke around all the time i get worn down and need a break...... but hey, thats what cafes, books and Sarah and Amy are for right? im actually loving that so far every week i've gotten together for dinner or some kind of night with Sarah and Amy :) even though we live in the same city, i felt like we didnt see eachother enough last semester. but so far we are doing a good job fixing that this time around.
so with a mix of food, drinking, tickling, laughing, dancing, watching tv and exploring CPH together, my new roommates are great.
and the new semester is racing by dragging me along behind it.... I CANNOT BELEIVE THAT IS HAS BEEN MORE THAN A MONTH SINCE I GOT BACK FROM TRAVELING!
that said, im already getting a milkshake of emotions thinking about time..... ive been here for a full 6 months now and i only have 4 left....... part of me that misse dhome says that time cannot go fast enough. the other part of me wants to dig in my heels and stop time form moving because i am no where near ready to leave this city or for this great adventure to end.

4 more months....
 lets see what they bring :D