Hej

Hej means hi in Danish. And this is my first hello from Denmark. I arrived in Copenhagen this morning after a surprisingly harmless flight from the Dulles airport on which I drifted between sleep and bits and pieces of Mystic River for a solid eight hours. Great movie...really depressing after the fourth rerun. Of course out of the 200-something passengers on board, I just happen to sit next to a girl from Seattle (woohoo west coast) who is also in the Communication and Mass Media track with DIS. I think I'm going to decide to stop being surprised at coincidences that continually remind me how small the world is.

Anyways, we got to Copenhagen around 7 a.m. Sunday morning (I say "we" because I swear almost my entire flight was full of DIS students) and stood in an endlessly long line to get checked in by DIS staff. Other than sighting a select few very well dressed men, my brief time in the Copenhagen airport felt pretty much like I was in the U.S. Everybody spoke English, every sign was translated into English, and I'm sure it didn't help that I was part of a horde of nervous American students making petty small talk about their crackberries not working (among other things).

We took buses to the tech university where we had a brief orientation and I was met by my host family. Their names are Aksel, Helle, and daughter Michelle. They took me around downtown so I could see the train station, get my transportation pass, find the actual location of my university, and they pointed out a few notable sights along the way. Then we went to their house, which is located in a Kommune (basically just a small town/neighborhood of Copenhagen...I think) called Gentofte. It's very nice, clean, and neat. All the floors are heated too, which is very cool. At this point it was about 11 and I was starving. We had a snack of bread, cheese, sausage, and jam, with tea. It felt very European.

Afterwards, I unpacked my room, and spent some time online. A couple hours later, it was time for another snack. My host mom, Helle, made these amazing rolls and a sort of applesauce, vanilla wafer, whipped cream pie that was delicious. We ate this with tea and watched the Danish news...which of course I didn't understand, but it's one of the few channels that's actually in Danish and not English, and I didn't come to Copenhagen to watch episodes of The Cougar (yes, that was on today). In an effort to feign off sleep and adjust to Copenhagen time, we went for a walk in the FREEZING COLD, stopped at a little store, and even walked on a pond because it's COMPLETELY FROZEN. Did I mention that it is EXTREMELY COLD outside? We came back and ate dinner a little while later, and I was taught the proper way to hold a fork and knife. I then attempted to watch a Danish tv show with my host dad, but mostly just passed out and we all ended up going to bed.

Tomorrow is orientation and who knows what else! Wow, it's only been one day and this post is probably too long and comprehensive. I'll do a better job editing when I'm not so jet lagged.