Hej from Københagen!
So after an eight hour sleepless flight I finally arived in copenhagen. Coming through the clouds just before landing was incredible. We got out of the plane around 730 and got on shuttles to go to orientation. Orentation was short and they got us on more busses to get to our housing. I am staying in the programs shared housing on a street called tåsingade in the østoport area just north of the city. All of the buildings we saw along the trip to the apartments were very very old and some as old as the US. My room has its own bathroom, sink, stovetop, and fridge. good enough for me! After a nap we got aquainted with the building a little and then we were free. I had to sleep. The RAs took us all out to a Thia resturant that had really really good food. Then we walked to a little cozy pub and spent a few hours getting to know each other.
The next day we had orientation all day. Starting at 930 in the morning with an opening ceremony in the old part of Copenhagen university. A quartet opened the ceremony with a classical peice. A couple speeches later in the magnificent lecture hall the quartet played another peice. Ive got a few pictures of the inside of the hall. Every wall was covered with a giant painting of a peice of history of the university. One painting depicted the students coming to fight for the city. Another depicted the delivery of the pope's approval of the university to the king. It seems like this place is filled with history everywhere I look. As the day went on I went to a Danish Survival course where our professor, a history teacher who was really laid back, answered any questions we had and took us for a short walk around the area. we came back and began learning how to speak a few danish phrases. Everyone was exausted by this point and he let us out an hour early. I got some lunch with my friend at a kabab house, soooooo good. There is any kind of ethnic food you could ever want here. That night everyone passed out early and tried to get up in the morning.
I couldnt sleep. I guess my head was still on US time. The next day I slept through all of my orientation and I felt great. That was all I needed. Another night out and lots of fun capped off that day.
Yesterday I missed a scavenger hunt in the morning and went to an orientation for my program in the afternoon. I wanted to get a bike really badly so my friend Zach and I went on a tour of copenhagen to find the cheapest bikes. After about an hour of walking we came to a small second hand shop that sold us solid bikes. They gave us little lights to put on the front and back of the bike so we wouldnt get hit by cars. Copenhagen is one of the most bike friendly cities, only behind Amsterdam. The bikes cost about 220 dollars US. They also agreed to buy back the bikes when our stay here was over. The bike ride home was a blast and very fast. Plus I got to see more of the city then I had in the few days I had been here.
