Welcome to Wonderful Copenhagen!

Those were the words that greeted me on a poster upon my arrival at the Copenhagen airport. I think we need to get one of those for the Wesley house, or for my house in Plano. Except maybe not Copenhagen. Wesley House. Or "The Danners." I'm not picky though.

Indeed, about a week ago I arrived in Copenhagen for my spring semester study abroad after a ~7 hour plane ride from Newark, NJ. I enjoyed a nice 6+ hour layover in the Newark airport before the plane. Most of the time was rather uneventful, fortunately (ie nothing stolen, no plane troubles), but I did get a call from the Wesley leadership team at their beginning of the semester retreat, and it was great to hear from them before I left; I really appreciated the call! Also, I watched the recent movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" on the plane, and I would recommend it to anyone, for sure. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to sleep a whole lot in the airport or on the plane...maybe an hour tops, and I hadn't slept the night before my flight out of Dallas. That wasn't incredibly fun, but I guess I survived.

When I landed in Copenhagen, I found a couple of DIS representatives who told me to get my bags and then go outside to a certain point and do registration. After getting my bags and using some unique little cart thing to make it easier to move them around, I stood in a really long line for a while, but then they decided to move us out to the buses and just have others complete the registration process later. We took the buses to a rather large central location where we participated in various orientation activities, and eventually my host family came to pick me and my roommate, Peter (who is also in the DIS program, from Washington D.C.) up from the building. I met all three of them at the same time, and I was a little taken aback at first by how reserved they seemed to be; while I had seen multiple other host families excitedly and warmly greet their students, it all seemed a bit uncomfortable You can never really know how stuff like that is going to turn out, but I didn't let it bother me too much. I am very pleased to say that I have already become a lot more comfortable with my family over this past week, and I have discovered that they have incredibly good senses of humor, somewhat extracted when their kids visit home. Their kids, who are 19, 21, and 24, visited a couple of times this past week to have dinner, mainly to celebrate their dad's birthday, which was on Monday. Their names are Sam, Nadya, and Maria, respective to the previously stated ages. I do wish that at least one of them lived with us, because they are all incredibly friendly and easy to get to know, and they have been such a joy to have around when they've been here. Sam and Nadya live in the city of Copenhagen, and I will be going to their church tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it's all in Danish, but I think Sam is going to be helping me with the translation somehow.

I'll spare you the rest of the orientation particulars over the next few days, but I had a couple of "Survival Danish" classes where we were taught some of the basics of Danish that would be useful for getting around and saying some basic things about myself. "Hej" is "hi," and it actually sounds almost exactly like "hi," so people don't really know if you're speaking Danish or English immediately, though they soon figure it out and are able to speak in English too. Indeed, I don't think I've met anyone that just can't speak English at all yet, though there have been a couple of people who are less profiicient than others, of course. Apparently, all Danes have to take some required English language classes in high school, so that explains a lot. However, almost all signs/posters/grocery tags/newspapers are in Danish, and I generally don't hear a lot of English being spoken around me, or if it is, I can quickly tell from the accent whether they're Danish or American. Still, it has been quite a blessing to be able to take for granted that I should hardly ever have any complete communication roadblocks.

However, I had a sort of communication roadblock that I put up for myself on my first full day in Denmark (Monday the 18th). I was unsure of how to get back on the bus that I needed to get on to go back home (well, generally I know HOW to get on a bus, just step up through the door when the bus comes by and stops). Well, first, to be clear, I completely rely on the reliable public transportation system to get around, specifically to and from Copenhagen, and so I have to catch a bus at a bus stop about 5 mins away from my house that comes every 30 mins and takes 10-15 minutes to get to the train station. The proper train to get to where I need to go runs every 10 minutes, and it takes about 30 minutes to get from that station to the station in Copenhagen where I get off. So, all in all, it takes about an hour to get from my house to my school if I account for walking and such. Anyway, I was unaware that a particular bus stop serviced two different buses, so I blindly got on the first bus that I saw. I was worried that I would not know which stop to get out at, so I asked the driver if he knew the stop by the grocery store. He just looked at me strangely, so I just said I'd ask someone back in the bus if they knew where I was trying to get to go. Instead when I got back there, I hesitated to ask two older women talking because I didn't want to interrupt their conversation and was still unsure of "communication rules" in Denmark. As it turns out, I was just on the wrong bus altogether, as one of the ladies told me (I mustered up the courage to ask her once her friend got off, hah). I got off at a different station, Måløv station, which was in a different town than where I needed to be and definitely not where I wanted to be at all. There, too, I hesitated to ask some people at first where I was exactly and what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be. I showed some people the home address I was trying to get to, and they didn't really know, but they just saw my town and pretty much told me to get on a certain other bus. They were right, but the bus only comes every hour in the later evening, so it was gonna be a while. I still wasn't really sure what I was doing though, and I didn't completely trust their advice, so I kind of just sat for a while and prayed to God for a bit.

Being lost in Denmark on your first real day there without any kind of communication (I didn't have my Danish phone yet) and a questionable method to get back home was certainly a rough thing to wrestle with. Eventually, a couple walking their dog came by. I didn't know what good asking them would do, but I thought maybe they could help. As they were about to pass by me, I am thankful that I did indeed ask for their help. They, too, didn't have any idea where my exact address was, just the general town I lived in. However, I asked to use their cell phone, because I had my host parents' numbers in my iPhone, so I was able to call them and tell them the situation. More than anything, I was worried that I would be missing the family dinner, since I knew that two of their kids (Sam and Nadya) were coming in that night. However, I got a hold of the dad (Holger) and he said that Sam could come pick me up in his car. I was incredibly thankful for this and got a little emotional, I guess just given all the circumstances, haha. Definitely a memorable experience, and I think God was definitely teaching me some things through that, though I can't claim to know exactly what it is. For sure, though, I've decided to ask people directly if I need help with something, not that I haven't learned that countless times before :-P

Right now, it's almost 11pm in Copenhagen, and my sleep schedule is still settling in (ie, I have been going to bed at 8 or 9pm and waking up at 5, if not less normal). I am quite sleepy though, so perhaps I will just end this and put part 2 to this up tomorrow. This is a minor novel, though, so I figure it'll do for now anyway. Thanks for reading my first blog post! Like my photography skills, I am just a beginner, so bear with me through my learning. I also didn't spent any time editing this, so eh. My guess is that this is probably more than most people want to read, but if you made it this far, then either I underestimate people's interest, or you are just simply better than most people. You can just choose to believe the latter, in any case. I don't mind.