"Good God, what are you drinking!?"

Hello from Copenhagen! I have so much to write about, even though I've only been here two days. I guess I'll start with arrival. First of all, the flight over was torturously long. I also got my backpack searched in both Logan and Reykjavik, and the guy in Iceland was VERY thorough, even going through my journal and jewelry case. I got into Copenhagen at noon in Danish time, and left the airport around 1. We were brought by charter bus to ITU, where we listened to a few presentations, got our money for our transportation pass, cell phone, etc. My host family came around 3-3:30, and they drove me back to their house. When my host dad (Peter) went to pick up my bag he told me he shouldn't be doing this because he had a hangover. The day before was his birthday and he had stayed up until 4 am drinking with his brother. When I got there, we pretty much talked and unpacked and ate dinner (which was delicious by the way). The past two days DIS has had a lot of orientation stuff, including Survival Danish. Hah, if I survive Danish, it will be miraculous. It is a really diffucult language to pronounce, and it sounds like German met French and had a baby, because some of the sounds are very French, but the spelling looks more like German. And nothing is pronounced as it looks. It makes it all the more difficult for me to learn because I have a cold and my ears are all plugged up, so I can't hear myself, so I can't hear the way I am pronouncing something. I have been laughed at a LOT so far.
The commute is not bad at all. It is a little more than five minutes to walk: I take the S-train into Copenhagen from the Karlslunde stop to Norreport (the o is supposed to have that funny little slash through it), which is about 25-30 minutes, then walk 5-10 minutes to DIS. I got terribly lost coming home yesterday. I got off the path home too early and wandered around for 30-40 minutes in the wrong neighborhood totally lost and confused and carrying all my books, which must weigh at least as much as my suitcase did. I have bruises on my shoulders. Luckily I saw some people out walking and they pointed me in the right direction. When I walked in my host family said they were worried and were about to call the police. Cool. Good first day.
So far I've been mistaken as Danish once. This morning when I was walking down the street a woman approached me with a flyer speaking rapid fire Danish and this is what it sounded like to me: awjrieojid;a ajfjiafjejio aeaeae aejrioaemiofafja glug ajeiliawejrfa;. I interrupted her to say "I'm sorry I don't speak Danish". She seemed surprised and asked if I lived in Denmark. I wish I had said yes just to see how she reacted. We'll see how many times this happens this semester.
At the surface, it doesn't seem like America and Denmark are that different, but when you look at it more, it's vastly different in cultural expectations. First of all, they don't have words like "excuse me" or "please" and such in their language, so they barge through crowds without saying anything (not even undskyld, the Danish word for sorry). The trains are practically silent, and anyone who speaks loudly is given a death glare. I've been told that when they toast, they just raise their glasses and say Skal (with a little degree sign over the a); they don't clink glasses. One kid in my Danish class clinked, and recieved shocked stares. Evidently they are also anti-pants. Though my host family hasn't done this yet, DIS warned us of this and Joey has already experienced it: they just go around the house in their underwear. Also, they don't have a lot of medicine we have, so when I put Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold in my water, Peter had no idea what it was and exclaimed "Good God, what are you drinking?!" Even after I explained he didn't really seem to understand, so it's totally possible he thinks I'm doing something illegal.
Survival Danish was fun, despite the difficulty. We took a field trip to a grocery store to learn a few Danish words for food, and I'm starting to learn that Danish is a very literal language. For example, beef is oxkod (the kod has a slash through the o), which means "ox meat". We learned about their 39830284923 different kinds of milk and bread. By the way, Danes looooove their bread. When I had a snack, it was bread. We had bread with dinner. And guess what breakfast was? Yup. Bread with jam or cheese or butter (or all three!) and some fruit. We also had this delicious dessert called smorflode (slash through both o's), which is kind of like chocolate covered marshmellow, but SOOO much better. We also had wienerbrod (slash through o), which is what we call a Danish. "Wienerbrod" means Vienna bread, so evidently they stole it from viennese bakers. We had it from the best baker in the city and it was like heaven in my mouth...soooo delicous.
Anyway, my computer is dying and this post is getting long, so I will sign off here. Hej hej!
~Kyla