beach, lax, life

As bro-like as the title sounds, that was my weekend. It was beach weather Saturday, 50 degrees in February. A buddy and I went out to the end of the C-line and caught the sunset. I struggled to get a good picture of the windmills off the coast line because they were so far away. But, I caught the clear water as it changed colors under the sun.

That night, two Americans and myself went out with ten Polish guys for my next door neighbor, Marcel's, birthday. It was a lot of fun. I don't usually like going out with groups that big, but it was great always having someone to talk to. It was also nice cause it was a great bunch of people. They speak great English and are very smart. Marcel and his twin brother go to Copenhagen Business School. They have an interesting world view in that they are very pro-market, so it is interesting talking to them about politics and policy. I bumped into Marcel at the grocery store the other day. He was looking for a toothbrush and I told him he should get an electric toothbrush. He called me a lazy American and said that Americans are too lazy to even manually brush their teeth.

Saturday night was also cool because since it was a nice night lots of people were out. When we were going in between bars, tons of people were out in the streets. One of my friends compared it to Bourbon Street today. Either way it was awesome and just a fun environment to be part of.

On Sunday, I played lacrosse with Kristian's team. Although I went to meet Danes, it ended up being mostly Canadians and the Dutch. Still international. It was great to play again and the guys are really fun. It's a little piece of home, but at the same time it is enhancing my cultural experience by exposing me to more people.

Today, I met with my community service adviser, Hugh. He told me that the guy running the homeless drop-in shelter is on vacation and will be back Monday and then I will be able to start. I am excited about that. We then got to discussing our short study tour. Thursday, Friday and Saturday I am going to Western Denmark with my business and economics program. There we would go site-seeing and meet with different companies. I was bummed because my group was not going to meet with Vestas(the windmill company). Hugh and his colleague proceeded to tell me all about other ways Denmark has sustainable energy. They burn their trash for energy. and whatever waste is still left that would pollute they use to make dry wall. Crazy, huh?

Another crazy fact I learned today is that to this day, defendants in Russia are kept in a cage while on trial.

My day was great except when I came back to make dinner, somewhat had stolen my uncooked chicken, tupper ware and all. I couldn't believe it. It's one thing when drunk people steal chips or something, but uncooked chicken! This was frustrating because I shared my mini-fridge with another student. Then I remembered I had my gym lock from Prague and it came with multiple keys, so I could put the lock on the fridge.

That is just one of the few problems with the kitchen. The kitchen is supposed to be in the true socialist spirit with kitchen duties and dues. However, it hasn't been organized, so no one takes out the trash and lots of people don't clean up their trash. Clearly it was naive of me to keep my fridge unlocked for so long. I was thinking of leaving more chicken out and doing something gross to it in hopes that the thief would steal it again, but I decided I am better off just learning from it and locking my fridge. I'll just put it down as one of the many rookie study abroad mistakes(like buying a Eurail pass). I hoped to have less of those this semester and so far I have.
One mistake I made last semester was over booking trips and then I have to cancel one. This semester, I am cautious booking trips. I also love Copenhagen so much and there is so much to do that I am less eager to travel. While I enjoyed Prague so much, I was clearly a tourist. I could never see myself living there. While in Copenhagen I actually feel like I am home. Not that I'm planning on running off to Copenhagen(at least not yet), but I feel at home here more than I have in any other European city.

Of course, I plan on taking advantage of this opportunity to travel in Europe, but I also have an opportunity in Copenhagen. Aside from my long spring break, I booked a trip in April to Dublin with a bunch of my friends. It was $110 round trip! I might go Stockholm with my friends too, but I haven't decided yet. I really want to go to Paris, but it may just have to wait. I was telling my family I feel weird having not been to Paris after being in Europe for so long, but if it doesn't work out, I'll definitely get there.

Tomorrow, I will do laundry for the first time(one advantage of over-packing) and catch up on school work. I want to be around my computer in case I get emails because it is the day for people to sign up for Birthright Israel, a free trip to Israel. I already went, but if you refer ten people you get to go again. I have 5 people definitely going and 11 people who said maybe. I emailed everyone again and said I'd be around for questions. Hopefully, I was a good salesman. Hard to believe giving away a free trip would be so hard. . .


Photos:
Most of them are from my day at the beach.I took one picture of my Kollegium and plan to take many more. I find the license plate one amusing because it has common Danish names, which, as you can see, are different from American names. I also included one of the graffiti that you can see from the train. That is a small sample of the massive amounts of graffiti along the train tracks.