Phoneless in Copenhagen, Plus Distortion (Part 1)

Normally, DIS provides all of its students with free phones to help offset the costs of international calling. However, since a DIS representative didn't pick me up from the airport, I missed the session where the phones were handed out. So ever since I've been here, it's been tough to communicate with anyone outside my Kollegium or my class. I've definitely managed to get by, but it's been a week since I've ordered a new phone and still no response. I guess I'll just have to stick with it and hope that phone gets here in the next few days.

A Windmill at Kastellet

On Monday, class wasn't much different from what I'd experienced in the past - however, our professor openly admitted to the class that this was her first time teaching (in either Danish or English). This really didn't come as a shock to me or any of my other classmates; although the professor always seemed very friendly and well-meaning, we could all tell that she wasn't very confident at directing class discussion or teaching the material. At least the simplicity of the class made sense to us now. After class, I browsed around the city with a few of my classmates - Ilya, Chris (the guy who had gone to Lakota East), Caroline, Gabby, Nia, and a few others - and we all went on a scenic tour of Copenhagen's canal system. One of the main highlights of the tour was a waterfront view of The Little Mermaid, a bronze statue based upon Hans Christian Anderson's tale of the same name. After the tour, we all grabbed dinner from a respectable restaurant on Copenhagen's main pedestrian street and then parted ways. I returned to Hoffmans, grabbed a quick dinner, then explored the park near the Kollegium and ran a few laps before heading in for the night.

A View of Copenhagen's Canals

The next day, a guest lecturer taught our class; he was hella better at teaching than our usual professor, and every girl in the class was captivated by his suave charm. After class, I went back to Hoffmans and grabbed a few necessities from the local Netto with Jill, then made a hearty dinner of rice and eggs. Later in the night I tried to meet up with some other people at another Kollegium, but the directions I got from a Copenhagen local proved to be faulty and took me in the OPPOSITE direction of where I wanted to go. By the time I realized I was going in the wrong direction, it was pretty late and I decided to head back to my Kollegium. On the way back, though, I met a kindly old man heading home for the night. In broken English, he told me that he was a cab driver who had just finished his shift and was looking forward to seeing his family that night. He then related to me how he was not allowed to drive his taxi home, but rather was forced to park it in a too-small, dank cellar for reasons of economy. It seems that the high tax rates in Denmark have as much of an impact on its citizens as they do on visiting foreigners.

Christiansborg Palace, House of the Danish Parliament

Yesterday morning, I was awakened by Jill telling me that class was cancelled again. Mentally I shouted a "HELL YEAH" before going back to sleep for a few hours. After waking up, I watched a few episodes of Community on my laptop, got a bit of reading done, then headed down to the park to run a few laps. After doing some laundry, I hung with Jill and a couple other girls from Hoffmans (Katie and Ashley) for a while before we all headed into town to check out Distortion - an annual 5-day celebration of Copenhagen's arts, street life, and club culture. This year it happened to coincide with a 4-day weekend celebrating Ascension Day, so the timing of the festival was impeccable. When we arrived in downtown Copenhagen, entire plazas were jam-packed with hipsters flocking around DJ sets. Seriously, this was the biggest collection of hipsters I'd seen in my entire life. We met a few other people there and checked out a few of the DJ sets, which were really fun. The atmosphere was sick, though as the night wore down and we started visiting clubs, none were really happening. We did manage to meet a Norwegian guy who looked spot-on like Jesus, though; he was extremely amusing and kept asking us why on Earth we'd want to study in Denmark, of all places! We talked to him for a while about his experiences in Denmark and the differences between the Danish and Norwegian languages, then walked around for a while before Jill and I decided to head back.