Soup and Danish Folk Dancing

Okay, so I'm currently in that stage of I can feel that I'm about to be sick (like cold/flu sick). And it sucks. But that's okay, I'll stay in tonight and eat some fruit and have some chicken soup... Well I bought some oranges and the one I had was quite nice, and I was looking for some cuppa soup in Fotex (one of the larger supermarkets). Well that was fun-- so the flavours you can buy here are tomato, Italian minestrone, asparagus, Thai chicken red curry, broccoli and cauliflower and Hungarian goulash. But no ordinary chicken, which is upsetting. I was quite impressed I found the right section at all, really-- I'm getting better at navigating around in Danish... as long as I don't have to speak it!

Also this is pretty funny. See, I'm not just being overly dramatic:
The Copenhagen Post: lowest amount of January sunshine in 26 years

On Tuesday night as part of our university run welcome events we had a 'Danish Folk Dancing' evening. Yes I can hear the rolled eyes and groans from here, but it was actually really fun. And quite tiring! The steps themselves weren't terribly difficult... to watch the professionals do! They taught us a few dances, one went along the lines of: hold hands in a huge circle, take four steps in, four back out, eight to the left, four in, four out, eight right, then play a hand clapping game with a partner, then swing around for a while.

Yes, I am absolutely certain they were laughing at us foreigners trying to get the steps down, but it was a hell of a lot of fun!

Fem, seks, syv, otte!
{Pronounced fem, six, sue, odour [kind of]}

For an idea of the music, if you'd like.

My dancing partner for the
evening, Ian from South Korea

A few of the dances had a step they called 'promenade', which was hold hands and prance around the circle, which was a welcome break from all the spinning! One step that took a while for us all to get the hang of was called a 'chain'. You're standing next to your partner in a circle, then you shake hands with your right hand, then swing past and grab on to the next person's left hand (with your left hand), then onto the next person's right hand and so on. We mostly got it in the end-- it is easier in smaller circles (of eight) but when we did it in the big circle, you had to go through seven people-- and there were always some who had to chase to find a partner who had also been left behind! So that was entertaining. All up, quite a fun night!

Me, Ellen, Savannah and our wonderful teachers!

Other state sponsored fun this week included a speed dating set up (without the dating) to meet more people, a trip to a club called Jazzhouse for an introduction to Danish music with live bands, a dinner hosted by our buddy Danish students (which was lovely) and a trip to Søpavillonen, a club by the lake downtown. Tonight we're having a movie night where they are showing apparently one of the best Danish comedies with English subtitles, but I think I should stay in and recover for our formal (well as formal as you can be with 23kg per suitcase) dinner tomorrow night.

Classes (for me at least) start next week and I have the dream timetable-- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, starting at 11am with only 11 contact hours a week for the first three months, then only three hours a week for the last six weeks! Then I'll go back to Sydney and my science degree and five days with 26 hours... ah well.

Vi ses! {Pronounced vee cease [kind of], meaning see you!}

PS What do you think of the new design?