Uni? What is Uni? (Three Weeks In)

Hej!

My apologies for not updating, and my thanks to you for continuing to check this page! (I can see page view counts. They make me happy.) In my defence, I spent literally more than half the time since I last updated asleep trying to let my immune system fight off Danish intruders. So I really didn't have much to say, other than 'ahchoo'.

Thank you also to everyone who has sent a message asking how I'm doing :) It's really nice to know that you're thinking of me, and I haven't forgotten about you all back home, too!! (That said, it could just be Mum checking every day. In which case, hi Mum!) If you would like me to send you a postcard, message me your address and I'll think about it!

Also, if you haven't figured it out yet, if you click on the photos they will be enlarged, and you will also be able to scroll through all the photos I've included in that blog post.

Spot the difference? [Yes I know, slightly different angle. I couldn't remember where I took the first picture from the second time!]

So! I've been here for three weeks now. I think I am finally getting (ever so slightly) used to the cold. I've stopped wearing thermals and have even gone out without a jumper under my coat a few times! It rained last week which washed away most of the snow, but you still see little piles here and there.

So here is my building, when the fire happened. Cool/scary, hey.
From the fire window, go down two floors and five/six
windows left and that is my room :)

My classes started this week too: I'm taking Danish, Foreign Policy of the European Union, Sports Economics and Language of Negotiations. It's a shame-- I was really enjoying my holiday here. But I suppose I am here to study as well... I only have to pass the courses to get credit for my degree back home (but of course, this is me we're talking about so I wouldn't exactly be thrilled to have just passes). And since the entire grade depends on one exam/paper...

Danish is hard. My favourite word so far is selvfølgelig , which means 'of course' and is pronounced 'sef-ur-lee'. Yeah. Wish me luck. I took a Crash Course the first week I was here, and my new teacher has a different accent to my teacher then-- which makes it a little more difficult. I have only met one person here who didn't speak English (a waiter, but thankfully we had two Danish speakers in our group so it was okay!) and really you can get by with 'hej' and 'tak'.

I found this really funny. Saw the colours and
thought 'hey, is Google deliberately being provocative?'
Then I read the quote and was like 'yep'.
Take that, Russia!

Foreign Pol was okay-- difficult since I know nothing about the EU. So all the acronyms my lecturer was using kind of went over my head. Sports Ec was a lot of fun. Just generally talking about the role of sport in society and how it is a business but different from traditional business this week, and on Wednesday we're going on a field trip to a (European, obviously) handball match featuring the top ladies team in the premier league here: with VIP privileges. That should be really, really cool. LoN doesn't start for eight more weeks: the semester here isn't regulated like back at home, courses start at different times, some are taught intensively for seven weeks or run for 13 weeks across the whole semester (about 18 weeks). Trying to navigate around both in real life and online is just like being a first year again.


The other cool thing last week was a party hosted by a campus cafe/bar. So basically they take half the inside of a Uni building and turn it into a bar/club for the evening. For my Usyd friends, it'd be like if Taste sponsored a massive party inside the New Law annexe-- tables and beer and hanging out in the corridors and a dance party featuring a DJ downstairs or something. It was seriously the oddest thing, but fairly fun.

By night...

By day...
It still smelt like beer. The floors had been cleaned, though.

I love this bus.
(Well not this specific one.
The route.)

Oh and all the buses had Danish flags-- the flag here isn't just a patriotic/nationalistic thing. They hang them up at parties and stick little toothpicks into food and stuff. It is just party of celebration decorations, like streamers or balloons. So all the buses had flags up on Wednesday and no one knew why... according to Wikipedia, it was Princess Mary's birthday so I'm going to go with that was why. Shame she doesn't have Twitter-- I know a fantastic group of Australians in Copenhagen who would have been willing to throw her a party! :)

The courtyard in my building.

So! Enjoy your week, I will update again earlier than 9 days. Or let me know if you would prefer longer, less frequent updates or shorter but frequent ones. Some weeks obviously nothing exciting will happen. And then I shall regale you with tales of public transport and crazy Europeans or rants about Doctor Who or the universe or something.