Hello Copenhagen

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Copenhagen, Thursday 7th of February 2013 – Somewhere in a ghetto-like suburb

So here I am, trying to start writing my blog. A blog. Sounds interesting, right? You know people writing them, or hear people following blogs all the time. Well, then I guess I should start by mentioning I don’t have any experience with writing nor reading them. I don’t consider myself an expert blogger therefore, since this is the first ‘piece’ I’m writing now, and I have no knowledge or whatsoever to know how I should even handle this. What I’ve done in these 5 lines above – yes, I can count, that’s something I àm capable of – is just write down whatever came to my mind. And that’s exactly how I plan on writing my whole blog history-to-be.

The thing is, I am a student doing her minor for half a year in Copenhagen, Denmark. And of course, everyone wants me to keep them posted. So, what do you do; you start writing a blog, in order for everyone to be able to follow you more or less, and know about the things you’re doing that you want them to know about. As I said, I’m not an expert when it comes to blogs. Maybe, let’s not call it a blog. I’m not a fan of labeling things. See it as my travel-diary. No, cause I’m not travelling in particular. Okay, see it as a glance into my life for the upcoming 6 months. Yes.

Actually it also feels as if I’m writing all of this to myself, the same person, as a reader. Because I don’t know who will really read this. I also acknowledge that this piece of text is probably getting too long to remain interesting, but oh well it has been an interesting first week, so a lot to share. I guess the more ‘boring’ weeks will eventually follow, in which I only have to mention that I’ve been going to school, eating and studying all days… or maybe not! We’ll see.

So, the past week.. I can surely say it was full of new experiences, both bad and good ones. At this point, it is still somewhat hard to determine whether there were more ups or downs, or how I think the upcoming months will be. For the sake of making this pleasurable to read, and to put only the best memories in words, I will focus on the positive things! Always look on the bright side of life…

Arrival in Copenhagen. For the first week, me and my parents stayed in an apartment we rented out from people that were on holidays. My parents brought me to Denmark, so that I could take practically everything with me I wanted! But of course also to make sure I would end up at a good place there. We arrived at the apartment on Saturday evening (26^th), after an easy trip through Germany and Denmark that day. The place was lovely. We were welcomed by the owner’s sister, a sweet little Danish girl in a ski-suit, since she cycled 10 km through the icy cold to get here. This leads me to my very first impression of Copenhagen in January: cold.

The rest of the weekend was nice and calm. After sleeping some more than the hours we needed, and orientating a bit throughout the city, I was ready for my introduction-week starting that Monday. Oh, and here is my second first impression then; Copenhagen is a huge, but really huge, city. And beautiful.

Then the introduction week, or better to say the module of week 5: ‘Danish Culture and Understanding’, because, yes, we’d get 1,5 ECTS credits for attending it. The programme consisted of various necessary registration activities, both at the schools’ international department and the local municipalities’ town hall. Really nicely arranged for us, in my opinion, since I would not know where to go to for arranging all of this. And everything will be arranged for you, even a general practitioner close to where you’ll be living is sought for you. In addition, several lectures were held this week in order to introduce Denmark and its culture. Denmark’s welfare society, intercultural communication, food culture, the health system; it was all discussed. The main things I can conclude from these lectures and discussions; Denmark is quite similar to the Netherlands. This is mainly true when it comes to people’s behavior and their habits. We were warned that Danes have a very individualistic focus, and might sometimes seem rude to you even if they don’t mean it like that. Recognizable. Their main dinner consists of potatoes and minced meat like meatballs. Recognizable. And of course the weather. Recognizable.

Something else that I found peculiar in the lectures, was that they warned us for the phenomenon called ‘culture shock’. They even referred to academic articles about it for us to read. I had heard of the word, but never seen it as a condition, almost a disease, which may simply occur to me. Apparently, when one comes to another society for longer periods of time, one enters various phases. Firstly, you’ll be in a rollercoaster phase; feeling up when you see all the great things this new and other society has to offer, feeling down when you feel alone or don’t fit in, feeling up again etcetera etcetera.. The phase that follows is more stable; you’re accustomed to your new society and living area, have made good friends, feel more confident and so on. Now the culture shock can present itself at various moments. For example, when you’re in the rollercoaster full of ups and downs, you may suffer from it. You can feel unmotivated to do things, stressed, homesick, not wanting to go out, you may even lose your appetite, but also can you really become sick, suffer from pains and allergies and other freaky things I didn’t know about. But also they warn for the culture shock that presents when you get back in your home country. You may have changed so much in 6 months, with so many new and exciting experiences, almost become another person. And when you get back in what used to be your comfort zone, you might find that those people or the society hasn’t changed even a bit. Again, you don’t feel like you used to there and you have to adapt yourself again to what used to be the place you felt so comfortable in. Oh well, there are worse things.

The group attending the introduction week, all exchange or Erasmus students, was made up of about 60 people, from countries all over the world. Quite many people from Australia, a few from china, and the rest was mostly European. They all came to do different health studies, on different levels, like nursing, occupational therapy, radiography, and of course my study, Global nutrition and health. Since six other students from Maastricht came to study here as well, we stacked quite much together during that first week (comfort zone..). I found it a pity sometimes, since being on your own makes you so much more accessible to everyone else that’s on his own, and therefore increases your chances of meeting new people. Still, It was nice to be with familiar people in the beginning, and as the week passed I did get to meet and talk to many other people. On the second day of the week I found out that there was a Portuguese girl as well, which got me excited as I always feel a sense of ‘home’, meeting Portuguese people abroad. We talked quite much, especially on Friday at the final event of the week; activities in a hostel in central Copenhagen, ending with dinner and drinks. The most fun night of the week, in my opinion, in which you had many opportunities to talk to everyone, have a few drinks, join with the karaoke, and leave whenever you wanted to.

That same morning, we all had had our faculty introductions. Finally got to see the place where I would be studying; and it was great! The faculty is situated in the middle of the shopping area of Copenhagen! H&M right in front of the building, and a shoe store next to where you enter school. The school’s building was really fun; it had the atmosphere of being just a big house; no big lecture halls, just small classrooms the size of a living room, and tiny corridors and stairs throughout the building, making it hard to find your way. We also got our schedules for the upcoming 3 months; I was actually in the afternoon class, with favorable hours. However, they put all Erasmus students from Maastricht together. As I mentioned before, I don’t want to stick too much to the people I know already, so I voluntarily asked if I could be put in the other class (which starts at 08.15!!), so that I would be with some Finnish and Estonian Erasmus students, together with the Danish participants of the study of course. So that’s where I’m in now. Early, I can say, but I’m glad I did this!

The Saturday after the introduction week, was the start of my first day alone in Copenhagen. I picked up my room’s keys on Friday, and went to see the room with my parents. The minute I walked in, I almost started crying; the building is in a quite distant area from the city centre, the kitchen was far but clean – it was a mess - , and the room was all but cosy. It felt more as if I got into a prison cell.. well maybe a bit more luxurious, but still. Luckily, and very warming, my parents sneaked to Ikea when I was at the hostel on Friday, and made the room much nicer with some candles, plants, pictures, pillows and other cute things. I couldn’t thank them enough. So, by Saturday morning, after bringing me there, they left. And I was alone! I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and unpacking my stuff. By night, a welcome event in the bar of the residence was organized for the new residents of the building, with a tour of the premises and free beer and pizza paid for by school. Of course I went! It turned out to be really nice, not many people came but we were with a nice group of people and got to meet eachother well during the activities set out later that night after dinner; a quiz, blindfolded pooling, a drink-beer-and-flip-your-cup-as-soon-as-you-can-game, and of course beerpong! The night was great, and I was glad the bar was this nice; that way, I don’t have to go into town every time to go out with all the confusion to get there, and just have a drink here instead and be able to roll home.

I realize this story is getting way too long to be interesting to read. I’ll keep it shorter next time! So for now, ill just quickly summarize what I’ve done so far this week. On Sunday, I got some rest after the party that night before. The rest of the week I’ve been having classes, those really early ones at 8.15, meaning I get up at 5.30, to get the bus at 7..But fortunately, we’re done at 11.40. Yesterday, Tuesday to be precise, I met up with my dear friend Sophie, who’s studying at the other university here, and went for a cappuccino at a really nice place. Then we went home, and at night, we were supposed to go to a party with all the other girls from our study in Maastricht. But Sophie and I never got there. It was quite late already when I got at here place, and then the two of us, public transport heroes that we are, missed the bus we needed, got sent to the train by some other bus driver, took the bus in the end because the train only came after half an hour, and decided to just have one drink somewhere else and go home, since we would take hours again to get home later, needing night busses and walking… too much of a fuss. Oh well, let’s just call this an unexpected experience, one of those you’ll never forget. And nights to go out.. there will be enough others!

As regards to my room, I’m getting used to it. It’s not ideal though; I’m trying to avoid the kitchen even though I love cooking, and the neighborhood is not the safest one I guess, based on what kind of people I see on the streets at day and night, and the police cars driving around doing their patrols. But, I’ll get used to it and I know how to defend myself in case of emergency 😉 Moreover, going into the city centre makes up for everything again; Copenhagen is so alive and beautiful – at least, what I’ve seen so far- and I can’t wait for spring to start.

Once again, I’ll try to keep my updates that will follow as short as possible, but of course I won’t leave out any of the exiting experiences I will have! Thanks for reading and see you next time! xoxo

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