The First Full Day & Observations about Copenhagen

The first full day here in Copenhagen ended with several hours of adventures. After an orientation at Porcelænshaven, we came back a couple hours later for a barbecue for all of the international students. Apparently the Danish have a different idea of what a barbecue is, since there were no grills and no barbecue, but it was a good meal nonetheless. These kinds of events are nice because you can meet up with other people in the program that don't live in your building.

Later that night, we trekked over to Frederiksberg Have (garden) to witness the annual Midsummer's Night Eve bonfire in front of Frederiksberg Slot (castle), Frederiksberg being the municipality in which most of us are staying and where the campus is. The bonfire was pretty much just a regular bonfire, but you know with a castle in the background.

It rained off and on all day. You realize pretty quick in Copenhagen that it rains all the time and have to make the decision whether to drag an umbrella and rain jacket everywhere you go or reconcile yourself to getting wet. It generally doesn't rain too hard or too long, so it's not that bad. Layering is also pretty important since the temperature goes up and down fairly quickly as well.

Finally, we ended up going to a night club called Park Café which CBS had reserved for students in the summer program. A lot of students complained about the 35 kroner beers (about $7) but living in downtown Minneapolis that price is not exactly a shocker (plus I am not an undergraduate student). The DJ played some strange mixes, starting off with rap music, then switching to a series of techno remixes of early to mid 90's dance music, and then shifted to what appeared to be some kind of Euro pop. Getting home was kind of pain in the ass, since we really didn't have any directions and the club was located in Østerbro, which from home is located at least an hour away by foot. After unsuccessfully trying to flag down a cab, we gave up and got on a bus.

Here are some things I've learned about Copenhagen and Denmark so far:

- It does not appear that there is much air conditioning in Denmark. Generally air conditioning involves opening a window. This is normally fine, although it's pretty humid here sometimes (at least that's what people who are not from the Midwest tell us) so if you pack a large group of people into a confined space it can get pretty hot (so again, layering is important).

- People smoke everywhere here, including in bars and clubs, although in general it is not that big a deal unless you are asthmatic.

- There is dog poop everywhere, so you need to watch where you are walking. I don't think it's that people are particularly lazy, but since Copenhagen is much denser than other cities there are probably a much higher density of dogs as well.

- Nothing in Danish is pronounced how you would expect it to be. I think my success ratio for pronouncing Danish words correctly the first time is less than 10%. The main secret appears to be letting the second half of each syllable trail off and failing that just mumble and you are probably more likely to be right than if you had actually tried.