Back to School

     Monday the fourth was my first day of Danish class, which will run through the 22nd. Class goes from 9:00am-12:30pm, Monday through Friday, so the term intensive is rather accurate. I figured it would be a good idea to at least learn some basic Danish to not look like a complete fool every time I order at a cafe or buy a metro ticket, plus it gave me an excuse to come over a whole month earlier than I otherwise would have. It turns out, though, that Danish is really hard. I mean reeelly hard. At least the spoken language is. Danes find it best to simply not pronounce most of the letters that are written while altering the pronunciation of the letters that are heard as frequently as possible, sometimes in the same word. At the same time, the written language bears a remarkable degree of similarity with German, Dutch, and English, making reading actually rather easy even without knowing much vocabulary at all.
     For example, if you were to hear someone say something sounding like "pash-ash-er", you may think it's a food item or perhaps an occupation; but if you saw the same word written as "passager", you may very well realize it means "passenger". One of my personal favorite words to try to pronounce is "selvfølgelig" which comes out roughly as "seh-foo-leh-lee" and means "of course". Another interesting aspect of Danish's similarity to English is that the two were most similar during the linguistic period known as Middle English, about 1100-1500 or the centuries following the Norman conquest of Britain. As such, some modern Danish words are very similar to Middle English words. "Hvorfor" (vare-for) sounds a lot like "wherefore" which in both languages means "why" (think Shakespeare: "wherefore art thou Romeo").
     The best part of the class so far, however, has been my classmates. We come from California, New York, Wisconsin, Canada, Australia, and Poland, and are as different as our places of origin, but we have become quick friends. After class everyday, most of us grab lunch at the campus cafeteria which has the best food of any school cafeteria anywhere. I regrettably don't have any pictures of my food (this will be changing, I just need to remember to snap a photo before digging in), but they have some incredible sandwiches, hummus and veggies, stir fries, rice dishes, and my word the soup! On top of how great it all tastes, a filling lunch will cost me between USD$3-7 depending on what I get.
     After a lunch break, everyday the international student office with the university has a "cultural activity" that has ranged from film screenings and lectures to a free coffee hour and ice skating. They have been great opportunities to get to know my classmates and meet students in other classes as well. After these activities wrap up, students who don't have plans tend to find something to do together before night falls. We have wandered the anarchist art commune known as Christiania, hung out at the cafe/bar that is run by the university similar to a student union, walked into the first bodega (a classic Danish pub) we see, and more. The city has been great so far and we have had a blast exploring it together. Additionally these new friends, along with the folks on the ship I'm staying with, helped me celebrate my birthday on the boat yesterday with cards, wine, and good conversation.

     I don't have too much else to report yet as class has been occupying most of the daylight hours and I really have been bad at taking pictures so far. The best I can do for now is these pictures of Frederiksberg Slot (palace or castle) in Frederiksberg Have (gardens):

A collection of ducks, cranes, and a swan with the backside of Frederiksberg Slot in the background.

A better shot of the birds. There were so many birds.