I did not do the responsible thing and gather all my Denmark information before departing.For spring break I had spent a very relaxing week in Turkey with a close friend. Distracted by the 70° sunny weather and the rich warm Turkish culture, I had not given too much thought to my upcoming trip to Denmark.
My flight was 2 hours and 45 minutes from Istanbul to Copenhagen. I gained an hour from the time zone change and felt great when I stepped off the plane. Inside the terminal, however, I realized that the next hour or two would be very difficult. I knew the address of the place I would be staying in Copenhagen, but I had forgotten to review the instructions for how to get there from the airport. I suddenly felt a rush of dread. I had never traveled around Boston without a friend or a distinct plan for how I would get from place to place. Copenhagen, apart from being significantly bigger than Boston, presented the obvious disadvantage of being completely unfamiliar.
I set my luggage down, took a deep breath, and spent a couple minutes just looking around. I noted the where the trains, buses, cabs, ATM, and information desk were. I went to the ATM and withdrew some cash. Then I went to the information desk and asked what was the best way to my address. It was suggested that I take the bus. I could tell about my adventures figuring out the bus system, but it is kind of a long story. Anyway, with some help I figured it out and eventually ended up at my apartment. Once inside I set my things down and plopped myself down in a comfy chair. I closed my eyes and relaxed.
When I saw the familiar faces of my friends from WPI, I felt great. It is hard to describe the feeling but I think it is easy to imagine. For some reason, not seeing friends for a while and then
seeing them again in a new and foreign place is just enchanting. The moment had arrived. We all got a tour of the nearby area. There were already obvious differences between Copenhagen and any city in the States. For the city as large as it is and the nearby streets as large as they are, there was very little noise and very little traffic. Car traffic anyway. There are bicycles everywhere. They come in all shapes and sizes for every kind of person. There are the bikes with the baskets for the shoppers, baby seats for the mothers and fathers, wagon attachments for the toddlers, speedy bikes for the racers, old fashioned bikes for the old fashioned, and motor bikes for less physically active.So hopefully you can get a picture of what the city is like here. It is clean, polite, quiet
, and full of history. I have had almost a week to enjoy it and not have to focus on my project. Oh yeah my project. I will talk more about that later. This week has been orientation week. We attended Danish classes every morning this week and took tours of different parts of the city in the afternoon. As you can imagine it has been 'the life'. Wednesday, we went to the Danish Parliment and met with the environmental spokesperson of the Socialist Peoples' Party. She was awesome and very inspiring. She was saying how Denmark has a long way to go environmentally. Thinking about the USA made me want to cry. Friday, we went finished off the orientation week by going to dinner to a Turkish restaurant. The irony is, I was in Turkey last week. It was a nice meal and it was fun to exchange some Turkish words with the waiter. Oh also there was some belly dancing. No wonder the restaurant was so crowded.
The next day, we went to the site of our project to see it. It was closed, but still it was awesome to finally arrive at the place we had read so much about and seen in pictures. Our project is to develop a teambuilding program for businesses at the Open Air Museum (Frilandsmuseet) that incorporates the history of the museum and the use of gps-equipped cell phones. On Monday, we will go back to the museum in the morning to meet with the person in charge of the project. We are all looking forward to it. The museum is in a small town that is just lovely and fun to walk around in. So maybe we will do that if we have time later on (and it's not too cold).
More news soon.
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