Feb 7 - Week 3!

Wow time is flying! I can't believe it's already February, one month down :(  I don't want to think about that already.

Well I don't have as many exciting stories as last week because I haven't really done any more touring around.  The weather hasn't been great this week and everyone around here (including me) is getting sick, boo! 

We started classes this week.  So I have Monday, Tuesday and Thursday classes and each of the are 3 hours long...it really drags on, but atleast there's 2 15-minute breaks.  My classes are pretty cool so far!  The first one is Intercultural Business Communication, and it's neat because for the group work our prof made us split into groups with people from another country.  My group includes 2 Americans, a Dane, a guy from Chile and a girl from Hong Kong, so it's pretty cool to work with people with completely different opinions.  The second class is Management of Creative Processes and to sum it up, the textbook is called, "Sport and Leisure Operations Management".  Do you really think I need to explain further...obviously I like that course!  In fact, finally a textbook I can read for more than 10 minutes at a time lol. 

Since I've been here, I haven't had too many problems adjusting, and I don't feel like culture shock has really affected me...probably because I love it and I've made so many good friends :)  Our rez gets along so well!  I feel like since our old rez got "shut down" we were able to bond over all being moved to the ghetto and it's made us a lot closer.  Last night, we decided to have a big rez potluck. I thought it was pretty cool because we just decided to do this on our own instead of it being organized by the school.  It was awesome too! Everyone made SUCH good food, and we decided that it's probably going to be a Sunday night tradition.  Of course there was a little added excitement to the evening...  I was cooking with my friend Amy, and literally 2 minutes after I had just finished saying, "this is so much fun, we should do it on a regular basis..." the FIRE ALARM rang haha.  There was definitely a lot of smoke and the fire department had to come but it was no major issue.  My friend on the 1st floor was trying to make french fries (I really don't know why she was cooking, I taught her how to do laundry for the first time last Sunday) and she spilled oil on the burner, which didn't cause a fire just tons of smoke!  It was pretty funny though!  But then dinner went on and it was nice to have everyone hanging out together.

I don't really have any good pictures to post this week,  but here's one from the International Buffet we had during Welcome Week.  This is a bunch of us from my rez...

The funny part of this picture is that there are 2 Aussies, 1 Estonian, 7 American, and 8 Canadians... no wonder I haven't been impacted by culture shock...there seems to be a lack of diversity amongst our rez!

I guess on the topic of culture I can talk about some of the differences I've noticed.  The one biggy that hasn't been too much of an issue is language.  I'm actually really happy that everyone here speaks english because I think it would be really frustrating to never have people understand what you're trying to tell them.  The only time I encounter language problems is over the phone...like trying to call the bank.  Pretty much any other time a real person can figure out that you don't speak Danish when they say something to you and get a blank look in return.  It's funny because sometimes when I'm at a the check-out at a store, I don't really want to go through the whole "I-don't-speak-Danish-thing" so I just act like I know what he or she is saying based on the situation at the time but that back-fired on me once and I'm pretty sure the lady thought I was completely stupid because she kept telling me to do something and I was just smiling trying and trying to pay.  Eventually I pulled out the I-don't-speak-Danish thing.  Another thing that keeps throwing me off is the bathrooms here! Sometimes they're unisex and others there's a men's/women's...so if you come to Denmark make sure you check it out before you walk into the wrong one!  What I do love about the bathrooms is that there isn't stalls inside, they're full on mini-bathrooms...with a full door and some even have a sink inside the "stall" which is awesome.  With Denmark being "Green" and all, all of the toilets have a dual flushing system so you only use half the water when it's necessary...pretty cool!  I don't know if this is a Danish thing or a Jenn thing (probably the latter) but I feel like whenever I go though a door, it's always the opposite from what I feel like I should do...when I think "push" it's "pull" and vice versa...but like I said, probably more of a Jenn thing.  The time difference is kind of annoying as well...I actually cannot watch hockey because 7pm games don't start until 1am...which isn't an awful start time because I'm usually still awake, but that means a 3-3:30am end time which is too late!  Last night we stayed up and watched the Superbowl, which ended at 4am!

But all in all, I'm still enjoying it.

I'll have plenty to write about after this weekend because from Thursday until Sunday I will be in PRAGUE!! I'm super excited and cannot wait :)  I better start doing some research though and figuring out a little bit about the culture!

Hopefully everyone's still having a great time back at home!

Love & miss everyone,
JT:)