The First Week

I went to a concert in high school to see a group called “Graham Colton Band”, they wrote this song call First Week about the first week of a relationship and how awesome it is. It is this special kind of feeling you never get again when you first start dating someone. The last verse in the chorus stanza was “why can’t it be like the first week?” This line really stuck out to me. I’ve often thought about that line whenever I had conflict within my own relationships with my boyfriend and close friends. I always think back to the excitement of a new love interest or a new friend in the first week, how enamored I was of them. And it always helped remind me of how much I care about them and gave me a little perspective.

That being said. In my relationship with Copenhagen, the first week was nothing like that at all. Moving to a new city, in a new part of the world, comes with a whole slew of challenges I anticipated, but was also a little naive about. The most basic things become scary because they are so unfamiliar. Even though I have lived in Copenhagen before, you forget these basic things.

For example,

My bike lock is a monster that I cannot get to work, but all the Danes have no trouble only proving that the problem is me and not the lock.
I cannot for the life of me pronounce the street I live on. How bout you try its: Dalslangsgade.
Going to the grocery store and trying to figure out the animal or origin in all the lunch meat, or read any label at all, but it’s kind of a good thing because all I buy is vegetables, as those are internationally recognizable. #healthyliving
Going up to school and trying to read the map in another language to find the International Student Center.
Every time I go to the embassy to get information or submit paperwork for my student visa, etc. they always look you up and down and you cannot help but imagine what they are thinking. Some of these assumptions are probably accurate but nevertheless your mind just races through different scenarios. Possibilities include, but are not limited to,

“She could be a very unsuspecting drug lord.”
“You radical left wing American trying to get in on our nationalized social services.”
“Your clothes are probably all way cheaper than mine because you bought them in America…bitch.”
“I wonder what all you brought into this country tax free, Face wash? Perfume? Whiskey?!?”
“Why would you EVER come to Denmark when Beyoncé lives in America!”

The experience, while stimulating for the imagination, is also terrifying as your ability to live in this country hangs in the balance of a public sector employee giving you elevator eyes.

Without many friends because I haven’t started classes I have caught myself zoning out at well-dressed Danish girls in cafes and on the street thinking about how we could be the best of friends, romping around Copenhagen in our gray scale together. Then they notice I’m staring at them and I don’t know if I should say “I am not in fact checking you out, I just like your clothes and am friend-crushing on you” or “Hi, nice to meet you!” or “I JUST WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”. None of which would result in a friendship so I usually just run away.

Yet, the first week is also filled with triumphs. When I first biked the 2 miles it takes to get to school I was totally out of breath and thought I could be having a heart attack. Now I can do the whole route to and from without too much exhaustion. Improvement!

I realize this post is full of “First World Problems” and you will probably read this and think, “Come on, you live in a great European city how bad can it really be!” And you would be right, I shouldn’t complain. I’m just putting the idea out there that while moving is exciting and thrilling, for those of you planning to traverse the Atlantic in the near future this is just an FYI:

Moving countries is not like the first week of a new relationship, it’s like ordering a dress from a catalog and when you put it on it is NOTHING like it looked in 2D and you can’t decide if you love it or hate it but either way, you know no one else will be wearing it and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe it’s a good thing, and maybe it’s a bad thing. But you decide you just have to jump in the deep end, wear the dress, and stick out because at the end of the day you won’t fit in anyway. But then as they days go by you gradually start to see people wearing a dress kind of like this strange one from the catalog, and you think, “Huh, maybe I could fit in here after all.”

The first week.

A short story of what happened to me while packing:

As I unpack from college and begin packing for Denmark I have had a whirlwind of emotions. The un-pack and re-pack phenomenon brings out strange happenings. Saying farewell to a portion of ones life journey and embracing another. All you can expect is the unexpected when you find yourself idle and decide to commune with your feelings. It's frightening.

I say goodbye to dresses, picture frames, the multitudes of owls I have amasses over the years, etc. It's terribly materialistic (I am horrified to inform you of my material fetishism) but that's the ugly truth.

As I fold black shirt after grey shirt after black pants which will become the greyscale defining my Scandinavian wardrobe, I have moments of delight as I stand on the precipice of my new adventure! And simultaneous fear as the string of hanging elephants which graced my walls over the eight years of college and high school which I will leave behind hold a piece of me I am not sure I yet wish to part with.

And all this excitement and anticipation marks the catharsis which is moving on from college into the real world. I look at my packed suitcase with a sense of foreboding accomplishment.

Then it suddenly hits me: I didn't pack a single pair of underwear. Not one.

Is this the reality of four years of careful study, embodying to the best of my ability wholistic scholarship, to find myself 6,000 miles away without a single pair of panties?

A's in the hardest of theoretical courses, mastering the art of taking 5 dates to sorority formals completely undetected, finally discovering certain professors marital statuses, realizing the meaning of the acrostic "smh" which I've seen all over social media and pondered for months. ALL of this ALL to be strewn aside as I spend the first hours of my future life spending all my graduation money to buy overpriced Danish underpants.

Is the reality that post-grad life hangs so fragile in the balance of things?

Luckily I realized this now and have packed some underwear but the point remains: what is this strange purgatory? Between already lived life and life that awaits to be lived.

Concluding thought of the day: it's all contingent on remembering to pack your underwear.

Old City, New Home

I am less than two weeks out from my return to a truly amazing city, Copenhagen, Denmark!! A series of events after I studied abroad have led to my penultimate return to the Scandinavian capital city and I could not be more excited about this adventure.

I have been accepted to the University of Copenhagen (Københavns Universitet or KU) to pursue an MSc in Anthropology (in English, one adventure at a time). I have not yet formally picked a focus of my study but I am hoping the courses I take in the fall will solidify that decision a smidge. Somewhere in the realm of Cultural Anthropology, I am sure. I absolutely loved my study abroad program in the fall of 2012 at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad which focused on the integration of Turkish Muslims into Copenhagen. My class schedule this fall lends itself to learning more on that subject. Needless to say I will be nerd-ing out. Hard. 

I have spent the past four years studying Anthropology/Sociology during my Bachelor's degree. A huge focus of this discipline both theoretically and in practice is encountering alterity or otherness/difference. But how much can one truly absorb in the classroom about such an encounter? Despite the fact that I have had concrete experiences with individuals who are different from me socially and culturally, the fact still remains: I have lived in the same home in St. Louis, Missouri from birth until I graduated high school, I then moved cities (but only four hours South) to Memphis, Tennessee where I attended Rhodes College. And that's me up to the present. Despite a lot of traveling the vast portion of my life has been spent in only two cities and in the same region of the United States.

It's high time for a new adventure. Putting these theories into practice is the real challenge of education and I fully intend to put myself out there by not only encountering another culture but embodying it to the best of my ability by living and working in (fairly) new cultural surroundings.

Over the summer I will be taking a Danish language immersion course, then starting my Master's in the beginning of September.

I hope this blog will once again serve for my friends and family to keep up with me as I tackle this new chapter.

Most exciting is that I am flying to Copenhagen without a return ticket. No looming end to the fantasy this time around. I could not be more excited. Let the countdown begin: 10 days.
Vi ses! (See you later--in Danish--whoa!)

RESURRECTION

The blog is back. 

After being accepted to graduate school for MSc in Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen I embark on another Danish adventure! 

Very hopeful this blog will help keep you all informed on the happenings in Scandinavia. Stay tuned for cultural revelations and massive amounts of snark. 

Yours truly, 

HEH 

Amsterdam (reader discretion is advised...)

 
This weekend I met one of my best friends from school in Memphis, Annie, in Amsterdam for the weekend! We had a great relaxing weekend finding cool eateries and sight seeing.

We went to the Anne Frank Huis on Saturday morning. I had been before when I was ten, it was Annie’s first time. I was really glad I got to go again, I remember a lot of the Anne Frank house from my first visit. I think it is hard at that age (understandably) to truly understand the Holocaust and what was going on in Amsterdam and the world at that time. While after having studied World War II, and having traveled to Berlin and seen many of the memorials there, I felt much more knowledgeable about the time and the chronology of the events that this second visit was much more meaningful for me in that respect. However, I think there is something about visiting the Anne Frank House when you are about the same age as Anne was when she was in hiding there. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit twice.

That afternoon we bopped and shopped around just taking in the city. I have to say Amsterdam has a lot of cute local stores, coffee shops, clothing designers, etc. We had a great time exploring!! I was a little surprised how much the streets resembled those in Copenhagen, I felt right at home! Annie was shocked at how early it got dark…I remained un-phased as it was lighter outside than it is in Denmark.

That evening we went on a guided tour of the Red Light District. This is one of my favorite tours I have ever taken in my life (it’s a close contender with the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour in London which I have raved about for years--just for some perspective). The tour is two hours, first you visit the Amsterdam Prostitute Information Center--it is unsurprisingly the only prostitute information center in the world. There we spoke with an ex-prostitute about the history and current situation of the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Then we got to stand in a red-lit window to get a feel for what it looks like for prostitutes in Amsterdam (there were an array of costumes one could choose from but we decided to just stand in our winter coats as to not have a “too real” experience, as it were…)


READER DISCRETION!! You are entering the section of the blog about the RED LIGHT DISTRICT (Grandma--STOP READING NOW.)

Afterwards we walked around the Red Light District, which if you didn’t know is one of the safest areas in Amsterdam. For it’s historic value the real estate there goes for millions of euros just for an apartment. Residents are acutely aware they live in the Red Light District, there are day care centers and small coffee shops, etc that were closed because it was late at night but it was clearly an affluent neighborhood.

The Red Light District itself also has different divisions, there are both window and club prostitutes. Some women prefer to be in a club as it is a more discrete way of doing the job. The window prostitutes also vary in age, size, gender, price, they are all very different. Different sections of the district represent these different demographics. There is a street specifically for transvestites, for example. We also went on the most historic/expensive street in the district which was interesting to compare to the other windows elsewhere, this tour was very educational! Our tour ended up being a really small tour of just five of us, us, a Scottish couple, and a man from Singapore, but our tour guide told us that she always loses a couple people (guys) every time she brings a big group of thirty or so through the most expensive/historic street. It is said that the most attractive prostitutes work on this street. I must say I disagree, they looked quite fake (if you catch my drift). I preferred the transvestite street personally.

They told us a lot of statistics and practical information on the tour as well. It costs about 90 euros/per 8-hour shift to rent out a room, each window prostitute rents her own window, and it has a small room with a bed behind it. The door can only be opened from the inside, the prostitute hand picks her customers, and pretty much all prices are negotiable (except on the expensive street where they really aren’t). The standard price is 50 euros for ten minutes, other “extras” or more time is more money but also negotiable depending on the prostitute. The prostitute will typically advertise with a small sign in the window if she has any special extra things she offers. Our tour guide also told us that almost all the prostitutes are educated--a large percentage are working to pay off student loans. For Dutch girls it is an easy way to make a lot of money. And that is all it is about for these prostitutes. An ex-prostitute in the center said to us there might be some passion in certain encounters, but for the girls it is all about money--and never any love involved.

I must admit I have been pondering my feelings on prostitution--in general and in Amsterdam--after this tour and I feel very conflicted. It is hard I think to understand what makes a person enter this business, but at the end of the day if prostitution is going to happen, at least let it happen in a place where the girls make the decision themselves, have access to a center, a support network, and testing services such as the girls in Amsterdam do. A very historical place and sight I must say this goes down as one of my favorite experiences traveling.

Oh and Amsterdam has delicious Indian food. yummy yummy!!

 

 

 

 

the streets of Amsterdam

 

mmmmmmm coffee

 

Anne Frank Huis

 

Annie getting a feel for what it's like to be in the window

 

The Red Light District

 

 

Holidays...more like HoliNIGHTS...

So some of you may have heard….Denmark gets pretty darn dark in the wintertime. Initially I was nervous that I was going to miss my vitamin D and get a little seasonal depression, but that hasn’t happened at all which I’m thankful for! It is light outside from about 8:30am until around 2:30-3:30 pm when it gets real dark outside.

I’ve taken to playing a little game on my twitter where I tweet a picture and ask “What time is it in Copenhagen?” Most of the time if your answer is anywhere from 4pm-8am the next day you would be correct.

Denmark is actually very good at compensating for this darkness and cold. All the cafes and restaurants are really cozy with fires and hot drinks. The streets are lined with Christmas lights and decorations, and today it even snowed!! Everything is screaming holiday cheer include the Danes so the darkness hasn’t been too shabby. My only problem is I get SO tired. When it’s been dark since 3pm I find myself sitting around my room doing homework and yawning at 7pm like “Can I go to bed yet??” But I don’t let myself go to bed until 9pm most nights so I have some semblance of a normal sleeping schedule. My friend Jenny remarked the other day, “I’m incredibly well rested, but it is so hard to stay awake!” and that is the truth of it.

My Danish professor told me that the Danes really are accustomed to the dark if not need it. She said she loves the dark because she needs that more “depressing” climate as it makes her that much more excited for the light that comes in April. It helps remind you what is truly important and appreciate the light when you have it more. I mean, the Danes are the happiest people in the world so who am I to argue!

I’ll take a hot chocolate and a blanket, snuggle up and take the dark for what it’s worth!

My apartment building at 3pm (ish)

Nyhavn (the New Harbor) decked out for the Holidays!

 

my street this morning

how I love snowy Copenhagen...

 

Thanksgiving(s) in Denmark!

 

Let me tell you a little story….

My first Thanksgiving away from home was this year while I was in Denmark. Our Danish friends don’t really eat turkey the way we do. We learned we might have to pre-order a turkey. Thinking that would be such a hassel that no one would want to deal with, I made a passing comment, “If y’all find and buy the turkey, I will cook it.” I ended up spending my first Thanksgiving on my own stuffing and cooking a ten pound turkey for seven people, and guess what…..IT WAS DELICIOUS!

I was so proud of myself and probably had 10 panic attacks in between seeing the frozen turkey defrosting on my roomate’s floor until it was stuffed, cooked for 3 hours, and came out of the oven all lovely brown and delicious.

We turned my room into a dining room, I turned around my bookshelves, made my desk a make shift dining table, some festive napkins and tea lights and a smorgasbord of thanksgiving traditionals and we were in the money! It certainly wasn’t the same without our families but I have to say I think I can speak for us all when I say it was very fun and definitely a great substitute on this favorite American holiday.

Jonas, our resident Dane at thanksgiving, put up with us going around the table saying what we were thankful for, and he even got seconds--that’s how good my turkey was! (recipe cred goes to Grandmom Phyllis, it was her stuffing recipe!)

 

the table!

nom nom turkey!

a little blury...but you get the picture!

the aftermath

Thanksgiving Part Two:

Then I had a second Thanksgiving on Sunday with my Danish mommy and brother! My Danish brother, Sebastian, decided that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is now called “Crazy Thanksgiving Christmas Day” because we ate thanksgiving food (we just went with a stuffed chicken--turkey is a real commitment) and made Christmas decorations, it was really fun, I am definitely going to miss them!! A good thanksgiving was had by all!

 



me and my Danish brother, Sebastian making Christmas candle arrangements (it's a Danish thing)

Denmark is into non-traditional gender roles so I cut the chicken

christmas decorations!!