We are red! We are white!

A great day to be a Dane! Last night, the Danish handball team won the European Handball Championship and today was a celebration. Around 3pm, we gathered at city hall awaiting the team’s return from Serbia. As the sun began to set, the crowd huddled together and excitement heightened. Finally, the team arrived and we went wild singing the national anthem and cheering. When you are Danish, everything is worthy of celebration!

Even Prince Frederik made an appearance!

Week One Highlights

1) My first exposure to Danish music! We listened to this one by Rasmus Seebach the other night while making dinner:


2) Speaking of dinner, this is what we made:
Yes, pizza, but can you spot the secret ingredient? The Danish word is ‘majs’ (sort of pronounced like ‘maize’)

3) The Amazing Race: Copenhagen, a DIS program intended to facilitate exploration of the city’s many historical and governmental buildings including parliament and the queen's palace.

4) Exploring Ganløse, my new home.
5) Starting classes! My professors so far are very approachable and passionate about the subjects they teach. I can’t wait to dive further into the topics.

6) My first Danish (wienerbrød)! It was delicious. I got it at Studenterhuset, my Kaya away from CMU. More on that and the exciting week to come later.

Copenhagen: First Look

Well, after 26 hours of travel, made it to Copenhagen yesterday afternoon (and no, Dad, the Earth’s axis didn’t shift from my 120 pounds of gear).

My host family is so nice and welcoming. Last night we feasted on delicious frikadeller (traditional meatballs), potatoes, chicken, salad, and champagne. Skål! That’s Danish for cheers, a word I think I will become very familiar with. Today, I got to try flødeboller, a chocolate covered marshmallow treat often served at birthdays and celebrations. It was pretty good! Another interesting Danish snack is salty licorice. It gives your jaw a very good workout!

Today’s orientation went well. DIS is very organized and made it very easy for me to apply for a Danish Visa, pick up my books, get a cell phone, and explore the city. Another useful phrase I learned is “hjælp, jeg for veldt!” (help, I am lost!). Copenhagen is simply beautiful: the architecture, the people, the lazy snowflakes, the bikes, the cobblestone, everything. The transportation system is phenomenal. My host mother, Bente, showed us how the trains work this morning. It is about a 30 minute ride from the station closest to our town to Copenhagen. It’s a little confusing at first, but I’ll be an expert in no time.
Now we are watching The Breakup with Danish subtitles so Vanessa (another DIS student who lives with us) and I can work on our Danish and Bente can work on her English. Tonight, we have spent a lot of time just chatting and looking at maps and pictures of where we are from, have been, and are going. I already love it here.

Me, my host mother Bente, my host brother Jonas, and their dog Picasso.

GOAL!

For those of you who know me, you know I am extremely goal oriented. In my calendar, I plan out my day to the half hour to ensure I get everything on my task list completed. Naturally, I have some goals for my experience abroad, and I know that the best way to keep myself accountable is for me to share them:

1) Make the most of my experience and never let the fear of failure or rejection keep me from doing something I want to do
2) Explore sustainability in Denmark
3) Make friends with people from all over the world and never be afraid to start up a conversation with a stranger (or be afraid but do it anyways)
4) Get involved with extracurricular activities (at least 2)
5) Keep my grades up
6) Write often! (at least weekly via blog and nearly daily in personal journal)
7) Take LOTS of pictures (kind of a given)
8) Learn to cook Danish dishes
9) Explore the Danish music scene
10) In omnia paratus! (my personal motto: Be ready for anything)



If Nicklas Bendener, a Danish football player, can make these goals, I think I can acheive mine too.

A day in the life: CMU

For the purpose of cross cultural comparison, I thought I should detail a typical day in my life as a student at CMU. I wrote this November 8, 2011:

My cell phone alarm clock went off this morning at 8:10 AM, so naturally, I proceeded to sleep in until 9. Today looks slightly drizzly but warm, and I have chosen to wear a white button up tunic and my favorite pair of jeans. I ate breakfast this morning with my roommate Amanda at the Robinson Residential Restaurant, which is connected to my residence hall: freshly squeezed orange juice and Special K Red Berries cereal.

I spent the rest of my morning e-mailing a professor about the grant we are writing, reading an article for my social psychology class, and goofing off with another roommate, Jaime. At about 11:50am, we went down to the cafeteria for lunch: turkey, tomato, lettuce, and cheese sandwich. Then I was off to English 201. We spent the class period talking about a reading by Erich Fromm concerning obedience and the destruction of mankind. Next I had Social Psychology, and we got our tests from last week back. Because I did well, I was allowed to leave early while my professor reviewed the material for those who scored poorly. When I got back to my dorm, I had a quick snack of homemade applesauce and candy corn that my parents brought me when they visited last weekend. The remainder of my afternoon consisted of loose ends: e-mailing, jotting down a poem, calling my sister, and dropping off some photos for the CMU Honor Bound publication.

Amanda and I had dinner together around 5pm: grilled chicken quesadilla and vanilla ice cream with marshmallow fluff. Yum! The rain held off during dinner but it began to thunderstorm during quiz bowl practice and continued to do so for the remainder of the evening. After practice, I had a meeting with my Alternative Break group. We are headed to South Carolina in December to volunteer at a group home for young girls who have been the victims of abuse. When I got home, I took a shower and did some reading for English, academic planning, and scholarship scouting. Then it was off to bed around midnight. Sweet Dreams!

My roommates and I at the ice arena.

Two Weeks!

This morning I received news from my host family! I will be living with a mother and her 14 year old son in a small village about 13 miles outside Copenhagen. Now that I have an actual home to imagine myself living in, it is becoming more and more real! Only two weeks until arrival!

On Jumping

When did I decide to study abroad? Well, I guess you could say it was the day I read the article in Time magazine about Denmark topping the chart for the happiness index. Who doesn’t want to go to the happiest place on earth? I must have been about 14 when I read that article (recent surveys confirm that Denmark is still positively fantastic), but it stuck with me and here I am, five years later, headed to Denmark.

At this time last year, my plan was to study abroad in Summer 2012. I began to research the many programs available through CMU and quickly landed on the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS). I was especially enticed by their encouragement of further travel through Europe as many of the classes have study trips as a co-requisite. Come September 2011, I made a visit to my study abroad advisor and she asked a simple question that changed everything: Why not do a full semester? While I was hesitant, fearing everything I would miss at CMU, she helped me realize that sometimes, you have to jump. Take chances. Take risks. So I went for it, an entire semester in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Throughout the Fall 2011 semester, I have been preparing for my trip: signing up for a host family and extracurricular activities, figuring out cell phone service, buying plane tickets, etc. However, my favorite thing, aside from getting a new travel wardrobe, has been picking classes. Here’s what my final schedule looks like:
· European Memory and Identity (my core course, with study trip to the Czech Republic)
· Danish Language and Culture
· Royalty in an Equal Society
· Human Trafficking in a Global Context (the class I am most excited about, with study trip to Amsterdam)
· Nordic Mythology
The best part is that they all count for credit back at CMU! I remember the day I spent crisscrossing campus getting my transfer equivalency form signed by various advisors. That night, exhausted but excited about my success, I remember thinking, this is really happening- four months from now, I will be sleeping halfway across the world!

Allow me to introduce myself...

Amberly’s the name, studying abroad is the game. Join me on my adventure from rural Michigan to the bustling streets of Copenhagen. I am so excited to share this semester with you. I encourage you to ask questions, make suggestions, and comment in hopes that you, from wherever you are reading, can feel like you are in Denmark, too.

A little about me:

I attend Central Michigan University (That's me with our school seal in the picture, Fire Up Chips!) in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. As a sociology major, I enjoy watching social interactions and fighting for human rights. I am also studying for minors in history and global justice. While I am very academically focused, I also enjoy expressing myself through the art of sewing, playing guitar, and dancing.

Having grown up in Northern Michigan, I have always had a passion for anything outdoors – hiking, biking, kayaking, cross country skiing, swimming – I can’t get enough!

Of course, I love traveling. I have studied abroad on two previous occasions: both to Mexico. The first was after my sophomore year of high school, when I went to Merida to spend a week with a host family and a week participating in cultural exploration. Last summer, I returned for a three week long service learning project in Oaxaca.

The sights, the sounds, the food: the world has so much to offer and knowing I have only explored a fraction makes me yearn for travel once again. Denmark, here I come!