When I got home from school for the holidays, I decided that - in this several week break - I'd make effort to learn what I could about Denmark and the Danes before embarking on my journey there.
1. My first resource(s) was the DIS website and the handbook they sent in the mail. Both very helpful. The DIS website links up with other sites about Copenhagen, so you could really spend hours just going from link to link and seeing what you find. Apparently the Danes eat lots of bacon (totally fine with me - bacon makes everything better) and they don't give a hoot about being politically correct or small talk-ing (coming from a southern state where small talk is the norm, that might take a bit getting used to). And they're also very fond of their queen and their many princes and princesses (there's a holiday for each of their birthdays).
2. At the recommendation of a fellow student on the DIS Facebook page (a lovely way to network before getting to Copenhagen), I looked up some "how to" videos on YouTube for learning simple Danish words and phrases. Let me just get it out in the open that I think Danish is going to be hard for me to learn. It's nothing like the Spanish I studied in high school. Nevertheless I gave a stab at learning how to count in Danish and how to say things like "my name is." The first phrase you learn in Spanish is "donde esta el bano" but I haven't learned how to ask that all-important question in Danish yet. Let's just hope that if I'm ever in need of a restroom I'm not surrounded by people who only speak Danish.
3. My dad's the sort of person who knows everyone in town. So it came at no surprise that one day he comes home from work and says "I know this Danish couple. Let's have them over for dessert and you can ask them questions." Turns out I didn't have to ask a lot of questions. They both had a wealth of stories to share and tidbits of advice to give. They even taught me the proper Danish way to do "skaal" (translation: cheers/toast) - you wait for everyone's glass to be filled then hold yours up in one hand and look around the table to make eye contact with each person before taking a sip; much more sophisticated than the American way of clinking glasses. Unfortunately, I'd missed the memo on what was going on and immediately jumped to step three of taking a sip. Look at me - not even in Denmark and already breaking Danish customs! But it didn't seem to matter that much. And by the time dessert was over, I'd heard lots about their family history and years of living there and gotten a list of places that "you just have to go to." Hopefully I can make it to all of them.
My most recent step (as in yesterday) in learning to be Danish was to change my cell phone to be on 24 hour time. You wouldn't think such a small thing would make that much of a difference. But when you've gone your whole life seeing hours in just numbers 1-12, imagine how surprised I am when I look down to see hours with numbers like 13 and 17. Equally confusing is changing the way dates are written. Any good American would look at 5-1-12 and say "May 5, 2012." But Danes are not good Americans. To them, 5-1-12 is "January 5, 2012." To save myself confusion later on, I also changed the date display on my phone.
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