DAY 3, MONDAY, JANUARY 14TH
Day 3 in Denmark but Day 1 of orientation at DIS. DIS plans out and helps students get adjusted extremely well and one way they do that is 3 days of orientation. We started off orientation with an opening ceremony so I arrived at the old circus building in Copenhagen at 9:45. The ceremony combined speakers from DIS along with a musical performance from a local pop artist, Elisha. After the ceremony I went to my first official orientation event which was the housing session. The housing sessions were split up by which housing you were in and then further broken down by what area your housing you are in, so my housing session was with all other homestay students who live in my area. It was really nice to meet some other people doing homestays and specifically people who live near me. In the session we also just discussed common issues that may come up in homestays and other info about living in a homestay. Once that session was over a few of us headed over to a facilities tour where a DIS faculty member took us around to different DIS buildings so we could get familiar with where our classrooms and other resources will be. That was my last scheduled session of the day so afterwards I wandered around a little bit stopping in some shops and eventually making my way over to Nyhavn (Nyhavn is definitely one of the most famous and photographed areas in Copenhagen). It is a cool area with a a ton of colorful buildings right on the canal. We only stayed there for a minute or two so I definitely plan on going back and exploring some more later.
With a lot of walking around and talking to strangers, I was pretty tired so I headed home around 4. Once I got home, my host mom warmed me up from the cold and windy walk home from the bus with a hot cup of tea! For dinner we had a traditional danish dish called Frikadeller, which is a meatball made from veal and pork, served with pickled beets- I surprisingly really loved the combo! Then we rounded out the day with some more Flødeboller and watching the Danish handball game.
DAY 4, TUESDAY, JANUARY 15TH
Today was a much more relaxed day as far as orientation activities. I went in to the city at about 10 for an optional session on sports and fitness in Copenhagen which was not super interesting but did give me a few tips. Other than that session, I didn't have anything else planned until my appointment to get my Visa at 2, so between the two I just ate some lunch and the walked around the city for a while. I really didn't do anything too exciting today and the weather was not great so after my visa appointment I just headed home. Also, for clarification in case you don't know, the sun currently rises at 8:30 AM and sets at 4 PM so the days feel very short and I start feeling tired super early! For dinner we had a sort of stew with sausage, chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc. over rice- it was super yummy just like everything else my host family has made so far! After dinner was the now routine coffee/tea and handball watching.
DAY 5, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16TH
Today was the last day of orientation!! I only had one event at 9 AM which was a sort of academic orientation where we met with our core course. At DIS we had to apply to a "core course" that would be sort of like our main course while we are here. With this class we do two separate travel weeks where we spend the whole week just with that class and all other classes are cancelled. So, since it's such a big part of the semester, we spent an hour and a half getting introduced to the course, Cyberpsychology, by our professor, Veronika, and getting introduced to our classmates. There is about 25 people in the course so we really only had time for short introductions but it was nice getting to see some faces of the people I will end up spending quite a bit of time with! Our professor also brought coffee, tea, and croissants fore everyone which was not a bad way to start the morning. For our "core course week" my class is spending 3 days in Copenhagen and then 2 in Aarhus, which is the second largest city in Denmark; and then for our "long study tour" we are traveling to Dublin, Ireland for a week.
After that ended I headed over to a couple stores just to get a few things I needed- notebooks, tissues, etc., before I eventually headed to the student union/coffee shop to eat my packed lunch. I ended up sitting with a couple other homestay students there who I had met before so it was nice to catch up and compare! Once we finished eating we all decided it would be nice to at least see one thing in the city so we headed towards the Rosenborg castle which is right in the city. The Rosenborg castle was built in 1606 by Christian IV as more of a summer-house type situation (bc we all have castles for summer homes, of course!!!) and royals have never lived there for an extended period of time. We didn't go in the castle for a tour this time, I'm sure I will at some point later, but we did wander around the gardens surrounded the castle called the King's Garden, the country's oldest royal gardens! Though it's winter, you could definitely see the impressiveness of the gardens but I can't wait for springtime when there are leaves and flowers- it will be stunning! We took some pictures and then started heading back to the bus stop where we all parted ways.
Dinner tonight was beef tenderloin, potatoes, mozzarella & tomato (chopped by yours truly), and orange & pomegranate seeds. My host family is so wonderful already but definitely 1023895042 bonus points for the great food too.
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