Catch-up entry #1: Blast off

How do I really like Copenhagen?  Why did I choose to study in such a small, unimportant European country?  Why the hell am I learning Danish, a so-called pajama language?  I get these rather incredulous and suspicious questions regularly from non-natives and native Danes alike.  They don't exactly paint a very welcoming picture of Denmark.  Luckily, I've come to realize there are as many reasons to come to Denmark as there are reasons not to.  I'll cover the basics here, but you'll have to visit if you want to see the truth for yourself.

How's life in Copenhagen?  Rainy. Windy. Walkable. Bike-friendly. Canal-y. Full of herring and rye bread and Carlsberg beer. Windy. Lively and happening every single hour of the week except on Sunday. Extraordinarily patriotic with flags flying everywhere. Very blonde. In love with jazz music. In love with any music you can dance to. In L.O.V.E. with Aqua.  LIBERAL. Surprisingly homogenous. Packed with 7-11s. Green--in both the color and environmental sense. Friendly. Outdoorsy. Highly proficient in the English language. Did I mention windy?

Danish food isn't particularly delicious, although eating liver pate on a piece of buttered rye bread topped with veal is certainly memorable.  The weather gets pretty dreary, although the September I experienced was full of sunshine and Danes relishing every last drop of it.  Danes don't get recognized in the international media very often, although they made a splash when the government paid for a tourism advertisement depicting a Danish woman seeking the father of her one-night-stand baby.  Bring on the lonely American men looking for liberated Danish women!  Not many millionaires come out of Denmark--and if they do, they get taxed up the wazoo.  The unofficial national motto is "You shall not presume you are anyone [important]" from Janteloven.  So why are Danes the happiest people on Earth?  Most experts cite low expectations as a key factor.  However, being humble and modest (though secretly proud of their Viking past) doesn't stop Danes from thinking their culture is the best.  Just talk to the hundreds of people rejected asylum in Denmark if you ever have a doubt of Denmark being fiercely protective of their Danish identity (5 million strong).

My host-family is actually not ethnically Danish.  They immigrated from Kurdistan about ten years ago and were granted asylum here before Denmark's immigration laws got so strict.  Both my 18-year-old host sister and 13-year-old host brother speak perfect Danish, and both my parents speak very well.  My host mom was the one who dubbed Danish a pajama language, because it's something you feel comfortable wearing but something you have to take off if you ever want to leave the house.  As a result, everyone speaks English.  Very handy for me, but it doesn't exactly help me integrate into the culture--especially since I'm INSIDE the house where everyone else can switch into pajamas, and I'm the only one who can't get cozy.  Having a foreign host family helps because living in a multilingual household is the norm.  We communicate in a mix of Kurdish, Danish, and English--okay, I admit it's mostly English where I'm concerned, but I'm trying to learn.

So do I like it here?  Truly, I love it here.  I never thought I'd appreciate the urban jungle, but I LOVE the fact that there are tons of museums, restaurants, shops, lectures, theaters...all at my fingertips, every day (except Sunday), accessible by my Alle Zone pass that gives me unlimited rides on all city buses, trains, and metro.  Copenhagen isn't gray and towering like New York City, isn't crime-ridden like parts of Chicago, isn't car-filled and exhaust-ed like Los Angeles; here, the old architecture blends seamlessly with the new, the streets are safe and navigable by easy (but fun-sized) landmarks, and bikes flood the streets.  I came here to experience the Liberal & Green side of government, to attend the COP 15 UN climate conference, and to take some academically challenging classes.  You know what I got?  I got Europe as my classroom.  I've already traveled to Lithuania, Sweden, and Germany, and there's a Eurail pass in the mail.  I got a Pro-Environment city and a Pro-Bush host family.  I got to listen about poorly-aimed American missiles from an Afghani asylum-seeker, and I got to stand inside the ramshackle house of a Gypsy women.  I got to walk through the German town where many Nazis found safety after WWII, and then I got to see the tiny dagger that Lithuanian policemen used to stab Jewish children.  I got to dip my feet in the Baltic Sea.  I've got Obama mania times a million.  This excitement is way more than I could have hoped for.  And I've still got three months left.