Starting with today: I had my first day of classes! Yahoo/ boo/ hoo-rah/ yawn. I’ll talk about that later. As in tomorrow. Or even later. My eyes are yelling at me for staying up this late as it is, and it’s only ten o’clock. Gah. Waking up at six = not the first thing on my list of How to Be Productive and Exciting for the Day.

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So, yesterday. Yesterday was a thing… Yes… Sorry. Tired.

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Yesterday, I managed to sleep in a bit and wasn’t in Copenhagen until two. I thought it would be an easy day, but not so.

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After my short intro-class for DIS, I wandered around with the intentions of finding either food or a library. The books came first! Huzzah!

I found some familiar covers. (^Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

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And I found a future reading spot, given that it will not already be occupied by one of the children for whom it was intended. I’ll also need to figure out how to make sure I can fit without getting stuck or embarrassing myself. But that is for another day. (:

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Interestingly enough, the majority of books were bound in these standard, ambiguous, colorful hardback covers rather than the picturesque, iconic images I am used to. I’m not sure why this is, but it gave the whole library a candy store effect.

The amazing interior view from the escalator. (The Copenhagen Library is no small shop.)

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Then I ended up meeting Sara (host sister), and we went shopping around until we hated ourselves and the books in our bags. My wallet is lighter and my feet hurt by the end of it, but at least one great thing came from this:

What you are currently drooling over is a couple of do-it-yourself Magnum bars. You get to decide what toppings to sprinkle on and which kind of chocolate dip to use. Sorry.. I guess you — GAH. I AM BECOMING A WOMAN WARRIOR!!! Sorry. But I have seriously captured, corralled, and killed at least a dozen different species of insects and spiders since moving here. They aren’t used to the heat. I just killed a crane fly with the grace of a swan. Or something graceful. I don’t know. Anyway.– I was saying that you don’t get to pick the toppings. I do. Because I did. And it was delicious. And the promotion will be over within the week. So come visit me?

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The view from the train! So pretty.

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When we got home, Jesper (host Dad) was hard at work remodeling the neighbor’s yard! He’s adorable. And I’ve never before seen a “little digging machine,” as he called it.

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After dinner, Sara and Jesper gave me a lesson on the Danish education system. This is the map I was given. I will not try to explain now, but I will give some fun facts and basics! Their GPA is on a 12 point scale, but it is possible to go negative and above 12 points under various circumstances. Their primary, mandatory schooling (they call it “pre-school”) is nine years, followed by gymnasium for three, and then university. However, it seems pretty common to take gap years/ study other things in between/ etc, and there are a lot of options when it comes to gymnasium and university. All of this is covered by the state, of course! The lucky duckies.

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OH. And one last fact. I will probably talk about this more another time, because I have been thinking about it all day, and I think it is positively mind-boggling: There are approximately 8.4 million people living in New York City, but only 5.6 million living in all of Denmark. I think this is why the entirety of Danish history, culture, and language is so fascinating to me. Honestly, imagine if NYC had its very own language that was used by hardly anyone else. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

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All right, all right. Enough with the philosophical breakthroughs or middle school video-blog rants or whatever. Time for a shower.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa