An elegant title, no? This has been my weekend.

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But first, the lead-up. On my trip home from school Friday, I had even more bussing troubles. I hopped on the first bus I saw, but it ended up driving the wrong direction. I didn’t notice at first because I was enraptured by my book (Feed by M.T. Anderson, a Christmas present from Brother- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BY THE WAY. GO SEE AN R-RATED MOVIE.) Once I noticed the rolling golden fields, I knew I was in trouble. I reached up to press the “STOP” button, and a lovely old Danish man in the seat behind me swiftly began a conversation. With me. In Danish.

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Now, a sensible person would probably return his words with a look of utter confusion/ horror/ distaste, or perhaps turn around and pretend to be Deaf, or even better- they may, like, say something to the effect of, “I’m sorry, do you speak English?” or, “No hablo Dansk,” or, “Uhhh.. uhm… Yeah… What?” BUT NOT I. No, sir. I am a survivor. So I smiled openly and nodded enthusiastically, and I watched as he pointed to his fingernails, and I even looked down at my own and nodded as though I understood and HOPED TO HOPE that he was not asking me any questions.

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Some time later, he stopped talking and smiled. I took this as my cue to return to my book. After a slight pause, the man said to me, in English, “Did you understand what I just said?” Imagine. My. Embarrassment.

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It’s okay, though! We’re buds, now. His name is Sven (of course), and he told me about his fortunate life of surviving a kidney transplant form thirty years ago. I told him of my studies with DIS and explained the phenomenon of The Party Nail (in answer to his original Danish conversation-starting question).

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So that was fun. After dinner, I ventured back into the city with Tonia and Mikayla (DIS girls) in search of Copenhagen Art Week, to be met with cheap canned beer (I had lemonade.. ha!), loud non-live music (they were between sets), urinals where men literally stood there and peed with no doors for all the world to see (sorry, no pics), and little boys running around collecting beer cans. OH, and there was no art. Uhm. Yes. That was something. We ended up going to a board game bar instead, and we played Settlers of Catan while listening to another DIS student and her new-found Danish tattoo artist reminisce over the pain of tattooing one’s spine. So that is not on the to-do list.

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The most hilarious thing was that everybody biked there. There were literally hundreds of bikes parked outside this raving party of hipster Danes. I couldn’t believe it.

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Saturday, I tried my hand at orienteering for a DIS homestay get-to-know-your-neighbors event. We were handed a map and dropped into a forest via helicopter with nothing but our bare hands and taste for adventure.

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Just kidding. About the helicopter part. All the rest is true. It was like a map-guided hunt for clues. Followed by cake! Yum.

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There was a swing. (:

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Then Sara and I went to the beach to cool off a bit. It was beautiful, the food along the shore smelled delicious, and I will be back. The one thing that really got me though was all of the male nudity. They all showed up in street clothes and just… changed on the beach. Right there. In front of me. I saw two butts and one… Well… I guess two, actually… Uhm… Yeah…. Anyway. They took their time, too, drying off and just enjoying the breeze, I guess. I wanted to hand them a kilt or something as a more modest alternative.

Sail boats!

That’s Sweden behind me….

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Sunday started off with some banana bread-baking and triathlon-viewing near our house.

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Some boys even cheered us on, as we rode our bikes to our viewing post under the shade.

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And then. The Final Frontier. The greatest joy of my life. The One. The Only. SWING DANCING.

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Ba-Bam. Ka-Chow. Ca-Chigga. And a doo-wop, doo-wop. The room was way too hot and the band was way too swingin’ (as if there is such a thing). The band was a bunch of hipster jazz boys from London (hell-ooooooo), and of course I took the time to chat them up at the end (my most favorite pastime). The crowd was a bit older than what I’m used to in Seattle and Portland, but they were GOOD. Like, really good. As in, I saw not a single beginner. Every one of the men who asked me took a second dance right away (not sure if it’s a culture thing or if I’m just that adorable), and they all had accents! I think I may have heard some American snippets at one point, but I did not meet anyone from The Homeland.

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All in all, I would chalk that up as a fantastic First Real Weekend Abroad. Can’t wait to see what else Denmark has in store for me.

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I come to you this fine afternoon from the Copenhagen Library, and these truths are brought to my attention for the hundredth time: that the kids and the musicians always has the most fun.

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You’ll be hearing from me shortly!

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,
Lizzy-wa