Skål! (Cheers!)

Last Friday, after a long week of adapting to life in Denmark, my friends and I celebrated the beginning of our European adventure at a party thrown by DIS. The “Welcome Party” was held in a nightclub in downtown Copenhagen and was open bar. Just to prove the difference between Danish and American drinking culture, the professors and other DIS staff who attended the party joined us at the bar and on the dance floor. If my professors had showed up at frat parties during freshman orientation at Gettysburg I would have thought it was strange and inappropriate, but here it seemed totally normal. I think it’s safe to say that everyone had a great time.

Skål!

On Saturday, my host dad and I went for a walk through the woods behind the house. We talked about American culture and Danish culture and my observations so far about the similarities and differences between the two. He asked me why I chose to study abroad in Denmark. I told him that Denmark is one of the countries in Europe that I have always wanted to visit and that I was intrigued by DIS’s curriculum and opportunities for cultural immersion and travel. I asked him why his family wanted to open their house to a foreign student. He said that they specifically requested to host an American female so that the family, particularly the daughters, could learn about American culture and practice speaking English. I asked him how he came to speak English so well when he lives in a country where English is not commonly spoken. He modestly replied that he doesn’t think his English is so good and said that he learned some English in school but that he learned much of what he knows from reading books written in English. I was shocked when he told me that the first time he’d heard his oldest daughter speak more than a few words of English was one night last week when she and I were discussing books and movies after dinner. I was surprised to hear this because she also speaks English very well. I was moved by how appreciative he sounded, and I am grateful that I can be of value to my host family as we try to learn more about each other, our cultures, and our languages.

Towards the end of our walk we passed a section of an old railroad track where it crosses a stream. My host dad pointed to the far corner of the track and said that hidden there is a box and that there are more of them hidden all over the world and that it is a game to find the boxes but that lots of people don’t about it. I couldn’t believe it! Geocaching/Letterboxing is like a modern treasure hunt (geocaching using GPS and letterboxing using complex riddles) in which people try to find boxes that have been hidden in all sorts of places all over the globe. My family has been letterboxing for a few years now, and we have found a number of letterboxes in Bucks County, PA as well as New York and Vermont. As it turns out, my host family has tried geocaching a few times because it adds excitement to a typical walk in the woods. None of my friends in the US had heard of letterboxing before my family started doing it, so I think it is kind of ironic that my host family knows all about it.

More to come soon!

Love,
Allie

PS. here are some of my favorite photos of Denmark so far:

Nyhavn

Rosenborg Castle

The Royal Danish Playhouse

downtown Køge