Did I mention I'm in Norway?

In case you were wondering what I'm doing for my birthday, I'm spending it in Norway, on a fjord!

Basically, a couple of weeks ago my friends Jade (Canadian) and Charlotte (English) decided to go somewhere for the week's break we have between our language course finishing and uni beginning on the 4th of September, so we found cheap Ryanair flights to Oslo, and here we are!

We spent yesterday in Oslo, which was a little rainy and dirty, but the Munch Museum (he of 'The Scream' painting fame) was quite cool.
Today we took the train for 7 hours to Bergen - the scenery was amazing, glaciers and mountains and fjords, oh my!

Tomorrow we go on a fjord tour, so i will spend my birthday on boats, trains and buses, seeing some of Norway's most beautiful scenery - yay!
Then overnight train back to Oslo on Thursday, Oslo again Friday, then back to Denmark Saturday!

I will write a proper update with photos etc when I return to Denmark, but just thought I should let you know where I am! Oh, and if you want to call/text me for my birthday, probably my Australian number (+61 412 414 534) is best, cos my Danish prepaid is running very low, as it appears I am roaming, having gone to a different country and all!

Legoland!

I did a few other interesting things this week, such as opening my Danish bank account (I got a card with our opera house on it - thanks Jorn Utzon for engineering that!), paying my rent, making spaghetti sauce for the first time (which is highly challenging without measuring cups or weights!), and seeing some funky live Danish music at our local student house.

On Thursday night, one of the other Aussies, Ben, had his 21st, so we all headed to one of the other colleges, Skjebyparken, for a good old Aussie BBQ, and then some drinking - it was a fun night! Especially as when we tried to buy normal Aussie sausages, you know, the thick ones, we could only get one giant creepy sausage, which dwarfed all others - highly amusing!



However, the highlight of the week was our Saturday excursion to Legoland! I talked about it a lot before I left Australia as one of the exciting things about this Denmark Today course, and we all even made sure we got an early night on Friday night, so we would have a better day on Saturday. And it lived up to expectations!

It turns out there are 4 Legolands, one in Windsor, England, one in California, one in Germany, and the one we went to, the original, in Billund, Denmark, which is about 1 1/2 hours from Aarhus.



Basically, it's like Australia's Wonderland, so some fun rides, lots of stuff aimed at kids, but with the added bonus of lots of things made out of Lego - like whole countries and villages, animals, pirate ships, dragons - it was really cool! And there was this really cute little 4-D movie (the 4th dimension not being time, as is usually thought, but instead things like mist, smoke and droplets of water!), where Lego men and women battled an evil Lego sorcerer - it was just gorgeous!

The rides were fun, water ones with vikings and pirates and various animals, but we avoided some of the dodgier-looking roller coasters!



So we had a fun day, behaving like little kids - I even bought a stuffed toy, a very cute little dragon - I know I've overused the word 'cute' in this post, but it's the most apt word for the situation!




I also finally bought an umbrella this week, after losing mine the week before - a much needed commodity in this crazy Danish weather, which is sunny one moment, pouring the next!

Rain? What is it?

People here find it amusing that I find rain such a novelty, but as a Sydneysider, and as someone who spent 2 weeks in the brilliant Turkey sunshine, I haven't seen proper rain for about 3 months (London rain certainly doesn't count, much more like very annoying mist!)

It has been raining in buckets on and off for the last few days - lovely to sit inside, chatting to people, eating and relaxing, but rather annoying to go out in! But as Denmark supposedly has rain about every 3 days, I'll have to get used to it!

On Thursday afternoon we went to the Aros Art Museum, which is mostly modern art. I loved it, because I really like a lot of contemporary stuff - there was a really cool room which was set up to play through 24 hours of a living room in 8 minutes - very well done! And there is a 5 metre scuplture by an Australian artist called Boy - disturbingly lifelike!



On Friday we went to what can only be described as a cult - in Denmark, from ages 17 to 20, kids tend to study at a final high school/university type thing called Gymnasium. The Ronde Hojskole, or Folk High School, that we visited on Friday is something that you can do after that, which lasts for about 5 months, and involves learning what you want for the pure joy of it, and meeting other people. It sounds really nice in theory, but the guy who lectured us about it made us sing hymns to start with, kept telling strange stories without endings, and really made the whole experience rather disturbing! Particularly as we then toured the place, to see that it was pretty much like a kid's school camp, which again appeared odd! Basically, the whole thing could have been done better if we had just had a lecture at the university about it, rather than travelling for 40 minutes by bus to this strange cult-like environment!

Saturday was relaxing, after a night in on Friday watching Four Weddings and a Funeral - it's great that everything here is not dubbed, but subtitled, so I can learn strange Danish words as well as still being able to watch things! Our lovely Italian boys cooked us lunch - authentic Italian carbonara! It's a hard life I lead, I know!



But Saturday night was great - we partied at the Student house, where the music was badly dj'ed, with only a couple of good songs to dance to every half an hour, but the strange Danish alcohol was interesting - shots of liquor that tastes like Fisherman's Friend lollies, and is actually called Fishermans! We ended up at McDonald's (an old staple, although much more expensive here!), then at a funny bar which was playing music from the 80's, like 'I'm So Excited"! Unfortunately, trying to catch a taxi home proved difficult, as it turns out that for a city of 300,000 people, there are only 300 taxis, so almost impossible on a Saturday night! As the sun rises so early here, I arrived home just as it was coming up, around 5:30am! But a great night (see the pictures below). Also below are some general pictures of the people I'm spending time with - lots of fun people from all over the world!

Us at the outdoor cinema - Fabrizio, Charlotte, Diego and me.

Marte (Germany) and Fabrizio.

L-R Abi (Spain), Sonja, Alexandra and Magdalena (Germany)

L-R: Hannika (Netherlands), Jade (Canada), Sonja (Germany), Ben (Australia), me, Andreas (Danish).

Jonathan (Canadian), Ben and Anthony (Aussie), me, Charlotte (UK).

Anna (Germany) at the beach.

Ah, Aarhus!

So, if you were all wondering where I've been for the last week or so, having finished my lovely sunny Turkish adventures, I have finally made it to Denmark!

I was worried that I wouldn't meet people, and would be spending a lot of time in my room alone, but it has proved the complete opposite, as I only get home to sleep for a few hours, before I'm off out again!

Anyway, from the beginning:
I arrived here last Tuesday, the 1st of August, having left Clapham, London at the ungodly hour of 4:45am, to catch my 7:30am flight. Obscene amounts of excess luggage costs later, I arrived in Aarhus, where I was met by my Danish mentor from the law school, Signe. Thank goodness, she had a car, so we grabbed some food, bought me a Danish sim card for my phone (my new number is +45 23 63 83 54 for those interested - but text messages appear quite expensive to Oz, so probably e-mail still the best!), picked up my key from the International Secretariat, and then found my room!

I was quite excited to actually have a bed and a cupboard, having lived on a couch and out of a suitcase for the previous week. My place is nice and quite big - I have my own ensuite bathroom, a bed, desk, coffee table, lounge chair and lamps, and even a little balcony!

I share a kitchen with 11 other people, who I have been slowly meeting over the past few weeks, as they return from holidays or move in - mostly Danish at the moment, who take a while to warm to you, but have been overall quite friendly, a Bosnian girl, and a Californian guy.

I live in a suburb called Brabrand, which is about 20 minutes on the bus from the city, and 15 minutes from the university. The Aarhus Danish people think of this area as the ghetto, because there are a lot of Turkish and Lebanese immigrants out here. However, it is very safe, as there are about 180 other dorms as big as mine in the complex, which means plenty of people around and on the buses, and we even have our own supermarket and bar! I just lock doors and windows when leaving, as most of us do at home anyway, and there is a great cheap fruit & veg market, Bazaar Vest, just down the road - I feel like I'm back in Turkey when I go there!

Anyway, on the first day of my Denmark Today course, which is a language/culture course I'm doing over the next few weeks, I had to go and register for a CPR number, which is like a social security number, needed for opening bank accounts and such, and then register at the Studenterhaus, which is the International Student house which puts on events and parties for all students. While registering there, I met Charlotte, who is 20 and from Leeds, and Fabrizio and Diego, both 25, from Trieste in Italy. They are lovely people, and I have spent the last week paryting with them - the boys cooked us great Italian pasta a couple of nights last week, and as they live about 5 minutes away by bus in the next college, it's easy to catch up!

There are also plenty of German and other exchange students where I live, so I am meeting lots of people every day - there are also quite a few Aussies, Canadians, Spanish, Polish, and even people from Estonia and Slovakia, so I am learning lots about the rest of Europe! I am also realising just how much slang I use in everyday speech, as I have to not only speak much slower (surprise, surprise!), but also in better English - I think it will be good for me!

So my days consist of Danish classes from 9am to 12pm, then lunch, then afternoon activities, such as lectures on the university, and Danish culture such as Greenland, politics, religion etc, or excursions to places like the Town Hall and the Viking museum. Then there is something social on almost every night, so I'm constantly tired, from meeting people and doing things, but having an absolute blast!

On Friday night we went to the Social Bar, which has free beer from 11pm to 12am, and fun pop music to dance to, so it was great fun to party with all the other students.

On Saturday we went to the beach - yay! Europe generally is having a heatwave, and Aarhus has been about 27 degrees all week, and sunny, which is lovely for me! However, the beach had lots of jellyfish, and as I have a healthy Australian fear of things that sting in the surf, I didn't spend too long in the water!

On Monday night we went to a free open air cinema to see "Walk the Line", which was fun, and on Tuesday arvo we went to Ikea - very exciting, I bought useful things like towels and bathmats and proper pillows, so my room is now feeling like home!

Tonight we saw a very black Danish comedy movie, "Adam's Apples" - interesting insights into Danish culture with what they find humourous!

Istanbul, not Constantinople ...

Yes, I had to make that joke - but I did actually hear that song a few times in Turkey!

After our travel company abandoned us in Turkey - ie they had given us no times or tickets for the theoretical overnight bus that we were to take back to Istanbul, and every time we rang their offices, no answer, we found that the bus was going to take 14 hours, and cost 60 lire, whereas a flight direct would take an hour, and cost 79 lire. So we decided to fly - the best decision ever, as it meant we could relax on Thursday night, pack and shower etc, then fly on Friday morning and arrive actually fresh at Istanbul!

Istanbul was amazing - I'm used to seeing lots of churches around, and hearing bells, but hearing the call to prayer is really moving, and the mosques are just beautiful - we went inside the Blue Mosque, which is one of the biggest/most famous, and it was just gorgeous.





We also went to the Hagia Sophia, a former mosque/church/now museum, but I think the highlight of our day was the Grand Bazaar, this huge market, where bargaining is easy - you just say you don't want something, which half the time is true, and they bend over backwards to lower the price! But it can get quite tiring, as people shout things at you all the time as you walk around.




We had doner kebab for dinner (hey, we're in Turkey! Have to try it - it was quite nice there!), then relaxed, looking at the Mosque by night.

On Saturday, we went to Topkapi Palace, where the Sultans used to live - gorgeous mosaics and lovely gardens.




Then unfortunately we had to leave, back to London, where it was colder and raining - you know your holiday is over!

A couple of barbeques on Sunday/Monday (thankyou both Claires for your kind hospitality!), and then I flew to Denmark on Tuesday!