Today was an attempted infiltration into the Danish culture. First of all, I now have my bike. For those unaware, biking is pretty much the main form of transformation here in Copenhagen. Not having a bike in Copenhagen would be like not ever taking the subway in New York. It's just what you do to get around. Now, you would think with the plethora of bikes that abound in Copenhagen, one would be able to come across a decent bike for a pretty cheap price. Not at all. My bike is fantastic because it's mine and I can get everywhere faster and it has a cool basket on the front, but in the States you'd be hard pressed to sell it for 30 dollars at a garage sale. But in Copenhagen a bike which is squeaky, rusty, and old can go for about 130 dollars, the grand total I paid on my bike. Bike theft is also a problem here. In fact, I pretty much am going into the situation assuming that, despite locks and caution, my bike WILL get stolen at some point. I just hope I have it long enough to justify the initial purchase. I was told I had to name my bike, so i have decided up Rusty. I will post a fabulous photo of Rusty as soon as I get less lazy and actually take and post pictures.
My second attempt at infiltration today was through my Danish language course. So, not so much an attempt at infiltration, but the first step in my diabolical scheme to order food in Danish. Thus far I can speak such useful phrases as "my name is..." "I come from..." and "I speak English." This means I can converse (poorly) with a danish person for all of 45 seconds before our possible topics will be depleted. Though, I can now count to ten, so I could potentially start counting things to show off my skills. I'm sure I will be very impressive to these people who have been speaking English since they were in third grade.
At this point I would like to point out a deficiency in the American schooling system. As part of our introductions today we had to say what languages we speak. Everyone was rambling off atleast 2 or three languages. Then we came to the Canadians and the Americans. Go us. We all were proud to say "Jeg kan tale Engelsk." I tacked on "og meget lidt Fransk" because I can order a chocolate croissant in French. How is it that everyone else in the world is bilingual and so many Americans are not? There are people taking LAW CLASSES in their second or third language. There are law classes I could barely get through in my FIRST (and only) language. I am thoroughly impressed. And I'm a little bummed that I'll probably learn survival Danish and then a few months after I return to the States will barely remember how to count to ten.
My mentor suggested that I buy Harry Potter in Danish to stay fresh on the language...Either that or I can just move to Copenhagen until my language reaches fluency... (Don't worry I'm probably not going to move here. hahaha)
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