Sorry it's been awhile since my long-awaited arrival post, but I've just been so busy since getting here that I haven't had much time to write. I'll split this up into two posts (pre-orientation and orientation) so that it's not too long.
I guess I should start with the trip to the airport. My parents and I loaded up the car and left around 1pm, stopping along the way at Famous Dave's for a last American burger before my semester abroad. When I got to the airport, I immediately started to meet a number of other DIS students, easily distinguishable by the metal luggage tags given to us by DIS. I found J and B and eventually two other Lafayette students, and we waited together at the airport while meeting new people at the same time. The following 5 post-introduction questions were (and four days later still continue to be) the most common phrases uttered by any of us: "Where are you from? What college do you go to? What DIS program are you doing? Where are you living in Denmark?". I felt/feel like a college freshman all over again. It's really interesting to see how many people have mutual friends though; the world seems a lot smaller in spite of us travelling to the other side.
Because I don't do well with sleeping on planes, I decided to spent the night before leaving pulling an all-nighter (my reasoning waws that I would be so tired on the plane I would have to fall asleep). It didn't work. I was unable to sleep the entire 7.5 hour plane ride to Oslo, Norway. I did, however, have my first "legal for the rest of my life" drink on the plane- a free glass of white wine. Not too shabby. When we finally did get to Oslo, it was about 8am their time and the sun was just beginning to rise. There was snow everywhere, as far out as I could see from the plane. And when we got off, it was FREEZING. The layover at the airport wasn't too long, but we were struck by the reindeer skin coats and other Norwegian paraphernalia. We weren't in Newark Airport anymore, that was for sure.
These guys were pretty prevalent throughout the Oslo airport.
The plane ride from Oslo to Copenhagen was only a little over an hour long and was spent in good company, the whole flight being mostly other DIS students. By the time I got to the Copenhagen airport, I was extremely sleep deprived and really didn't feel well at all. We were luckily able to obtain our luggage extremely quickly, something that never happens.
Eventually we made it out of the airport and into the connected Hilton Hotel, where DIS welcomed us and we were separated into groups according to our living arrangement destination. After waiting a fair amount of time and meeting others who would be living with us, the shuttle came and took us to Keops Kollegium, my place of residence.
Like I said in my previous description of Keops, it's a little strange in that you have to go outside to get to anyone else's room/the common room. That's probably my biggest grievance about the place, mainly because it's just so cold outside. Other than that, my room itself is pretty nice and cozy. Thank you to the previous resident who left me a bunch of hangers, however I did not enjoy washing your unclean dishes. That's right. There were a few bowls that still had food in them from whenever the last person lived here. Really, really, really not okay.
We went on a short tour of the surrounding area, which basically includes a few grocery stores and a small mall that was not open at the time. I purchased a few groceries at Nettø, a small cheap little store nearby. Our SRAs explained some rules to us over dinner, and then I came back to my room around 7pm and fell right asleep after over two days without sleep.
This is the end of this half of the post! Second half coming soon: orientation.
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