City girl

Jan 25-
Ok so I am only a few days behind here.. !
I think I figured out the trick to traveling. There's a certain formula and it doesn't make any sense but you have to trust it because, no matter what, it will be like this. Week 1 should be called Schizophrenia Week. You are on an emotional roller coaster of I love it- I hate it- take me home-I'm so lucky, etc etc. To be perfectly honest more then one day of that is just plain annoying. BUT it will happen. Then comes Week 2, the Calm after the Storm. You have little energy to feel things even if you wanted too after week 1 so its the time for simple pleasures. Like when I mastered the delicate walk back to my desk after pouring a double shot of coffee into my one-sip-shy of a double shot coffee mug. Maximum coffee helping in one setting, perfection! Then there is Week 3. Week 3 is when your trip really starts. You kind of realize that without knowing it your life has fallen into place and you somehow have order again. You're just living again without even recognizing it, it's odd but very cool. Any new traveler has to at least make it to week 3:) In this past week I have moved, received a CPR number, signed up for a course at DTU, went to a few meet-ups, went out to a club, bought some furniture, looked into language lessons, applied to a grad program at UW, AND hosted an American Obama Party on Tuesday.
(Ok to comment quickly.. the CPR number is huge because, like a social security number, it entitles me to privileges any other resident would get. I get to take out books from the library, get a phone if I didn't already have one, get assigned a doctor and, the best part, get to take Danish lessons for free! So I received that after registering my address downtown, it was so easy but it is soo huge, I was very very excited to get one! Secondly.. the inauguration was shown here at 6pm so it was the perfect opportunity to host a party. I didn't come up with the idea, my roommate did, but over the weekend we had met another American girl, and she knew an American.. so after that we decided we all had to get together for the big event. It was a great party with incredibly good coverage for abroad and I think Americans and Danes alike all really had a great time!)
But back to the big news.. I moved! Just so you all know why I was so desperate to get out of that guest house, here is a before and after shot of my living arrangements. In the guest house the couch is the bed but it is a fold out style where the cushions all fill out a crevice so it really wasn't that bad.. kinda depressing though huh? Anyhow my new bedroom is still being set up but I like it so much better. The skylight actually is huge and lights up the room so it is way better to be on the top floor then it looks here. Plus the room was vacant when I started so I am getting somewhere with all the little decorations from Ikea. The rest of the house is really cute and I live here with a Danish girl named Sanne, 25, who's been real helpful getting me adjusted and settled into the area. I'm really lucky to have found a nice person my age to live with. Here is a picture of the kitchen. The neighborhood we live in is called Nørrebro. Its the multi-cultural part of town, known to be a little rough around the edges (by copenhagen standards) but is the up and coming trendy place to be. Its right next to downtown Copenhagen, two blocks north of "the lakes" which at one point were part of the fortress around the city. If you look on a map you can pretty clearly see 5 man-made lakes in a line above the city. I live just off of Nørrebrogade and Stengade and this is the lake just by my house. (few tidbits for ya.. Gade in danish means street and Vej means road so you will almost always see them attached to street names in Denmark. Also to run around all 5 of the lakes is 7 Km, that gives a bit of scale). The neighborhood is full of cafes, shops and bars and I pass a few of them on my way to work in the morning.. These are a few pictures from my walk to the bus. (The second picture is Nørrebrogade actually.)




















The photo at the top and this one are some of the Potato Flats downtown that I passed by randomly while trying to find the cathedral downtown. I wound up at some other mass entirely but I went back and snuck a few more photos of these cute little houses. Its hard to tell but the doors are all really short, they are like miniature houses and people still live in them. Also walking around I saw this other building which I think looks like a Gingerbread house.




Ok well there's a few more days to catch up on but its time for me to go to bed. Like normal life, when you are working and commuting everyday you tend to get worn out pretty quick. To answer one last question for you.. which is not what Kelly asked, the question of whether or not Ikea is exactly the same store over there as in the US, it is, or how cool did you feel carrying your big bags of purchases home with you on the bus, to which the answer is of course, super cool, but.. do you think a person could fit in side one of those huge Ikea bags?? Answer is yes.
Goodnight!