Last day of Orientation

I realize that all of these pictures have to do with beer. But i would like to say that i am a very responsible drinker and am not out looking for parties.. this is just what everyone does here i guess.

The first three pictures are at Carlsberg Brewery which was an orientation ran trip. They had an entire room full of old bottles that i thought was fun to see. You can kinda see how long and tall the shelve is and they had about 8-12 of those!! The second picture is a polar bear that i thought was awesome. And thats me in a Carlsberg delivery truck!

The last picture is a great example of how things have been run so far. We have been taking pictures of what we have been doing all week. We had three hours allotted to create a sideshow of our pictures. So, when we met our team leader to work on this he had two cases of beer and we went and worked on the slide show. Needless to say this would not be ok at WSU.

Something interesting i learned about myself is i have a different accent that someone from the east coast. In my group there is a girl from new york state and i didn't think we sounded any different. But some people in our group asked why we sound so different if we're both from the states. Still, Neither her nor I can notice a difference, but everyone else can. Last night we danced for a while and they definitely dance to different music than i am used too! But i guess it was similar to what the new york girl was used to. So maybe Washington is just weird.. haha!

In orientation we learned about study habits and class structure. It will be different but i am really looking forward to the changes! I will wait to talk about my favorite differences until next week when i start so i can have a better idea. Hearing about something and participating in something is always different, so wish me luck!

I hope everyone is doing well!!

The first picture is down a main street for shopping in Copenhagen. The second picture is of the guards changing at the royal families residence. The next picture is my first kiss in Denmark (sorry Kelli!), the little mermaid in Copenhagen. The big building is where the royal family is staying. We could tell that the royal family was there because there flag was above that building. And the last picture is some viking silver in a museum in Copenhagen.

We traveled to Copenhagen on Wednesday as a group led by our team leader. Our bus was fancy, it had a beer tap and kegerator in it, which i have never seen in a bus. Our first stop was the little mermaid, then where the royal family live, and we also went to a museum. We ended with a buffet that was already paid for us! After the buffet we were taken to the Studenthouse in Copenhagen which is a bar that has an international student night every Wednesday.

What i thought was weird is we were taken to Copenhagen on a fancy bus then left there to find our own way home! So two friends and i, a Korean and German, were out to make it home. After asking a few people directions we found a bus stop, then after asking a few more people we figured out what bus we needed. It turns out it cost over $5.00 to to travel about 11 Km home even when you plan ahead and buy a punch card!

First Day of Orientation

We were given a bag of materials and told to build the tallest tower we could, to hold as many beers (what else) as possible. Our score would be the amount of beer multiplied by the height of the tower. Now is a good time to point out that as the only civil engineer of the team of 15 i thought it best to just lay low on this one.

The first picture is our ambitious start using blown up balloons as the foundation. Although theoretically an ingenious way to make the tower tall, this turned out to hurt us.. haha. Picture 2 and 3 were of other groups that had a better run at things. 3 of our 7 balloon solid foundation popped. The other problems we had were three different groups working on three different sections. This turned out to hurt, as well, when the connections didn't work out very well. So, we were one of the 2 teams of the 15 that couldn't hold a single beer. The wining team won a tower of beer, so we were sad! Although our team had lost the tower competition we were the only group that had pooled together our money to buy beer in greater quantities to save money for everyone during said competition, true teamwork.

I learned that out of the 15 people I was the only one that owned even a single gun. This was baffling to me, as well as them. Also, very few people own cars, but I did expect that. I also met a guy from France who has a dream of one day attending an American football game with pom pom girls!

I am REALLY enjoying my team. Everyone is friendly and includes the entire group in all activities. Off the top of my head the countries included in my group are Lithuania, Portugal, France, Germany, Sweden, Chile, Italy, Korea, and someone from the state of New York. Today we are headed to Copenhagen and tomorrow we are going to the Carlsberg brewery.

The photo at the top is just a photo of some of the campus. The other photo's are all of Lyngby, the town i am in.

The photo's aren't of any tourist attraction in particular. I just went for a four hour walk around town and through stores and just took some pictures. My favorite picture is the last one. You can see that in the cobble stone streets the arrows for traffic are stone! Today is my first day of orientation so at the end of the day i should have a good update. As for now all i have to say is i have been to three grocery stores and they are all small!

To Much Sleep!!

I went to be at 8:00pm and woke up at 10:00pm Saturday night to call Mom, Dad, Carrie, and Lisa. Then when i was done i went to bed at about midnight. I could not fall asleep until about 2:30am. Then i woke up at 8:00 and felt really good about how much sleep i got. Then i went to take a shower and noticed that i was extremely hungry and my teeth felt like that hadn't been brushed for 24 hours. When i got out of the shower i noticed that it was still dark outside. Not thinking anything of this i checked my email and saw that Kelli emailed me to say goodnight. This makes sense because it was 11:00 at her location. So i called her to say goodnight, and she said something along the lines of have a good sleep.. so i told her i just woke up. We discussed this as the wheels, ever so slowly, started turning in my head, I slept for 17.5 hours!! Well, now i am awake at 9:00 pm the night before my orientation. And, of course, i was going to go to the accommodations office today to find out when and where orientation is tomorrow. Jet lag, you win again..

So i don't really have anything to update because i was asleep for the entire day. Hopefully tomorrow i can fight off being irritable from staying up all night because i am meeting all of the new exchange students like me.

Aunt Pat wanted me to expand on the bullet in the airport security. I have a bullet in a casing from a 500 S&W handgun. For those of you who don't know, this is a very hefty handgun. Let it be known that i have made it through roughly 6 airport security stations with this. The percussion cap is spent, there is a hole where the powder should be, and the bullet has been pressed all the way back into the brass. But, they called the police. Then the police had trouble believing that there was no powder in the cartridge because it was so heavy. She "proved" this be taking the revolver cylinder filled with six bullets and showing me it was the same weight as my one bullet. I wanted to tell her that was because her poodle shooter pistol was loaded to kill a ground squirrel ten feet away. After discussing it, airport security decided the brass was filled with lead before the bullet was put in, that alone is the only way to explain its weight.. lol. After calling the police they have to do a certain amount of paper work that i had to stick around for. 30 minutes later i was given back my key chain and let go. Sorry max (Max made the key chain for me), but i was flying to an airport that spoke little English and didn't want to go through that again.. so i threw it away.

First Day in Denmark

I made it to my room yesterday (Friday). Upon arrival I found the accommodations offices and got my key to get into my room. After i was done unpacking i went back into the heart of Lyngby to the shopping area and bought an internet cable and lunch. I couldn't find anywhere to get groceries so i will ask some neighbors where they get there groceries. Lunch was phenomenal and i had a very common lunch that i had read about in my traveling book. I asked them to help me pronounce the name of it (Which is an open faced sandwich) and they said roast beef. I didn't really want to know what type of meat was in it but how to say sandwich, but they were a busy corner store so i left.

I know that i am bad with names, but i learned i am terrible with international names. I can remember that i have meat four people that i live with. One from South Korea, one from France, one from India, and one from Lithuania. But for the life of me i cannot remember anyone's name! The only confusing interaction i have had so far is the guy from Lithuania would not shake my hand while i was in my room and he was in the hallway, and asked me to come into the hallway then shook my hand.

I already have a number of stories to tell just from the traveling including my 500 S&W brass + bullet key chain being mistaken for a loaded bullet in an airport followed by police and a 5 page report.

Traveling was relatively easy because there was someone eager to help me whenever i had a question. The hardest part was dealing with people in Chicago because most people that i talked to were rude and generally not nice. I met a very helpful man in Chicago from Israel. He helped me around because we were both flying to Zurich Switzerland. He also helped me find my next flight in Switzerland to Copenhagen before he went to find his own flight. Turns out he is also the Veterinarian for the Danish Ambassador in Israel.

I feel much better today than i have felt so far traveling because i get headaches on airplanes. And i didn't sleep very well Tuesday night, Wednesday night i tossed and turned for about three hours on a plane, and Thursday night i tossed and turned for about three hours on a linoleum floor in the Copenhagen airport. Yesterday i went to bed at 3:00pm and woke up at 8:00 am!

Night Before Flight

Just finished the last run through of the check list and I certainly hope I have everything. Tomorrow I will be leaving Selah for Seattle to fly out at 11:23 am. I hope to have my first real post up by Sunday. Monday is my first day of orientation and January 31st is my first day of class.