"You know, I've never seen an American before!"

As most of you are fully aware, my Wednesdays in Denmark usually consist of me sleeping in, updating my blog, and making dinner. This past Wednesday was a little different, because I was invited to my host brother's English class to talk about being from America. So yes, before any of you ask, I was essentially just a glorified show-and-tell.

The school itself was actually really nice. It's a private school, and almost set up a little like a college campus in that there are a bunch of different buildings. The inside of the buildings were bright and clean, and everything looked really new. Not like Mountain Lakes. At all. Honestly, I found the lack of mustard yellow and snot green paint a little disturbing - I was under the impression that all high schools looked like that. I got there during their break, so Johannes introduced me to his teacher and then led me to the classroom. Apparently, the other thing similar to this school and a college campus is the fact that during their breaks, the students are allowed to do essentially whatever they want. The few minutes I spent in the classroom were, to be quite honest, a little terrifying, and I completely understand why the teacher was hiding in his office. There were kids running around (I can only assume they were playing tag), kids yelling and screaming, kids throwing chairs and picking each other up, and loud dance music blasting. Obviously, I was more than a little curious to find out what this lesson would be like.A few students came up to me and introduced themselves (one girl in Danish, before she realized I didn't speak a word of it. She then ran to the back of the room with a red face.) and asked me a few questions about being in Denmark and how it was different from the US. The teacher arrived soon enough, and as soon as he set foot in the door all the kids ran to their seats and were quiet immediately. Cue stunned jaw-drop. 

The teacher started by asking what I thought about their school, and how it was different from my school at home. As I talked, the kids would raise their hands whenever they thought of a question. The fact that they actually bothered to raise their hands was impressive in and of itself, but I soon noticed that not only were they raising their hands, but they were all raising their hands in exactly the same, polite manner. They would rest their elbow on the desk, and face the back of their hand forward, while pointing upwards with one finger. There was no "oh, oh! Call on me!" or impatient hand waving. Just a calm finger pointing upwards, and patient waiting. It still amazes me too much to even make any further comments on the matter.

I was asked a lot of different questions - way more than I thought I would be asked. Here are some of the ones I can remember: Why are you in Denmark instead of somewhere else? How long have you been here/will you be here? Where do you live in the US? What are the differences between NYC and here? What do you think of the Danes? Do you think Danish guys are better looking than American boys? Are you allowed to use cellphones in school in the US? What age do you start school? What age do you leave home and live on your own? Can you drive (I then told them how much it costs to get your license in the US - probably 5 times less than it costs in Denmark, not to mention the fact that after I said my family has 4 people but we have 5 cars the entire room broke out into a dull roar - families here only have one car, if they're lucky. Everyone uses bikes or public transportation, and cars are so expensive I'd imagine the only person in Denmark who could afford to have 5 is the queen herself.) Have you tried any Danish food, and what do you think of it? What do you think of the weather? Do you have the same plants and trees at home as we do here? How much does your school cost? (Again, there was a dull roar when the numbers were converted from dollars to kroner. Have I mentioned that in Denmark, you don't pay them to go to school, they pay you?) What are you studying? Where have you been in Denmark so far? The teacher named a few places, and I responded by saying that I hadn't been there but it's on the list of things my friends and I plan on doing. One girl then goes, "YOU HAVE FRIENDS?!" So I explained that there are a lot of kids here from my school at home, and there's a couple hundred Americans at DIS. Her next comment was, "THERE ARE MORE OF YOU?!" Apparently, Americans are kind of a big deal. This fact was reinforced when one boy said to me, "You know, I've never seen an American before!" I replied by saying that I hope I didn't look so strange that seeing me was something special. He laughed, but didn't refute it. Hmm ...

There were a lot more questions, and a lot of them were pretty funny. I was impressed by their English - I was told that it was the advanced class, but that didn't prepare me for the fact that the entire class of 15 year olds was completely fluent in English. They even had most of the grammar down, and only once or twice did they forget a word and have to ask their teacher to translate. To be honest, when I was walking over I had no idea what to expect, and I was dreading it ever so slightly. Imagine being a foreigner and going to a class of 15 year olds in the US to speak to them - I imagine it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. High schoolers are not nice people. They still scare me a bit, to tell the truth. But I had a really good time talking to these kids and was really impressed - they were excited and seemed legitimately interested, and had so many questions to ask me. Maybe they were just excited that they weren't going to have a normal lecture, but I'll never know for sure, so I might as well give them the benefit of the doubt. I think I'm going to go to my host sister's school in a few weeks, and I'm actually looking forward to it.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but I probably won't be updating for a few weeks. I'm officially on travel break as of 4:30 this afternoon, and over the next 3 weeks I'll be heading off to London, Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Venice and Florence. Try not to be too jealous. =)

US Profanity < Danish Profanity

Every Friday night, I watch X-Factor with my host family. It's basically the Danish American Idol, except that the judges aren't mean - but yes, the judging panel does still consist of a black guy, a crazy woman, and a snide old man.  And instead of Ryan Seacrest, the host is some woman who wears absolutely ridiculous clothes, which always make for good conversation. My favorite part about this show, however, is that fact that every single song is sung in English. One episode the theme was "Danish composears" and some girl still sung in English, because that's the way the Danish band wrote the song. As it turns out, there's one more thing in the show that is in English - the supportive signs that the fans wave around. One in particular caught my eye, numerous times, as it turns out, since the camera kept going back to it. It said, and I quote, "Mohammed, you're the F*CKING GREATEST!!!" With one exception - the whole word was written there, and it wasn't censored at all. Clearly, the Danes don't quite understand that that's really the worst curse word us English speakers have got.

Here's another one of my favorite examples of the differences

 in the acceptability of "profanity" between the US and Denmark. This ad was posted on the sides of bus stops for around 3 weeks. It's seemingly short stay wasn't due to some angry groups demanding that it be taken down - that's just how long ads stay around before they get rotated to something else. I got a good chuckle every time I passed one for about 3 weeks, and I'm glad I managed to take a picture of it before they all got taken down.

I also frequently hear Danish teenagers cursing at each other in English, but that's to be expected of the little drinking-cases-of beer-on-trains, pants-tucked-into-socks hooligans, really.

To be honest, I expected to have way more to put on here than I actually did. The two things I wanted to say probably weren't worth a whole entry ... 

Of Mice and Men

As it's Wednesday, I once again am finding myself with too much school work to do and not enough motivation on my day off to do it. So, as I wait for the clock to hit 17:30 so I can stick my quiche in the oven [side note: My host family probably thinks I don't eat anything healthy at all at home, considering the fact that so far, I've made quiche, fish with cream sauce, baked macaroni and cheese, Hamburger Helper (thanks to mom) and lasagna for dinner, in addition to about a million and one different baked goods ranging from muffins, brownies and banana bread (all made from scratch - not to brag or anything) and some peanut butter cookies.] I figured I'd throw up another update. I doubt it will have much of a theme, and it will probably just end up being a few random anecdotes. I'm feeling rather inspired, which probably had something to do with the fact that my current background music is Ave Maria - not exactly by choice, however. I don't know if I've ever mentioned the fact that I have the basement essentially to myself, with the exception of my host dad's work room. Because he's an artist/writer/singer/actor, he's frequently either playing piano or singing in there, and it should be said that he's absolutely amazing. As is the rest of the family. The daughter, mom and dad all sing, and the son, dad and mom play piano. Nothing puts you in a good mood quite like walking upstairs and hearing a 3 part harmony going on in addition to piano music, and I'll stop writing about it now, because words really don't do it justice. But I promise you, they're all wonderfully talented and could put every single artist on the radio and TV to shame.

This past Saturday some friends and I found ourselves at Ice Bar, which is somewhere you really just have to go while you're in Copenhagen. It's exactly what it sounds like - a 

bar made entirely out of ice, and kept constantly at -5 degrees. Everything, from the tables to the walls and cups, is made out of ice, and they give you thermal parkas and gloves so that you can stay (moderately) warm. It's absurdly expensive to actually drink there (although included in the cover charge is one free drink), so once we got in, we realized we were probably the youngest people there. I'm sure it didn't help that we were there around 10:30, and most 20-somethings don't head out until around 11-11:30, but it also didn't help that we weren't 30-40 years old with money to throw away. It was definitely a place worth going to, but I'm not going to be frequenting it in the future. My poor college wallet just can't afford it!

Yesterday morning I went into the kitchen and heard some rustling in the cabinets, and realized immediately it was either a mouse or squirrel. Why my immediate thought was squirrel, I can't really explain - but there was a fair amount of rustling, which sounded like it had to come from an animal larger than a mouse. So I open the cabinet a little to scare it away, and as I'm doing so, it occurs to me that the mouse, which was out in the middle of the day, could very well be rabid and decide to jump on my head if I opened the cabinet. I quickly closed it again, and heard the mouse run away. Or so I thought, because when I opened the cabinet for a second time, there it was, staring me down from atop the box of cookies. I slammed the door shut again, and this time heard it run across the entire kitchen by way of the connecting cabinets. Gross. Later that night I told my host dad about it, and as it turns out, my host mom is terrified of mice. She then proceeded to talk about selling the house throughout all of dinner, and whenever there was a pause in conversation she would say, "aye! En mus!". My host dad set up a mouse trap where the cookies used to be, and left for work. My host mom didn't realize that her husband had already thrown away the cookies, and wanted to get rid of any other food that was on that shelf, so she went into the kitchen, and screamed. Apparently the mouse was upset that his cookies had been removed, and decided to be waiting there to stare down whoever happened to open the cabinet next. I was legitimately worried I would need to call 221 because my host mom had had a heart attack, but she just ran out of the kitchen and seemed to be alright. About an hour later, we were watching TV and heard a loud snap which was clearly the mouse trap, and my host mom did not like this at all. I turned to her and convinced her to leave the mouse alone until her husband came back - I knew there was probably no way she'd be able to handle getting rid of it herself. She agreed, and we continued watching TV. A little while later, I went back into the kitchen to put away some glasses, and heard a lot of rustling in the kitchen - turns out, the mouse wasn't dead. This bothered my host mom even more, and she decided she just had to take care of it - so she put on some plastic gloves, and cowered in the doorway until she convinced herself that the mouse could wait until her husband came home. I went down to my room a little later, and didn't hear anything about the mouse until this afternoon, when I found out that after mouse 1 was removed, the trap was set back up, and in the morning there was a new mouse inside. Mouse 2 was removed, and by the afternoon mouse 3 had been captured too. And with every new mouse, my host mom gets more and more jumpy every time she hears any noise at all. Admittedly, it's really gross that they're in the kitchen, but I'm glad we're getting rid of them. 

Almost every time someone finds out I'm from the US, they say something to me along the lines of, "Good job with Obama!" (Really, I personally worked quite hard to make it happen). People think it's cute when I try to ask for something in Danish with my silly American accent, or when I follow up an all-English interaction with "tak!" They're more than willing to help me when I'm lost, or when there's an announcement on the train/metro and I need it translated so that I can understand. That's why I was taken very much by surprise the other day, when I was actually looked upon with disdain by an older gentleman because of where I'm from. I was standing in the supermarket, when he turned around and said something to me in Danish. I apologized, for about the millionth time that day, for not speaking Danish. He thought about it for a second, and then said, "I just wanted to make sure I wasn't skipping you in line." "No," I said, "It's alright - you were here first." So the man turns around, and about 30 seconds later turns back to me saying, "Where are you from? You don't sound like you're from the UK. Are you a student here?" quite excitedly, I might add. "Oh no," I responded, "I'm not from the UK. I'm from the US." As a response, I got a quite disgusted, "The US?" "Yes, the US." "Oh," he said, again quite disdainfully, and turned around. ... Wait, what? Now, I expected this type of interaction to happen while I'm in France, or maybe some other country. But the people here are warm and friendly, and if anything are excited that someone from the US is interesting in being in Denmark. ("Why come here?" is a question I frequently get.) I told my host parents about it later, and they were just as stunned as I was. All my host mom could say about it was, "Well, I certinaly hope he was just confused!"

I'll probably stick another short update on here later, but right now I need to go watch over dinner. It doesn't matter how long I stay here, I'll never figure out how to use this oven.