Not all supermarkets are created equal.

On Wednesdays I don't have any classes. Instead, the days are reserved for "field studies," where you basically take field trips with your classes. Every class is scheduled for two Wednesdays over the course of the semester, but unfortunately for me, since two of my classes are taught off "campus" (the DIS classrooms), every day is a field study! This means I get to a) explore b) sit around the house or c) do work. I'm currently downloading some tv shows from home to watch, which rules out option b) until later. Classes just started, so our only work is reading, making option c) not really an option at all. That leaves a), which is probably the most logical anyway, since I just got here about a week and a half ago. I planned on spending the morning updating this blog, but after I realized that I would be going to the grocery store later, I decided I would wait in hopes that I could get some interesting stories out of it. I did.

 If any of you have ever gone to a cultural supermarket, such as the asian one my mom once dragged me to, you'll be able to sympathize with how I felt after walking in to Netto, the chain supermarket that happens to have a branch right down the road from my house. I had already been in various supermarkets twice, once to kill time and another time as a field trip for my 2-day Danish survival class, so I knew the basic layout (none whatsoever) and the "rules" (bring your own bags, unless you want to pay for a way to carry your groceries home; don't get in the other customers' way, because they all know exactly what they want and where it is). Danish supermarkets are simultaneously very diverse and very scarse. They manage to sell all your standards: meat, dairy, grains, produce, sweets and toiletries; and they also throw in clothes, alcohol, home decor, small appliances and office supplies. However, there aren't many different brands, varieties, sizes or even choices between one type of pasta and another. Except for in two categories: alcohol and cheese. In one aisle (and we're not talking USA aisles, we're talking Danish aisles. Imagine about 1/4 what you're used to the length of an aisle being.) they squeezed in chocolate, crackers, cookies, pastries, cake mixes, bread, pasta, jars of sauce and cereal, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. However, if you were looking for some alcohol, you could take your pick from the 2.5 aisles they had devoted to it, plus the checkout refridgerators (normally filled with soda in the US) which were filled with individual beers, wine coolers and various bottled mixed drinks. Now on to the cheese: it probably took up around the same amount of wall space that a cheese section would in the US, or maybe slightly more. Floor to ceiling, about 15 feet long. Now imagine a 3-4 foot space filled with meat, right next to the cheeses. Thinking that there had to be more options, I walked to the other side of the cheeses, thinking maybe they had divided the meat into two parts due to some strange Danish logic I just didn't understand. There was about a 2 foot long section devoted to fish, so I was sort of right in my thinking. What I didn't expect, however, was that the cheese section actually continued after the fish section. Apparently, what I was looking at was only blocks/wheels of cheese, and the really fancy stuff (the kinds of cheese spreads you may serve as an appetizer in the US) was just down the wall a bit. 

 I told my host family that since I don't have anything to do on Wednesdays, I'd be more than happy to make dinner. My plan for tonight was baked mac and cheese (I thought this would be suitable given how much they clearly like cheese) with peas and ham. So I look for the sharp cheddar cheese. I didn't think that this would be that hard to find - it's not like I was looking for American cheese or something like that. But there was no yellow cheese to be seen. Finally, after about 10 minutes of searching, I found some white cheddar and decided that would have to be good enough. Next on my list was some parmesan. I had to pick up every individual cheese block and think to myself "does this look like the cheese I'm looking for?" because, believe it or not, after a whole week and a half of being here I still don't speak Danish. I settled on some pre-grated stuff that I'm 90% sure is parmesan. Next, I walk to the meat section in search of ham. There isn't any. There's pork, hamburger meat, other mystery ground meat (you'd be surprised how similar all meat looks when you can't read the packages), chicken, tons of varieties of sausages, some liver, some bacon ... but no ham to be seen. After a few minutes of thought, I decide to grab a package of diced bacon and just throw that on top of the mac and cheese. While I'm browsing, a woman had apparently been a little over-enthusiastic while grabbing a package of fresh liver (yum) and knocked some other packages on the floor. I help her pick them up, and all the while she's talking at me in Danish. She ends by saying "____ tak" (tak means thank you, so I assumed the word before it was one of the variations of the word "many" that they use here.) and I smile and walk away. I'm more than happy to admit I don't speak Danish when I have to, but I decided I'd try to get by without standing out as the stupid American, at least for this one shopping trip. 

 Next I started looking for breadcrumbs, and quickly gave up, realizing that I could just make my own with bread they had back home. I knew asking for condensed milk would just be too much, so I opted to buy some heavy cream instead. But Danish milk is not the same as American milk. There were cartons of 0,5% and 1,0%. Cartons of 35,0% and cartons that had no percent at all, but rather words and pictures. I gathered that the one with a cup of coffee on it was probably our equivalent of half-and-half, and the one with a whisk was probably whipping cream. I grabbed the 35,0% milk, figuring that was probably heavy cream or something along those lines.

 I go to check out, and because the Danes hate small talk, and there was a screen showing how much my purchase cost, I bagged my groceries, paid the cashier and walked out without anyone being the wiser that I didn't speak more than 5 words of Danish. As I'm trying to figure out how many dollars 118 kroner is, I hear that there's a commotion going on behind me, with a bunch of old ladies all yelling the same thing. As my curiosity got the best of me, I turned around and saw one lady holding up a block of cheese and looking at me. Apparently, I had forgotten to put it in my bag. I took it from her, moderately embarassed that a group of 5 ladies had been yelling at me in Danish for about 10 seconds and I had no idea, said "tak, tak" and left. So basically, I'm not the stupid American, I'm the stupid mute. 

Timely public transportation, two-pronged outlets, and Danish danishes

I'm currently writing from the DIS computer lab, and trying to avoid hitting the Ø key when I intended to hit the ' key instead (what's with all these weird characters, anyway?). This entry is really just going to be a quick(ish) update of what's been going on. For those of you who look forward to my (maybe) humorous commentary, I apologize in advance because there may not be much of it in this entry.

I've been in Copenhagen since Sunday, and I may have finally gotten used to the time change, although I, like many other students here, seem to be waking up consistently at 3-5AM every morning. Convenient for talking to friends and family at home, inconvenient for walking around the city all day.

Busses and trains here are magically on time, and leave about every 10 minutes. The school paid for me to get a transportation pass, so my travels are hassel-free unless I decide to travel out of the 4 transportation zones that my pass covers. Almost no one here has a car, so if they don't take public transportation they use bikes. EVERYONE has a bike. There are special bike lanes next to the sidewalks, and the bikes even have their own set of traffic lights at intersections. It's completely normal to see women in dresses and stilletos hop on a bike and pedal off, and everyone who's anyone will own and travel by bike at some point (including all government officials). The city is very confusing, since the streets are not only curved (unlike the grid-style streets of NYC) but in a language I don't even speak. I've had to ask for directions on many occasions, but luckily the Danes are very friendly, more than willing to help, and all speak English. They're curious why an American student is in Denmark, and after I ask for help I often end up in a conversation about what I'm doing looking for the bus 69 Bagsværd stop anyway.

I've already immersed myself in Danish culture (or so I like to think) by riding busses and trains or walking everywhere, eating danish pastries, and paying 50 kroners for a Carlsberg (that's the famous beer of Denmark, which cost me 10 American dollars.) Everything here is extremely expensive, so I've really been limiting myself on what I buy. Luckily, with a host family they are responsible for providing you with 2 meals a day. My family decided that they can't very well make me choose between skipping a meal or overpaying for it, so they make sure I eat breakfast with them too. I couldn't be happier with my host family - it seems everyone has a complaint of some sort with their family, but I don't have any at all. There's a 12 year old daughter, a 14 year old son, a 22 year old daughter and a 23 year old son, along with the mom and dad. The oldest daughter and her boyfriend were the ones who picked me up on Sunday, and they were very friendly and talkative. They both live in the city, instead of in the suburbs, and the boyfriend has a car (as I said, that's rare in Denmark) so he gave me his cell phone number in case I get lost or need anything while I'm here. The daughter texted me all throughout my first day to make sure I was doing alright, and even called in the middle of dinner to make sure her family remembered to speak English instead of Danish. The younger daughter doesn't talk all that much, but I think she's just shy. She also hasn't been studying English as long as the rest of her family, so I don't think she's as comfortable speaking it. The younger son didn't talk much at first, but now I can't get him to be quiet. The Danes love sarcasm and making fun of one another, so I fit in perfectly. They started making fun of me as soon as I got there (which, believe it or not, is a good thing.) for things like getting lost, not recognizing the vegetables they were eating, and trying to speak Danish after my survival language class. As I was warned about the sarcasm and mockery ahead of time, I was able to take it in stride and throw it right back. Honestly, it reminds me a lot of home =) . The mom is very talkative, and makes funny English mistakes like telling me that her husband "bought beagles for my sandwich tomorrow." The dad is also very friendly, and likes joking around a lot. They tend to have a seemingly racist sence of humor (after all, everyone in Denmark is tall and blonde), but they're actually not really any more racist than other cultures. I think my favorite quote so far happened when my host dad spilled a cup of hot chocolate on a picture of Obama and said, "Oh no! Not Obama! Oh well, you're already brown."

The house I'm staying in has about a 30 minute commute by bus and train, or a 50 minute commute by just bus. It's in a town called Herlev, which in Danish is actually pronounced "Hair-leu" ... or something like that. It's only about a 2 minute walk to the bus station, which is nice. It turns out that I was lied to when I was told that there's only one hour of sunlight a day - there's really about 6 or 7, although it is dark when I leave in the morning and come home at night.

Well, I've got to get going to my last class for the day (Complexity of Cancer). It's not taught in a classroom - I think it's actually in a University/hospital library or something like that. My class tomorrow is held in a hospital, so I'm pretty excited about that.

I'll update more later, and maybe include some pictures from the scavengar hunt we had to do yesterday (and stories from that as well).

After a few days of procrastinating, I finally went shopping today to get the few new things I need for Denmark. My shopping list was pretty short - I just needed some toiletries, a raincoat, new luggage, luggage locks and outlet converters. 

I started the trip at Target, where I found a cute green raincoat and most of the toiletries I needed. Annoyingly enough, they were out of my shampoo, but not conditioner, and the yellow Burt's Bees but not the red. This unfortunately meant that I needed to extend my trip and pay a visit to Walmart as well. Darn you, Target!

I spent about 30 minutes just staring at the luggage, hoping that if I stared long enough something cute and pink would appear in place of the boring grey bags they had. But it's just my luck that I used up my last spontaneous object apparition last night when I wanted a hot fudge sundae but could only find strawberry jelly in the refrigerator. 

So, since I was forced to buy ugly luggage, it was only fair that I should also buy hot pink TSA approved baggage locks to compensate. As I picked up the package to make sure the locks were, indeed, TSA approved, I noticed a rather large warning label on the back. Apparently, these locks included chemicals which were known to cause cancer and birth defects later in life. It was also advised that you wash your hands every time you touch the locks. After weighing the pros and cons of having three-armed babies, I opted to buy the lime green locks instead. No one wants to pay to send their kid to a therapist because he was known as "tentacle head" all through first and second grade. (Kids can be so cruel ... and I'm not sure why the teacher thought it would be appropriate to join in the mocking as well.)

After this prolonged mental debate, I moved on to the next item on my list. Having no idea where to find power strips, I decided to ask a knowledgeable Target employee. "Excuse me," I said, "could you tell me where I could find power strips?" I got a blank stare. "What's that?" 

Now it was my turn to stare. "You know, it's that thing you plug into an outlet and it has a strip of about 5 other outlets so you can plug in more things." Another blank stare. "I work in the food section so I don't know what you're talking about. You'll have to ask someone over in electronics." Really? I don't even think I should have to comment on this story.

Someone up there must know that I'm working on a blog and would need stories, because the powers that be made sure my day was filled with not-so-competent employees. In the electronics section, I asked someone where I could find outlet converters so that I could use American appliances in Europe. He directed me towards the home improvement section. So, I asked the employee there where I could find outlet converters. He walked me over to the area where the power strips were (he should work at Target) and triumphantly said, "here you are!" I tried to explain that I didn't want a power strip or similar item, but I wanted an adaptor that had different shapes so that I could use American appliances in Europe. He pointed to 

a surge protector, and explained to me that not only did they have ones that were square, but they had rectangles and circles, too! Once again I tried to explain what I needed: Not different shaped apparatuses, but different shaped male outlets. Specifically, a male outlet with two circular prongs instead of two flat prongs. After he told me that he already showed me the circle plugs, I thanked him and decided to move on. Luckily, I found a different employee back in the electronics section who knew exactly what I was talking about. 

So, things I learned today:

1) Always read the warning labels. Because as awesome as it would be to be the mother of Jamee, 4-legged Olympic gold medalist, the stress of finding clothes that actually fit him may not be worth it.

2) Three out of every 4 people you talk to will be completely useless.

3) Target has cute raincoats.

My very own FAQ section

Since this is my first post, I figured I'd start with a FAQ section because it's far easier than actually writing normal paragraphs. Some of the questions are more on the dry side but I figured since people like to ask, I might as well add them. 

Q: What language do they speak in Denmark?

A: They speak Danish in Denmark ... No, they do not speak Dutch; or, dare I rid you of this common misconseption, "Denmarkese."

Q: So are you going to be eating Danishes like, every day?

A: I imagine if I did that, I would get very tired of Danishes. Assuming that all Danish people eat is Danishes is like assuming all Americans eat is hamburgers. Although that unfortunately may not be that far from the truth.

Q: It snows all the time there, right?
A: Actually, no. It rarely snows ... But it rains a lot. Oh, and during the month of January there's an average of one hour of sunlight a day.

Q: Isn't that going to be depressing?

A: Probably.

Q: Where are you staying?

A: With a host family. I just found out who they are about a week ago. There's a mom, a dad and four kids. Only two of the kids are young enough to still live in the house. 

Q: When are you leaving/coming back?

A: I leave Saturday January 17, and I'll be getting back Sunday May 15.

Q: Are you going to get a chance to travel?
A: I have three weeks off in the middle of the semester. The first week will be spent traveling with my program to London and Germany. The second week I'll be traveling on my own, and my family is coming to visit on the third week so I'll spend that traveling with them.

Q: So you're taking classes there?
A: Yes. I'm enrolled in the Biotechnology and Drug Development track, which is essentially like a major. My classes are biotechnology and drug development, medical ethics, human health and disease and complexity of cancer. 

Q: Will you bring me back a pair of wooden clogs?

A: No. I'm not going to Holland, I'm going to Denmark.

And now for my favorite, and by far the most frequently asked question. It also happens to be the inspiration for the name of this blog.

Q: Will you bring me back a hash brownie?

A: No. I'm not going to Amsterdam, I'm going to Denmark. Besides, do you really think I like you enough to try to smuggle drugs past customs?

That's all for now. Keep those questions coming, though.