Laila was kind enough to drive me to the station this morning on her way into town so that I did not have to catch the bus, so my ride into the city was smooth and fast. I got to my first class, Danish Language and Culture, and recognized a boy from my orientation class, and it was nice to see a familiar face. I was sitting next to an american professor, Craig and his wife Beverly, although everyone else in the class was a DIS student. Craig teaches at Santa Clara and had the opportunity to teach a biology class on biofuels at DIS, and so his whole family came along, and they are trying to learn some Danish too.
Our teacher, Nina, was just full of energy and a ton of fun, and she was great at getting the whole class to participate and kept us from feeling too embarrassed about our terrible pronunciations. I think this will be a fabulous class. I can already say Jeg Hedder Hannah, (ya hilla Hannah is kind of what it sounds like) and Jeg kommer fra Tennessee, and Jeg bor i Roskilde (ya buor eee wrouskille). I have been practicing with my host sister Tine everyday and I still can't quite say Roskilde correctly, although she is nice and says I am pretty good.
My next class, Gender and sexuality in Scandinavia had about 3 boys in 35 students, and I think it will be a great class too. My teacher is young and very cool, and the topic will be very interesting considering that Europe and Scandinavia have a very different approach to the body, embodying a general lack of modesty and a more liberal and open minded view of relationships and sexuality. So the comparison of Scandinavia to the U.S. should be really interesting. my final class was a bit chaotic, Complexity of Cancer. we have two teachers who are like 25 and oncologists and Cecilia is actually working on her PhD right now, while Joen practices medicine. They go to 5 years of medical school instead of college and then med. school. They were hilarious and I don't think they had read the syllabus ahead of time. I would have thought they would have written it but apparently not. Therefore it was funny to watch them stumble over all of the introductions.
After I finished this class around 5.30 I headed home and tonight we had a fabulous dinner of pesto pasta, stir fried vegetables, a great salad with peanuts and other fresh vegetables, and hamburgers wrapped in bacon. Very tasty, but I am always the last one to finish, and I don't know how.
I must go because it is late and I have to shower. Tomorrow night is our welcome party at a place downtown, a discotec/pub, I think that is what they call it. Should be a ton of fun and hopefully I will be able to navigate home afterwards in the dark. Luckily, Lizzy will be spending the night with me so we can figure it out together.
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