Here is my long-awaited blog!

Well I've been here in Copenhagen for almost a week so I figured I'd start my blog. Also- I finally have my laptop working.. it turns out that it's much harder to find a power converter here than I thought.
Anyways, I arrived in Copenhagen Airport on Sunday and then had a couple days of orientation, and yesterday was the first day of classes. I was relieved to start classes because orientation was tiring and took up all my time!
So one of the highlights of my week was figuring out how to use the public transportation (at least the few buses that take me from home to near the school). I live in the part of the city called Nørreport, pronounced Neu-po, or something like that. I only have a ten minute commute to DIS where my classes are, and most other DIS students have a much longer commute so I'm fortunate to be so close. I just realized yesterday that I have been pronouncing my roommate's name wrong when I heard her pronounce it to someone else.. I have been pronouncing Signe like Sig-nee, but it turnes out that it's pronounced See-neu. She's been really great helping me with anything I need, showing me around the city, and most importantly, helping me grocery shop.
It turns out that I'm not exactly the cook that I thought I was.I was telling Andrew last night that I had this completely idealized view of what it would be like cooking my own meals! At home it seemed much easier with all the ingredients and recipes on hand, but now I look around at the food in the grocery store and I can't seem to think of anything to cook. I have been living off simple meals of sandwiches from the bread I brought from home, but that is almost gone. After my first grocery shopping trip here, I came home with tuna, mayonnaise (mostly because I could tell what they were), some delectable raspberry jam, peanut butter (not exactly a traditional Danish food), raisins, orange juice boxes (the word for orange is applesin!) and cocoa powder, which I thought was hot cocoa mix. Hm... not exactly the best ingredients for making a meal! Last night I emerged from a nicer grocery store that has a variety of organic foods and I got gluten free crackers, canned fruit, and a gluten-free baking mix. I'm sure I will eventually learn how to grocery shop for myself, but it may take a while! My roommate cooked me two great meals in the first two nights: steak, homemmade french fries, and salad, and then curry vegetables and chicken over rice. So mom, I miss your home-cooked meals already!
For classes, I am only taking four, and they are: Cross cultural encounters in a European context, which deals with issues of immigration, then Human Trafficking, Environmental Issues and Policy, and Danish Language 1, which begins in an hour from now. From what I can tell, the classes seem fascinating and I'm excited to get more involved with them. My main issue right now is figuring out how to be awake in my 830am classes...
The last thing I'll say in this post is that we had a scavenger hunt throughout the city of Copenhagen (pronounced Cue-bin-how) as a part of orientation on Tuesday. Here are some pictures from that:
This is the building for the Danish Parliament. One of the things that surprised us the most was that there is no security here.. at all. The buildings are so beautiful though.





This is where the prince of Denmark is going to live after renovations are completed. The queen lives in a building opposite this one, and our guide pointed out that these buildings are quite humble compared to those of most royalty. Lastly, there are a crazy amount of bikes in Copenhagen! There are bike lanes on the main roads and even stop lights for bikes!