I promise to give the concept of "hygge" a full blog post before I leave Denmark, but for the time being, you can use "cozy" as a decent, if not fully sufficient, translation.
Also, another interesting aspect of the Danish language is that while indefinite articles are treated in much the same way as they are in English (put in front of the noun that they are attached to), the definite article "the" (en or et in Danish) is put right onto the noun that it goes with. For example: a house=et hus | the house=huset or a school=en skole | the school=skolen
Very few of you find that interesting, I'm sure, but this is the first language that I've encountered where this is the case, so I figured I'd pass it along.
Okay, so this blog post is a direct result of my inability to sit down and write an essay for my epidemic disease class. That will eventually get written tonight, but right now I have essay writer's block but not blogging writer's block, so here we go... lucky you I guess!
This past weekend was the first of five VERY busy weekends in a row. I'm really excited for all of the stuff I have coming up, including a visit from Steve, a visit to Steve in Hungary, a visit to Diego et al in Oxford, and a vacation with my parents in Greece!
Also, today marks the end of month two and is the official halfway marker of my time in Denmark. Although it is technically the halfway point, in reality my semester is much closer to finished than that would lead you to believe. Classes end a full two weeks before I leave, and my finals are finished the Monday before I leave, so the end date of the 20th of December is quite misleading. I also have two weeks off coming up. So, the last couple days of this week not included, I have a whopping FOUR weeks of classes left (next week, then two weeks off, then a full week, then a half week (Thanksgiving), then one last week and a half of classes before finals start). That means that our 13 week semester is more than 2/3 finished. Considering I have completed approximately 1/3 of my workload for the semester, the last few weeks are going to be interesting.
Anyways, this past weekend was a lot of fun. Saturday was my host brother Kristian's delayed birthday party. Becoming a teenager (technically turning 14) is a big deal (I haven't ascertained whether that is in Denmark or just in my family's household...I'll get back to you), and there was a dinner party with 60 guests at our house, complete with speeches (where I knew enough Danish to make a joke about somebody talking about how they had come from far away in Denmark when my turn to make a speech came up...there were chuckles, but I'm not sure if everyone quite figured out that I was trying to be funny...oh well) about Kristian. It was a lot of fun! I felt useful in the preparation for the party, helping Ingrid cook and set the tables (my mom would have been proud of the tables I set I'm sure...) and hopefully making the event a little less stressful for them. We had great weather, so after the dinner we played a game of rundtbol in the yard afterwards. Rundtbol is essentially a more informal style of baseball where any number of people can participate. It's a great party game, and I will be certain to bring it back to the states when I come back.
Everybody had a great time, and I learned a couple things about Danish parties. First of all, don't go into a party thinking it's going to be an event that lasts a couple of hours. The party started at 1 in the afternoon and the last guests didn't depart until after 11! It was incredible, and something that I didn't expect. One of the other Ephs here (Julia Cohan) was at her host-Mom's 50th birthday party and had a similar experience (people arrived at 3 pm and didn't leave until 3 am). The second thing I learned was that you shouldn't arrive late...or early. At least that seems to be the general attitude of the Danes. The first guests arrived at about 12:59, and almost everybody was inside the door by 1:02. It was unbelievable. Saturday was a great day! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but I'll try to put my hands on some...
The next morning, I was up very early to get down to Copenhagen to take a DIS bus out to Billund (on Jutland, about 4 hours away) to visit Legoland! Legos are Danish, and the models at Legoland were crazy good. The rides were "eh," but they were designed for people about half our age. It was a lot of driving, but it was also a lot of fun! Pictures are on facebook if you're curious!
Anyways, I'll try to blog at least a little bit next week, but then I'm going to have to take a couple of weeks off while I'm in Hungary, England, and Greece. I'll be back after my vacation though! I hope everybody is having great semesters and autumns (springs if you happen to be a southern hemisphere reader...)! I miss you all! (Unless you're a creepy blog-stalker that I don't know... If you are one of those and you've made it all the way to the bottom of this blog post you have way too much time and should probably get off the computer and take a walk!)
LEGOLAND.
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