Aarhus is a Beautiful Place

I'm coming to the end of my fourth week in Aarhus! Sorry about the sporadic posts it seems I'm not too good at setting a day and sitting down to write my blog, it seems that I always have something to read, somewhere to go or failing that I just want to watch Mad Men. Yes, I recently got into Mad Men and in two weeks I've made my way to Season 3. It's a little bit too addictive. Besides all that I have three things I want to talk about this week, firstly my experiences of the beauty of Aarhus, second my Birthday which was last Friday and finally my hilarious attempts at trying to cycle like a Dane.

Aarhus is a beautiful place

Last Tuesday I booked myself onto a Cultural Tour of Aarhus which also involved a trip to the Viking Museum. Yet again I got horribly lost trying to find the group. I was cycling and hadn't given myself enough time to get there. I'm sure everyone's been there when you've left yourself just enough time to get somewhere but not factored in any time for getting lost. So I got lost and had to ask some ladies who were walking around Aarhus for directions. They were extremely helpful though and I managed to find the right place in the end, I even bumped into my classmate who'd also got lost. The tour took us around the city on foot. Once I'd joined the tour we went to look at an old courtyard which dated to the fifteenth century. The houses looked very much like Tudor houses in the UK but they were a lovely orange colour.

We then moved on to an old street with brightly coloured houses. These houses are extremely expensive to buy in Aarhus now and are protected. It would be a truly beautiful place to live. In the photo you can see my classmates walking up the cobbled street. The houses on both sides are cottage-like in size and each one was a different colour.

  

Apparently the main river of Aarhus, which now flows through the city centre, was completely taken out at one time and filled in with concrete.  It's hard to believe that today because the canals in the city centre are lined with cafes and restaurants and are a tourist attraction in themselves. The funny thing is hearing any Dane say the word 'canal.' Instead of saying 'caNAL' as we might say they place the emphasis on the 'CANal' so it sounds more like 'Kennel'. It took me a while to work out what they were talking about. 

The tour took us along the river side and into the main square of the city then into the Viking museum because it started raining. The best thing about the museum is that it was built on the level on which they found Viking artefacts. That means that to enter the museum you have to go underground and as you walk down the stairs you can see the different layers for the different time periods right up to the 1970s. The museum itself is built on the site of two longhouses and you can see the different artefacts they found around each of the different buildings. There is also a 3D model of what Aarhus might have looked like in Viking times. The original name of Aarhus is Aros which means 'river mouth' and so when you look at the the town plan you can see how the original settlement was built around the river mouth.

We emerged from the museum in bright sunshine. The Cathedral and Theatre looked stunning in the bright Autumn sun. 

The Theatre

The Cathedral

We finished up our tour with a walk into the Dockyard area of Aarhus and learned of the new developments happening there. Then we went to the Latin Quarter which used to be an unloved part of the City but was renovated to resemble the Latin Quarter in Paris. 

The tour was fantastic and I saw a lot more of Aarhus but the weather has been so nice recently that I often find myself on my bike or walking home looking at the beautiful buildings and feeling very lucky that I have a whole year to explore and appreciate this beautiful city. 

My mentor invited myself and her other mentees over for dinner on Sunday and I cycled to her place which is close to the harbour. She has a lovely flat and she made us a Danish variation of pizza which includes a layer of potato on the pizza dough with tomatoes and pesto. It's occasions like this that I love, getting to know Denmark, Danish culture and my Danish friends. 

It's been quite hard settling in because I know that there are many people on my course living with or very close to others from our course. There are only two of us from the course in my halls. But it has meant that I've got to know my housemates and they are a wonderful group of people. I just got in from another common dinner and we always have a real laugh and a nice catch up with each other. 

So I am truly experiencing the beauty of Aarhus and getting settled in, I live in a beautiful place. 

My Birthday

It was my birthday on Friday, 20th. I had been really worried that I would not have many if any people to celebrate with as I've only been here 3 weeks. However, I was wrong, I had a wonderful day. 

I woke up really early. I tend to do this on my birthday even though I'm 22 now. In the past I have shared a special moment in the kitchen with my dad at around 6am in the morning of my birthday. He told me that I was born at around 6.30am and he remembers watching the sun come up with me so in the years since he shared this story with me I often wake up and watch the sun rise. I sent my dad this photo of the sunrise.

The Sunrise from my window, 7.30 Danish time, 6.30 English time

I had a whole day of classes so from 10am-4pm but it was a great day. I'd invited my classmates to join me for a celebration in the evening so many of them came up to me during the day and gave me hugs for my birthday. It was also wonderful this year to receive birthday greetings in so many different languages.

In the evening, I skyped my grandparents, my parents and my boyfriend and opened my cards which was really nice. Then I'd organised a pizza party at my flat before going into town. My flatmate Bianca bought some balloons and candles and made the whole party special for which I was so grateful. I celebrated my birthday with my lovely flatmates and my coursemate Hannah, we had a fantastic time dancing around the kitchen, chatting and eating pizza. Then just before we left, the girls sang Happy Birthday and I had to blow some candles out on a pudding that Bianca had made.

My lovely flatmates

Then we cycled merrily into Aarhus to a ping pong bar called Shen Mao. It was a really cool place which had one large table tennis table and a dancefloor. Many of my coursemates were already there and I was overwhelmed by how many came out to join us. It was probably the biggest party I've had to date! I rented a table tennis paddle and joined in the game which was effectively a large game of everyone taking one turn to hit the ball back and the whole group moving around the table until everyone is out except two. Needless to say trying to hit the ball when you've had a fair bit to drink brings a whole new hilarity to the game!

They played some great music all night and I had a fantastic time pulling all kinds of shapes on the dancefloor and drinking cocktails. I had an incredible birthday and I was so thankful to everyone for helping me celebrate in style, it's so nice to know that although we've only been here for a few weeks we're forging strong friendships and having a great time together.

Cycling 

Finally I just wanted to share some of my first experiences of trying to ride like a Dane. Everyone in Aarhus cycles, and it's not surprising since they've really built their roads to accommodate for cyclists. The cycle lanes run parallel to the main roads and here you have to cycle the same way as the traffic. This I found tricky to start off with because I'm used to cars travelling on the opposite side of the road. I got seriously confused, especially at crossroads.

However, once I got the hang of that I then had to work out how to get on my bike and peddle across the road whilst the light was green. It seems they don't give you enough time to make mistakes. I'm not used to having a bike which has peddles which act as a brake when pushed backwards. This means that when I'm waiting for the traffic light I have to get my pedals in the right position so I just get on and go, but I can't just push the pedals around so it takes me longer. The first few times I cycled anywhere everytime I stopped at traffic lights it took me ages to sort the pedals out and the lights changed at least three times!

Having said that, the worst thing I've done on a bike since I've been here is crash just as I left my halls. I was cycling down the path and at the end there are posts on both sides. For some reason I because fixated on one of the posts rather than thinking about where I was going. I braked but I crashed straight into it. It hurt so much! The bike went up backwards and the handlebars went straight into my stomach. I'm not a bad cyclist, I've cycled since I was about 6 years old but every now and again I make a complete idiot of myself! There were so many people watching too!

The weirdest thing about cycling here is that they seem to have trouble with people cycling and texting. I just cannot comprehend how someone can cycle and text as they cross the road! I also don't understand how they can talk on their phones whist cycling! There have been so many times when I've been overtaken by someone either talking on their phone or texting. I'm an accident waiting to happen without the added factor of a phone so I think I'm going to leave that to the Danes.

In the meantime, thanks for reading! As you can see I'm settling in and starting to really enjoy my time here, as always thank you for your continued support :)

Second Week in Denmark

First off, it seems I've already run out of puns for 'Aarhus' sorry everyone! Also I'm sorry that it's taken me ages to blog this week I've had a really busy time getting stuck in with my course and meeting lots of new people. 

I left my last post talking about my first experiences of the study culture here in Denmark and I started full lectures on my first Friday here. We started with a whole day's classes, 10am-4pm talking about the 'World Agenda' and I had to submit an assignment for my very first class! So far I am loving the course though. We start the day with an hour's introduction lecture given by the course lecturers, then we move onto a smaller group seminar class, led by a Teaching Assistant, for around 3 hours in which we discuss the texts that we have read and answer a set question. Then we finish the day with a 2 hour conclusion class led by the course lecturers in which a pair from each group presents the findings of their groups and we all debate the different theories relating to the topic of the day.

I volunteered to take the very first presentation on the Friday with my classmate Johannes, something which I was really nervous about. I had never studied the 'World Order' or our specific theory, 'Liberalism' before, but with most things in my life I threw myself in at the deep end. I like a challenge and I thought that taking the first presentation would then mean I was more confident about sharing my ideas. We had to give a short presentation about 'Liberalism' and it didn't quite go to plan because I got a bit tongue-tied and couldn't even say 'Liberalism' to begin with. But we got it under control. Then members of our class were encouraged to ask questions and challenge our position, which I admit was pretty scary at first but it really did help me to understand the limitations of the theory we'd studied that day.

I came away at the end of my first day's lectures feeling really happy because the day was structured in such a way that I started the day feeling clueless and ended the day feeling really confident and excited about what I had learned. I have left most of my classes since then with a smile on my face, Sometimes I look and feel exhausted. But mostly I feel like I am in the right place and that this course will benefit me no end. I already feel like I have learned far more about the world and how it operates, journalism and myself than I could have imagined. Since our first lectures on the Friday 7th September, we have moved on to study Globalisation, Globalisation's effect on Journalism and today we studied War Reporting and how that has changed. During the course of this module we will move on to study how to report on things like the Hunger crisis and Terrorism. It all inspires and interests me so the reading, although there is a lot of it, isn't a chore to read.

I have done other things other than study since I last posted though. Last Friday after class we had a huge welcome party for all 103 of us on the course. It was fantastic because we were all encouraged to bring a snack or drink from our country. There was a lot of different types of food but there was also numerous different liquors from different countries including Vodka and Whisky. Needless to say my memories of the party are a little hazy. We then went into town to a club and continued to dance late into the night.

On the Saturday I felt worse for wear but I did manage to sort out some administrative things and I bought a bike. It's not the most beautiful bike I've ever seen but it's functional and I managed to pick it up and cycle it all the way home. I got lost on the way but not on the way back! That's one piece of really good news, I've stopped getting lost everywhere! Since I got lost so many times in my first week I have now built up a mental map for myself and I know where places are in relation to each other now. I have also found a really nice route to the Danish School of Media and Journalism which only takes 20 minutes.

On Sunday I ventured into the city centre to meet some friends. We had a look around a flea market and then sat by the canals with some coffee. The city centre is truly beautiful and I am looking forward to visits from friends and family so I can show it off.

We didn't have classes on Monday this week which I was really glad about because it rained so hard ALL day! Rachel and I visited the Clubs and Organisations Fair though, which proved to be useful as we gathered some information about different clubs and societies within the University and some places to visit in the city. We did go out in the evening though, to a bar on the canal in the city, celebrate some birthdays. A huge amount of my coursemates came and we had a great time chatting, laughing and dancing.

Aarhus Canals at night

The weather brightened up on Tuesday so I cycled my bike to the University. I've found two routes to get there one involves a long, fairly steep hill, perfect for getting to campus in a hurry and the other is a fairly flat route perfect for the way home. It's worked out pretty well. A student from the year above us came to chat to us on campus and it proved really useful as he told us all about freelancing, his experience of Danish culture and the best places to get coffee in town. After the talk I studied in the State Library. It was a nice place to study but next time I go I'm going to check out the Relaxation area which has beanbags and sofas!

We had a full day's lectures on Wednesday which was great until about 3pm when everyone started to feel really tired. My lecturer seems to have so much energy. We were all falling asleep and he was cracking jokes and asking why no one was laughing. I wasn't in any state to do much when I got home that evening because I was so tired.

I spent most of Thursday reading but I also managed to cook Roast Dinner for my flatmates. There are 14 of us most are Danish with the exception of myself and Bianca who is from Brazil. I had some help with the cooking which made it a lot of fun. The Roast itself was actually the best I have ever made because the roast potatoes were really crunchy and crispy. I represented Britain quite well in that respect :). My food got eaten up by everyone which made me really happy and then Bianca made a Brazilian dessert for us all. We then went downstairs to the bar in our Halls for a Quiz about Strange Facts. It was such a lovely evening getting to know my flatmates better and I am really glad that I am living with Danish students both because they are teaching me a lot about Danish culture and because they are great company.

I had another full day of classes on Friday which went really fast. In the evening we went to the Friday Bar in the University Park, it was the largest one in Denmark. It was laid out like a festival with different tents for different music. We met a huge group of our coursemates there and danced all night until the music stopped. I thought I had some pretty crazy dance moves but now I've witnessed those of my coursemates I'm not so sure :)

At the Friday Bar

Saturday morning was spent relaxing. In the afternoon Rachel and I headed into the city to meet some others and to explore. We couldn't find the girls we had arranged to meet and ended up walking around and around the Cathedral. We did find some interesting museums though, like the Womens Museum, the Viking Museum and the Occupation Museum so we'll have to go back to visit those. In the end we just had a coffee and chatted before taking a look around the cobbled streets and brightly painted houses. We did end up meeting the bigger group so we all had a chat and a glass of wine together before heading home.

So you're all pretty up to date now with what's been happening in my life except for one thing. I decided to lend my services in editing our 'Blue Book' which is effectively our Yearbook. The deadline to get the whole thing done is 3 weeks from now, which has put some added pressure on but hey, when I said I have been getting stuck in, I truly have. No wonder it's been such a whirlwind. I can't believe I am already starting my third week here. It goes to show that things are becoming a lot easier and I am really enjoying myself. It's my birthday this week so I know that it's going to be a good one.

I am missing everyone at home but right now I am really proud of myself for adjusting to life here and engaging with the challenge that is my Masters. Thank you as ever for all your support I couldn't do it without you.

Aarhus in the middle of our street

So I've bowed to significant pressure and called this blog post 'Aarhus in the middle of our Street'. But I will now burst that bubble unfortunately because it's not actually pronounced 'Aar'hus but more like 'Or'hus so it sounds less like 'Our House' than I thought. Anyway, this blog post is about my move to Aarhus and the early stages of making it into my home.

I left London on Monday morning on a flight from Heathrow. I was very lucky because my dad managed to use some of his Airmiles (acquired through years of travelling for business), to get me a Business Class flight from Heathrow to Copenhagen. I felt quite teary leaving my house because my move to Denmark had been a slightly blurry and distant event up until that moment. In the car with my dad and boyfriend, I said 'this feels so weird, I can't believe this is actually happening' and my dad responded by saying 'this is happening because back in January you said 'ooh this looks quite exciting, I'd like to do that''. This is true, it seemed like a very exciting prospect back in January, but then that's all it was, a prospect, and in the car on Monday morning that prospect became a reality! My dad left me at the departures gate and then I was left alone with my boyfriend for a teary few minutes but somehow he managed to make me laugh a lot before I said goodbye. As I walked through security I was still grappling with the fact that I was actually going.

As I had a Business Class ticket I then made my way to the British Airways lounge. I must have stuck out like a sore thumb though because everyone in there looked very smart and then in I came, my face still streaked with tears, carrying a huge rucksack and a coat on one arm whilst attempting to hold my phone, passport and boarding pass in my other hand. As I was alone I didn't really want to leave anything on the seats so I tried to make some coffee and pick up some croissants single-handedly. As you can see, I was successful this time! :)

My flight to Copenhagen was pretty easy and very comfortable, though I sat next to a businessman with whom I tried to make conversation with at some point. I say tried, because I asked him questions and then could not for the life of me hear what he said in reply. There's only so many times you can ask someone to repeat themselves and after about 3 questions he put his headphones back on. Note to self, do not engage in conversation on a plane unless the person you are talking to has a very loud voice.

When I landed in Copenhagen I had to get a connecting flight to Aarhus from another terminal. It all went smoothly though and I managed to get the bus to the right place. I met a coursemate for the connecting flight which made me feel less nervous. His name is Viral and he lives close to London too so we had a lot to talk about. He is also a former sports editor for The Boar, Warwick's student publication which won the Ones To Watch Student Publication of the Year for which the Wessex Scene was placed in the top 3. I thought that our meeting might be awkward seeing as the competition results came out the night before but it was fine because Viral left in 2012 and took a year out so was not part of this year's team. We did have a good conversation about it though :)

Hello Aarhus!!

We had to get a bus from the airport to the University which took around 40 minutes. My mentor then came to pick me up from the bus stop. We got a lift to my Halls from her dad, which I was very grateful for. Unfortunately for me though I live on the 3rd floor of my block which meant I had to carry my 22.8kg suitcase up 3 flights of stairs. We met one of my flatmates on the stairs so she showed me to my room and explained some formalities. My first impression of my room was that it looked a little bit like a prison cell, but there's nothing your own bedding, cards and photos from home can't fix, so it's now looking much better.

I then unpacked and went to the supermarket. My trip around the shop was relatively easy, that is until I got to the checkout. I didn't have any bags and the cashier sent all my shopping through at the speed of light whilst I frantically searched for bags, bought them and then scrambled to pack everything. In the process I tipped a huge pile of leaflets onto the floor and I was trying my best to pick them up and pack all my shopping but no one seemed to have that much of a sense of humour. I then just paid and tried to sort myself out but before I had even two seconds to sort myself out, the cashier sent another customer's shopping through. It was crazy, so I think I might be avoiding the supermarket for a bit. Plus, it was a very expensive shop!

There is one other girl from my course in my Halls so I met her on Monday evening so that we could walk into town to meet some of the others. We went into the city centre and met our coursemates in a bar. It was great because the bar was virtually empty except for our group so we could all sit around and chat to each other. Everyone was very friendly and we had some great conversation and lots of laughs. But we didn't stay too long because we had to get the bus back. Unfortunately for us though we missed the bus so decided to walk home. We completely underestimated how far it was. We walked for around 45 minutes and then got very lost so had to walk into a petrol station to ask for directions. She called a taxi for us because she said we were miles away. We got home safely in the end.

We had our first introduction to the course on Tuesday and I was supposed to get to the Danish School of Media and Journalism for 2pm. My coursemate Rachel, who lives in my Halls, had other arrangements so I decided to go it alone, 'how hard can it be?' I asked myself. I got some directions from Google maps and it was supposed to take about 20 minutes to walk so I left myself an hour to get there. I got horrendously lost in the middle of a park! None of the Danish people I asked knew where I was supposed to be going. I ended up on a road and on the right bus eventually but I got to the lecture 10 minutes late.

The introduction to the course was great, I finally got to put some faces to the names of those I'd met on Facebook. The course organisers were all really friendly and welcoming too so I started to feel more relaxed about the whole thing. I left the session feeling calm and self-assured however, my biggest mission of the trip so far was then to try and navigate back home.

I thought I knew which bus to take so I felt pretty positive, that is until we ended up on a road I'd never heard of which seems a really long way from home. I walked up the road to try and get another bus back, waited for a while and got on a bus towards the city centre. I got off again because I just did not recognise any of the street names or anything. By this point I was really starting to feel frustrated and angry. So I got on another bus and ended up even further away from where I wanted to be! The fact that cars drive on the other side of the road here really confused my sense of direction. So I got on one last bus thinking 'this must be it!' The ridiculous thing is, I ended up right back at the Danish School of Journalism and Media, right where I'd started from! At this point I was on the verge of tears and I thought God help me, I am definitely NOT clever enough to be on this Masters course, please someone take me back to the airport! But I pulled myself together and gave up on buses completely so decided to try and walk home. This proved much more successful because I only took one wrong turn and realised where I was. I ended up going back through the park that I'd got lost in on the way. 2 HOURS after I first left the Danish School of Media and Journalism I finally made it to my flat. Needless to say I was exhausted!

Lost in the park, but I can see Aarhus Harbour

In the evening though we all went to our first International Night at the Studenterhus, run by the International Centre. There was a huge hall with a bar and lots of flags hanging from the ceiling and the place was really busy. My group of coursemates found a bar in the cellar though and we all went down there to chat and get to know each other. We started off with a smallish group of about 20 and then more and more people came to join us as the night went on. I met a lot of people that I'd not met yet and we had some great conversations about different countries, what Egypt had been like over the summer and the varied experience of each member of the group. We even learned some Swedish, though I wouldn't know how to spell it. It was a fun night and I'm so excited to get to know everyone a bit better.

So much has happened this week that I can't fit it all into one blog post. But I'm sure you can see that I am currently getting to grips with meeting coursemates, finding various places and learning about the course. It's all been quite overwhelming but I hope to write again at the weekend when I've settled in a bit more. I'm just trying not to rush myself because as I'm finding it's all the little things that we take for granted that seem to be so complicated here, like getting a bus pass or a sim card, using a different style of toaster, working out how my shower works etc. It will all seem pretty normal soon but for now I will share my slightly embarrassing stories in the hope that we can learn some more about Danish culture together.

Tak!
 ('Thank you' in Danish)