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)