Everyday Life

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Now that summer is basically over I figured it was probably time to talk about my everyday life here. It's hard to believe I've already been here 6 weeks!

The University is pretty much what you'd expect of a European University. Campus is absolutely beautiful with a HUGE park and lake right in the middle of campus. There's a lot of ducks that live there that are basically tame and Aarhus has taken time to put picnic tables and park benches in the park. The buildings are limestone with lots of ivy on them. (Search Aarhus University on Wikipedia; they have some good pictures). There isn't a "student union" like what we have at K-State but there are a number of canteens scattered throughout campus and the food is actually pretty good and reasonably priced. Most of the buildings are connected and instead of being named they are numbered, which, being connected, can be quite confusing. The library (Statsbibliotekets) is huge.
I haven't had class yet (mine don't start for another week) so I'm not sure how they will differ from back home. All I know is that there is a lot of reading to do and homework doesn't exist.

There are a number of grocery stores to pick from but I haven't found one that has a Deli or anything like that. I usually go to Netto for basics (bread, frozen food, crackers etc) and Føtex for produce, cheese, meat, etc. Netto is cheaper but Føtex is better quality and has a much much larger selection. Føtex also has a good wine selection, paper products section, things used for cooking (pasta, olive oil) and breakfast foods. Kvickly is pretty good as well and is somewhere inbetween the two. I eat a lot of pasta because it's filling and cheap and a lot of apples for the same reason. Sandwich meat is very expensive and I cannot for the life of me find sliced turkey so my sandwiches are usually cheese with bell peppers or something like that. Cookies are called "the famous American style" which I find amusing and pretzels are "salt sticks". Nutella and toast is what I usually have for breakfast but I also have Cheerios and Frosted Flakes. I don't usually eat much for lunch; I just eat small snacks in the late morning and late afternoon to get me through to dinner. It's hard to lug a whole bunch of groceries home, everything is a lot smaller here (no extra large bag of potato chips) plus everything is kind of expensive.

It's hard to find a store like Target or Walmart that's a one-stop shop. I haven't done much shopping outside of IKEA (which was more than intimidating) and groceries but I've bought some shoes and a couple shirts. They have H&M here (it's a Swedish company and they're everywhere) but that's the only clothing store that I've recognized from home. Shops are much more specialized here which can be good and bad. Selection is often bigger between all the stores but the prices range wildly so you can't just go to one store.

I ride the Metro (the bus) everywhere that's not within walking distance. I'm not very close to downtown but there's a relatively large shopping center that's about a 15 minute walk so I can go there if I want to. The grocery stores I like to go to are all too far to walk to so I usually go grocery shopping once a week. The Metro is really really efficient and I've figured out how to read the schedules. They have a nice website where you can type in your starting and ending address and it will tell you which bus to take, where to get off, and give you a map of where you have to walk to. I'm about a 20 minute walk to campus so on nice days I'll walk but not if it's super cold or raining.

The Danes like to be efficient so there are the little take a number instead of wait in line machines. They're at the post office, the library, the train station, the pharmacy... anywhere where a big line could develop. I actually really like it.

Speaking of the pharmacy, they don't allow self-medication here. So if you're sick expect to wait until your number is called and tell the pharmacist what's wrong and they'll give you whatever they think will help. Example: I'm still sick and wanted cough syrup. Instead of cough syrup she gave me pills because the syrup apparently makes you really really tired. I would've preferred to just get the syrup but whatever.

One of the interesting things is any bill you receive you can pay at the post office. I don't have a Danish bank account so I just go to the post office to pay rent. It's definitely very convenient.

Warning: If you are expecting to use a credit card that does not have a pin code it's not going to work. Period. Don't even try to. They are going to make you use a different card.

It rains a lot here and you learn to not go anywhere without an umbrella if you don't want to get wet. When it rains it usually doesn't rain for very long but we've had a couple days where it rained pretty much all day. Now it's about 63 degrees for a high and it hasn't been very sunny the past couple days. Sometimes it's really windy as well.

Hopefully this helps explain what my everyday Danish life is like!