School Has Started!

Life has been more than a little busy the past 3 weeks. A short re-cap of the important stuff:

Trip to Copenhagen from September 5-7. I went by myself and met up with my friend Magik from Poland who lives there. He was generous enough to let me stay at his apartment which saved A LOT of money. I love Copenhagen and the weather was beautiful while I was there so I spent a lot of time wandering around especially when he was at work (he's a mechanical engineer). He and I went to this IceBar one night and EVERYTHING was made out of ice. From the walls to the ceiling to the glasses. They give you giant insulated capes with gloves because the temperature inside is about 12 degrees F. He and I lasted about a half hour before it was too cold to stay any longer.

At Aarhus Uni we have something called Friday Bar which basically means every Friday the whole campus can unwind at the bar together. On September 10 the Uni threw us the biggest Friday Bar in Demark. It started at noon and went until about 3am and was sponsored by Red Bull, Carlsberg, and others... there were over 50 live bands on like 3 stages.. it was INSANE.

This past Friday night we threw a toga party here at Vilhelm Kiers. Let's just say it's probably one of the best parties I've ever been to. It's nice to have everybody come up here on the weekends because I don't have to worry about getting home.

A lot of us who live at Vilhelm Kiers have taken to cooking dinner in groups a couple times a week. It saves money and it's nice to eat dinner with really good friends and great company. Most blocks also have a floor dinner every week. Mine is on Wednesday and I found out that my week to cook is also the day before Thanksgiving so I'm going to cook a traditional Turkey Day dinner (or as close as I can get to one)!

Classes here are very different from those back home. I basically have about 400 pages of reading to do for my 3 classes every week and class consists of some lecture and some discussion. At some point in the semester for all my classes I have to give a group presentation over a certain topic. We don't have homework but it's important to keep up with the reading because it makes it easier at the end of the semester to write your term paper or prepare your presentation. Class doesn't usually start until about 15 minutes after the start time so it's okay to be a little late and you call your teachers by their first name. Classes are also taught in block form so you only meet for class once a week. Class size is also much much smaller than back home (about 35 people is average)
My Analyzing the European Union will be the hardest class I think. It has the most reading to do of all the classes. I have it on Wednesdays and it's a 4 hour lecture with a half hour break at noon. We also have a seminar session on Thursdays.
Introduction to China's History won't be too bad. The teacher is German and the class is pretty laid back. I already gave my group presentation last week (3 of us had to teach the class one chapter of the book) so I don't have to worry about that anymore. It meets on Thursday for 2 hours.
History of Eastern Europe Since the First World War will probably be my favorite class. There are about 15 of us in it that are friends (Jesse, Jane, Darren, Candice, Nick, Jess, Sally... I could go on) and the teacher is from Canada. He's really really cool and we'll be watching some movies as well. It's on Friday afternoon for 3 hours.
I'm also taking a Biology class but it doesn't start until the last week of October so I don't know anything about it.

The weather here has been cold. The high is about 63 for the day and at night it gets down to about 40. I've had my heat on for the last 2 weeks and I already had to pull out my winter coat (North Face) that I don't usually wear at home until at least November. It's raining a lot more as well.

Hard to believe I've already been here over 2 months!