That being said, I will now continue with the normal witty musings.

Story 1

My language class went on a field trip to the local art museum, as a culturing experience. We were to walk around looking at the art, find a picture write a little about it, then share it with the class.  So fun times, being an adult talking to a class in broken danish in front of random strangers who are also in the museum. There were also several small groups of kids on school field trips, so we all felt kinda silly, but we had dun as always. So we were trying to contemplate one picture when we hear some kid on the other side of the museum make the weirdest noise. One of my classmates thought it sounded like a dog, but I had to inform them (being a Hokie) that that noise most resembled a turkey, having heard many a turkey calls in my last 5 years. Several minutes go by, then we hear this kid make his turkey noise again, it was kinda startling, but also really funny. A while later as we are walking into the last gallery, we are startled by the sight in the middle of the room of a giant bird cage with a male turkey in the middle. It was the weirdest thing I had seen all day, a turkey as art. But it does make sense, he is a very powerful and majestic creature, quite lovely to look upon (as any hokie fan will tell you.) It was also pretty awesome because I guessed a turkey from 5 rooms away. – end

Story 2

So I finally went shopping today at the hardware store to spend a gift card I got at christmas. I ended up buying a really sweet electric drill. It’s small and not too bulky, and has a light to shine where you are drilling. But anyways, I had a drill now, and I am now finally a real man. It’s good to be a real man. I was excited about my new purchase, so I decided to tell my co-workers. I had learned in class the word for drill, so I felt comfortable talking about it in danish. It was right about the time I started to tell them how I felt like a real man that they started to crack up laughing. now, I like to consider myself a funny person, but I knew it wasn’t that funny. It was about this time that one of them realized I was using the wrong word. The word for drill is essentially bore machine in a danish accent, where I was saying hole machine in a danish accent. (you can see how I might get them confused) But, apparently, I had been talking for 5 minutes about how cool and how manly my new hole puncher was. You know, I got my new hole puncher, it can do 20 pages at the same time, that pretty BA. -fail

end

Random aside

One cool thing about Denmark, I picked up 20 roses for Signe on Valentines day for 16 dollars. I felt like it was a good deal compared to America.

So, I talked to many of you in the states, so I don’t really want to spend a long time on that. But for those that care the Madsens got reimbursed by British Airways for every dime they spent, so the only real damage caused by going a week without our luggage was the emotional stress on them and especially me (I’m special because I’m the one writing this and I have all the power. dangit!)

Being in Denmark and not understanding what people say leads to a zoning out of all conversations around you, and if you happen to hear English you automatically hone in on the people talking for a feeling of home. So this habit was really weird when I got back to America, because I could hear everyone, and it felt so loud I just wanted to go hide in a dark corner. And then you have the fact that in Denmark people don’t talk to you unless they know you, so you never have those awkward conversations in the grocery store. And I was shocked the first time I was waiting in line for dinner in London and the guys behind me just starts chatting. I just looked at him thinking “I don’t know you, so why on earth would you think I cared about your travel plans.” I’m kinda a mean person on the inside, normally I just do a good job of faking it.

Denmark “Land of the free, and home of the Vikings!”

I’m back home now. work is going well, it won’t get busy until February, right now they isn’t enough work to keep one person busy, let alone the 3.5 people we normally have working. I watch a lot of TV and movies, but they get interrupted a lot since the soldiers don’t have the foresight to by more than one candy bar at a time.

School is also going well, I passed my first test to put me in level 3-2. Level 3 is for people who were educated in a civilized country, however it doesn’t keep some of the idiots and tools out. I was thinking that since it was a free, and voluntary class for adults that people would take it more seriously. But most the class shows up 5-10 minutes late, they don’t do their homework, and get excited when class is canceled. I don’t bike half an hour to hope nothing is going on. I also have an desire to actually learn the language. they also talk constantly while the teacher is teaching. Maybe it’s just the teacher in me that is bitter, who knows. I do get along with my Chinese buddy. He graduated with an engineering degree in China, so you know he is a guy that doesn’t mess around with education.

other random comments:

I ate a cheese burger with a knife and a fork the other day. I didn’t like it, and I don’t want to have to do it again.

Denmark is in a pattern of snowing at night and melting in the day, so close to pretty, but not.

I sat in a room full of danes to watch the Inaugural Address. kinda weird to see how much the rest of the world really does care.

Go Hokies!

Conspiracy Theory 101

So there were several days last week when I forgot how to sleep. Normally I fall alseep moments after I close my eyes, but instead I would close my eyes around 2am and finally get to sleep arround 6am, leaving tons of time for my brain to do whatever it well pleased. And I had this one thought, that in my opinion was was sheer brilliance, while lying there. What if, and stay with me here, what if celebrities were actually normal people. What if all this crap about Brad, Jennifer and Angelina was all just acted out and made up for the audiance. Between People magazine and the E! channel, and who know how many other outlets, they make tons of money. And maybe they use some of that money to pay off celebrities to act out senerios that they deam would people would like. And on weekends Brad Pitt and his wife invite Jennifer Aniston and her husband over for a barbeque, because they are friends and they made another million from People saying they were thinking of getting back together. It could be that way, none of you people would know any difference, it’s like one giant soap opera. I think the idea came to me from the movie “The Prestige” with Christian Bale (brilliant movie if you haven’t seen it) This whole idea is me just wishing that Brittney Spears is really sain, and the rest of Hollywood isn’t as bad as I know they are. You know, you are the reason celebrities go insaine. If you people wouldn’t read it, and no one cared then maybe they woulded be hounded everyday by people just waiting for them to screw up. Society sucks. end rant

I love you all and hope to see you again. I am going to try to make tuesday night, update your blog night, but we all know how good I am at sticking to schedules

good night

Anyway, Like I said, soul-crushing darkness. The country now starts to get dark right around the time I start work most days a little before 4. It’s hard to put an exact time on it since it is always cloudy and grey and you never really see the sun. But yeah, it is dark a lot. However the Danes have come up with a plan to deal with it called hyggelige. (Signe is probably really upset at me right now since hyggelige is an adjective and can’t really be used in that sense) There is not really a good  english word for it, the best we have come up with is cozy. They strive for every where to be very cozy. They do this by using a ridiculous amounts of tea candles everywhere. So if you goto someones place for a cup of coffee (which also includes cake or cookies) the highest praise you can give the host is to tell them that their place is hyggelige. It is just so not the same in america, but I guess denmark is a cute little country where it is cold and dark, and if the entire country strives for this sense of hyggelige then they just might make it through another winter without giving up and moving to a better country i.e. america

Thanks everybody. I am also real excited to be coming to America in 3 weeks for christmas. I am also excited to be bring Signe and her dad and sisters along with me, it should be an exciting adventure, and I long for home where I pray a double cheese burger is still $1.

However there are some parts of the language that are rough, like the pronunciation of of certain letters such as the R which pretty much needs to be swallowed (which took me til I was 12 before I could pronounce in English, many of you endearingly knew me as Cowy before then). the Ø is quite is just not a sound we make, and the you have the soft D witch is a cross between an L and TH but neither. and them together with a B and you have BRØD = bread. Completely unpronounceable. I feel as if I’m going to throw up every time I try. or RØD = red, or RØDBRØD which thankfully isn’t a term.

But anyways, my real intention of this post was to complain about their number system. Being a number person with aspirations to teach math in this country this is a subject I need to learn, But it makes no sense.

First off they put their numbers in the wrong order. Such as fem-og-tyve, which mean 5 and 20. They still read from left to right, so if you are using a cash register, like I do, and you have to type 43 but tell the soldier 3 and 40, you get some really messed up things going on. However they would say tre-hundrede-seks-og-fyrre (which by they way they don’t space like that, they jam it all together to be trehundredeseksogfyrre). 300, 6 and 40. if you are going to go in the wrong direction atleast they could be consistent.

Second, half the time they use a base 20 number system and the other half they don’t. let’s watch

10 = ti (normal enough)

20 = tyve (pronounced tuva)

30 = tredive (also really hard to pronounce)

40 = fyrre

50 = halvtreds (in other words “half 3″)

60 = Tres (plain enough to see that says 3 to me)

70 = halvfjerds (half 4)

80 = firs (4)

90 = halvfems (half 5)

100 = hundrede (back to normal)

When I point it out to Danes most of them have never thought about it, they just know it, but I have to say 6 and halv 3 to get 56. But why isn’t 10 half 1, or 40 pronounced 2. I constantly get 40 and 80 mixed up since in my head they both mean 4. (That got me introuble once when I was calling out numbers for the danish version of bingo and called 43 when I meant 83 and someone claimed to win. They were not happy when they infact did not with the cake. Life lesson: don’t get in the way of a soldier and his cake.)

Lastly, their higher order numbers are all wrong. they have “en million” which mean “a million” but that’s where it ends. next where we have a billion they have “en milliard”, ok I’m used to their words being different. But after that they go to “en billion” which is actually 1 trillion. and they continue, en billiard, en trillion, en trilliard. By this time we are up to 10^21 which is a billion times a trillion. So if I was talking about America’s national debt and accidentally said trillion when I meant trillion in English I’d be talking about more money than exists in the world. which is quite a big difference.

So there you have it folks, your first danish lesson. I hope it was as frustrating for you as it is for me. I love you all and I hope you have a good week.

In Christ

Cory

P.S. Signe and I just started an english bible study yesterday, and there are 6 of us 2 danes and 4 americans. And surprisingly enough 1 of the other americans is studying abroad from VT. what a small world, Go Hokies!

Anyways, Signe and I went to her dad’s place for the week, and did a lot of nothing which was really good for both of us. I needed a break and so did she. Then over last weekend, Signe’s dad too us and her two sister’s to a wellness center for some extra relaxing. The place was essentially a giant water park for adults. It had 6 Jacuzzis, 3 saunas, 4 steam rooms, 2 pools, several different water fall rooms, Indian sweatboxes, which I thought were awesome. You have your own personal steam room with your head poking out the top so you can actually breath. It was so much fun to sit there, I also really liked the hot water bath, which was exactly what it sounds like.

But check it out, I learned how to put images up. those chairs were amazing too, they were heated so they toasted your buns to perfection. It was also good for my lower back. I also had the privilege of getting a massage, my second professional message of my life, and it still surprises me how fast 45 minutes can go. He barely got done with my back.

But alas, I couldn’t stay forever in paradise (or atleast Mr. Madsen wouldn’t pay for it) and I went home and started school, finally. I’ve had one class and it is quite fun. There are 12 of us from 10 countries. Allow me to list them. we have China, Japan, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Columbia, USA, and 3 from the Philippines. and only me and China are guys, most the rest married danish dudes. It’s kinda humbling to go around and say which languages we speak, since all of them know their language, English and some times a third, where I know English…. whatever. Our class is entirely in Danish which will probably get easier as it goes along, but at first really confused most of us. I was lucky enough to have picked up enough to follow along. But it’s also fun to see which regions of the world can’t pronounce certain sounds. We laughed a lot. But my first rant about the danish language, they have 9 vowels. 9. and some of them make more than one noise. A, E, I, O, U, Y, Æ, Ø, Å. And I can successfully pronounce 5 of them. Ø and Y are the roughest. I hear how it sounds, then I try to make the noise, but it doesn’t come out of my mouth.

Anywho I’ma get since I chopped off a good portion of my finger today cutting vegetables and I can’t type so well. I hope you all are going great, and I love you dearly.

Peace

Dinner:

A traditional Danish dinner consists of boiled potatoes or rice, and you cover it with some sort of sauce (They love their sauces over here) and have some sort of meat with it. There might be a vegetable, there might not, but for the family I live with, this is 80% of the home cooked meals. It’s rather good, and not to weird. One night they did serve me the intestines of some animal which unfortunately I saw while it was in he pot uncooked. It looked like a hideous giant gray worm that wanted to eat me. It looked better after being cooked and tasted good.

Lunch:

After the language thing, lunch is the hardest thing for me to adjust to. For lunch you pull out a loaf of this dark dark bread, that seems less bread and more whole grains that compressed together. we don’t have it in america but if we did I think it’s mere presence would drop America’s average weight by 2 pounds it’s that healthy. It doesn’t taste bad, but it doesn’t taste good either, you just kinda eat it. And then you bring out a whole array of meats, cheeses, and other random things to put on the bread. You take one piece of bread´, and put one piece of meat on top, then use a knife and for to eat it. I once tried to put a piece of meat and cheese on the same slice of bread and everyone looked at me like I was doing somehing wrong. One of their favorite things to put on the bread is liver-paste which can be kinda nice especially if you get the one with bacon. But then they have this herring stuff that makes me gag everytime someone opens the jar. The lunch isn’t too bad to eat, it just gets old and monotonous quick and you want something more to spice it up, but no, it’s more health bread.

Breakfast:

Breakfast isn’t bad, it’s mainly toast with butter, cream cheese, jam, or chocolate….. They also have a wide selection of American cereals, and another common breakfast is yogurt with granola mixed in. I’m not a big fan of breakfast anyways so whatever.

Junk food:

The Danish people love hotdogs. but it is a much different system. If you are on the street and you order a hotdog, you get the meat next to a almost bun, but the bread is way too small and it doesn’t have a slit in it for the hotdog. You just pick up the hotdog with your hands and eat it, then the bread. And this is practically the only thing Danes don’t use a knife and fork for. They also have a huge array of condiments, we have 10 different kinds at the soldier home. (But only 2 salad dressings i don’t get it). That is unless you order a French hotdog (not actually from France, kinda like french frys) where they take a small baguette and hollow out the middle and shove the hotdog down inside. It is the most amazing system, all the joy of a hotdog, nearly no chance of a spill. I think i needs to be brought to America.

And they have a lot of pizzas here. All their pizza is made my middle easterns, so kebab is always a choice. But they have thin crust pizzas, and all the pizzas come with atleast 4 toppings. You just look through the list and find the combination of toppings that best suits you and order that one. Much different than the 2.50 extra per topping.

They also buy a lot of bagged candy. And they are all different mixes of gummy candies, that everyone has in little bowls in their living rooms.

Well that pretty much covers it for the normal foods. I’ll get into the holiday foods later, that will take a long time to go over since it is quite different, and I’ve already gone on long enough. But seriously potato chips in a glass bowl at Christmas dinner, I don’t get it. I love you all and I hope you get a chance to come over and experience it for yourself.

Firstly, I was in a McDonald’s and there was a little Koi pond in the middle with several carp swimming around in it. Everyone else in my party seemed to think it was normal, including the other American with us (but he’s been there for 2 years now so he doesn’t count) I didn’t know what else to do except go pay 11 dollars for my big mac meal.

Secondly, I believe there is magic afoot here in Denmark. So me and Erik are out (Erik is my my new bike’s name) and the wind is blowing right in our face, then we turn 90 degrees and it is still right in our face, then we turn 90 degrees again and it is still right in our face. it is in our face while looking at the water, it’s in our face with our backs to the water, when I’m on my bike, the wind is always trying to hold me down. (And if any of you are think ‘Cory when a bike moves there’s wind in your face’ I know that .I’m not stupid .I’m talking about real wind)

Thirdly, I love telling the Danes that i shot my first gun at the age of 6, when most of them have never touched a real gun.

Fourthly, so there was this other time Erik and I were out, it was actually a while ago right after I got here, and shortly after I left home Erik got a flat tire. So I remembered a bike shop just up the road, so I decided to just walk my bike there, and the shop wasn’t where I remembered it being, but I was pretty sure it was somewhere close. And every turn I’d look and say to myself ‘you know i think i remember it being right up there.’ Suddenly over an hour has passed no bike shop to be seen, and I’m nearly where I was going. I still have no clue where that shop I thought was there actually is, but all of Denmark looks alike.

OK I will try to be more regular with my postings, atleast once a week. I love you all

I finally gave up, and went back in to get tested. Then I had the pleasure of biking home to go work a 10 hour shift

It really made me realize that even though there is an exchange rate, the economy over here is just completely different. Everything over here is more expensive that it is in America (except milk and I can’t figure out why) but something are more expensive than others. For starters gass is about 9 bucks a gallon, and I don’t even want to know how much they pay for a crappy French car let alone a nicer one. Soda is about 3 times more expensive, where beer and wine are about the same as America, so guess which one I choose more. They don’t have chain resturants so going out to eat more than once or twice a month will kill your wallet. I find myself just having to not think about dollars and just understand and know everything in Krowns. It makes it easier, and handle-able. ok, enough for now, I’ll write about more crazy adventures as they come.

peace and love

Cory