Yelling in Danish

This past weekend was quite fun and interesting. It was also very calm, which was nice. Sabina was away for most of the weekend on a "Christmas trip" with her sailing club, so it was just me and the host parents.

Dorte and Erling had friends over on Saturday night, as I mentioned in the previous post. There were two couples, one of which had two teenage kids - a boy and a girl. It was pretty fun. We had a lot of really good food, and I got to see handball for the first time. Iceland beat Denmark, so the kids and the two visiting men (with whom I was watching the game) were pretty sad, but it was really cool to see an entirely different sport. The best way I can think to describe it is as a cross between basketball and hockey, but that doesn't fully explain it. I didn't understand all the rules, but it was really fun to watch. At one point in the evening the girl, who was maybe 13, was talking about Twilight to her mom. I was a little sad to learn that that is just as popular here as it is at home. That's globalization for you, I guess - haha! The people stayed until 1 in the morning or so. I think it would have been a bit more fun if I spoke more Danish than what I've got. As it was, the evening dragged on a little bit for me, since I didn't understand any of the conversation that wasn't specially directed at me.

I didn't set an alarm for Sunday morning, but I woke up at 8:40 on my own, proving that my internal clock is skewed way earlier here! We had a leisurely brunch while watching a bit of tennis, then we went for a drive to see the coast. It was really cool - both in terms of temperature and otherwise. I saw the "whiskey belt" which is where the richest people in Denmark live, according to my host family, as well as some adorable houses with thatched roofs! We looked across the sea and saw Sweden, which was also quite exciting. Then we stopped by to visit some friends of theirs from the adoption group they worked with when they were adopting Sabina and Andres (my host brother who I haven't met because he's in Afghanistan with the Danish military) from Colombia. I think the family we visited adopted their children from Asia. The daughter in this family is in her first year at CBS - Copenhagen Business School. She said she was enjoying it quite a bit. I think the son must be around Sabina's age. He and Dorte seemed to be talking about 18th birthday parties.

After we got back, it was just a leisurely afternoon and evening. I got my reading done for the next day, and also discovered that Sabina likes Lady Gaga! It was quite exciting, and we talked about music for quite some time, which was really fun. I also got to talk to my parents and brother yesterday, which was my mom's birthday! That was also really exciting.

Today I had school. When I was coming back into the train station, I noticed some police (or maybe just transit authorities, I wasn't sure and didn't want to stare too much) standing by a guy who had a lot of blood on his face, especially his nose. Then, on my way down the stairs, I saw someone cleaning up a huge amount of blood. I don't know if the guy got in a fight or got mugged or if he just faceplanted on the stairs, but it was pretty nasty. So that was exciting, and a reminder that I do live in a city.

Then, when I was safely in the train, a ticket-checker got on. This was the second time I've encountered them. They come around sometimes to make sure everyone on the S-tog has paid to be where they are. The first time I saw one, she was speaking quite loudly to me, and I thought she was a crazy person because I didn't recognize that she was wearing a uniform, so I ignored her. She must have understood that I wasn't Danish, though, because she switched to English. It was pretty embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as a few nights after that, when a real crazy person got on and was speaking loudly. This person was wearing a snowsuit that looked similar to the ticket-checker uniform, so I started to get out my ticket until I realized that everyone around me was staring at the crazy person! But today I took note of signs that the person yelling at you is a ticket-checker and not a crazy person. They have name tags that are yellow and have something about the train on them. So, if you're ever in Copenhagen and someone begins speaking loudly to you on the train, you'll know.