One Week.

TJE- It's now been a week since I was last in America. I've spent nearly 8 hours completely lost in the city just walking around, but that's really fun. I had my first "Americanized" food experience the other day when I stopped into McDonalds and bought a McBacon for 20 kroner. That's like $3.50. Everything's more expensive here, but that's what comes with a 60-70% tax rate. There are quite a few McD's and Burger Kings, and a couple Subways, but that's all I've seen from the corporate America food industry so far.

One surprise is the number of 7-11's they have here. I'd equate it to the number of Starbucks found in a mid-sized city. They're pretty expensive, but they are responsible for so much (e.g. My first night here I received my transport pass for the metro, bus, water cab, etc., and it had the wrong zones of use printed on it, so I took it to 7-11 and they fixed it).

Here's what's up: The Danes are the nicest people I've met. Having not played or handled a guitar in over 5 days, I was going through withdrawal, so I went up to a street musician to ask if he knew if any of the local music shops rented, and he just straight up offered to let me borrow one of his guitars for the semester, no questions asked. I pick it up from him Monday.

I'm taking 4 classes: Sustainable Development, Intro to Danish, Renewable Energy Systems, and Danish Politics and Society. Three of them on Monday/Thursday, and Danish Politics on Tuesday/Friday. Wednesdays are either off days, or field experience days for some classes.

Some upcoming events I'm looking forward to are a beer tasting at one of the oldest breweries in the Nordic region, a trip to Kronborg Castle (of Hamlet fame), and a Reggie Watts concert (tonight!).

Wind turbines woooo. Had to pay 25 kroner for this view of the city.

Statue in a public square.The iPhone 4S has a superb camera, no?

Also, Denmark is home to Lego. Here's one of the Lego stores here:

THIS IS MADE COMPLETELY OF LEGO'S. IT'S TALLER THAN ME. That mural on the right is also all Lego's.

That's all for now. Live long and prosper. If you feel like it.

Till next time,

-T

Blah

Colin here. I promised I'd follow up. Bit late, but eh.

In my effort to check off another line on the standard Important Places in Florence list, I went to the Palazzo Vecchio last week. Actually it was with my art history class, but I would've went eventually. It was incredible. The palace functions as a museum mostly it seems, but one of the main chambers is still used for some purposes for the mayor or something. There's supposed to be Da Vinci painting that exists behind the current mural by Giorgio Vasari. A university from the US (San Diego I think) has a big curtain in front of it, and is making tiny holes through the wall to research this possibility. The rest of the palace is massive and unbelievably extravagant. Any surface that isn't painted is sculpted, or tiled elaborately, or guilded. Sorry I didn't take pictures, I forgot my camera. I'll be back.

Reminds me, I've got this art student card that gives me cheap/free entrance to museums around the city. The Uffizi is one of them. You can find me there.

Things here are expensive. My diet has made the notable move from pasta literally everyday to pasta literally everyday and also bread. And maybe wine. Yep, Italy's changing me. Some things that are a really good value: wine, kiwis, bread, espresso, and for some reason, art paper. Also, I ate this cookie last week. I forget what it's called, but it tastes like a mildly sweet, very thick, chewy version of the chocolate chip cookie. It's my favorite thing so far.

There sure are a lot of Irish bars around. Not sure what that's about, but they're cool. Dig this sign:

That's about all for now. Let me drop some more photos on you.

I haven't had cartwheels for over a decade

I'm trying to avoid the Duomo pics, but it was a good day

Studio Fuji, where screen printing happens

one of our radiators. I think it just keeps itself warm. selfish bastard.

Copen-hangin'

Ty-- Hey y'all. I accidentally a 5-hour nap on Sunday, so to counteract that and massive ongoing jetlag, I stayed up all night reading Kurt Vonnegut's last book and listening to Danish radio. Man do they love their smooth jazz. Anyways, due to this, I have not slept in 28.5 hours. Why am I writing now? Not sure, I'm frickin' exhausted. It's 8:45pm and I'm already turning in for the night. But I love you, dear reader, and you're reading this for a reason, no?

Being sleepless is an alright way to experience your first day in Copenhagen. It was great weather, about 32ºF all day, and finally sunny after raining my first two days. I got off the metro at the exact right spot, a whole hour earlier than I had to! The building I was looking for was literally across the street, and since I didn't know what it looked like I started walking in the opposite direction and then was forced to search København for it for about 55 minutes, getting me there right on time. Here's the DIS strings, they played some Ludwig Von, Lennon/McCartney, and the like:

They're playing Yellow Submarine; Hey Bulldog would have been so much cooler.

I ended up getting very lost in the city with some new friends from Colorado College. We went to a quaint little café where I got a chai latte and pain au chocolat.

It was really great finally meeting some native English speakers, something I had not experienced since 2.5 days ago in London. It was really lonely knowing I was on an entirely new continent where I literally knew only one other person (sup Colin) for that period.

After exchanging $25.00 for 110 Krones, I spent an hour looking for a bus that would take me home. I ended up getting off at the wrong stop because it was dark and I'm American. That set me back another 25 minutes making me 40 minutes late for 6 o'clock dinner.

Upon returning home I had my first meaningful experiences with my host family. We ordered pizza (they eat it with a fork and knife, and popular toppings include kielbasa, chili pepper, and hotdog) and watched the Denmark vs. Germany handball game, which is a very popular sport here. (I want to take this time to mention that when I wasn't sleeping last night I was watching the NFL playoffs with Danish commentators, which was great because of how excited they got over every play that went more than 7 yards).

Here are some cool buildings I took pictures of:

Here is the clothing store "Troelstrup" attempting to sell jeans by using firewood.

Now I am tired and will sleep after what is now 29 hours.

Goodnight from GMT+1. Over and out.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Elliott Arrives in Copenhagen Late, Airlines to Blame

Copenhagen, Denmark - Miami University Junior Tyler Elliott arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark late Saturday after a series of unfortunate flight-related delays dashed his hopes of reaching the Nordic city at his originally scheduled time of 4pm (10am EST).

The trouble came when his flight departing Chicago, to London, sat on the tarmac for an unprecedented 2.5 hours following a power failure on the plane's central grid.

Tyler has traveled via air in times past, but never before had he been met with the kinds of delays seen leaving the "Windy City".

"I was, like, really shocked by how long we had to sit there," said Elliott, "and I never expected the delays to make me miss my flight from London to Copenhagen. Like, not cool bro."

After arriving in London three hours late, the Individualized Studies major rushed to security in a last-ditch effort to make his 2pm flight, but all efforts were in vain as the overly-polite British woman taking his ticket informed him of the bad news. In an effort to repair broken bridges, British Airways provided Elliott with a £10.00 meal voucher, which he used all but £.56 of. 

Elliott is staying in an apartment five kilometers outside of Copenhagen, where his host family has graciously offered him a room for the next four months.

Above: The Room Elliott has been given for the next four months.

The Ohio student reportedly enjoys the comfort of the bed and his two house plants (pictured), but would appreciate more outlets and lighting.

###

A Quick One

Colin -- My posting has been bad. I bet you're all wondering what's that kid up to he's in Florence why doesn't blog all over the place?  I've been sick, that's why. It started out last Friday with something like a cold, then pink-eye happened, in one eye, then both, then one eye again, and then subsided into more cold-like symptoms until Thursday. I'll spare you the grosser points of the pink eye. Now I feel great! A stuffy nose, yes, but who can avoid that. It's Winter after all.

oh god it's huge

Anyway, I'll get back a real entry over the rest of this weekend when I'm not busy. But here's some pictures:

oh god it never ends

oh, God

from the Galleria degli Uffizi, Portrait of Pietro Secco Suardo, for Jeff.

Bye everyone. I'll leave you with an awesome cover of an awesome song. Thanks Neil.

I'm Leaving Tomorrow But It Could Be Today (Hey Hey Woody Guthrie I Wrote You a Song...)

TYLER- Well. It's happening. It really came out of nowhere. I lived life up to the very last point possible of my winter break, complete with an $88.00 final dinner and a Friday morning I won't soon forget. At noon I began packing the 2nd half of my things and 6 hours later I've said my farewells to my parents and I'm waiting at my gate. Doesn't feel at all like a month's gone by since finals week.

Break was a whirlwind.

My travels from here take me Cleveland>Chicago>London>Copenhagen. Chicago O'Hare is closed at the moment due to heavy snowfall, so in typical fashion my first flight is on mega-delay. It was supposed to leave at 5pm, got pushed back to 7, and now we're waiting on an update as to when the flight will actually leave. As of this writing it is 7:10. Departure is no time soon it seems.

Assuming all actually works out (lol), I'll be in Copenhagen tomorrow at 5pm local time (11am EST) where my host family will pick me up from the airport. For now, I'm stuck at gate A-1 in Hopkins International Airport, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, listening to a Myanmar gentleman speaking Burmese loudly into his mobile with an authoritative tone, wondering if I should start drinking now or in Chicago.


You can listen to this song by Bob Dylan, preformed by him and George Harrison in 1970: http://bit.ly/ylRUju

Here's a picture of my Dad and Me right before going through security:

Bahamian Rhapsody: Because sometimes I change song titles to fit into my life.

EMILY TIME.  Guess what?  Tomorrow I board the ship.  It's crazy how time flies.  I've been in the Bahamas for a few days with my parents, which has been great. We're staying at Compass Point, which is an awesome "resort"off the beaten path. A lot of people are staying at the Sheraton and Wyndham, but I like our place better.  Our room is actually two rooms on two levels, and as you can see, it's very colorful.  All of the rooms are like this and it is, simply put, the best.

Getting to our temporary home was fairly easy, with no real speed bumps along the way.  Maybe the most annoying part was the little kid behind me on the flight from Atlanta to Nassau who thought the game "Kick Emily's Chair Until She Feels Like She's Gonna Puke" was the best game in the world.  Customs was pretty easy, too, since Nassau is a pretty popular destination.  The taxi ride was a little alarming at first because I had never been anywhere where people drove on the left side of the road.  And also I really wanted a seatbelt.  But when we finally arrived at Compass Point, it was time to relax.

And that's what we did.  We relaxed for a day.  Then we went downtown to have a look around.  It was mainly populated by tourists who had just disembarked from cruise ships and were ready to buy little Bahamian trinkets.  The stores ranged from Coach to T-Shirt Factory Outlet, but nothing that exciting; it seems that downtown Nassau's main purpose was to serve it's ever-changing clientele.  The most interesting part for me was the bus ride there and back.  We decided to not pay a ridiculous amount for a taxi, which left us the option of taking the unreliable bus.  We actually got pretty lucky--both times we were ready to board, the bus had just arrived.  Most of the people riding were locals, and they gave us suggestions for places to visit and where we should get our next meal, so that was pretty cool.

Today, I read all day.  I finished 11/22/63 (finally) and started The Girl Who Played With Fire, even though I have a required reading book I haven't finished. I have 15 hours, I'm fine.  Also Buttercup says hi.