And this weekend we went to the club Penthouse...because I'm never going to be able to afford to live in one.

No, but really.

To make things more fun, lets go through my life happenings backwards!
They don't call me Sarah Elizabeth-Spontaneity-Smaki Maki for nothing!

Yesterday I spent the day at Samantha's house- breakfast, relishing in our unattractive hungover appearances, and skyping the equally hungover Bri back in the states.
Samantha went so far in her state of dying as to claim that she would not indulge in devil's drink again...unless on Tuesday night, since she's already in the city, and if other people are going out...then maybe.
[an editorial interruption by Callie Jones: I love Callie so much she is so amazing and smart and pretty and nice and fun.]

Saturday night I enjoyed a phenomenal meal with Samantha's host family, where the chicken was good, the conversation was lively, and her Danish grandfather was a generous pourer of wine.
After dinner we met Callie on the train and proceeded to the line at the club near DIS, Penthouse.
For a fee of 100 Kroner (and 30K to check your coat), you drink beer for free and if you're willing to let the bartender pour shots in your mouth directly from the bottle, then those are free as well.
And this is where my parents will be proud and my peers will be ashamed...we did not indulge in these free pourings of liquor.

Friday night I spent the night with my host parents at home.
Eating spaghetti and being force fed chocolate.
It was miserable. Obviously.
This stemmed from my exhaustion.
Thursday I was lucky enough to go to the Royal Danish Ballet with my History of Ballet class and it was absolutely phenomenal.
Nothing makes me want to go back to the days of horrendously disgusting feet and Russian teachers named Yuri and Demetri informing me that preschoolers could dance better than I could more than watching a professional ballet performance executed beautifully onstage.
And I am serious.
So that meant on Thursday I went back and forth to the city twice. AFTER I had to struggle through a class and a half in a Vicodin induced haze.
Not recreational usage.
Damn gallbladder.
Or should I say damn pastries and babybites?
No. I could never be angry at those.

Wednesday, after finally making it home at 8:30am [for those of you not on Facebook, I may or may not have fallen asleep on the 4:55am train home, ridden the train all the way home, and then ridden all the way back into the city before I woke up and realized where I was.] I went to back into the city to visit the media company DR.
I got to see where the Danish X-Factor is filmed...on one of the slowest tours I've ever had.
Did I mention that for another class I had to go back to DR on Thursday morning?
No?
Well I did.
So I was there twice in 12 hours.
And the second tour was given by a very nervous woman who was just as slow as the firs tour guide.
0 for 2, DR.

Tuesday I came in for classes, la dee da-ed my way through, returned home, and then got back on my most favoritest train ever for my even with Danes through DIS.
We went up to the Round Tower so I got to see the sprawling Copenhagen in the dark and it was beautiful.
Then we were supposed to go eat pancakes, as it was International Pancake Day, but the stores were closed.
And of course, it's Tuesday night, and I'm already in the city, so I met up with Samantha and Callie and Francesca and Brenna and others and we all embarked to the Sugary Bakery [and endearing name for a  dark club with an open bar after your cover fee, "Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor!" a la Outkast comes to mind].

And now that I've thrilled you all going backwards, I am waiting to go into my last class of today before I can get on my train home, eat dinner with my family who I will hopefully be able to see for more than 30 minutes, and then GO TO BED.
Homework be damned.

2:42pm Copenhagen
8:42am USA

Accepting the inevitable- pastries, homesickness, and actual homework

And I wouldn't change a thing.

To say that Denmark is my biggest life adventure yet is an understatement.
I grew up white and middle class in a small town with a nuclear family- my most exciting adventures were driving from Maryland to Michigan for family trips or driving into Baltimore to go to the zoo.
I still thought this was exciting, because adventures are a relative experience.
You go skydiving and flying seems a lot less thrilling.
Or if you go to Japan and eat something that's still technically alive then trying a new item off of the Olive Garden menu is not particularly titillating. [I love that word.]
Anywho, needless to say this is my adventure.
And I'm surprising myself.

My ability to eat pastries? Not entirely unexpected or surprising, but there is something to be said for eating two croissants that are the size of my head regularly without growing weary of their buttery deliciousness.
That and my ability to eat whatever my host family puts in front of me for dinner- be it salmon or broccoli in yogurt and garlic sauce.

My inability to do academic work here?
Absolutely phenomenal.
School doesn't feel real, and when it was time for me to study my brain was all "why you read? you no watch danish tv?" and I was all "brain. remember this shit. for the love of Danish pastries."
Like, I for realsies can't like handle this stuff that's like real academics. My brain just like can't do it here.

But what surprised me the most so far is that for the first few weeks I got homesick.
Of course, I am a non-confrontational person and this includes facing my own emotions, so identifying and admitting to myself that I was actually missing Amurrica took some time.
And my subconscious definitely had some bipolar ideas of how to reveal these harbored feelings of homesickness.
I mean, I had confidently told my host family within the first week that I never really got homesick- because I never had.
And to admit that I might miss the same things at home that I had been so excited to be an ocean away from felt like an epic, loser-ish failure of a study abroad adventure.
But once I had, to borrow Samantha's Texan phrase, a 'come-to-Jesus' talk with myself, it seemed ridiculously more manageable and acceptable to have feelings, not just be homesick but actually express these things people have called feelings. [ask anyone that knows me or predominantly my mother, whom I am a mirror image of, and they can tell you that emotions, discussing or expressing them, are an area that, as a girl, I am particularly unsuccessful in]
To say something that could be found on a picture on Pinterest, being homesick just means that there are people and things worth missing back at home.
Like my dog, Taco Bell, and Virginia weather.

6:43am USA
12:43pm Denmark

...and then we each ate our own pizza.

The local pizza guys are the first Danes I've met who cannot speak a single lick of English.
And Callie and I were hungry.

I call the local pizza place and in my most innocent American voice say, "Hi! I'd like to order some pizza?" [oh yea, I went for the statement said in question form.]
Neither the first nor second man I speak with can understand English.
After telling me they would not make pizza for my lazy American ass presumably explaining that I should walk down to the restaurant and order there the curt gentleman says, "okay?"
A hesitant "Okay..."is my response.
He hangs up.

I text my host brother asking for help.
He calls and has a good chuckle at my trouble.
He tells me to walk down there and point to the menu at what I want, and if they don't understand the desperate gestures of a hungry American and her friend, then we could call him and he would translate to Danish for us.

We venture down the block.
We enter a pizza parlor the size of my dorm room behind the red brick wall.
We are greeted with suspicion.
We act in earnest awkwardness.

I, very aware of my close proximity to the other six, staring customers in the small restaurant (if it were a pair of boobs, would be a proud member of the itty bitty titty committee) attempt to tell the only Dane I've met that doesn't speak English that I want two number ones.

The transaction is completed.

We listen to the music, speak in the quietest voices our American selves can muster, and wait for our pizza.

I mumble/silently say 'thank you' on our way out. [I was already afraid that they spit in our pizza, and they knew I didn't speak Danish and I know they didn't speak English and I didn't want to butcher a Danish thank you or offend them with an English one...even in a 10 second moment I managed to transcend the awkwardness and overthink it.]

The pizza was delicious, by the way.

Facebook bought Angry Birds and I believe that Taco Bell should expand to Europe.

But for real.
The Angry Birds people are expecting to have 1 billion+ people using their game before the end of the year.
And a 5-layer burrito [no beans], a nacho supreme [no beans or tomatoes], and a chessy roll-up would satisfy my every craving right now.
And probably piss off my gallbladder.
But that'd be a risk I'm willing to take.

After an exhausting study tour, what better way to recover than hitting the bars?
Saturday night I ate a pizza dinner with the family, got my exhausted self into a debatably successful 'going out' outfit, and met up with Samantha in the city where I went with her to meet up with girls from her study tour (Callie met us there later).
On the way there Sam and I are approached, by car, by a pair of obviously chivalrous gentleman who drive slowly next to us in their car and say nothing.
Why speak when they obviously were interested in getting to know us on a personal level and see what kind of meaningful relationship this could turn in to thought we were hookers?
Thank God we were close to the apartment we were headed towards.
I didn't want to awkwardly explain to a Danish person, in English, that my body, was in fact, not for sale.

We all head to a crowded, smoky bar called the Francis Pony where the drinks are fair priced and there is not a seat in the place.
We stand and drink and talk and dance for almost 4 hours before deciding that if we want to make it home before the almost-routine 7am, we should go soon.
We make it to the train just in time.
In the "morning" [12:30pm] we awaken smelling like the cigarette smokers we all sound like due to shared congestion and sore throats.
I make my 2 hour commute home, thankfully not ready to vomit at every train stop this time, and walk into an empty house.
Nicolai, my host brother, has recently acquired an apartment in Copenhagen and apparently the previous owner only cooked greasy foods and never cleaned the kitchen.
So most evenings the family can be found cleaning the apartment so he can move in by March 1.
I nap and lounge about and watch Downton Abbey [yes Grandma, you were right. I should have been watching this since you told me about months ago.] and snack.
Around 7pm my family comes home, apparently afraid that I was starving (I didn't mention that I'd spent virtually the entire afternoon snacking) they brought with them 11, not 5, not even 10, but 11 McDonald's sandwiches for dinner.
They apologize.
I tell them that apologies are far from necessary.
They tell me they didn't think I would mind.
My eating habits scream snacker and lover of fast food.
I eat two burgers.
Nicolai eats two.
Pia eats one.
....Bjørn eats 4.

Monday I shuffle my way through the day in a exhausted and congested fog [which, might I add, is how I meet the CEO/President of the banking company that is partnering with my Campaign Management class that we will be working with the entire semester. My appearance did not match his suit. He wasn't wearing a tie though- I was relieved.]
I have the house to myself again because of the apartment cleaning extravaganza so I do the normal things- eat dinner, post a birthday video on Facebook of my extraordinary dancing skills, eat another bowl of pasta, clean my room, and shower.

My bus leaves at 7:12am.
Tuesday it left at 7:10am.
I was at the corner of my street headed to the stop when I watched it drive by.
And it was either be 30 minutes late to class or go back to bed for a while...so I curled back up in bed, much to the confusion of my host family who had heard me leave earlier.
Train to class.
Train home.
Train to a networking dinner for DIS students and young Danes.
A group of us head to a bar for a drink and then to the DIS-populated....I-don't-know-how-to-spell-it-but-it's-pronounced-Cooler Bar.
We head home around 5am and I fall asleep on the train.
And after waking up entirely disoriented I miraculously get on the bus that is headed the right way, where after disembarking the public transit vehicle I turn onto my street where I am slyly greeted by ninja-ice black-ice.
Which just sounds so much better then 'I couldn't see the ice and I took one step and hardcore wiped out.
Which, by the way, I did again yesterday when I left my house to stay the night at Samantha's.
Damn ninja-ice.

So we know we are going to Barcelona and Lisbon.
We know the dates.
We know the websites to purchase plane tickets from.
We know that I will be living off of bread, peanut butter (or nutella), water, and probably some cheap alcohol wherever we go.
I now just to have put on my big girl panties and watch one week of travel have the effect on my bank account that locusts had on the biblical crops of old.
I think I'm going to treat myself to a pastry to recover from the stress of travel plans.

11:01am Denmark
5:01am USA

Arrows in assholes. And other unrelated stories.

I would explain the title here, as I normally do. But this bound to get a bit lengthy because my engagement to a member of the royal family consisted of a variety of lavish and exciting parties this weekend academic study tour to western Denmark happened and I am not lugging my computer to a hostel. I'm too cheap to pay for internet. 

So read on avid followers. 

Arrows and assholes will be explained in good time. 

When I last left you I was struggling to stay awake at a Danish dinner party and successfully enabling my habit of procrastination. 

Monday and Tuesday were days of successful academia, cheap snacks, and coffee. 

And of course the attempted planning of our spring break. [did I mention that we're going to Barcelona and Lisbon? And the lord said, thine glowing white flesh shall be revealed to the Europeans lying upon beaches. And those who do not heed the public health warning of the suns harmful rays upon thine eyes will surely go blind looking upon the bright flesh of the pale tourist.] 

Wednesday was another early morning with a class visit to an international PR firm. 

Working with your client is basically like modern day dating- you don't usually want to offer up ideas to the client at your first meeting the same way you probably don't want to do the horizontal tango with somebody on the first date. Both things are only supposed to get better with time and established trust. (or so I hear) 

This what I took away from the meeting. 

That and the largest and most fabulously buttery croissant I've ever had. 

Thursday morning I wake up at 5:15am, and of course I've never been crankier happier or looked more like Chewbacca after a one night stand so fresh. 

Our bus is late. Of course. 

We drive to a regional station of TV2- a news and small television show production company. 

The drive there consists of an entire bus of sleeping people, and the last thirty minutes is a small history lesson in the massive exportation of pig bits around the world. 

Because we are late to the station, we are late to lunch [an odd buffet of very Danish food. I avoid the salmon and I'm pretty sure I ate, and enjoyed, liver paste.] 

After we are late to lunch we are late to the branding company Designit- a place where everyone is cool and the every job and office is funky. 

They give me a coke, so I listen attentively to the presentation. 

They also give me a free little stress square that says witty things. 

We proceed from Designit to our hostel, where I am placed in a room with 5 other girls that I was previously quite unfamiliar with. 

We hitch a ride with a different group of DIS students into the city so we can save the 20K for beer and not spend it on the bus. 

Our group separates to eat dinner, and then approximately half of us are reunited at bar where much drinking and bonding goes on. 

I am tucked into the hostel bed that I am ignorantly assuming will not give me bed bugs by 11 o clock. And it is beautiful. 

Still wondering about the asshole/arrow situation? 

HA keep reading. 

Friday we awaken and I eat enough bread at breakfast to challenge that story that Jesus ever fed everyone with seven loaves of bread. [which he totally did. I'm sure. The story just would have ended differently if I had been there- i.e. he would have been trying to feed everyone on the single loaf I left him. And this is all on the standards of my bread consumption at this one breakfast. I probably shouldn't jump to such sacrilegious conclusions.] 

We go the modern art museum where I, along with many small Danish children in one piece snowsuits, excitedly explore the interactive rainbow exhibit. [it's a large installment at the top of the museum- a large ring, if you will, with windows fading from one color of the rainbow to another. SO COOL.] 

And then we enter a disorienting room filled with fog and view a giant sculpture. 

The giant sculpture is a boy who eerily looks like my little brother and looms over the viewers. 

We look at the video installments on the bottom floor, and this is when modern "art" goes so far over my head, it might as well be one of this dead stars. 

A video of an Amish man getting stripped and chased with an ET mask on his head? I really just don't get it. Call me crazy. 

My lunch is a smoothie and piece of spice cake with cream cheese frosting. I have no complaints. 

We bus to Horsen, the town that was known only for it's large prison and crime rate that completely changed it's image. [I think I've solved the problem in Detroit! But I'll save my optimistic theorizing for another day.] 

We go from the little city that could to town of Jelling, where some vikings carved some stuff into some big rocks in honor of his parents. 

That and apparently a viking king was assassinated as he took a shit over the side of a cliff via an arrow into his asshole. 

I told you I would get there! 

Our professor laughs and suggests that this might not be true. 

Our tour guide is legitimately offended. 

We go out into the cold and look at the rock with the gaelic inscription and climb the giant hill that took between 4-6 years to build. 

We have to slide down the hill because no one thought through the snow/stairs situation. 

Dinner is on DIS and we are late. 

We walk from the hostel [that didn't know we were coming, bee-tee-dubs (which is btw, which is by-the-way for anyone confused by phonetic typing of a texting abbreviation.) and we get lost on the walk. 

Our professor knocks on the door of a strange woman who refuses to open her door and instead opens her window, and every time the professor leans in, she takes a step back. 

A 45 minute, hungry walk later, we arrive at the restaurant/bar/nightclub where we are served STEAK. Cooked to a beautiful medium rare and served with french fries. 

And DIS pays for our first drink, and most of us get a long island iced tea which is delicious, strong, and costs 165K. 

Thanks DIS! 

The rest of the night includes, but not limited to, and in no specific order: 

a cheap local bar that runneth over with dancing DIS students, the macarena, shots, dancing with professors, and again crawling into a bed that I pretend is as clean as the Queen would want it. 

Saturday morning leaves a lot of people exhausted and a trip to a design museum where the first 30 minutes of the tour is spent looking at "famous" chairs doesn't help. 

The controversial photography exhibit is worth the trip though- who knew that so many mothers would take erotic pictures of their eight year old daughter. 

We bus to lunch- a fancy-schmancy hotel feeds us herring, fried something, pork something, and bread. As well as a dessert with ice cream, berries, and crepes. 

Talk about a girl gettin her nom on. 

After lunch we drive back into Copenhagen, where I, exhausted, and fresh with the voice of a smoker because of a developing cold, get on the train home. 

SURPRISE I'M PREGNANT. 

I kid. 

Nowhere near pregnant, Mom and Dad. I promise. 

I was just wondering if you were still reading this. 

And if you are, I can honestly say you deserve to go pour yourself a drink and turn on some intellectual television. Or watch Jersey Shore. 

Anything to cleanse your palate of this Sarah/Smaki overdose. 

8:55pm Denmark 

2:55pm USA 

Dinner parties and language barriers.

Without the expectation of making awkward conversation with people you don't know because you do not understand the language, dinner parties with strangers are far more enjoyable.

You don't have to worry about being asked a question as soon as you've put a forkful of food in your mouth. 

If topics are brought up that you know nothing about, firstly you aren't aware that they've been brought up as everything is sounding increasingly like the Swedish chef from the Muppets, secondly no one expects you to participate because the only Danish you know is 

Jeg hedder Sarah. [my name is Sarah] 

Jeg kommer fra USA. [I come from the USA] 

Tak. [thank you] 

Skol. [cheeers!] 

AND when you can make a mental game out of trying to guess what the conversation is about based on tones and gestures. 

Or you can pretend that everything is inappropriate and you'll find that the gestures will match the pretend-dirty-conversation. 

Just be careful not to laugh out loud to yourself. It's awkward. 

I successfully survived my first full week of 6am wake-ups and pretending to have done the readings during class discussions. 

It only took multiple cups of coffee and entirely too many snacks. 

Baby Bites from 7-11 are a kind of hot dog wrapped in something comparable to pizza crust and ketchup is already in the dough. And you can get TWO for 10K. THAT'S TWO DOLLARS. 

Apologies to my gallbladder. 

And the pastries? 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph they are delicious. 

My favorite is the snegel. Which literally translates to 'snail.' 

And it's comparable to a cinnamon roll, but SO MUCH BETTER. 

Someone trying to be helpful, or just being condescending, informed me as I was eating one this week that I should be careful because they're equal parts flour and butter. 

Bitch please. 

It's delicious and the only part of me that worries about that is my gallbladder and I'm getting rid of that pain-in-my ass this summer. 

But I digress...

Wednesday afternoon I went to Rosenberg Castle with my Danish class. 

I got there late because streets here don't run parallel to each other so while I thought I was headed there, I was really veering away from it so I had a wee little adventure. 

When I got there I couldn't find my group so I asked a very kindly employee if she had seen them. (bear in mind, the castle is NOT that big). 

She didn't know so she called another dude to come in to the office. 

He didn't know so he made a phone call. 

And then she gave me a free ticket to go and join a group that was potentially from DIS and if they were I was all set and if not I had to come back and return the ticket. 

The castle itself was old. 

The royal jewelry is housed here so I picked out my future engagement ring and called it a day. 

Did I mention that it's been colder than a polar bear's bare ass here? 

Thursday night I joined my Danish class again for dinner at Cafe Paludan which served absolutely delicious pasta in an Asian sauce with chicken and a multitude of vegetables. [yes mom, I ate my brocili] 

It is so nice to be able to enjoy a beer with dinner without it requiring going to a mexican place where you have to flirt with the waiter just so he'll overlook the borrowed ID that says you're 5'5" with green eyes. 

Friday Callie Samantha and I attempt to book cheap flights to Berlin so that we can stay at a cheap hostel. 

No go. 

Then we attempt to book cheap flights to Dublin for St. Patty's day without finding a place to stay in hopes that the kindness of strangers and people we know and meet will give us a floor to pass out on. 

Can't really afford to fly to Dublin. 

And then computers get ready to die so we obviously have accomplished nothing in the travel-planning department. 

Sooooo if any of you faithful readers have suggestions for good destinations for students or ways to travel on the cheap...holla at yo ho and let me know. 

Willing to risk my safety and well-being (to an extent) in an effort to use as little green as possible. 

That same night Callie and Samantha meet me all the way out here in Helsingor for a girl's night in. 

And after my nubby-toes go numb and they've risked traveling with the wrong zone passes, we finally get back to the house. 

Pizzas and four bottles of wine later, everyone is chatty, relaxed, and enjoying their evening in. 

We're all mature and shit now. 

Drinking wine and staying classy. 

Annnnd then Saturday night happens.
But before I get to my nighttime activities, my daytime activities ran with this weeks theme of being late and lost to DIS events, and I managed to be an hour and a half late to a bowling thing for other people living with host families north of the city.
I got off the bus at the wrong stop.
Walked back to the right stop.
Walked back to the wrong stop.
Walked down a street that led me to a tiny, sketchy grocery store.
One woman tells me to go right.
Another woman tells me to go left.
And an old woman tells me to get on a bus.
And after calling the event coordinator 5 times and wandering around freezing my face off for 45 minutes, I finally found the bowling alley.
My bowling skills were superbly terrible, by the way.

Now to preface this night out, you need to be aware that when Callie and Samantha went out on Tuesday night, they ended the night separately after one went a-wanderin and neither of them were alseep before 6am. 

Infer what you will. [Callie's blog offers a better insight, but it's not my story to tell since I was happily snoring away and drooling in bed. 

God I'm a sexy sleeper. 

ANYWHO

We meet in the city and head to a bar called 'Out of Juice' where we enjoy the music and 10 shots for 100K [20 dollars]. 

Then we make the long trek to a club across town called 'Rust' which is famous for its good times and live music. 

And apparently, my host family tells me, a security guard was shot outside the club a few years ago. But no one was killed last night, so it's all good in the hood. 

It isn't quite what we expected for the steep entry price, but we enjoy the live music for a bit and because our hands are stamped we decide that we can dipset to another bar for a bit and then come back. 

Well Callie lost the ticket stub to claim her jacket...and this means that they will not, even after offers of money and threats of tears, give her her coat back until 5:30am. 

So we head off to another bar where we enjoy drinksondrinksondrinks and make some Danish friends. 

And of course become acquainted with some Danish creeps. 

Putting your hand up my shirt while we're standing at the bar dude is not okay. I'm drunk, not easy, or a hooker. And the least he could have done is bought me a drink for that nonsense. 

But not so much. 

Ugh. 

We stay there for a good while and once the jacket has been retrieved we trudge the beautifully snowy streets of the city and embark on the journey to stay at Samantha's house. 

Where after I left this morning I had to endure a painful hour and a half of commuting back home. 

And let's just say that the public transportation system is lucky that I didn't vomit on the floor of their train. 

So I spent the day napping and watching 30 Rock. 

Which led me to the dinner party, where we passed around a picture of a couple that Pia is friends with. 

They are of the older generation. 

And in the picture they sent to Pia, they are naked. 

#copenhagenproblems 

9:31pm Denmark 

3:31pm USA