Concerts and Alcohol

Last Friday I went to a concert in Tivoli, which, for all you non-Danes, is a pretty big deal! Tivoli is basically the national amusement park of Denmark. It is located in Copenhagen right next to train station. It has two parts: the amusement park side and the gardens (which I have not seen). I thought I was going to the concert with 3 girls from my class and one of their boyfriends, but when I got there instead of 3 girls, there were 7 and no boyfriend. It was actually quite fun to be with them in a setting other than school. One of the girls wanted to buy cigarettes, but she forgot her ID and they did not believe she was 18. So, they sent me to buy them because "I am tall and speak English!" The legal age to buy tobacco is 18 and alcohol is 16 (18 in bars), but no one really cares, per se. Also, here in Denmark (almost) EVERYONE smokes! That was a really big culture shock. Many people "party smoke", which means they only smoke at parties, but quite a lot smoke daily.

The concert was Nik and Jay. There are kind of a Danish joke. Everyone hates them, but secretly likes them. I was told that their songs are played at pretty much every party, because when you are drinking no one cares what is playing! The girls also told me that you have to drunk to really concert. So, we did have a few beers, but I was far from drunk! I AM BEING RESPONSIBLE!! The concert all-in-all was really fun.

The next day Jesper and Elise drove me across Sjælland (Zealand in English) to my AFS region's welcome meeting. It was hosted at a park that had all these Danish games you could play. It is hard to explain because there is nothing like it in the States! There are a total of 7 exchange students in my region: 2 from USA, 2 from Thailand, 1 from Australia, 1 from France and 1 from Germany. It was really fun to see them all again (even though 2 of them go to language school with me and 1 them goes to my gymnasium!). All of our contact families were there too, so it was a really great day!

Saturday night was also the final night of Køge Fest which had been going on all week. I meet up with the 2 exchange students from language school (who I had seen previously that day) and hung out with one of their host brothers and his friends. We had some alcohol...probably too much, actually! We were safe! The featured music was the band Aqua, which I had ironicly had an obession with when I was 12. Their most popular song is probably "Barbie Girl", so I am sure most of you have heard them. After the concert, I went to the train station to get picked up by Elise. I had been there for 5 minutes and then all of a sudden there were 15 police officers, 5 police vehicles and 3 drug dogs. It was crazy how fast they got there! And then, one of the dogs went crazy and the officer took it over to a guy and the dog started biting his pants and then the police tackled him and he got arrested! I kept asking myself, "Is this really happening?!" It was straight from the movies!

Today I went with 150 other Spanish students from my gymnasium to a movie called, "Los Abrazos Rotos". It starred Penelope Cruz and was kind of a weird movie. It was hard to me to understand what exactly was going on because the movies was in Spanish with Danish subtitles, but I could understand most of it. I actually learned quite a bit of Danish, because I would hear a Spanish word or phrase and then see it in Danish. It was really good practice for both languages!

I am going to Copenhagen again this weekend to see some of the exchange students who are living there. I really love spending time with all the other exchange students because they know exactly what I am going through, because they are doing it themselves! On September 18th I am going to another town to see some of the people from our intial "group" at the orientation camp. Our group was the English-speakers: USA, New Zealand and Australia. I am also busy for the next 6 weekends, which makes me really happy! I am really having a wonderful time here in Denmark!

Andy E