3.13-14.10 – A Weekend that Definitely Did Not Feel Like a Weekend

This weekend went by like a blur. On Saturday, I clearly slept in and took my time getting ready, which entailed staying in bed until about 12:30. My host family was then off to do a few things for the day for which they invited me, however I decided to stay home and rest. Additionally, I did have some schoolwork to focus on since I have three different things due on Monday in addition to a midterm. Once I got my mind focused I began some of my less tasking projects, like readings and worksheets for class.

Once I felt like I deserved a break I went to run a short errand. I believe I have mentioned in previous posts that I have decided to participate in an internship program located in London for this coming summer. One of the things I needed to do was get four passport photos taken and mailed to the internship coordinator in London. I was told that the easiest place to get these pictures taken was at these little photo booths that are housed in the train stations, so I made my way over there. Now, I had actually tried to take these photos before, however the machine only took change in certain amounts (5, 10, and 20 kroner coins) of which I didn’t have enough of last time I tried. However, I made sure to “save up” my change because I knew I had to get these taken. It was actually very easy to have them taken and worked out really well; unfortunately, these are probably the worst passport photos I have ever taken emphasized by the fact that they are in black in white. I just hope they aren’t used for anything too important and that I never have to see that photo again.

Since this errand took all of about 10 minutes and the bus wasn’t coming back to the station for another half hour, I decided to simply walk home. It is only about a 25 minutes walk from the station, and I figured the fresh air and walk could do me some good – especially since I was still a little groggy from my weird sleep hours. On the way, I did splurge though and buy this small pastry cake at the grocery store. I figured this could also be in honor of my birthday (my means of rationalizing a purchase I shouldn’t have made and didn’t need to eat). It was definitely worth it though to have something sweet. I then spent the rest of my day talking to a few people on Skype, working more on my projects, showering, drove Sofie to the train station (my second time driving in Copenhagen; it isn’t any different just kind of weird since I am not used to driving around anymore), and homework that were due for Monday, and watching some episodes of Bones online (I am in the midst of season four, and there are some really good/weird cases in these episodes).

Sunday was probably the day, which confused my perception of the weekend so much. I had to get up at a decent hour because I had a group meeting for once of my projects. We were meeting at noon, which meant I had to leave the house at 10:30 to get there in time. All in all, it was simply a very time consuming and cumbersome meeting. We were attempting to put everyone’s written sections together, finalize the paper and PowerPoint, and basically get everyone on the same page. After four hours of working, it seemed a little more pulled together but there were still things that needed to be finished, which was going to have to wait for later since my brain was exhausted, people needed to finish their respective sections before the paper was fully together, and I had a “football” match to go to.

As part of my Danish class – and all Danish classes, we were given tickets to the big game of the season (the Copenhagen team verses the other Danish team – apparently a big rivalry). It was actually my first soccer game that I have ever attending. It was rather interesting because soccer isn’t that exciting (at least to me) because not much happens for a while. However, we did see some players take some bad hits and falls, which added interest. Probably the most interesting part of the game was the manners of the fans. From where we were sitting, we had a good view of the opponent’s fans (and couldn’t really seen our own). The restrictions of the sorts of things fans can bring with them must not be very limited because occasionally fans would light flares, which would blaze in the stand (a couple were thrown down onto the field as well). Additionally, there is constant chanting; it isn’t in relation to watch is happening on the pitch, it is just continuous cheering. Overall, it ended up being a good match – 2:0 Copenhagen team won with one goal being scored in the last seconds of the game.

After the game, I followed the crowd of people to the train station and headed home (fortunately I caught a good train and only had to wait about 10 minutes for the bus). Once home, I then had to go back to doing homework – primarily getting the group paper finished for my class that was starting at 8:00AM the next morning. I eventually did get it completed; however by that time I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep since I was going to have to leave the house at 6:30 the next morning.