The beginning…

Written while in Heathrow airport…

I am in London Heathrow, shitty terminal 3. I have the pleasure of spending 6 hours here, so buying unlimited internet was a no-brainer.

Here are the numbers…
My bike box weighed in at 21.2kg
Backpack = 21.8kg
hand luggage backpack = 10kg
+ another smallish ‘handbag’

I can’t believe I’m getting away with this much luggage (thus far!)

My first flight was Sydney-Singapore (8 hrs), and I was sat between two girls: a sweet 17 year old who was deathly afraid of turbulence, and an English girl who’s been travelling for 16 months. We talked, jumped over each other, and generally had a really nice time enjoying no strange males next to us. I read half of Bill Bryson’s ‘Shakespeare’.

The second flight, Singapore-London (12 hrs) saw me seated between two guys. Fatty next to the window slept most of the time, and when he was awake, he laughed at crap movies very loudly. The dude at the aisle, Ben, is a Perth metalhead and forensic scientist. He’s awkward and friendly, and was good company. Especially when I fell asleep at 10 hours to go, and woke up to him saying “Only 4 hours left!”. It didn’t feel like I slept that much so that was pretty awesome. I watched ‘The English Patient’ which I’ve been meaning to see for years, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

My eyes are bloodshot, my world is spinning more than a little, and I wish I could sleep. Alas, I am hanging out in the airport for another 6 hours, before flying to Copenhagen, then Aarhus.

At least they’re only short flights

4 timezones in 35 hours is too many!

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Written this morning, after waking up…

I’ve arrived in Aarhus, and I’m doing OK.

My too-large-for-hand-luggage backpack wouldn’t fit in the TINY over-head lockers on the last small mosquito flight (with propellers!) so the steward took it and placed it in the galley for me, no questions asked. People are way too nice.

I arrived in TINY Aarhus airport, stacked my bike and backpacks onto a trolley, which got stuck going around a corner in the customs section. My beautiful friend Ditte was just on the other side of the customs door, and as there was not a single person checking documents or anything (how cute!), she helped me navigate my stuff through there, and to her car.

We had dinner at her awesome mum’s place, with her friend Irene who I’d met before, and who’s engaged to an Aussie lad. Tacos with everything you can imagine on top. We went for a walk around the area and ended up in a beautiful church yard. There was a rainbow! I enjoy them much.

Right near Ditte’s mum’s house, Aarhus

Rain was a-coming so we headed back to her mum’s place for pancakes (!) and finally, as the sun was going down at 10.30pm (no joke) we drove to Ditte’s place. Bambi (my bike) is staying boxed up at her mum’s until I get back here in a month, as it’s safest there.

I showered (oh so sweet) and slept from midnight to 9am. Now I plan to avoid jet-lag, and I hope this plan works.

I’m still not sure how things are in my head. I love this town, and I love the people I know here who are looking after me so well. I love the fact that everything went to plan and I got here with all my luggage.

I miss my family and friends. I guess this will ease up but it’s hard to leave such wonderful people behind.

It was always going to be.

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Written in the afternoon…

I just came back from a few hours wandering around the town. I am surprised at myself a little – I tried to use as much Dansk as possible, and smile and nod. I did have to ask “Kan du taler engelsk?” more than once though! I went to the bank, went to a couple of shops (H&M included! JOY! BLISS!), bought breakfast and lunch, and fruit at the supermarket. It seems so daunting to not speak the language, but once you get to the place and just have to get by, it’s not so bad.

I can’t wait til I can communicate better and can leave English out all together.

It’s all very exciting!

Time is creeping…

T minus 50 days… (I don’t know that I needed to check that!)

I’ve just booked my flight to Oslo, sorted out my flights to Aarhus, reserved a hostel in Oslo, and am starting to look at accommodation (long-term) in Aarhus. There is a lot more to book, and my poor credit card, which I’d finally paid off, will not be most pleased.

I have withdrawn from the Danish course I wasn’t doing, and they are kind enough to give me credit. I am hoping that this can transfer to a week of classes FACE TO FACE at the end of July. I may be testing their generosity though. I have decided to forgive myself for my poor level of Dansk, at this stage. It’s the healthiest way to deal with it.

I will pay someone else 1x pink-frosted cake to sort out my superannuation and taxes. Who wants the job?

Apart from the facts, I am feeling like this: WOAH. I think I’m generally OK with the way time is vanishing, mostly thanks to Swedish Joel’s revelation (well it was a revelation to me) that there is actually no NEED to be stressed at this stage, as all the hard work is done. I don’t know if I can thank him enough for that gem, so I shall just buy him coffee again.

If you’re actually reading this via RSS feed, let me know! Also let me know if you’re reading this because you check the link to the blog daily, hoping, wishing, for another post. I’m curious to see who is paying attention to my dismally quiet corner of the ‘nets!

tick tick tick…

A

Zero for effort, full marks for intentions

I have been seriously lax in completing my Danish course assignments. I have barely even signed in to the website! Today I recieved an email from one of the teachers stating that due to changes on the website, everyone gets 2 weeks of classes free. I’ve decided that this is the push I needed to get started again… My laziness/avoidance of the work baffles me, because I know full well how much I NEED it, and how much I’ll kick myself for being lazy once I get to Denmark.

Any motivation hints?

In other news, I’m discovering just how hard it is to get from Aarhus to Oslo cheaply, without spending half a day tavelling. I’ve also discovered why Scandinavia is known to be expensive… A hostel dorm bed in Oslo is minimum $50 (AUD equivalent) a night!

The beginning…

Or the middle. I am three months away from leaving my ‘home’ for a ‘somewhat long-term period of time’. Having been accepted on exchange for the final year of my Bachelor’s degree, my compass is aiming North-Westish, to Aarhus, Denmark.

I write some things in various other places on the internet, but I think this is the ‘place’ where I will throw all of my exchange/travel/moving/language related thoughts, feelings, bureaucratic walls, and fun facts!

Here is where I am now:

-Third year Linguistics student.

-Living in Sydney, Australia. I’ve spent around 16 of my 22 years in Sydney, having lived abroad before (with the family pre-18 years and without the family post 18-years).

-Will study Psychology and Linguistics at Aarhus Universitet for one year, completing the exchange and my degree in June ’09.

-Planning to complete a Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience (Psycholinguistics) at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. (Potentially starting in ’09 but more likely, ’10)

-I speak a couple of languages well, and grabs of a bunch of languages: English (mother tongue); French (fairly fluent but imperfect); Spanish (average comprehension, shocking production); Hebrew (knew a conversational amount 9 years ago, but have since forgotten most of it); Norwegian (knowledge of grammar is decent, vocab and fluency is poor); and finally, I am currently learning Danish through an online course. Danish and Norwegian are incredibly similar, so I had a slight advantage at the start. There is much to learn, and not a lot of time!

I shall leave this post here.

Until next time, chumps!

A