The first structure I saw from the plane was an idyllic little cabin in the woods.
How Norway is that? When I looked out the window during landing (because I was #blessed enough to have the whole row to myself), my first feeling was of confusion. What was that on the ground? When I realized it was snow, I audibly gasped and pressed my forehead to the window like a child seeing the world from above for the first time. I love doing that. I never want to be so jaded that I can’t appreciate the strange sense of understanding just how small we are when seeing the world from the sky.
I was only in Norway for about 2 hours, and I never left the airport, but that first introduction told me that Scandinavia and I were going to get along well.
I’ve been abroad a number of times, but standing in a sea of tall, blonde, beautiful strangers knowing that this was going to be my life was a feeling I’ve never experienced before. It felt less like a “hello” and more like a “welcome”. Less like merely a start, more like a beginning, heavy with potential. I was giddy with anticipation of the unknown, and every time I passed a mirror I hardly recognized the wide-eyed girl staring back at me.
I loved it.
My room is adorable. People are all eager to make friends and are being extra nice, of course, just as I predicted. I live in a brand-new building that’s right on 2 main roads, which means lots of stores and restaurants that are just seconds away. My classes are just a 20 minute bike ride down a winding green path that leads right through the city, and my building has a wonderful mix of Danes and Americans (people who know what I’m going through AND people who can teach me how things work here!).
Fast facts:
-There’s no dresser in my furnished room- I’ve never been anywhere that didn’t have a drawer for socks or underwear. This is strange to me.
-I’m getting ads in Danish and I am amused that as smart as our phones are, they do not actually know what languages we speak.
-There are elephants that apparently live down the street from me, which was unexpected to say the least. They are the queen’s elephants, and since the people’s taxes pay for them, they must be accessible to the public.
-Danish names are really hard to pronounce with an American-raised tongue.This probably shouldn’t have been so surprising to me, but I usually have a knack for that sort of thing. My own hubris got me again.
-Grocery shopping is incredibly difficult, to put it lightly.
-It’s SO cold! Wow! Is this what winter is like?? I’m not totally incompetent, I knew that it would be cold and likely even dreary most of the time. What I don’t get is how people live like this every day for months on end, and how people bike in this weather without a beanie (which I saw multiple times today!). Are their ears made out of blubber instead of cartilage? I’m really excited to experience this, and hopefully adapt to it over the course of the next few months, but for the time being I am feeling terribly Floridian. Like, Where-Are-The-Alligators? Floridian. It’s both exhilarating and embarrassing.
So here I am, slowly acclimating to my new environment. Classes haven’t started yet, but I’m sure when they do, there’ll be a whole new set of challenges for me to face. In the meantime, I really just want to be able to unlock my flat on the first try.
Baby steps, you guys.
-M
Peregrination 
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