Jeg er ved at dø en langsom smertefuld død (I'm dying a slow painful death)

People keep asking me how Denmark has been and what I've been doing.

Um. Drinking. Yep, mostly drinking.

Last night was definitely one for the books. We started drinking at 6:30... now on a St. Patrick's Day scale, that's nothing, but on a regular Friday night scale and taking into account my tendency to pass out at 10:30pm, it was a wee bit early.

Fast forward two and half hours and we're at Cafeen, the student bar. When I first walked in during the university tour earlier that day, I had no idea how they were managing with this bar. It is literally the smallest bar I have ever seen, and keep in mind I work in one of Halifax's smallest bars.

All I could think was "well fuck now I have to wear my hair in a ponytail tonight because it's going to be a sweat box in here"

I underestimated the capabilities of this place.

So, the first thing that I loved about it was that the bartenders are all on a volunteer basis. Plus, they're all students. And because of these two facts, they literally go in and out from behind the bar all night long and get wasted while they're serving. It's beautiful.

The second thing I love is the indoor/outdoor aspect. What didn't occur to me before is that in Denmark (and most of Europe for that matter) you can drink your own beer on the streets. It's a miracle. So you can go out the back door of the student bar and drink on the front lawn of the university. Definitely increasing your occupant capacity.

Third thing. Shot up. So this is apparently a tradition they have here. It's a timed shot-taking contest. Guys do ten, girls do five. Fastest time wins. Seems straight forward enough. However, I know what happens when I do five shots in a row; I've done it before, circa 2010 (ah, first year Sackvegas). And those five shots were relatively spaced out, I had minutes in between each of them. I was trashed. Last night, I was not doing Shot Up.

But fuck my competitive spirit. Because people started doing it. And the times were horrible. And I knew I could beat it. But no, I had resolved to not be the sloppy drunk Canadian.

Until. The Canada slandering began. Apparently Canadians are known to be good drinkers. I am not the right Canadian to be basing this theory on. But the jabs started; "Aren't you from Canada? Aren't you people supposed to be able to drink?"

At which point, I told the bartender to line me up five shots of Jager.

Okay, I can't make this up. When someone does the Shot Up challenge, there's an overhead siren light that they turn on above the bar (like the ones on construction vehicles, there's a proper name for this, I know it) and they turn on "The Eye of the Tiger". Then everyone gathers around and they start timing you as you do your first shot.

One girl had gone before me and had totally wrecked it - 6.6 seconds.

I managed a 7.3. Damn.

But, the good news is, I came in second for the night. Not bad for the first try.

Bad news. I was on water by 10pm.

And now you see the reasoning for the title.

PS. Last night people kept coming up to me and saying "you're the Canadian right?" before introducing themselves. I feel like I'm a rare species.

Jeg er beruset (I am drunk)

I'm drunk blogging.

It's a thing.

Deal with it.

So what started out as three exchange students buying an excessive amount of Carlsberg and attempting to find a bar to drink at, turned into seven of us going to a house party. I don't mind.

So we got there and I was a little intimidated. Firstly (not sure if that's a word) the Danes have a tendency to switch back and forth between English and Danish pretty quickly, which for some reason gives me the urge to start speaking French. Not really sure why, maybe just an urge to show that I'm somewhat cultural.

The second reason is that what they say about Danes is completely true... holy shit, they are all gorgeous. I don't know what they put in the water over here, but I know that I'm drinking from the tap from now on.

Anyway, the intimidation quickly subsided, mostly due to the aforementioned Carlsberg, a few cigarettes (I swear I could easily become a chain smoker here) and a good old fashioned drinking game.

Although, I owe a lot to the drinking game. I'm not even going to try to explain it, but I will say on my first go-around I had to chug my whole beer. I can only hope that I did Canada proud with that one.

Anyway overall, the night went pretty smoothly. I ended up learning a lot of Danish swear words, which will most definitely come in handy, losing a few games of tic tac toe on steroids (you don't even want to know) AND bonus, I understood all the accents. WOOT.

So, low-key night, but I'm quite happy I decided to go out because I'm feeling a lot less lonely and lot less likely to break down at any moment. Thank god.

PS. Fetus, if you ever read this, you can totally tell Quentin he was right about the toilets. SO MUCH LESS WATER.

Den første dag (The first day)

Ah the ups and downs of the first day.

Ups. Finally got a room and a bed (even though a futon is a more accurate decriptions (did I spell that right? Did I just parentheses in a paratheses?))... yep I did. Whatever

I also met a few new people which is definitely reassuring. Plus the accent issue wasn't too much of an issue... Oh and I got made fun of for saying sorry a lot. One of the Canadian stereotypes that is totally true.

The downs. Well, being the psycho that I am, I got back to my room around 10pm and was faced with unpacked bags, burnt out lightbulbs and cheetah print bedding. Not that the cheetah print bedding is a real issue (and if we're going to be honest, it's wild cat bedding, it has pictures of various wild cats.. rawr) but the pillow is literally not a pillow. It looks like a pillow, but the minute you put your head on it, it ceases to exist.

Anyway so combine the fact that I couldn't find my pj's, in the dark, and then went to cozy into my wild cat bed and didn't really have pillow, plus the fact that I had pretty much just gone 24 hours of travelling with no sleep and I was a mess.

Tried calling home for some reassurance and a full on orchestra starts playing on the phone... Uh what? "The number cannot be found". Okay, sweet. But I feel like the orchestra was a bit much just to tell some pillowless girl in her wild cat bed that she can't reach her mother.

Anyway, long story short, I did end up getting through to my mom and finally got some sleep. Woke this morning to this really odd banging sound that has continued on and off since I woke up... I can't figure out what it is, but I'm really hoping it's not a normal thing.

Hopefully today will be better. And by that I mean that the ups start to outnumber the downs.

PS. These Danish titles have made Blogger think that I'm Danish. So now my dashboard is in Danish. Multiculturism. Woot.

Tårer og frygt (Tears and fears)

Two posts in one night. Sue me. 

I didn't realize how hard good-byes would be.

I did know that I was probably going to be upset when it came to saying good-bye to my parents. Mom is always especially emotional.

But saying good-bye to my co-workers tonight and my three closest friends. That was tough. 

It wasn't so much the good-bye part. Or even the scared part of me that was crying. It was the part of me that had realized summer was over. 

And so, while saying good-bye to my friends was tough, saying good-bye to summer was the worst. 

I used to say winter was my favourite season of the year. I would still say that, to an extent. But summer is right up there. All the way home from the bar tonight, all I could think about was Cavendish. That festival is really the epitome of summer for me and it was those thoughts that set me off. 

And once the waterworks start, it's hard to stop them from flowing. Especially with a little alcohol in me. Typical girl.

So I'm going to pull myself together here, watch a little bit of Grey's Anatomy (ou two Grey's mentions in one day, okay now you can sue me) and try to get some rest.

Just for the record, it's not longer the eve of my departure.

12:35am, August 25th. The day of my departure.

Here we go.

Og så begynder det ... (And so it begins...)

The eve of my departure to Denmark. It doesn't really seem like it's actually going to happen right now. For a while I was just super nervous about meeting friends, but now I'm not really worried. Not that I met anyone, but I figure, if, worst case scenario, I get there and absolutely no one likes me, I'll just watch a lot of Grey's Anatomy for the next four months.

That's the worst case scenario.

Best case scenario is that I finally get out of Halifax. Out of Sackville. Out of my comfort zone. And I get to meet some amazing new people and make some great memories.

The thing is, I get bored easily. I've been doing the same yearly routine for three years now. Go to school for four months. Come back for Christmas, get drunk, ski, celebrate New Years. Back to Mount A. Summer, get drunk, work, Cavendish, work, back to Mount A.

My attention span is only so long.

So here I am, going to take a little bit of a chance here and do what I should've done three years ago. Move away from home. And I mean really move away. So I can't just go home every weekend. I have to be out and learn to look after myself.

Not that I don't love Mount A. I just think it's time to experience living out of the maritimes where I'm not within a two hour drive from home.

So, on the eve of my departure, this is the thought that I have to keep in mind. That this is for my own good. That I will make friends. That I will have an amazing time. That this is the right thing to do. Especially at this point in my life, where I've become so restless and impatient with everything else.

But I'm still a little bit scared.


PS. I'm totally using Google translate for these Danish titles. Give me points for trying.