ASB Karriere Center

So, just an update on my job at the Career Centre (that British English is hard for me to get used to: centre, programme, etc).

LOVE MY JOB! The people I work with are awesome. I think I will eventually be able to really help out with the cause I was hired for and am so passionate about - helping international students who can't speak Danish find relevant, study-related jobs. I am still learning everything, but I actually look forward to going to work, and the money is totally necessary. I realize now I could not have survived over here had I not found this job...too many bills to pay back in the US.

They speak English with me predominately. Their levels are different, from amazing to okay. I can communicate with every one of them. Susanne, the one I have totally bonded with, is the best by far! Her vocabulary and pronunciation is amazing. She is one of the few Danes that I don't find myself choosing 'smaller' words with, if you will, when I speak to her...and she is the second Dane (next to my soccer buddy Line Madsen) to understand my sarcasm and sense of humor! I have noticed over here that I don't speak the way I would back home because people who speak English as their second language don't understand some of the words I use naturally, yet don't stop you to tell you they didn't understand why you said.

We have a lot of fun at work together. For Halloween (Danes don't really celebrate Halloween), Susanne was a sweetheart and carved a pumpkin at home the night before for me and brought it to work! She also brought in Danish candy for me to try (yikes...its funny because they all stare at me when I try it and watch my face, which is not always a good sight to see - lets just say Turkish peber and I don't mix, and licorice should NEVER be salty!); I brought in American candy (they sell Twix, Snickers and Mars bars over here) and made them say trick-or-treat and tell me a joke before I gave it to them.

They love to teach me Danish words, and watch me try to pronounce them. We always end up laughing. So my attempt at internationalizing them is my concept of the word of the week. I pick a word of the week, give them a definition and two example sentences via email. Their task is to use it in a sentence to me that week. Thomas and Susanne have definitely gotten into it the most. We just started the concept - I am going to try to pick funny words and stronger English words they hopefully don't know and likely don't use already. Last week the word was 'posse.' This week, my word is 'provisionally.' You don't even realize when words fly out of your mouth that others may not know what they are. Susanne is the best at stopping me and saying, "Hey, what word did you just use?" She practices saying them to me, uses them in sentences...she even has a list written down next to her computer of new words she has learned from me. I think some of the words on the list are plethora, disconcerning and her absolute favorite (she uses it all the time!) is applicable. So it is my way to teach them, which is fun.

At any rate, sometimes they get caught up and start speaking Danish, which is hard for me because what they discussed is not always translated. I am a perfectionist and like to perform well with everything I do. It is sometimes hard with them because I feel out of the loop. There is even an issue with our Microsoft Outlook calendars - they put all their events and information in Danish. I either have to copy and paste everything into Google translate to know what is going on, or else I don't know. We have a staff meeting coming up and I am going to address that.

But again, it is not for my lack of trying! I am not coming into their country, their culture, their work environment expecting them to change everything they do to accommodate for me. I am enrolled in an intensive Danish course every Tuesday and Thursday for 2.5 hours. It is broken up into modules, and you have to pay $100 to take a test to pass one module and move on to the next one. My test for module 1 is coming up in early December. I am a bit nervous, but have learned a lot so far. I can even semi-read emails now, and I pick up on little words in their conversations. Real Danish speakers speak very fast and blur a lot of the words together and drop a lot of syllables, so it is hard for non-natives to catch, but I am trying. They also speak from the back of their throats, where Americans speak from the tip of their tongues. There are a lot of sounds that sound almost like hacking when it comes to pronouncing words that it are sooo tough to pronounce.

Anyway, our Christmas Julefrokost is this Friday, so it will be fun to hang out with everyone in a social environment.

Here is an updated link to my website at work. Click on the link for a surprise!!!!! And PS, all of the wording on the English website, I have proofread and edited...kind of nerdy, but fun for me, because I love that kind of stuff - thank you Grandpa Y!

http://www.asb.dk/article.aspx?pid=7188

My coworkers: (Left to Right) - Line Fristrup (student aid); Kira (student aid); Susanne Hejlsvig (consultant); Jette Hammer (consultant); Ann Cathrine (student aid); me (student aid) and Thomas Jensen (consultant). All really awesome people!

Susanne and I after the ASB Annual Celebration (think Homecoming weekend...though not the same AT ALL!!!) Alumni is a fairly new concept over here....

American Thanksgiving in Aarhus!

The day Rachel and I got off the bus from the airport after getting back to Denmark from Spain, we were exhausted. We had very little sleep, had slept in the car the night before, caught a flight around 6am, etc. All we wanted to do was to get back to our apartment and sleep. BUT FIRST...we were starving. So we headed to our favorite sandwich shop right across from the train station called Dee Dee's.

For those of you who know me and know my love of turkey sandwiches, the day I found Dee Dee's, I was in heaven. It is pretty expensive - for a sandwich and soda, ends up being around 50 kroner, or $10USD. That day, I realized why I knew I loved Dee Dee's so much.....

We were waiting in a big line (the place is ALWAYS packed!) when a very cute 40-ish blonde woman turned around and asked us, in Danish, what we wanted. I said, "Um, English please?" She stumbled for a second, and said okay. She started talking to us...it is amazing how over in Europe, you can spot an American by the sound of their voice a mile away. The woman started helping us, and I remember thinking...her English is too good, she has to be American. A few seconds later, she said she was American, and she owned the sandwich shop. BINGO! Now I knew why I loved the place. I told her, "I love this place!" And she said yes, it is modeled after an American sandwich shop, complete with pasta salads, cookies, etc.

Her name is Mary Ann, and she was so sweet. She is from California, fell in love with a Dane, and moved to Denmark. It is also amazing the honesty that comes from someone you just met. She asked us what we were doing here, how long we would be here, what we thought. Everyone always asks us, "Why Denmark?" We told her our reasons...she said she has been here for over 9 years, and cried everyday for 9 years because it was so different.

Mary Ann mentioned to us that there was an American Women's club in Aarhus and that they would be hosting a traditional American Thanksgiving. I was SO excited to hear this! You don't realize how much you miss the little things - shoot, I really missed Halloween even.

We got the info, had to prepare a veggie casserole (yikes, again!) and got picked up by probably a 60 year old couple and rode with them the 40 plus minutes to the location. There were about 50 people there, predominately American women who fell in love with Danish men. Some had kids there, some had grown kids. Rachel and I were the youngest by far, but it was still nice to be in a room full of Americans and find out their stories.

The food was great. Real turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. Stuffing, cranberries, corn, homemade apple pie and.....pumpkin pie! Pumpkin pie is a luxury, as they don't really do pumpkins here. The women were talking about how when they go home to America, they have to bring back cans of the pumpkin stuff in order to make pie in Denmark.

Sort of shockingly enough, if you asked each of these women individually if they were happy in Denmark, I would say 80% alluded to the fact that they weren't. Don't get me wrong...they loved their husbands and kids, but if they could do it over, they wouldn't have stayed in Denmark.

I love it over here, very much...for now. I have learned so much about myself, gained tolerance for other cultures, and made friends from all over the world. Who knows what will happen in the future. But Denmark and the US are two very different places!

Next American Women's event is a Christmas cookie exchange, so we will probably participate in that!

My plate...looks just like it would if I was back home. Amazing!

The tables

Rachel and my veggie casserole. We were so proud! It looked (and actually tasted) edible!

BPM Julefrokost!

Again, BPM is what I am studying (Business Performance Management). Julefrokost is directly translated as Christmas Lunch. Christmas lunches (dinners, really) are a BIG deal in Denmark. You get together with your friends, your family, your coworkers...anyone and everyone, really. Any reason to celebrate and party!

My first Julefrokost was with my class; again, for parties like this, Danes dress up very nice. Most guys wear shirts and ties; a lot of girls wear black dresses and hosiery (yuck...I avoid this whenever possible!). The atmosphere is always hygge (cozy). Danes are huge fans of candlelight, which I think I will take back with me! One of the girls in my class loves cooking, and she prepared the dinner for all 15 of us! It was totally a traditional Danish meal, and give me credit, because I TRIED EVERYTHING....even though some of it was REALLY HARD FOR ME!!!! Our menu consisted of:

Herring (yes, cut up pieces of raw fish) on a Danish rye bread with this sort of egg salad-like spread
Some kind of fried fish on rye bread with remoulade spread
Pate (pig liver) with bacon
Chicken Tartlets (kind of mini chicken pot pies)
Dessert: rice pudding with cherries on top

How many of you are surprised at the moment?

You are supposed to bring your own alcohol to drink at these lunches. I brought some wine. The launch of the Christmas beer is HUGE in Denmark...so most Danes drink Christmas beer as long as it is available (each brand has their own version). The launch consists of a huge countdown, everyone knows what day they can go buy a beer, and I think on that day of, you can't purchase one before 9pm. There is even a Tuborg (brand of Danish beer) truck that drives around the city with a countdown that day. I also learned that Snaps is a big thing for Christmas lunches. It is a type of liquor that Danes take shots of (especially when eating the herring) and sing a song to...all in Danish, of course. I was the only non-Dane at the party, so I was selected to begin the song each time...yikes! At any rate...shots are shots...but this stuff is AWFUL. Stuff you can only take sparingly, in the spirit of the culture and the holiday season.

And I have many more Julefrokost's coming: this Friday with all of the people who work for ASB (thank heavens for my job with the career center!); in two weeks with the girls I play soccer with. That next Sunday with Nanna (my buddy) and her family. And the Saturday after that, one at the Cafe that Rachel and I frequent. Should be a busy holiday season!


Rachel taking a shot of Snaps! She is not in my BPM program, but some of them have adopted her and invite her over. She came over to hang out after our Christmas lunch was over, before we headed to Klubben at the school.

A view of the table after dinner...should have gotten a picture before!
Johan, Maiken and Christina

Camilla and Me - funny story, Camilla's good friend is on exchange in the US....at SLU! She even has my buddy professor Dr. Shaner as one of her teachers! Anne and I have emailed about Aarhus and St. Louis...kind of fun.

Victor Klastrup and Christina Fischer - Rachel and I LOVE Victor...he is soo nice to us!

AnneMette and Johan

Maiken, Christina and Annette

Thomas and Peter - and yes, Peter was wearing a nerdy Christmas tie that plays songs

Jacob and Andre

Henrik - I believe the white zoot suit says it all!

Rachel's Birthday!

Rachel turned 24 on sunday, November 9th. I love to make my friend's birthdays special...and the simple fact that we are living in Denmark is all the more reason to do so.

Rachel really wanted to have an American birthday party in our apartment, complete with American 'games.' Whenever we have discussed our two favorite games with our foreign friends (beer pong and flip cup), everyone has shown so much interest and has wanted to try the games with us. We figured Rachel's birthday was a great reason to throw this party...

To be able to play beer pong, there was some serious work that we had to do. We rearranged our entire apartment - we moved the bed up on its side and leaned it against the wall in the bedroom. We moved the loveseat, and brought the dining room table into the bedroom. We had to ask every Dane we knew where we could go get some scrap wood, and finally found a store that is close to a Lowe's or a Home Depot. We were able to find a steal.....a piece of scrap wood for 25 DKK...$5USD! Perfect. We had to carry this 8 foot long piece of wood home, which was around a 5 mile journey.

We were walking down the street and through intersections to the nearest bus stop. We decided that we would just take a chance by getting on the bus because it was so early in the morning and shouldn't be too busy. We got so many weird looks from everyone, which is something we are used to! We had to walk about 3 miles with a futon frame and another trip with the mattress when we moved into our apartment, and have a trip planned in the near future to move a bookcase/closet about 3 miles into our apartment. Without cars/SUV's, you have to be resourceful!

We spent the afternoon of Saturday, November 8th walking around Aarhus and doing some early Christmas shopping. We had lunch at our favorite sandwich shop (Dee Dee's - I will explain later), then went home and watched some American television on the internet. We got up, and got ready and went to have dinner at our favorite restaurant - Det grønne hjørne - the Green Corner - with our guys Kenneth and Johnny. Then it was time to get home to get ready for the party!

The party went off amazingly. We had about 30 people in our apartment, which is not a big apartment. For those of you who knew my St. Louis apartment, it is around the same size, and two of us live in it. One room had games of flip cup going on, while the other room had a beer pong tournament going. Needless to say, we had some serious cleaning to do afterwards. Later in the evening, we wanted to go dancing at Social Club, and ended up having to kick people out. The party was definitely a success.

For Rachel's actual birthday, I had planned a surprise for us. We made friends with a guy named Kristian who we met at our favorite cafe - Cafe Århus. He is essentially a zookeeper at a Randers Regnskov, a Danish indoor tropical zoo in Randers, Denmark, which is about a 45 minute bus ride away from where we live. I arranged it with Kristian that Rachel and I would get a behind the scenes tour, and get to play with the animals, feed them and touch them. Rachel loves animals, and everything turned out amazing! Plus, on our way to the bus stop, we stopped at.........McDonald's for lunch! This is a definite treat for us, because it costs over $10 USD for an extra value meal. No wonder Europeans are skinny!

Kristian met us at the bus stop and was waving a tiny American flag for Rachel, and had a present wrapped up (it ended up being a cute stuffed crocodile, which he planned because he knew we would be holding crocodiles). For those of you who know me and my huge fear of snakes (thanks Tim and Kevin!), I was amazing that day. Though I stood like 30 feet away and didn't make direct eye contact, I took pictures of Rachel while she was holding huge snakes, and let them wrap around her neck. At one point, I even went into this scary snake room where the snakes are not behind cages, but just hanging around. I stood in one place in the center of the room, and was sweating the whole time, but I did it for Rachel. Needless to say, I deleted those pictures as soon as possible, so you will not be seeing any of those.

The day was amazing for both Rachel and I, and we have found another great friend in Kristian.

On the #8 bus (our favorite bus!) carrying our piece of plywood, aka our beer pong table.




Johnny and Kenneth concentrating hard on beer pong.

Johnny and Kenneth

Randers Tropical Zoo

We were able to go behind the fence with these guys. There was a mom, dad and baby. The baby kept biting Rachel in the leg. I stayed away from him!

Kristian had a story about every animal. These parrots do not like him because he had to take away the yellow one's girlfriend from him because she was sick. He is squawked at by these birds every time he walks by them.

Kristian and a baby something. It was cute, and kind of funny because the mom doesn't like him either, and ran away when we came to see them!

A huge iguana.

The ducks just roam around amongst you.

We got to pet an armadillo...they are actually softer than you would think.

These little monkeys were so cute. This zoo is unlike American zoos because the animals can come up next to you, if they choose to. You get much more close.

Feeding the manatees carrots. They were really sweet!

Kristian was so good with the kids and other passer-bys. He would stop and talk to them and explain to them what he was doing. We saw so many more things at the zoo then we would have ever seen on our own, and learned so much more. At one point, he told the crowd in Danish that we were zookeepers from America, which is why we were able to be behind the fences with him!

Rachel and the anteaters.

These guys were super soft too.

The three domes of the Randers zoo, representing 3 continents: Africa, Asia and Europe.

The zoo.

Flip Cup

Inga, Florian and Marc

Marc (looks a TON like Ethan Hawke...can't really tell right now)

Blowing up balloons for the party! American style...

A bottle of Asti with a necklace made of Swedish candies - a very Swedish gift from our Swedish friend Madeleine and our Danish friend Peder.

Maggie and Rachel

Rachel's bottle of Ga-Gol, a traditional Danish liquor, used for shots.

The Swedish necklace!

Our festive Birthday sign!

Girona

We had a very short time in Girona, but it was a cute city. It would have been nice to have another half day in Girona, so there are very few pictures.
Spain in general is a gorgeous country with beautiful buildings, fabulous architecture, and amazing churches. Granny, you need to come visit Spain because there is a Catholic church on every corner!

Again, another amazing church

Brushing my teeth in the Girona airport bathroom, after having slept in our car for the night.

Rachel driving a stick shift after I taught her