Arrival

Quick fact about Copenhagen:

Don't dump water in the trash.

Tonight I'm finally in Norway with Joachim after flying all-night and part of today! The flight from Buffalo to Chicago was easy, a little delayed, but easy.  I was able to navigate the Chi-town airport to the international wing, access via tram, and only had to ask one question!  Once at Terminal 5 I figured out my Danish phone only has service in Scandinavia (duh) and so had to use a pay phone for the first time in my life; the directions on these things are not as clear as they should be.  There were so many different languages in that terminal it finally sunk in how across the world I was going to be.  This plane ride was fine, being only eight hours, although I did have a middle seat.  Sleeping upright is seriously hard and by the end I had half a mind to shoulder sleep on one of my stranger friends next to me!  One of these men kept doing really hard Sudoku problems and derivatives; I later found out he was an architecture professor at the University of Copenhagen.  This better not be the content of my future courses! 

At the CPH airport was when things got stressful.  Getting my bags and going through customs was not a problem, getting my ticket to Norway and trying to check two bags and pay for the extra was.  I forgot to tell my bank that I was going to Europe and so the card got denied, leaving me with the choice to take one of the bags on the plane as a carry-on and stuff the other full.  It was ten kilos over but the lady was nice and let it go.  Then I was going through the security check line and went to dump my water in the wastebasket, which I did at the Buffalo airport.  I was yelled at by three different security people, three different times with lectures on how that was not a sink and I have to think about the person emptying the trash.  While I love the idea behind it and actually totally agree with them, I was so embarrassed and it was just something I haven’t even considered!  This might have been a good experience because it taught me that it's the little things from culture to culture that will differ and will make a difference for me because they will not be blatantly obvious so I will have to learn as I go.  Although that was my first impression of cph, it can only get better from there right!?