baby steps

It's still really weird being back in Copenhagen. Monday was my first day at my volunteering site, the Copenhagen International School. I'm working with an 8 year old Danish girl who has problems with her confidence in English. I was a little apprehensive about adding more education experience to my resume because I wanted to do something other than TEFL in the Peace Corps, but I'm actually really excited. Not only does it make me even more qualified for PC service, but the girl seems completely adorable and it should be a good semester.

I had Wednesday off which was so nice. That evening we had a climate seminar which we all go to because of the free food and the free wine. It's okay, I'm legal over here. The seminar was actually really interesting this time. There were two lecturers who discussed designing a sustainable lifestyle. The first man was an architect who talked about designing cities to entice people to move in. His firm's plan is to make walking and cycling in cities safer, quicker, and more desireable. They made a system of bike lanes and a good portion of the population bikes around the city, no matter the weather. The second man talked about how having a footprint of zero isn't good enough, we should create resources. Or something like that. We were all hungry and anxious for wine at this point so we weren't really paying attention. Afterwards I stuck around and hung out with two girls who I've gotten really close to since I've been here and it was a good night.

Today was a bit more of an adventure. I finally got responses from two of the people I want to write Peace Corps recommendation letters for me, so I sent those out. It's hard to believe that I'm getting so close to submitting. I just need to tweak my resume and really work on the essays. They're really difficult to write though. Now I have my experience with Sascha and Allan to talk about in my "overcoming cultural differences" one. I was supposed to have my second day of volunteering today but Sophie didn't come to school, sad.

I also found out today that one of my friends, who also had host family problems, was moving into the same kollegium as me. So exciting that I have someone to hang out with so close. I helped her move all of her stuff from DIS to Hvidovre (my new town) with the anticipation that her key would be waiting in my mailbox as promised. Well we get there and a certain tiny metal object is nowhere to be found. So we freak out a little. We call DIS to get in touch with Anders, the man who helps all of us get resettled (he's amazing), but we didn't get in touch with him for awhile. After a lot of phone calls and an attempt by a very nice Danish man to help us out, we find out the reason the key isn't in my mailbox. DIS had someone clean her room before she arrived with the stipulation that they put the key in my mailbox (#7121) when he was done. He did that, sort of. He actually put the key in box 7112. Thank you dyslexic janitor. We then moved her in, did some grocery shopping and made dinner. I COOKED! Caitlin made some pretty awesome salad and I made chicken. So proud of myself. And now I have leftovers to eat later. We're going to cook together from now on because it's no fun eating alone and this way she can teach me how to cook. I foresee a good rest of the semester :)