Comfortable

Hello hello. It's Saturday evening and I would say that after being here 6 weeks I actually felt comfortable today. I got up around 10 something (going to bed after 2 will do that to you) and lounged about for a bit. Eventually I ate and showered and then headed down to the walking street. The bus there was packed! It was about 1:30 in the afternoon so that kind of makes sense to me. My goal was to get to the Royal Copenhagen (RC) Porcelain store to look around and possibly buy some of their tea and too look into some dishes. The wares are incredibly pricey but very beautiful.

I got sidetracked in a couple stores along the way and actually bought a purse! It's brown, which is really nice since I will no longer have to carry a black purse with brown outfits. The strap is very long and it feels kind of like a messenger bag, but the purse is much smaller than that. I like it and it will serve my purpose and I bought it in Denmark, though since I got it at H&M I probably could've found something similar in the States.

Walking down the pedestrian street, alone, I felt like a Dane. Well, as much as I can since I'm an American. :-P There were tourists everywhere and some of them have no idea how to walk down a street. Okay, that's me being judgemental, which I shouldn't be, especially because I was in no hurry. Eventually I made it to the the RC store and looked around. I did NOT buy tea because, well, I have a feeling I will be back there tomorrow and I'm not entirely sure that I want the tea if I could instead buy a mug or something.

Anyway, I decided to walk down the rest of the Pedestrian street and take a train home from the Central Station. This was a good idea until I reached the City Hall square. See, apparently this past week or something was Copenhagen Pride. Oh yes, it was intersting. I knew I had a decision to make: either turn around and walk back up the Pedestrian street to take a bus home or walk through the throng of LGBT's and supporters and on to the Central Station. I did the latter. Now, I love people. Their choices do not affect that, though I will say I do not agree with the kiss that happened about 12 inches away from my face as I followed a guy through the crowd.

Once through the crowd I quickly made my way to Kobenhavn H and was on a train to Hellerup. There was a group of guys from some organization or club that got on the train just ahead of me and whistled at any and every female that passed them. At one point one of them dropped his pants and apparently got spanked with a belt. I was facing the other direction so I didn't see most of it, thankfully. There was also a bachelorette party on our train; the bride had a pink cowboy hat on, hot pink sash, and her two pigtail braids tied on the top of her hat. Funny.

I took the bus home and got ready to go grocery shopping. A lot of the food I bought before Paul got here had gone bad and I really needed to throw it out. In doing so I basically depleted any food I had. So I biked on down to Fakta and stocked up a bit. I was also going to withdraw money but the ATM is broken, so I'm down to just change. That's fine, though, because I can pay for lunch that way and if I buy anything at RC tomorrow I will use my card anyway.

Oh, I really need to buy my Munich flight and hostel. I have pushed it off and will probably spend an extra $50-100 because of it. At the moment, I'm okay with that, though. I'm really nervous about the hostel and apparently I think that pushing it off will make it better. Ha, we all know that's not true.

Anywho, I made burgers with blue cheese and bbq sauce and have been attempting to upload more pictures. So now I guess I can give you a short rundown or yesterday. Here goes:
Went to work, did little work till after lunch because I didn't have the supplies I needed till then, did LOTS of work till about 5:30 and then headed to the "pub" on the HT campus. I met Brandon, Burcin, Marios (her summer student whose last day was yesterday), Lars (a PhD student at Topsoe) and Shamein (not spelled right but hopefully that's okay). Had a couple beers and just chatted. Headed outside to watch a game of beer bowling and, after a break, was roped into playing. My Madison engineering friends will be proud to know I did very well. Even with penalties my team won. After that the 6 of us plus Radek and Enrique (a Spaniard who works at Topsoe) headed to Hellerup to get burgers. The cafe was closed though so we walked till we found another place and all ate. I had the chance to talk with Enrique in Spanish and, let me tell you, that was amazing! I actually did pretty well, though he definitely had to talk slowly in the beginning and had to remind me of a couple of words. The water and food of dinner definitely helped me out and we were off again to a gathering at another HT employee's place. She had been the only other woman playing beer bowling and seemed pretty cool. I was handed a beer basically upon arrival and then another not too long after that. It was a bit before anything else was doled out but Burcin loves tequila shots so I ended up having two: one her way (with sugar) and one in Danish fashion (with salt). I think I'm a fan of the sugar version. Anyway, Marios gave me a little swing dance lesson later in the night to save me from one of the guys who was getting too close and then Burcin, Brandon, Enrique and I left. I got home a little before two and quickly jotted yesterday's entry and went to bed.

So now you're all caught up. Oh wait, except I forgot two things. 1. I ate lunch with Brandon, Burcin and Marios yesterday and it was VERY fun. 2. After Thursday I realized I was already mourning leaving CPH when I still have two weeks left! So I prayed throughout the morning as I got ready and was on my way to work that God would change my attitude. All of a sudden, on the first train to work, I just started smiling. There was no reason for it but my spirit was lifted and I felt happy, content and excited to be here and ready to take it all in. God is good. :-)

Prayer report: Paul got home safely! Yay!
Prayer requests: I would continue to take in everything I can while I am here; I would be the young woman God wants me to be; I would continue to have patience, humility, and courage. Pray also for Esben: his aunt, who he was going to visit last weekend but the visit was postponed, passed away on Wednesday. He won't be at work Monday because of it. Pray too for my host, Lise, as she will be coming back later this week. On that note, pray for Yujie and I as we adjust to her being back. Freedom here has been so great that it will be difficult to go back. But for me it is only one week and that is not too long. Remember that God is good, all the time, and He has a plan for my life, your life, and those of the people around you.

Have a wonderful evening/day/night,
Bekah