The Bike

Approximately 36% of Copenhageners travel to work or school on bicycle. So I said "well, when in Rome!" and I bought a bike to commute around the city and to class. Since my flat is only a few miles from campus and downtown, the bike makes sense. Every major street in Copenhagen is equipped with a bike lane (see picture below), which makes biking in the city very fast and very safe. There are even traffic lights specifically for bikes at every major intersection. DIS gave me a transportation stipend of 1014 DKK, which is about 200 USD, so I used this money to buy a used bike from a bike shop close to where I live. The bike was 950 DKK! which is about 190 USD. In four months I should be able to sell it back to the bike shop for maybe 600 DKK. Four other guys from my flat bought bikes as well, so we have been exploring the streets/getting lost for the past few days.

 

The Bike (Yes I know it's a women's bike and it has a basket!)

I'm still tying to come up with a name for her -- any suggestions?

Here you can see the bike lane.

I also have good news! I have Internet at my flat! I will definitely be able to update the blog more often and be able to use skype (my mom will surely be happy). In case you are wondering, my skype name is david.keipper and my cell phone number here in Copenhagen is: +45 30974333 (might be a little pricy!) The best way to reach me is by e-mail: keipper@gmail.com

Also, in case you are wondering who I am living with, I have included a picture of all of us from Friday night when we went to Luux. The picture is from far away, I'll work on getting a better picture.

House-mates

Today, I didn't have class but I did have a study tour to the Copenhagen Cemetery with my Danish language and culture class. We saw the graves of many famous people including Hans Christian Anderson (who wrote many fairy tales and stories). We found out that the Danes like to hang out in the cemeteries and have picnics and sun-bathe.

I was just looking at my calendar and I realized that I have a lot of trips coming up in September and October:

Sept 10-13: Short Study tour to Western Germany

Sept 19-22: Bornholm Bike Trip (A Danish island in the Baltic Sea)

Sept 25-28: Oktoberfest - Munich, Germany

Oct 11-18: London & Brussels Study Tour

Oct 19-25: Russia Trip

Oct 26 - Nov 2: Berlin, Prague & Vienna with Matt

Somehow I have to manage going to class in-between all of that, but I am definitely looking forward to coming months.