A Bad Day In Denmark

So today has officially be the worst day so far and hopefully it will not be this bad ever again.

I was excited for today though Because today was my first two study tours! So basically here at DIS they tell us that we do not have classes on Wednesdays ... this is a lie. Wednesdays are the days where our classes go on field trips (which is in the brochure as "Europe as your Classroom" <- catchy right?). So this morning I was supposed to go the Center for Brain Injuries (which is the place in English ...my professor did not bother to give the class the name in Danish). Directions to this place were supposed to be on Blackboard ... my professor forgot to post it. Can you see where this is going yet?

Well so I figured I would wing it because these "field trips" are mandatory. I get on the metro in the direction that they told us it would be in and I know what stop I am supposed to get off at, I just do not know where to go from there. So I'm on the metro and the snow is being horrible like usual and is blowing sideways and it's gross outside and the metro decides basically to just stop and not move for fifteen minutes, no big deal because I left an hour early. Well it finally gets moving again and I loose track of where I am and I finally get to my stop and get off .... There is nothing there. Fabulous! So I call the DIS front desk and ask to talk to our assistant who is there to help us whenever we need her. I tell her where I am at and ask what to do because I am clueless, by the way she does not even know where this thing is. She does however tell me that I went to far and I need to get back on the metro and after I have done that and gotten off at the correct stop to call her back. Can you tell what's going to happen next?

So in Denmark there are these things called "zones" and you have to have a pass to be on public transportation with the correct zone on it. I have one of these nifty cards but for only the zones 1,2,31, and 41. Well guess what? I am magically now in Zone 3 .. and I get stopped by the "Metro Man." Apparently this guy has nothing else to do today but harass me.

So let me begin by saying that I honestly had no clue that I was in the wrong zone.

He begins with mubling something in Danish to me and I give him the stupid face American's get when someone speaks Danish to them and then I understand what is happening. I hand him my pass and he instantly looks like I have personally offended him. He keeps speaking Danish to me and refuses to speak English to me no matter how many times I tell him "I do not speak Danish" and the lady next to me tells me that this man thinks that I am a Dane trying to pass as a tourist and I tell him that I'm American and he says "Passport" ... I'm like okay whatever, dude wants my passport. I then hand him a copy of my passport because DIS said for us to do this instead of carry our "real" one so that it can not be the stolen ... he did not like this.

So remember the lady next to me? She is nice enough to translate to me that this man is furious (as I could not tell already) and that he thinks that I am a fake and is going to call the police because I have broken the law and from there I would be deported out of the country if I did not admit that I was Danish. Ya want to know how I proved I'm American? I gave him every possible form of ID: license, student ID cards, and basically anything in my bag with my full name on it .... he finally decided he had tortured me enough and gave me a fine of 600kr aka $ 120 .

After I finally made it to the station I needed to be at I was already late to the place, and I called Maren again. She gave me directions ... but after another 45 minutes of wandering around in the snow I gave up and decided to go back to DIS.

After I got to DIS and told Maren what all had happened she let me off the hook for not being abe two make it there since I had obviously tried. Well my next field study was not until late that night and it was just a movie so I decided I would go home and have a hot lunch and unwind before going to the city again. When I got home I told Ingeborg about my horrendous morning and she got pissed about how he had treated me ... so now her and Neil are going to write to the Metro in my defense to see if they can get the ticket dropped; I'm not holding my breath to see if that actually works.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful ... not a whole lot happened other than going to see a movie on human trafficking and then (after watching a movie about a girl being abducted) going home alone in the dark.